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I realize that this is not at all new ground I’m about to cover here, but I felt the need to share anyway. Today’s subject is that space marines are overpowered. Feel free to ignore the rest of this.

Anyway.

Holy gak are space marines unfair!

We decided to play our first game of 9th edition in TTS, and just for fun we would use armies that we wouldn’t normally. My opponent picked tyranids, and being a chaos and drukhari player normally, I went with salamanders. Oh my god. Tyranids would attack, I would roll some paltry amount of saves, or play a stratagem that said “haha I get to ignore whatever it is you’re doing.” Then on my turn I would drown his units in dice and rerolls to everything. At the end of turn 4 when we stopped, he was down to one ripper swarm, and I had lost one unit.

And then in talking about it afterwards, we realized that I had completely forgotten to use my faction trait at all. It was forgotten among all the other bonuses. I’m used to armies where you describe them by saying “yeah, they’re pretty good, but...”. There was no but here, there was just my wiping someone out. How is this ok?

Show the lists and the board set up and we can start to see where this single game fell apart.

Very little info and lots to unpack. Not much we can do, but shrug unless we see lists, table, etc. Also using armies you're not familiar with will get you into trouble against marines.

Points are also key, which we don't have.

Marines are overpowered and some of the table top tactics testers said so too. However, without lists, point values, etc. there isn't really any info to point out where things went wrong.

Working as intended. Not everyone gets to be the heroes, sorry.

Think this is a troll... Lack of any relevant details, no follow up responses.

2000 points. Tyranids were old one eye and 3 carnifexes, one squad of 16 genestealers, 2 squads of like 9 warriors, 2 primes, 1 hive tyrant, couple ripper swarms. Also 3 bodyguards for the tyrant.

Marines were actually half salamanders half space wolves. Vulkan and Agatone, 3 MSU intercessor squads, 3 aggressors with flamers, 5 assault centurions with flamers and hurricane bolters, 3 incursor squads, 1 squad of long fangs, wolf guard with a bunch of thunder hammers and storm shields, Ragnar, a chaplain, and... a wolf leader? The space wolves half wasn’t me.

Marines are the easiest faction to play in the game, they are there specifically for new players. Makes sense that you can just switch to them and be decently good at using that list.

Tyranids are one of the hardest factions to play, you can't just switch to them and expect to use them correctly.

Well that sounds like a terrible tyranid list and he may have been short on points.

The marine list is Using a lot of pretty good units while the tyranid player is using pretty bad units.

Crackedgear wrote:
2000 points. Tyranids were old one eye and 3 carnifexes, one squad of 16 genestealers, 2 squads of like 9 warriors, 2 primes, 1 hive tyrant, couple ripper swarms. Also 3 bodyguards for the tyrant.

Marines were actually half salamanders half space wolves. Vulkan and Agatone, 3 MSU intercessor squads, 3 aggressors with flamers, 5 assault centurions with flamers and hurricane bolters, 3 incursor squads, 1 squad of long fangs, wolf guard with a bunch of thunder hammers and storm shields, Ragnar, a chaplain, and... a wolf leader? The space wolves half wasn’t me.

Not sure what he planned to do against centurions with melee nids.

You, in fact, would be correct in not using your super doctrine, because you were soup. Did you take your CP penalty?

Assault Cents are going from 52 to 70 points. Flamer Aggressors are up 5. Intercessors up 3 and Incursors up 2. That's a minimum of 230 points taken off that list. Who knows what the 'nids would increase by, but I'd wager less though.

TheAvengingKnee wrote:
Well that sounds like a terrible tyranid list and he may have been short on points.

The marine list is Using a lot of pretty good units while the tyranid player is using pretty bad units.

Which are the bad ones and why?

Space Marines are one of the strongest armys and Tyranids are one of the low tier armys so i am not suprised. And the units the Tyranid player picked are mostly not the good units from the Codex. Genestealers and the tyrant are one only really good units in the list. Carnifexes and tyrant guard are not that good.

i would also add that marines are probably easier to play and tyranits not as easy. so that might also make a difference when both players have not played those amrys.

But we also need to see the board and the equipment the units had.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Crackedgear wrote:
2000 points. Tyranids were old one eye and 3 carnifexes, one squad of 16 genestealers, 2 squads of like 9 warriors, 2 primes, 1 hive tyrant, couple ripper swarms. Also 3 bodyguards for the tyrant.

Marines were actually half salamanders half space wolves. Vulkan and Agatone, 3 MSU intercessor squads, 3 aggressors with flamers, 5 assault centurions with flamers and hurricane bolters, 3 incursor squads, 1 squad of long fangs, wolf guard with a bunch of thunder hammers and storm shields, Ragnar, a chaplain, and... a wolf leader? The space wolves half wasn’t me.

Not sure what he planned to do against centurions with melee nids.

You, in fact, would be correct in not using your super doctrine, because you were soup. Did you take your CP penalty?

Assault Cents are going from 52 to 70 points. Flamer Aggressors are up 5. Intercessors up 3 and Incursors up 2. That's a minimum of 230 points taken off that list. Who knows what the 'nids would increase by, but I'd wager less though.

It was the faction ability I didn’t use. The doctrines were used, because we looked it up and it said every unit had to have the combat doctrines ability, which they did. Was that wrong?

Crackedgear wrote:

It was the faction ability I didn’t use. The doctrines were used, because we looked it up and it said every unit had to have the combat doctrines ability, which they did. Was that wrong?

You did it properly. "Super doc" is the forum's term for the faction ability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 nordsturmking wrote:
Tyranids are one of the low tier armys so i am not suprised. And the units the Tyranid player picked are mostly not the good units from the Codex. Genestealers and the tyrant are one only really good units in the list. Carnifexes and tyrant guard are not that good.

'Nids have gone up in power a bit. They have tools. The biggest problem with the list is it relies on a blob of carnifexes to go toe-to-toe in melee with the best of the marine melee stuff.

If he timed everything perfectly, shut off the Cents O/W with a trash unit and got 3 or 4 fexes in then he could wipe the cents, but then all that other stuff is still kicking around and that makes for a really overly concentrated board that likely isn't getting scored properly.

Now I'd probably just kite the Centurions. Sure, great you got them on this side of the table - see you later while I go cap on your board edge!

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Crackedgear wrote:

It was the faction ability I didn’t use. The doctrines were used, because we looked it up and it said every unit had to have the combat doctrines ability, which they did. Was that wrong?

You did it properly. "Super doc" is the forum's term for the faction ability.

Well it depends what the op is referring to. There's the chapter tactic and there's the super doctrine. You still get the chapter tactic in soup, but not the super doctrine.

Pleasantly surprised this thread is so analytical in it's approach.
--

I don't have much to add to the unit analysis, but I want to share my 2 cents about the general setup:

- Space Marines are very easy to pick up and play decently, even if you make positioning or target priority errors.
- Tyranids I would put on the other side of that spectrum. You have to use your units properly or they won't do much if anything at all before they die.
- Positioning is much more vital as a lot of Tyranid units have really bad saves.
- When you are new to a game or faction you tend to get rules wrong alot or forget to use them. This could go either way for both of you.


In addition of Space Marines having - in general - a stronger ruleset, there are a lot of factors that would skew the experience for you guys.

Get experienced with the armies so you know which units are strong and which are not, so you can create more balanced forces for your next games.

I'd also add on top of Nids just being a harder army in general to play that the list you gave above looks really low power even by their standards.

Warrior spam isn't always awful, but a Marine match up is especially bad for it with all their high AP, multi damage ranged weapons.
I get with all the warriora why they took 2 Primes, but I think its a trap.
Tyrant Guard are pretty poor for their cost.
Carnifexes have their uses, but are often quite meh.

Its not that you can't make an alright list with these elements, just maybe not ALL these elements, against Marines.

Its still going to be an uphill battle, but I think the feeling would be quite different with a better list and a few games practice.

I can already imagine how the game went.

"Oh I'm gonna rush forward with all my stuff because they have claws! I'm totally gonna beat that castle of low mobility high firepower units with this approach! It's not like they have a wall of flamers with Vulkan and Agatone!"

You can win with that nid list against that marine list, but not if you make it a strenght contest. That marine list sucks badly in mobility, so just outmaneuver and outscore.Not that the nid list had much mobility either...

Man, you can make work pretty much any nid unit in the right list, but there is a limit to how badly you can assemble one.

There is definitely a bad play feeling when facing marines.

The amount of rerolls, strategems and options for every scenario can feel like you are perpetually up against it. The majority of these also don't require tactical skill to implement or execute.

That doesn't necessarily mean they are unbalanced (that would be a facile observation given that we don't any points for 9th)

Umbros wrote:


That doesn't necessarily mean they are unbalanced (that would be a facile observation given that we don't any points for 9th)

I mean, we have Marine points for 9e (if you know where to look). But I've not seen any other armies, so in isolation it doesn't mean much!

Marines are above the curve for sure, but I definitely agree with other posters that this imbalance is relatively small compared to the effect of how easy they are to pick up and play without practice compared to many other armies, doubly so for Nids.

 Stux wrote:

Umbros wrote:


That doesn't necessarily mean they are unbalanced (that would be a facile observation given that we don't any points for 9th)

I mean, we have Marine points for 9e (if you know where to look). But I've not seen any other armies, so in isolation it doesn't mean much!

Marines are above the curve for sure, but I definitely agree with other posters that this imbalance is relatively small compared to the effect of how easy they are to pick up and play without practice compared to many other armies, doubly so for Nids.

There is some design issues with marines that if 8 had really take the time to address i think would have set up the game to be much better. Not entirely marine issues, which is why they may not be entirly OP even though 9th.

Spoletta 789935 10863176 wrote:I can already imagine how the game went.

"Oh I'm gonna rush forward with all my stuff because they have claws! I'm totally gonna beat that castle of low mobility high firepower units with this approach! It's not like they have a wall of flamers with Vulkan and Agatone!"

You can win with that nid list against that marine list, but not if you make it a strenght contest. That marine list sucks badly in mobility, so just outmaneuver and outscore.Not that the nid list had much mobility either...

Man, you can make work pretty much any nid unit in the right list, but there is a limit to how badly you can assemble one.

But isn't this a lore vs game problem for some new players? They like nids, they read about nids, in lore the tyranids charge as a unstoppable wave, crushing everything in the end with thier big bugs, while taking heavy loses among the smaller ones. Only in the game this often means they lose the small ones, then they lose the big ones and then they are in for un happy times.

Umbros wrote:
There is definitely a bad play feeling when facing marines.

The amount of rerolls, strategems and options for every scenario can feel like you are perpetually up against it. The majority of these also don't require tactical skill to implement or execute.

That doesn't necessarily mean they are unbalanced (that would be a facile observation given that we don't any points for 9th)

This is what I’m talking about. Like I said, I’m used to playing chaos, and if I work hard I can pull off some sort of synergy to take down units. This was totally different though. It was all so easy. Max shots? Done. Reroll wounds? Cool. Shoot twice? Why not. And that’s another unit vaporized with room to spare. I have never been less concerned about the outcome of a game.

You are going to get people who will defend the state marines are in. Likewise, you will get people who deride marines. The truth is often in the middle. GW wants marines to be top tier. They can sell more models that way.

A some point balance becomes a problem. While GW would love for each of us to go out and buy marines they also know there is a limit to that. If everyone is playing marines then they are killing their own game.

My point is this. Yes, marines are unbalanced as of now. By a decent margin. BUT, do not expect this to continue indefinitely. Look for nerfs in about half a year after the next marine codex drops.

Stux wrote:

Umbros wrote:


That doesn't necessarily mean they are unbalanced (that would be a facile observation given that we don't any points for 9th)

I mean, we have Marine points for 9e (if you know where to look). But I've not seen any other armies, so in isolation it doesn't mean much!

Marines are above the curve for sure, but I definitely agree with other posters that this imbalance is relatively small compared to the effect of how easy they are to pick up and play without practice compared to many other armies, doubly so for Nids.

We don't have marine points for 9E. We only had a fake spoiler, debunked directly by GW. That leak could have been a point proposal at a certain point during the playtesting, but we know for sure that they are not the final ones.

Karol wrote:

Spoletta 789935 10863176 wrote:I can already imagine how the game went.

"Oh I'm gonna rush forward with all my stuff because they have claws! I'm totally gonna beat that castle of low mobility high firepower units with this approach! It's not like they have a wall of flamers with Vulkan and Agatone!"

You can win with that nid list against that marine list, but not if you make it a strenght contest. That marine list sucks badly in mobility, so just outmaneuver and outscore.Not that the nid list had much mobility either...

Man, you can make work pretty much any nid unit in the right list, but there is a limit to how badly you can assemble one.

But isn't this a lore vs game problem for some new players? They like nids, they read about nids, in lore the tyranids charge as a unstoppable wave, crushing everything in the end with thier big bugs, while taking heavy loses among the smaller ones. Only in the game this often means they lose the small ones, then they lose the big ones and then they are in for un happy times.

Nids are rarely portraied in the fluff as acting like that. They rush forward when it is the right thing to do, for example when overrunning the defenses of a small planet. When they face something more fierce, they usually resort to other approaches. The Blood Angels Chapters have been slaugthered by an infiltrated Lictor, not by the might of the swarm. The hyve loves terror and infiltration tactics, the GSC exists for a reason.

Nids avoiding the conflict against an ultra fortified position and pursuing shady activities all around is perfectly fluffy,

Apple fox wrote:

 Stux wrote:

Umbros wrote:


That doesn't necessarily mean they are unbalanced (that would be a facile observation given that we don't any points for 9th)

I mean, we have Marine points for 9e (if you know where to look). But I've not seen any other armies, so in isolation it doesn't mean much!

Marines are above the curve for sure, but I definitely agree with other posters that this imbalance is relatively small compared to the effect of how easy they are to pick up and play without practice compared to many other armies, doubly so for Nids.

There is some design issues with marines that if 8 had really take the time to address i think would have set up the game to be much better. Not entirely marine issues, which is why they may not be entirly OP even though 9th.

Well, they did address the design issues with Marines in 8th, that's how they suddenly became top dog.

Except the did such an OP job of it every other faction has essentially had to be redesigned around Marines 2.0
While they have nerfed some of the most broken stuff Ironhands and Imperial fists. Their is a reason that marines in their various flabours are still in the 60% win ratio against the non marines and why they still make up the vast majority of the competitive meta.

They are supposed to be okay and everything and have an army that out does them for each specialist focus, except the end of 8th has marines are being as good as if not better point for point at almost everything against everyone.

They are also significantly easier to achieve your game plan without dynamic thinking due to rerolls upon rerolls making everything overly consistent.

I find it funny, mostly because GK didn't have doctrines named the same way as other marines did, how other armies got boomeranged by rule nerfs that were a hotfix to 8th ed IH.

DA for example their schtick was devastator doctrin and being able to move and shot without penality on tanks, and I think some overwatch buffs. All the rules seem so bad considering 9th rules. I hope they get a codex or a big errata soon. But the changes were still funny to me.

Karol wrote:

Spoletta 789935 10863176 wrote:I can already imagine how the game went.

"Oh I'm gonna rush forward with all my stuff because they have claws! I'm totally gonna beat that castle of low mobility high firepower units with this approach! It's not like they have a wall of flamers with Vulkan and Agatone!"

You can win with that nid list against that marine list, but not if you make it a strenght contest. That marine list sucks badly in mobility, so just outmaneuver and outscore.Not that the nid list had much mobility either...

Man, you can make work pretty much any nid unit in the right list, but there is a limit to how badly you can assemble one.

But isn't this a lore vs game problem for some new players? They like nids, they read about nids, in lore the tyranids charge as a unstoppable wave, crushing everything in the end with thier big bugs, while taking heavy loses among the smaller ones. Only in the game this often means they lose the small ones, then they lose the big ones and then they are in for un happy times.

Yes, it totally is. While Spoletta is right in that nids can be more than just unending waves, unending waves has the core identity of the army since its inception. I read this as the nid player trying to do what nids do in the lore, and discovering that that isn't viable in the slightest on the tabletop.

I think most of these complaints apply mostly to primaris. I mean you would not have had such an easy time if using the classic tac marines, assult marines, classic bikes and rhinos. Those guys actually die to xeno attacks. Assult cents are also an obvious exception. Making the new bois OP as hell seems to be gws main sales strategy.