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

As per Integears recommendation that the thread that was and is no more wasnt a bad idea, as it might be a forum for people to vent rtather than garble up other threads.
Because I think at this stage everyone is bored of Pro Marine v Anti marine camps dukign it out in the relentless war of words..

So the premise of the thread:

Arguments have been made that marines have taken up design space from other factions.

For example:

Want to have the hardest-hitting melee army in the game? Play white scars. (Or maybe blood angels. Or maybe space wolves)

What to have the shootiest army in the game? Play imperial fists.

Want to have one of the most resilient armies in the game? Play...well, basically any space marines army, now that they all have the absurd chief apothecary and 1CP transhuman + How about IH SM dread + techmarine make wraithlords + bonesinger / Hellbrute + warpsmith look like 2 halflings in a trenchcoat, cute but not going to win many fights..

Want to be super mobile? White scars will do that for you or Ravenwing or Just ATVs.. Or T1 Drop pods...

The argument is thats It's just really bad game design to have one faction that receives far more attention than every other AND at the same time is constantly given new tools that make it as good at just about anything as any of the other armies. The topic has been talked to death for over a year now and GW has not once - not once - actually come out and acknowledged there is a basic problem with the way the game is weighted. Instead, they've doubled down even harder, devoting even more time to the faction and even more energy to giving space marines every tool every other army has.

It's not even about space marines being overpowered. 9th edition has been pretty fluid competitively, with many other lists putting up wins. It's more about the omnipresence of marines. Even if they're only good rather than oppressive, it drains peoples' enthusiasm for the game to see resources so mis-allocated.

Credited to - yukishiro1 October 2020 (30,000 before unification)


Lets try not to shift goal posts, acknowledge when we are ben goofed, and not have to win arguments which aren't really being made!!!
We can do it people! We can have a thread which does not get shut down! Just once we can do eeeeeet!!!

So, one could conclude, that whatever a faction does, SM can do it better if they choose to.
I'm curious as to what everyone here thinks is a playstyle Marines CANNOT do-or at least, cannot do well.

So lets have it out here..

I had a similar idea as you, Argive.

Funny how both threads have the same general point. Want me to report my thread and get it locked/merged with this one?

My position,

"The Marinening" is real.
Marines 100% are way to focused on right now and have way too much attention given to them.

Saying that,
I don't think removing unique rules from the more fleshed out sub faction is a good call or going to help all that much.

Did SWs need, deserve, or warrant a new unit. No probably not. Do I think that new unit is kind of cool and neat fluff wise,,, I do,,, do I think its a bit ridiculous they do what the SOS but better... absolutely.
I like units that do fluffy things on the table and I think the sub factions have nice twists aesthetically and on the table. Saying that, I think the primaris range has heavily detracted from that and vanilified them greatly.

What I really wish is that the focus of the designers would be shifted to craftworlds and eldar in general. I would like to see a Harlequins named character that Harlequins can actually use and I want the ynari fluff to actually get resolved and fleshed out properly.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I had a similar idea as you, Argive.

Funny how both threads have the same general point. Want me to report my thread and get it locked/merged with this one?

I mean I did mainly copy Ykashiro post as examples.
But I will add what you said to my OP as well as that is a good direction which might steer conversation into interesting points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I had a similar idea as you, Argive.

Funny how both threads have the same general point. Want me to report my thread and get it locked/merged with this one?

So to answer the question.

I think he only play style marines cant really do well is to drown the board in 100+ bodies and just out hold the majority primary objectives for at least 3 turns while not killing much.

Which highlights one of the main issues I have seen from bat reps, and the way missions are structured. I mean that if one chooses to it can be easy to build a list which does not give up easy secondaries while mainting incredible offensive. capability and shifting targets from primaries. Which compounds the issue even more.

I mean, you can take a Captain, Lt., a Chaplain, and a Librarian, then 9 ten-man Tactical squads.

That's 94 bodies on field-the only thing that doesn't work is that they can still kill stuff.

Way back when I joined in 5th ed, I was told the whole point of playing the Space Marines faction was that they'd be the Jack of all Trades but master of none. They'd have a tool for everything, but every other faction would (in theory) have better, but fewer and more specific, tools.

IMO, while I do like the new Marine stuff and think the model artists have done a fantastic job, I do feel a sense that the Marines never "needed" all of these things they're getting, and I disagree with any notion that they should have the "best" tool for any specific job.

(Bit of a ramble, but I'm tired)

Arcanis161 wrote:
Way back when I joined in 5th ed, I was told the whole point of playing the Space Marines faction was that they'd be the Jack of all Trades but master of none. They'd have a tool for everything, but every other faction would (in theory) have better, but fewer and more specific, tools.

IMO, while I do like the new Marine stuff and think the model artists have done a fantastic job, I do feel a sense that the Marines never "needed" all of these things they're getting, and I disagree with any notion that they should have the "best" tool for any specific job.

(Bit of a ramble, but I'm tired)

And for most of 8th edition being mediocre at a lot of things just meant you were mediocre.

 argonak wrote:

Arcanis161 wrote:
Way back when I joined in 5th ed, I was told the whole point of playing the Space Marines faction was that they'd be the Jack of all Trades but master of none. They'd have a tool for everything, but every other faction would (in theory) have better, but fewer and more specific, tools.

IMO, while I do like the new Marine stuff and think the model artists have done a fantastic job, I do feel a sense that the Marines never "needed" all of these things they're getting, and I disagree with any notion that they should have the "best" tool for any specific job.

(Bit of a ramble, but I'm tired)

And for most of every edition being mediocre at a lot of things just meant you were mediocre.

I fixed that for you.

And mediocre should be the target.

 argonak wrote:

Arcanis161 wrote:
Way back when I joined in 5th ed, I was told the whole point of playing the Space Marines faction was that they'd be the Jack of all Trades but master of none. They'd have a tool for everything, but every other faction would (in theory) have better, but fewer and more specific, tools.

IMO, while I do like the new Marine stuff and think the model artists have done a fantastic job, I do feel a sense that the Marines never "needed" all of these things they're getting, and I disagree with any notion that they should have the "best" tool for any specific job.

(Bit of a ramble, but I'm tired)

And for most of 8th edition being mediocre at a lot of things just meant you were mediocre.

yeah that was the theory the problem is that it rarely worked all that well. if you go back oin the forums to the days of 6th and 7th edition you'll see a lot of discussion on "why are marines bad". intreastingly eneugh a lot of people said Marines would get better with more specialist squads, you also saw a LOT of suggestions to make Marines 2 wounds.

Honestly if you go back and look at Primaris (at least the inital batch) they where more or less what a LOT of Marine players said Marines needed to be to make them work.

Now as for them taking up design space, I think we need to look at it from a larger point of view,

Let's look at some classic units. Space Marine Sniper Scouts compared to Eldar Rangers . both are historicly, troops, and are snipers (I know scouts have been moved to elites but In this case we're talking broad history)

Honestly in mANY MANY situations these are pretty similer units. they both essentially have the same weapon (36 inch heavy 1 sniper rifle that does a mortal wound on a 6 and ignores LOS)
both have a camo cloak. you never saw people feel that one somehow disallowed the other.
So just because Army X has "niche unit Y" doesn't mean that same niche can't be filled in another army. In fact, some niches are just too important not to have an option. (snipers being an obvious example)

I am/ was one of those turned off by the Marine parade. I consider DW the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Xenos. That helps my find something to cling to until January, and I'll take it.

Now I like 9th better than 8th. But I was satisfied with 8th while we were in it. When 9th was announced, I was furious. Why? Because the first year of any edition is a marine parade. Nothing new can really happen until the print everything we've already got... For the ninth freaking time.

I think what I'm getting at is that the next time the 40k Zeitgeist gets to the point where everyone is talking about how we need 10th to save us from bloat... Just STOP. Because the design space for anything new only comes when all of the old stuff from previous editions has finally been reprinted AGAIN. Where we were at the end of 8th, anything was possible. Ninth may be a better game, but we're stuck here for a year or or two AGAIN, just like I was afraid we would be.

If we were still playing Rogue Trader, every faction could have been as big as marines by now, with a few more factions besides. Instead, we've had these same conversations nine times. Ninth is a strong enough platform, that I really hope there is no tenth.. EVER. It's the only way we will ever get parity with the Imperium.

Some Imperial armies NEED to by fixed- Guard needs some love, Custodes, SoS, Agents. Chaos needs to be fixed up too.But xenos... Every Xenos empire should rival the Imperium and Chaos in terms of depth, development and model choices. Eldar are the only ones that are anywhere near this, but even they need to go further. An edition lasting at least a decade is what it will take to get there.

And we've been conditioned to acccept that another edition is the only move the game forward.But I'd rather play this game by the worst rules it's ever had if it could mean true faction parity- even though I do really like 9th (especially Crusade, which is the kind of system I've wanted since 1989).

Tygre wrote:
And mediocre should be the target.

Do we want to swing things back to the days of every thread being 'Marines are baaad' or 'How to fix Terminators'? Marines need some top tier options and can't just be the plain white bread of 40k that other armies get to snack on.

The issue I'm seeing briefly now (and hearing it being echoed at GW store), is that regardless of the sheer amount of marine releases (which is frankly ridiculous), the points cap at 2000 will prevent most of the codex even being played. Therefore, people want to bump the points to 2500....and I'm totally against that. Make marine players (and yes that includes me) make tough decisions. You ain't getting it all, so pick your poison.

Still, i despise that other armies are stuck with outdated models, limited armies/datasheets, etc. while marines get units that not a single soul was asking for. Hammerfall bunker, Firestrike Turret, Heavy Intercessors, give me a break....it's like peasants watching the aristocrats dine on 12 course meals while they fight over scraps.

I would prefer for GW to stop all marine releases from this point on until every range that needs an update, has done so. That's Eldar revamp, Drukhari HQ options, new Guard regiment in plastic, Ork something or other (not sure). And chaos.....come on, make the chaos marine an absolutely terrifying individual.

I love my Dark Angels, Deathwatch and Ravenguard, truly....but looking at their releases...all I can say is feth marines at this point, it's time to move on. You don't need a single new release for at least 2 years.

BrianDavion wrote:

 argonak wrote:

Arcanis161 wrote:
Way back when I joined in 5th ed, I was told the whole point of playing the Space Marines faction was that they'd be the Jack of all Trades but master of none. They'd have a tool for everything, but every other faction would (in theory) have better, but fewer and more specific, tools.

IMO, while I do like the new Marine stuff and think the model artists have done a fantastic job, I do feel a sense that the Marines never "needed" all of these things they're getting, and I disagree with any notion that they should have the "best" tool for any specific job.

(Bit of a ramble, but I'm tired)

And for most of 8th edition being mediocre at a lot of things just meant you were mediocre.

yeah that was the theory the problem is that it rarely worked all that well. if you go back oin the forums to the days of 6th and 7th edition you'll see a lot of discussion on "why are marines bad". intreastingly eneugh a lot of people said Marines would get better with more specialist squads, you also saw a LOT of suggestions to make Marines 2 wounds.

Honestly if you go back and look at Primaris (at least the inital batch) they where more or less what a LOT of Marine players said Marines needed to be to make them work.

Those people were, by and large, totally wrong. Marines suffered from the AP2-3 ballooning that happened during 5th and 6th. 7th you can basically toss out because it was bananas. As for "Specialized Squads", they already had those. The real stickler for non-specialized squads was the inability to split fire. If people wanted specialists it's because units could only fire at one target, which is a pretty easy fix, see 8th ed.

BrianDavion wrote:
Now as for them taking up design space, I think we need to look at it from a larger point of view,

Let's look at some classic units. Space Marine Sniper Scouts compared to Eldar Rangers . both are historicly, troops, and are snipers (I know scouts have been moved to elites but In this case we're talking broad history)

Honestly in mANY MANY situations these are pretty similer units. they both essentially have the same weapon (36 inch heavy 1 sniper rifle that does a mortal wound on a 6 and ignores LOS)
both have a camo cloak. you never saw people feel that one somehow disallowed the other.
So just because Army X has "niche unit Y" doesn't mean that same niche can't be filled in another army. In fact, some niches are just too important not to have an option. (snipers being an obvious example)

Scouts vs Rangers is fine, Snipers are a reasonable unit for any army, and the two balanced out ok. But then Primaris got super special Eliminators and took a dump on the others.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Tygre wrote:
And mediocre should be the target.

Do we want to swing things back to the days of every thread being 'Marines are baaad' or 'How to fix Terminators'? Marines need some top tier options and can't just be the plain white bread of 40k that other armies get to snack on.

Shouldn't mediocre be the target for all factions? Do marines have to better than other factions because some complain and moan? If all factions are equally good then all are mediocre. If all factions are equally bad then all are mediocre. Maybe we should tell marine players the same thing they have been telling non-marine players. I am not saying that marines should not have some good units, but the entire armies power level should be the equivalent as every other factions army. Making all factions mediocre.

Yeah. The middle is the target, and deviation from the middle should be through accident that will be addressed rather than deliberate action.

Tygre wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Tygre wrote:
And mediocre should be the target.

Do we want to swing things back to the days of every thread being 'Marines are baaad' or 'How to fix Terminators'? Marines need some top tier options and can't just be the plain white bread of 40k that other armies get to snack on.

Shouldn't mediocre be the target for all factions? Do marines have to better than other factions because some complain and moan? If all factions are equally good then all are mediocre. If all factions are equally bad then all are mediocre. Maybe we should tell marine players the same thing they have been telling non-marine players. I am not saying that marines should not have some good units, but the entire armies power level should be the equivalent as every other factions army. Making all factions mediocre.

Flip that statement on its head and you can say, 'Should top-tier be the target for all factions? If all factions are equally OP then all are top tier?' The issue with that is that it's never worked that way. The MEQ stat-line and units using it have always been bad choices next to a Guard or Eldar unit that does the same thing but costs less because it lacks that 3+ save even if the roll for both the MEQ and Eldar unit is 'Long Range Shooter' or 'Suicide Anti-Tank'.

If a specialist also has to carry around a sword and heavy armor they don't need they can never be as good as a specialist that doesn't have to bring stuff they don't want.

That's not true, Canadian, only because if they don't need the sword and heavy armor, then the person employing the troops is using them wrong.

If you have a sword and heavy armor, and you're paying for it, perhaps you should use it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That's not true, Canadian, only because if they don't need the sword and heavy armor, then the person employing the troops is using them wrong.

If you have a sword and heavy armor, and you're paying for it, perhaps you should use it.

yeah except the problem is if you're using it chances are you're doing two jobs bad.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That's not true, Canadian, only because if they don't need the sword and heavy armor, then the person employing the troops is using them wrong.

If you have a sword and heavy armor, and you're paying for it, perhaps you should use it.

yeah except the problem is if you're using it chances are you're doing two jobs bad.

Well, that depends on what you're doing with that job, eh?

If you're fighting firewarriors, you're doing it very well! If you're fighting Custodes, you're doing it badly.

Conversely, if you're shooting Khorne Berzerkers, you're doing it very well, but if you're shooting Riptides, you're doing it poorly.

Y'know, shoot the fighty and fight the shooty. Tactics for the Tactical Marine Throne!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That's not true, Canadian, only because if they don't need the sword and heavy armor, then the person employing the troops is using them wrong.

If you have a sword and heavy armor, and you're paying for it, perhaps you should use it.

Yes, my Devastators should move up the field and take penalties to hit rather than staying in place and shooting at threats because if they do they might get to use their swords on something... Brilliant why haven't I thought of that before!

EDIT: This also only applies to the current meta where Marine units aren't paying fair points for what they do. If you increase their points costs to where they pay a 'fair' rate for what they can do they won't be able to pull that off.

Tygre wrote:
And mediocre should be the target.

Mediocre does not mean "average" like you seem to think it means. It is pretty much always used to carry negative connotations, that a thing is of only somewhat below completely awful but still not really good at all.

 Type40 wrote:
My position,


Did SWs need, deserve, or warrant a new unit. No probably not. Do I think that new unit is kind of cool and neat fluff wise,,, I do,,, do I think its a bit ridiculous they do what the SOS but better... absolutely.
I like units that do fluffy things on the table and I think the sub factions have nice twists aesthetically and on the table. Saying that, I think the primaris range has heavily detracted from that and vanilified them greatly.

Just food for thought?
Why do you need another unit, that costs more then the same unit because a shity upgrade sprue is in there, when the actually lore accurate thing to be done would've been to allow SW sargents f.e. to buy for pts protecting talismans?
Because as it stands, NO other SW unit can even fullfill the whole runic fetish talisman aspect of the lore, the accumulation of the rules just gaks on any other supposed anti psy focussed faction, and SW players are expected to pay more for the same unit that allready didn't sell because the unit is designed for a gametype that so doesn't exist in the meta of 40k?

Wouldn't that have been a better solution, one that wouldn't also cannibalise and flanderise at the same time faction identities?

Tygre wrote:
And mediocre should be the target.

In a game with a win condition asking for that is like asking for people to start liking and wanting to start losing. I haven't won a single game of 8th ed w40k , and had maybe 4-5 games at the very start which I would consider kind of a fun. I ain't trading that for having an actualy working codex. Plus hearing from non marine players, specialy of the eldar or tau kind how marines are too good, and how they should be made more mediocre stinkis of hyporcsy.

SW can't have their own rules and they can't be powerful, but eldar should have CWE , corsairs, DE , harlequins and they are all valid separate faction, but a dude playing DW in 8th should feel bad that IH were really good at the end of it and tha Gulliman was kind of a OP. because all marines are the same faction . Yeah right, thanks for that.

Karol wrote:

Tygre wrote:
And mediocre should be the target.

In a game with a win condition asking for that is like asking for people to start liking and wanting to start losing. I haven't won a single game of 8th ed w40k , and had maybe 4-5 games at the very start which I would consider kind of a fun. I ain't trading that for having an actualy working codex. Plus hearing from non marine players, specialy of the eldar or tau kind how marines are too good, and how they should be made more mediocre stinkis of hyporcsy.

SW can't have their own rules and they can't be powerful, but eldar should have CWE , corsairs, DE , harlequins and they are all valid separate faction, but a dude playing DW in 8th should feel bad that IH were really good at the end of it and tha Gulliman was kind of a OP. because all marines are the same faction . Yeah right, thanks for that.

Again karol, you don't seem capable to understand what is said and done.
If you win in sports because you partook in doping, then that is no win. Everything has consequences, just like the incessant nutjobery of marine releases will have consequences.

BTW, just to point that out, don't you think that GK would've been, you know as part of the inqusition specialised in fighting daemons and therefore the odd psyker, been more deserving of some of these rules on the hounds of Morkai?
That IS the issue, they cannibalize other factions speciality and GK are another faction to SM ...

Also hypocrise is a big word for someone permanently complaining about the gak state GK were in, which was pretty much agreed on regardless where you pointed that out, but now that you have some highwater with PA all is suddendly well? Selfreflection

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Tygre wrote:
And mediocre should be the target.

Do we want to swing things back to the days of every thread being 'Marines are baaad' or 'How to fix Terminators'? Marines need some top tier options and can't just be the plain white bread of 40k that other armies get to snack on.

The way to fix terminators is to squat them and move on to the all primaris era.

I do think that with the introduction of the primaris statline, it's almost inevitable that marines will be better than the specialists of other armies. Perhaps not in points efficiency, but definitely when it comes to man for man. Take snipers for instance. There is a minimum one has to pay for the primaris statline which is higher than one would pay for a fully armed specialist in most armies. So naturally, if you want them to be even vaguely valid choices, you have to give them some pretty good armaments. So, we got eradicator supersnipers. We've also seen horrible failures in that regard (see reavers).

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Type40 wrote:
My position,


Did SWs need, deserve, or warrant a new unit. No probably not. Do I think that new unit is kind of cool and neat fluff wise,,, I do,,, do I think its a bit ridiculous they do what the SOS but better... absolutely.
I like units that do fluffy things on the table and I think the sub factions have nice twists aesthetically and on the table. Saying that, I think the primaris range has heavily detracted from that and vanilified them greatly.

Just food for thought?
Why do you need another unit, that costs more then the same unit because a shity upgrade sprue is in there, when the actually lore accurate thing to be done would've been to allow SW sargents f.e. to buy for pts protecting talismans?
Because as it stands, NO other SW unit can even fullfill the whole runic fetish talisman aspect of the lore, the accumulation of the rules just gaks on any other supposed anti psy focussed faction, and SW players are expected to pay more for the same unit that allready didn't sell because the unit is designed for a gametype that so doesn't exist in the meta of 40k?

Wouldn't that have been a better solution, one that wouldn't also cannibalise and flanderise at the same time faction identities?

No. Then EVERY Sargeant could take them, so that not just this one unit could be a better anti-psyker than the SoS instead of just this one unit.

As for not stealing identities, here's how to do that: pick any ONE of the abilities the Hounds get. That way the Hounds are still anti-psyker, the whole army can't be anti-psyker, and genetic blanks trained from birth by the Scholastica Psykana to deal with psykers and ONLY to deal with psykers continue to be better at it than dudes with wolfy-wolf wolf-gems (wolf!). AS THEY SHOULD BE.

How you resolve it with kits doesn't really matter to the people who are complaining about marines getting to do everything that everyone else can do but better. About the kit itself, I may even agree with you. About the Hounds being better anti-psyker than SoS? Nope. Not a chance.

even if an army is as good as anothers unit at doing X... I'm not sure why this is a problem

Yet again space marine sniper scouts and eldar rangers both occupied the same niche for ages, yet... NO ONE SEEMED TO MIND.

this "OHH MY GOD! ONLY MY ARMY CAN DO X! AND IF SOMEONE ELSE'S ARMY DOES X IT'S HORRIABLE" additude that people seem to be pushing lately is, in a word, CHILDISH

BrianDavion wrote:
even if an army is as good as anothers unit at doing X... I'm not sure why this is a problem

Yet again space marine sniper scouts and eldar rangers both occupied the same niche for ages, yet... NO ONE SEEMED TO MIND.

this "OHH MY GOD! ONLY MY ARMY CAN DO X! AND IF SOMEONE ELSE'S ARMY DOES X IT'S HORRIABLE" additude that people seem to be pushing lately is, in a word, CHILDISH

No, that is actually not true, rangers were more distinct to scouts and better and pricier. Now we get eliminators which are the pinacle and don't pay appropriatly and rangers now look like happy amateurs comparatively, that is why it is an issue. Primaris just took the status quo that was fine as you yourself point out, OVERTOOK any specialists in their own field AND did so in a manner that is also way to low priced for the abilities tacked on.