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^Just posting in further agreement to the above.

Space Marines used to feel MORE elite back in prior editions when they were less tough, because there were other rules which made them feel like pros. ATSKNF, Grenade rules, more freedom to choose what they fired at, Targeters on their equipment, auto-senses and protection from gas attacks, to name some examples.

Marines have gotten hur-dur. It's a shame.

I can literally think of no time in this game when Marines felt "elite". Even going back to 3rd edition they were still the most popular faction bar none. And going back to that era, Necron Warriors were as good if not better than Marines in general.

In my opinion this all boils down to too many players reading Black Library's Bolter Porn and those players who played "Space Marine" and all of whom are now under the impression that a single Marine should be better than any other faction.

SemperMortis wrote:
I can literally think of no time in this game when Marines felt "elite". Even going back to 3rd edition they were still the most popular faction bar none. And going back to that era, Necron Warriors were as good if not better than Marines in general.

In my opinion this all boils down to too many players reading Black Library's Bolter Porn and those players who played "Space Marine" and all of whom are now under the impression that a single Marine should be better than any other faction.

When has anyone said space marines should be the best faction?

Space Marines by any standard are put forward as the generalist that's better than most races standard infantry at *something*. For orks it was shooting, for tau it's melee, for eldar it's durability, for necrons it used to be speed. They're not the best at any of them, just better at something than their opponents base mooks.

That's what is meant to make them elite, not relative popularity.

Yes, shockingly, a marine and tbh most units in the game are on paper better shooters than orks before you get all uppity.

I mean, I remember fighting Marines in 4th and they felt elite.

I remember my Imperial Guard getting into ranged firefights with Tactical Squads and doing okay point-for-point (still getting butchered but pointwise not outright losing). But when those Tactical Squads closed into melee (or hopped out of Rhinos closeby), it suddenly was a terrible slaughter and the Marines would come out on top.

At the time, I thought this felt pretty elite - the unit can do ranged combat pretty well, and close combat pretty well. The enemy had to know how to employ them, of course, which I think was the challenge.

I still remember the game where I learned that lesson. I was playing against a Salamanders player who had something like 40 Tactical Marines and a couple devastator squads. I was playing my Guard, and I was kinda dismissive of his whole army. The only vehicles were 3 Rhinos for 30 of the tactical marines.

So we initiated the game exchanging fire at long range, and I was doing alright. Holding the line and whatnot, taking casualties but also inflicting a few here and there.

But those 30 Marines in rhinos abruptly slammed into my flank. I figured they'd get out, rapid fire, and then slowly make their way forwards blazing away with their guns. After all, Marines are a shooting army, right?

Well, they did disembark and rapid fire, since in 4th you couldn't charge after the transport moved. They killed a bunch of Guardsmen - rapid firing bolters in 4th were no joke - but it wasn't anything unexpected.

Next turn, though, they charged me. I was like "pfft, tactical marines? They're a shooting unit." And then those 30 marines proceeded to defeat three platoons (almost 90) guardsmen and chewed up or destroyed two or three tanks over the course of the rest of the game, mostly via assault.

If we tally that up, it's like 30 Space Marines killed over 100 men and a squadron of tanks, exercising a useful mix of melee and ranged capabilities (meltaguns, flamers, and charges). THAT's when I was like "ok, I get the design of tactical marines now."

Those days were GLORIOUS for Marines. If you really knew how to use them they were fantastic. They did the same 5th onward, but to vehicles too, once they all came with Frag and Krak grenades. I was assaulting vehicles all the time and taking them out to the dismay of opponents.

Yeah pulled the same tricks with Kriegers, good times

SemperMortis wrote:
I can literally think of no time in this game when Marines felt "elite". Even going back to 3rd edition they were still the most popular faction bar none. And going back to that era, Necron Warriors were as good if not better than Marines in general.

Necrons were better than Marines, BUT Marines could leverage CC and the Sweeping Advance rules to take them down effectively. It was a good fight. Both sides had to play to their strengths to win. If Marines were going to try and stand and shoot, the Crons would roll over them.

 Insectum7 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
I can literally think of no time in this game when Marines felt "elite". Even going back to 3rd edition they were still the most popular faction bar none. And going back to that era, Necron Warriors were as good if not better than Marines in general.

Necrons were better than Marines, BUT Marines could leverage CC and the Sweeping Advance rules to take them down effectively. It was a good fight. Both sides had to play to their strengths to win. If Marines were going to try and stand and shoot, the Crons would roll over them.

As a Necron player in 4th I've never feared Tactical Marines in melee once. They were wet noodles and you know it.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
I can literally think of no time in this game when Marines felt "elite". Even going back to 3rd edition they were still the most popular faction bar none. And going back to that era, Necron Warriors were as good if not better than Marines in general.

Necrons were better than Marines, BUT Marines could leverage CC and the Sweeping Advance rules to take them down effectively. It was a good fight. Both sides had to play to their strengths to win. If Marines were going to try and stand and shoot, the Crons would roll over them.

As a Necron player in 4th I've never feared Tactical Marines in melee once. They were wet noodles and you know it.

IIRC the way it usually worked is the powerfist killed 2-3 necrons, the rest of the marines with their 18 attacks would kill roughly 2, killing 4 or 5 total. The necrons would swing back with, say, 3-5 attacks (remember in 4e there was no pile in until after attacks were swung) killing at best 1 marine, and then the necrons would be testing 2d6 leadership, possibly outnumbered by 2-1 to make it a ld 9 check instead of 10.

I don't remember them being swept that often, but I do remember tactical marines eventually winning the combat. Most of the sweeping happened in like 5th edition when combat modifiers were based on casualties suffered rather than outnumbering.

Dudeface wrote:

When has anyone said space marines should be the best faction?
Space Marines by any standard are put forward as the generalist that's better than most races standard infantry at *something*. For orks it was shooting, for tau it's melee, for eldar it's durability, for necrons it used to be speed. They're not the best at any of them, just better at something than their opponents base mooks.

Key point you made is in bold/italics.

Lets take a look at bog standard Intercessors armed with their 30' S4 AP-1 rifles and lets compare them point for point vs both a shooting faction and vs a melee faction. I'll use Tau firewarriors as standard ranged specialist troops and Ork boyz as Melee specialists. No buffs allowed and we won't even be adding in doctrine bonuses. Just what is on the profile of the model.

So vs ranged opponent.

4 Intercessors get 8 shots, 5.33 hits, 3.5 wounds and 2.37 dead Tau. (most likely will not fail morale) That works out to 18.92pts of dmg or 0.23ppd.
10 Tau Firewarriors get 10 shots, 5 hits 3.3 wounds and 1.11dmg (can't fail morale) or 0.11ppd.

Winner = Intercessors. On average they will do more than TWICE as much dmg to Firewarriors than the firewarriors will do in return.

Vs CC Opponent.

20 Boyz = 180pts. In CC that is 60 attacks, 40 hits, 20 wounds and 6.66dmg or 3.33 dead Marines (Can only fail morale on a 6) , 66.6pts of dmg and 0.37ppd
9 Intercessors get 27 attacks, 18 hits, 6 wounds and 5 dead Orkz, or 45pts of dmg. Fails morale 2/3rds of the time for 1 more casualty and 2 more from attrition bringing the total to 8 dead Orkz or 72pts of dmg or 0.4ppd.

Winner = Intercessors, barely. On average the unit which charges will win this fight but considering intercessors are a RANGED combat unit this is pretty good.

So Marines have gone from "Generalists" to "better than your specialist troops".

SemperMortis wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

When has anyone said space marines should be the best faction?
Space Marines by any standard are put forward as the generalist that's better than most races standard infantry at *something*. For orks it was shooting, for tau it's melee, for eldar it's durability, for necrons it used to be speed. They're not the best at any of them, just better at something than their opponents base mooks.

Key point you made is in bold/italics.

Lets take a look at bog standard Intercessors armed with their 30' S4 AP-1 rifles and lets compare them point for point vs both a shooting faction and vs a melee faction. I'll use Tau firewarriors as standard ranged specialist troops and Ork boyz as Melee specialists. No buffs allowed and we won't even be adding in doctrine bonuses. Just what is on the profile of the model.

So vs ranged opponent.

4 Intercessors get 8 shots, 5.33 hits, 3.5 wounds and 2.37 dead Tau. (most likely will not fail morale) That works out to 18.92pts of dmg or 0.23ppd.
10 Tau Firewarriors get 10 shots, 5 hits 3.3 wounds and 1.11dmg (can't fail morale) or 0.11ppd.

Winner = Intercessors. On average they will do more than TWICE as much dmg to Firewarriors than the firewarriors will do in return.

Vs CC Opponent.

20 Boyz = 180pts. In CC that is 60 attacks, 40 hits, 20 wounds and 6.66dmg or 3.33 dead Marines (Can only fail morale on a 6) , 66.6pts of dmg and 0.37ppd
9 Intercessors get 27 attacks, 18 hits, 6 wounds and 5 dead Orkz, or 45pts of dmg. Fails morale 2/3rds of the time for 1 more casualty and 2 more from attrition bringing the total to 8 dead Orkz or 72pts of dmg or 0.4ppd.

Winner = Intercessors, barely. On average the unit which charges will win this fight but considering intercessors are a RANGED combat unit this is pretty good.

So Marines have gone from "Generalists" to "better than your specialist troops".

I was going to point out a slew of issues with all that but genuinely cba any more. Like I said before they used AoC to close the gap and chaos marines might be OK once their book drops. It doesn’t mean the bolter is any good, but lets the rules salad compensate some of the time.

I think we need a clean slate on the edition and then more granular profiles personally with a greater emphasis on objectives and durability rather than killing power.

Edit: for what it's worth I think we actually want a similar end goal for the game, it's just how it gets there. I doff my cap and thank you for the debate.

 Insectum7 wrote:
^Just posting in further agreement to the above.

Space Marines used to feel MORE elite back in prior editions when they were less tough, because there were other rules which made them feel like pros. ATSKNF, Grenade rules, more freedom to choose what they fired at, Targeters on their equipment, auto-senses and protection from gas attacks, to name some examples.

Marines have gotten hur-dur. It's a shame.

What is wrong with the ocean of rules attached to basic marines at the moment that makes them feel not elite? +1A on charge/being charged/heroic assault, rapid fire when standing still, army wide bonuses for different weapons depending on the phase, 2W, ignore the first point of AP, ignore morale modifiers, 3+ shooting, 3+ melee, 3+ armor, 6 different troop choices to choose between for optional additional rules, split large squads into smaller squads, and an entire supplement of strategems per subfaction. Marines are bloated with rules/options. Compare them to the troop choices of other factions and they are absolutely elite.
Edit: The issue is that bolters are good against troops and right now troops aren't worth taking. If you want to use bolters you have to make the things they target also worth using. Its no different from meltas being useless when every high wound model also had to have really good invulns to survive.

I'm on the fence now after the AoC change whether bolters should be improved or not.

On one hand, all marine durability has increased. On the other hand it kinda just led to players doubling down on the already good marine players. We don't see people competitively taking more tacticals. They're taking more of what they already had and just enjoying the buffs.

I do think all bolt weapons becoming minimum AP-1 could still be a good thing. Might make more players consider regular terminators with storm bolters more viable over something else. Hurricane bolter Centurions a viable option over something else.

I also do think if Tactical bolters become AP-1 then Intercessors with Stalkers and Bolt Rifles should become 19 points, and pay +1 point for AP-1 Assault Bolters.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
I can literally think of no time in this game when Marines felt "elite". Even going back to 3rd edition they were still the most popular faction bar none. And going back to that era, Necron Warriors were as good if not better than Marines in general.

Necrons were better than Marines, BUT Marines could leverage CC and the Sweeping Advance rules to take them down effectively. It was a good fight. Both sides had to play to their strengths to win. If Marines were going to try and stand and shoot, the Crons would roll over them.

As a Necron player in 4th I've never feared Tactical Marines in melee once. They were wet noodles and you know it.

Maybe not actual tacs but in 3rd and 5th (never played 4th) I used to charge with my Blood Claws and Grey Hunters all the time.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

As a Necron player in 4th I've never feared Tactical Marines in melee once. They were wet noodles and you know it.

They were great if you knew how to leverage their capabilities. There were four key plays that leveraged the basic Marine profile and capabilities.

1: Against lesser troops, Marines with their armor and toughness would just outlast opposing units in CC. Or if they did enough casualties, just Sweeping Advance them.

2: Using ATSKNF, you could pin units in CC that were much more dangerous than Tacs, effectively forcing them to lose a turn. You could use a combat squad to pin down a Wraithknight for a round while your army dealt with other threats.

3. Krak Grenades gave you excellent AT capability, especially in editions where you automatically struck the rear armor in CC. Tacs knocked out Vehicles (or suppressed them through Stunned/Shaken) very nicely.

4: You could embed a Character in the Tac squad. Using the lethality of the Character to rack up kills, but using the Tacs to draw hits away from your Character, and also use the bodies to push for outnumbering (4th ed), or casualty (5th+) Ld modifiers.

Against Necrons, one move was to maneuver the Tacs so that they would only partially hit a squad, even a big squad. Using the fixed 6" charge, you could get 10 Tacs to engage a 20-Cron unit in such a way that only part of that unit would be able to fight back, while the Tacs hit with their full attacks and charge bonus (and higher Initiative). Tacs could handily win the round, especially if they had a Powerfist, potentially by 2 or 3 casualties, dropping the Necron Ld to 7 (5th+ edition). "Wet noodle" tacs had a solid chance to Sweep a 360 point unit in a round of combat.

Prior to 5th with just the outnumbering bonus, Tacs could stil hold the Crons in place while you brought something more killy (or bigger, like a Dreadnought) to bear. If you think Tacs hit like a wet noodle in CC, well Necron Warriors were worse, only having better staying power through WBB. In 4th though, you used the bodies of Tacs to force Ld Modifiers to get the Sweep, which prevented WBB rolls. So you usually used multiple units in a focussed assault to bring both numbers and casualties to bear on a single unit for the Sweep.

Yeah, necron warriors were crap in melee in 4th ed, even against marines. Unlike marines, they had no force multipliers in the form of sergeant power sword / fist, and power weapons deny WBB.

 DominayTrix wrote:

What is wrong with the ocean of rules attached to basic marines at the moment that makes them feel not elite? . . Compare them to the troop choices of other factions and they are absolutely elite.

There are a number of problems, chief among them is that they make other troops from other factions feel like absolute garbage. Even troops that used to be roughly on-par with Space Marines (or better) in their particular specialties.

It also kills some tactical play for the Marine player. In prior editions the rule was "shoot the punchy and punch the shooty". These days Marines can often just outshoot the shooty and outpunch the punchy.

The thing with "Elite" is it's context. "Elite" compared to what? Well now it's elite compared to practically frikking everybody, which is lame. It's bolter porn, through and through.

Jarms48 wrote:
I'm on the fence now after the AoC change whether bolters should be improved or not.

On one hand, all marine durability has increased. On the other hand it kinda just led to players doubling down on the already good marine players. We don't see people competitively taking more tacticals. They're taking more of what they already had and just enjoying the buffs.

I do think all bolt weapons becoming minimum AP-1 could still be a good thing. Might make more players consider regular terminators with storm bolters more viable over something else. Hurricane bolter Centurions a viable option over something else.

I also do think if Tactical bolters become AP-1 then Intercessors with Stalkers and Bolt Rifles should become 19 points, and pay +1 point for AP-1 Assault Bolters.

Yes, I also feel like my Orkz should go to -1 to wound and our choppas should become AP-2, for no increase in points of course. z

Being facetious aside, if this was Warhammer: Space Marine I would be all for it, but since this is Warhammer 40k and there are other factions in the game...no, feth no.

Since 4th Edition, hell, since 6th edition, Marines have DOUBLED their RoF at max range, they have gained +1 attack on charge turn, they have DOUBLED their wounds, and now they ignore -1AP. They have done all of that for a massive price hike of... 3pts. Compare that to any other factions basic troop choice and get back to me with the results.

But what is most telling about this whole damn scenario is your actual post itself.

I'm on the fence now after the AoC change whether bolters should be improved or not.

So it isn't a balance option against the rest of the game, its specifically because Space Marines are now harder to kill for Space Marines that Space Marines want Space Marines main weapon to be buffed to get -1AP so that on a Space Marine Tac turn it goes to AP-2 and the Space Marine can hurt other Space Marines more effectively than the Space Marine can currently hurt Space Marines.

There is nothing remotely balanced about upgrading Bolters to AP-1 without a price hike, and giving Intercessors a price cut because Tacs get better is just ridiculous. An intercessor currently out shoots a Tau firewarrior pt for pt and can beat Ork choppa boyz in CC if they get to swing first.

 Insectum7 wrote:

There are a number of problems, chief among them is that they make other troops from other factions feel like absolute garbage. Even troops that used to be roughly on-par with Space Marines (or better) in their particular specialties.

It also kills some tactical play for the Marine player. In prior editions the rule was "shoot the punchy and punch the shooty". These days Marines can often just outshoot the shooty and outpunch the punchy.

The thing with "Elite" is it's context. "Elite" compared to what? Well now it's elite compared to practically frikking everybody, which is lame. It's bolter porn, through and through.

exactly this. There is no scenario where on a point for point basis a Generalist Space Marine unit should beat Ranged specialist troops while also being able to win in CC if they swing first. That isn't balance its bad game design aimed at making the beginner Marine players feel good and for the average to bad players who play Space Marines to win a few more games against opponents who are better than they are but who aren't playing Marines.

If bolters' problem is AoC, aka no AP bonus under the tactical doctrine against other power armoured armies, let SM weapons (or even just bolters) ignore AoC.

Actually I think doctrines in general could ignore AoC for an easier solution. Heavy weapons would ignore AoC first, then bolt weapons, and lastly melee ones.

 Blackie wrote:
If bolters' problem is AoC, aka no AP bonus under the tactical doctrine against other power armoured armies, let SM weapons (or even just bolters) ignore AoC.

Actually I think doctrines in general could ignore AoC for an easier solution. Heavy weapons would ignore AoC first, then bolt weapons, and lastly melee ones.

well . Why doesn't EVERYONE just ignore AOC?

 carldooley wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
If bolters' problem is AoC, aka no AP bonus under the tactical doctrine against other power armoured armies, let SM weapons (or even just bolters) ignore AoC.

Actually I think doctrines in general could ignore AoC for an easier solution. Heavy weapons would ignore AoC first, then bolt weapons, and lastly melee ones.

well . Why doesn't EVERYONE just ignore AOC?

only if every gun in the game loses 1 AP. (That wouldve been a better change than AoC)

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
If bolters' problem is AoC, aka no AP bonus under the tactical doctrine against other power armoured armies, let SM weapons (or even just bolters) ignore AoC.

Actually I think doctrines in general could ignore AoC for an easier solution. Heavy weapons would ignore AoC first, then bolt weapons, and lastly melee ones.

well . Why doesn't EVERYONE just ignore AOC?

only if every gun in the game loses 1 AP. (That wouldve been a better change than AoC)

Hey, I'll happily give up the -1AP on my pulse rifles and SMS, if the SMS gets back the ignores cover rule, but I don't exactly see that happening...
as for the other AP mods, I PAY for those...

 carldooley wrote:

Hey, I'll happily give up the -1AP on my pulse rifles and SMS, if the SMS gets back the ignores cover rule, but I don't exactly see that happening...
as for the other AP mods, I PAY for those...

doesnt matter if you pay for it, the whole game has too much AP and AoC was a gakky patch rule that GW added in to counteract that.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

Hey, I'll happily give up the -1AP on my pulse rifles and SMS, if the SMS gets back the ignores cover rule, but I don't exactly see that happening...
as for the other AP mods, I PAY for those...

doesnt matter if you pay for it, the whole game has too much AP and AoC was a gakky patch rule that GW added in to counteract that.

This. The reason AoC feels out of place is that everything is in an escalating arms race, so a durability buff almost feels unfair/out of place. They made the right choice by making things less killy, just applied it incorrectly.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
If bolters' problem is AoC, aka no AP bonus under the tactical doctrine against other power armoured armies, let SM weapons (or even just bolters) ignore AoC.

Actually I think doctrines in general could ignore AoC for an easier solution. Heavy weapons would ignore AoC first, then bolt weapons, and lastly melee ones.

well . Why doesn't EVERYONE just ignore AOC?

only if every gun in the game loses 1 AP. (That wouldve been a better change than AoC)

Ew. Used to be a time those weapons outright ignored some armor saves. Leave it as is, kill AoC.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
If bolters' problem is AoC, aka no AP bonus under the tactical doctrine against other power armoured armies, let SM weapons (or even just bolters) ignore AoC.

Actually I think doctrines in general could ignore AoC for an easier solution. Heavy weapons would ignore AoC first, then bolt weapons, and lastly melee ones.

well . Why doesn't EVERYONE just ignore AOC?

only if every gun in the game loses 1 AP. (That wouldve been a better change than AoC)

Ew. Used to be a time those weapons outright ignored some armor saves. Leave it as is, kill AoC.

Which takes us back to this topic - pulse rifles AP5, Shuriken catapults AP5, Bolter AP5. Which one isn't innately ap-1 in that list now?

Ap 5 didn’t take a pip off my meganob saves back in the day is the difference.

Dudeface wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
If bolters' problem is AoC, aka no AP bonus under the tactical doctrine against other power armoured armies, let SM weapons (or even just bolters) ignore AoC.

Actually I think doctrines in general could ignore AoC for an easier solution. Heavy weapons would ignore AoC first, then bolt weapons, and lastly melee ones.

well . Why doesn't EVERYONE just ignore AOC?

only if every gun in the game loses 1 AP. (That wouldve been a better change than AoC)

Ew. Used to be a time those weapons outright ignored some armor saves. Leave it as is, kill AoC.

Which takes us back to this topic - pulse rifles AP5, Shuriken catapults AP5, Bolter AP5. Which one isn't innately ap-1 in that list now?

Neither of them should be -1AP.
When the AP system was overhauled the negative modifiers started at AP4.
The exception to this were necron weapons, which got a bonus to replace their signature gauss rule.

Then GW started throwing out AP bonuses to everything, making those weapons less unique, because as we all know, Necrons can't have nice things.
So really gauss flayers should be buffed.

Dudeface wrote:

Which takes us back to this topic - pulse rifles AP5, Shuriken catapults AP5, Bolter AP5. Which one isn't innately ap-1 in that list now?

The one that can shoot twice at 24" in the hands of Marines?

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Which takes us back to this topic - pulse rifles AP5, Shuriken catapults AP5, Bolter AP5. Which one isn't innately ap-1 in that list now?

The one that can shoot twice at 24" in the hands of Marines?

Correct, I like you posed that like it was an expanation though.