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 Blndmage wrote:
Since I've posted this twice now, and the arguments ave had it ignored, yet again, I'll mention Movie Marines. I think, when compared to what they currently have, Movie Marines aren't the silly broken thing they were when they were made.

Anyone that said Movie Marines were broken had a broken calculator, simple as that. They weren't even CLOSE to broken. Hell, they weren't close to GOOD.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Since I've posted this twice now, and the arguments ave had it ignored, yet again, I'll mention Movie Marines. I think, when compared to what they currently have, Movie Marines aren't the silly broken thing they were when they were made.

Anyone that said Movie Marines were broken had a broken calculator, simple as that. They weren't even CLOSE to broken. Hell, they weren't close to GOOD.

No.buy they were close to stupid.

Movie marines were not consistent with the background either - a lascannon still instantly fries a marine, and marines killed each other with Bolters during the heresy no problem. Marines have never been tougher than heavy bolters, or capable of taking melts guns to the face.

Giving marines hive tyrant profiles in 3rd Ed didn't make them more representative of how they work, because they aren't like that.


GW just refuses to define armies by things other than their profiles and weapons, creating all sorts of stupid contradictions to get them to function properly.

Scenario and set up are huge parts of marine capability, just as it is for the Eldar (of all stripes).


So you get this juxtaposition of issues:

Marines are tough and skilful
Their armour is not proof against anti tank weapons
Their bodies are still damaged by basic guns (a naked marine is still likely to die if someone put a lasgun to their temple)
There aren't many of them
They can't punch through a land raider
They can punch through a human face


And so on.

So what this says is that a marine's power shouldn't be about making them harder to kill, or superhero powerful.

It says that they use their higher survivability in clever ways to tip each engagement in their favour. Choosing the terrain before the game starts, creating narrow kill corridors where marines can take on individual groups one at a time maximizing their advantages.


Just as the Eldar would use surprise ambushes and high speed overwhelming force in the first few minutes to determine whether they'd won or not. in a game they might get two turns in a row to fight before the enemy strikes, but they would have smaller forces.



Until GW commits to set up and scenario based army balance.mechanics, we're just going to keep getting RAWR smash marine rules which continues their misrepresentation to fans and perpetuates juvenile one-upmanship style superhero marines.

Hellebore wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Since I've posted this twice now, and the arguments ave had it ignored, yet again, I'll mention Movie Marines. I think, when compared to what they currently have, Movie Marines aren't the silly broken thing they were when they were made.

Anyone that said Movie Marines were broken had a broken calculator, simple as that. They weren't even CLOSE to broken. Hell, they weren't close to GOOD.

No.buy they were close to stupid.

Movie marines were not consistent with the background either - a lascannon still instantly fries a marine, and marines killed each other with Bolters during the heresy no problem. Marines have never been tougher than heavy bolters, or capable of taking melts guns to the face.

Giving marines hive tyrant profiles in 3rd Ed didn't make them more representative of how they work, because they aren't like that.


GW just refuses to define armies by things other than their profiles and weapons, creating all sorts of stupid contradictions to get them to function properly.

Scenario and set up are huge parts of marine capability, just as it is for the Eldar (of all stripes).


So you get this juxtaposition of issues:

Marines are tough and skilful
Their armour is not proof against anti tank weapons
Their bodies are still damaged by basic guns (a naked marine is still likely to die if someone put a lasgun to their temple)
There aren't many of them
They can't punch through a land raider
They can punch through a human face


And so on.

So what this says is that a marine's power shouldn't be about making them harder to kill, or superhero powerful.

It says that they use their higher survivability in clever ways to tip each engagement in their favour. Choosing the terrain before the game starts, creating narrow kill corridors where marines can take on individual groups one at a time maximizing their advantages.


Just as the Eldar would use surprise ambushes and high speed overwhelming force in the first few minutes to determine whether they'd won or not. in a game they might get two turns in a row to fight before the enemy strikes, but they would have smaller forces.



Until GW commits to set up and scenario based army balance.mechanics, we're just going to keep getting RAWR smash marine rules which continues their misrepresentation to fans and perpetuates juvenile one-upmanship style superhero marines.

Marines would also benefit from proper overwatch rules where a unit breaking cover or even just moving within a certain range and angle of a unit can be shot at out of sequence. Other armies would also get this but Marines might not suffer penalties for doing so, or have longer ranges and wider areas covered.

Demons might have an exception where they never start on the table and come onto the table from reserves in a random and haphazard fashion but can get a full turn (moving, psychic, shooting, charging, etc.) after arriving from the warp making them terrifying as they could pop up almost anywhere on the table.

Go down the list and give every faction a suitable and flavorful advantage.

Most people have hit it pretty squarely on the head - marines are elite in that they have strategic mobility and martial prowess. The game currently only has the rules to really represent the martial prowess, and it even struggles with that as far too many units are 2's RR1's on attacks.
The easiest way to represent strategic mobility - and I say easiest, not necessarily best - would be to use side tables.

Give each codex a Strategic Mobility rating (for lack of a better term).
If a player is using multiple codexs, use the lowest.
Players preparing for a 2000 pt game would bring a 500 pt side table
Before the game both players would announce their codexes, and Strategic Mobility rating.
Before knowing the other players list, the player that has the higher SMr would get to change out some number of points from their side-table, depending on how much higher the SMr is.

You could then even have things that manipulate the SMr further, like characters that have no combat buffs/aura but increase the SMr. Or even the use of supplements could lower the SMr as it represents a more specialized supply chain.

For example:
A) I'm playing a guard player (SMr 2) with my Marine army (SMr 4) - Because I'm double their rating, I get ~ 100 points to trade in from my sideboard, could be pointed relics/weapon swaps/model swaps as long as its in my sideboard. The guard are better in a straight up gun fight, but I get to use more specialized tools for taking out the guard player.

B) I'm playing the same guard player, but he's brought CREEEED, making his SMr 3. I'm bringing my Marine Army, and using the Salamanders supplements. Because of the specialized nature of force my SMr is reduced by 1 meaning I have SMr 3. Equal ratings mean no side gets to sideboard.

C) The guard player is as above (SMr 3), but I've brought Marines: Salamanders supplement AND guard allies meaning I have SMr 2. Giving the full guard player ~ 50 points of sideboard to trade

Versatility is a potent tool in the hands of a good player
Anyways, just a thought I had from the discussion in this thread

Very interesting idea-but obviously needs workshopping.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Very interesting idea-but obviously needs workshopping.

Oh absolutely, there is work that would have to go into the implementation - But thats the case for any idea, it's just that this one occupies a different design space and for the most part uses already in place architecture.

I like sideboards.

That's a really clever idea.

I always though tac squads in a rhino picking their gear after the matchup revealed would have been thematic because they just grab what they need after disembark.

Sideboarding works better for systems where you play more than one game against the same list and opponent. It's also better in systems where there can be hidden information such as an MtG draft event.

I think I'd rather see the strategic advantage handled by rules that allow for deployment advantages for one side or even disadvantages for the other team. Perhaps you could even change how objectives are placed, change the distance units can deep strike at from 6" to 13" depending on how the lists stack up. You could drain enemy CP, add to your own, etc.

I'd rather see really cool impactful rules than something bland.

Sideboards aren't bland, imo. And the game does have hidden info. You don't know what each opponent will have.

Martel732 wrote:
Sideboards aren't bland, imo. And the game does have hidden info. You don't know what each opponent will have.

You do the moment you get paired with them and ask to see their list detailed down to the most insignificant piece of war gear. In MtG your opponetn could hold certain cards back in a blowout win or loss so when you go to sideboard you miss out on countering something in their deck. You also can't see their sideboard so they could change from a midrange creature deck in game one into a no creature control deck for game two and you wouldn't know until you started the game.

I think sideboards are nicely engaging because you get to design your sideboards. Also, it's in GWs intrest because it encourages the purchase of more models.

The old Strategy rating or something similar is ok too, it's simple.

This reminds me a bit of 2nd Edition Tyranids where only certain missions could be played against them, and they had a series of tables to roll on before the battle to see what effects the horrors of fighting them had already come to pass.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Sideboards aren't bland, imo. And the game does have hidden info. You don't know what each opponent will have.

You do the moment you get paired with them and ask to see their list detailed down to the most insignificant piece of war gear.

So dont play it like that. Easy fix.

 Insectum7 wrote:
So dont play it like that. Easy fix.

How do you propose people hide their models so that their army composition isn't obvious?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Sideboards aren't bland, imo. And the game does have hidden info. You don't know what each opponent will have.

You do the moment you get paired with them and ask to see their list detailed down to the most insignificant piece of war gear. In MtG your opponetn could hold certain cards back in a blowout win or loss so when you go to sideboard you miss out on countering something in their deck. You also can't see their sideboard so they could change from a midrange creature deck in game one into a no creature control deck for game two and you wouldn't know until you started the game.

That's why you would announce any side-table usage after informing the other player your codex and comparing ratings.
But before lists were swapped. I know this isn't how list sharing doesn't currently work in 40k Tournament, but it doesn't mean that it can't be made to work that way.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So dont play it like that. Easy fix.

How do you propose people hide their models so that their army composition isn't obvious?

In the case/s you normally carry your models in? It's not like this is an unsolvable problem.

Conversely, you play it so the opponent can see your default army, but not your sideboards, and then use a rating to determine who decides on their sideboard first.

That is a big assumption to think that people would both own and carry with them, more then 2000pts of an army. Out of the 30+ people playing at my store the only ones that have more then 2000pts are people who played for longer then I am alive.
And even they just have multiple tournament lists, not 3000k of one army.

This is probably beside the point of this thread, but I'd like Space Marines to be brought closer to their rogue trader era level of power. I.e more psychotic elite units with the very best human equipment and bio enhancements, not superheroes. But that's probably very very unlikely (before someone screams rose tinted glasses at me, I started playing years after rt)

Karol wrote:
That is a big assumption to think that people would both own and carry with them, more then 2000pts of an army. Out of the 30+ people playing at my store the only ones that have more then 2000pts are people who played for longer then I am alive.
And even they just have multiple tournament lists, not 3000k of one army.

I mean, this is a silly objection. If the rules changed, people would change to match them. It's not like people have refused to buy more models since 3rd edition or anything. If the game requires more models, then people will obviously buy to keep up, since they do today.

It doesn't matter if the "game requires more models" is because of dropping points costs without dropping game sizes, increasing game sizes, or adding a sideboard.

The game now is much larger than it was at the beginning of 8th edition (every army is cheaper than it was) so unless your friends and company are playing Index Rules Only then I suspect they've already bought more models to meet shifting game rules.

Yeah, and even if people didn't want more models, why can't they just play 1500 point games instead?

Like, I'm not a massive advocate for people needing to buy more models to meta-chase or whatever, but there's nothing forcing people to keep playing at X points limit beyond their own impositions.

I bring 10K with me b/c I don't know what madness I will concoct on the spot.

I usually have my armies organised in formation/faction (so, I carry all my Ultramarines 2nd Company in one box, and all my 1st in another, even though I do sometimes play them together).

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I usually have my armies organised in formation/faction (so, I carry all my Ultramarines 2nd Company in one box, and all my 1st in another, even though I do sometimes play them together).

I used to do this until I started playing Daemons. Now, I just bring all my Daemons because if I'm playing power-level I can summon infinite daemons (if I have the models) and if I'm playing points I sometimes need a backup set of models in case my opponent wants to tune the list up or down or wants to bring in a friendo or change the game size, etc.

IMO the game plays better at 1500 than it does at 2000, so a 1500pt game + 500pt sideboard would be a win-win with the same model count.

I mentioned Dust earlier, here's the mission builder I was referencing:



Both players have two points to spend, and alternate allocating them to one of the three categories (Objectives, Deployment, Conditions). There's a bit of a metagame thus involved in dictating the conditions of the battle.

In a perfect world, I'd like to see something similar (maybe a bit more in-depth) in 40K, with certain command assets giving you extra 'mission points' to spend at this stage. Even if Marines didn't intrinsically get more points than other factions, it would let them play to their strengths and skew the mission towards conditions that make more sense than a pitched battle.

Edit: Oh yeah, and just speaking in general- I think Marines would feel a lot more elite if Bolter Discipline were implemented like 30K's Fury of the Legion instead. As it stands, Bolter Discipline encourages you to stand still and shoot at long range, which... isn't very Marine-like. Fury of the Legion lets you double-shoot at long range and then withdraw, or quadruple-shoot at close range and then charge into melee, which feels much more appropriate to the faction.

 catbarf wrote:

Edit: Oh yeah, and just speaking in general- I think Marines would feel a lot more elite if Bolter Discipline were implemented like 30K's Fury of the Legion instead. As it stands, Bolter Discipline encourages you to stand still and shoot at long range, which... isn't very Marine-like. Fury of the Legion lets you double-shoot at long range and then withdraw, or quadruple-shoot at close range and then charge into melee, which feels much more appropriate to the faction.

My idea before Bolter Discipline became a thing was to just add one shot per RFnum to each range band, so three at close and two at far for Bolters, or six at close and four at long for Storm Bolters. Not as fancy as shoot-withdraw or shoot-charge, but still encouraging closing with the opponent.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Edit: Oh yeah, and just speaking in general- I think Marines would feel a lot more elite if Bolter Discipline were implemented like 30K's Fury of the Legion instead. As it stands, Bolter Discipline encourages you to stand still and shoot at long range, which... isn't very Marine-like. Fury of the Legion lets you double-shoot at long range and then withdraw, or quadruple-shoot at close range and then charge into melee, which feels much more appropriate to the faction.

My idea before Bolter Discipline became a thing was to just add one shot per RFnum to each range band, so three at close and two at far for Bolters, or six at close and four at long for Storm Bolters. Not as fancy as shoot-withdraw or shoot-charge, but still encouraging closing with the opponent.

To clarify, Fury of the Legion lets you double your shots, but you can't charge that turn or shoot the next turn. So it lets you do things like double your fire output at close range and then charge into combat next turn (while you 'reload'), or double-fire at long range and then next turn move to break LOS. It gives you the flexibility to play more tactically by front-loading your firepower. To me, that fits the MO of Marines perfectly.

Adding an extra shot would be fine too. I still think it might overly incentivize static combat at long range, since non-Marines would still benefit more from closing the distance, but it'd definitely be better than the current implementation.

 catbarf wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Edit: Oh yeah, and just speaking in general- I think Marines would feel a lot more elite if Bolter Discipline were implemented like 30K's Fury of the Legion instead. As it stands, Bolter Discipline encourages you to stand still and shoot at long range, which... isn't very Marine-like. Fury of the Legion lets you double-shoot at long range and then withdraw, or quadruple-shoot at close range and then charge into melee, which feels much more appropriate to the faction.

My idea before Bolter Discipline became a thing was to just add one shot per RFnum to each range band, so three at close and two at far for Bolters, or six at close and four at long for Storm Bolters. Not as fancy as shoot-withdraw or shoot-charge, but still encouraging closing with the opponent.

To clarify, Fury of the Legion lets you double your shots, but you can't charge that turn or shoot the next turn. So it lets you do things like double your fire output at close range and then charge into combat next turn (while you 'reload'), or double-fire at long range and then next turn move to break LOS. It gives you the flexibility to play more tactically by front-loading your firepower. To me, that fits the MO of Marines perfectly.

Ahh, I see.

 catbarf wrote:

Adding an extra shot would be fine too. I still think it might overly incentivize static combat at long range, since non-Marines would still benefit more from closing the distance, but it'd definitely be better than the current implementation.

Yeah, this was a suggestion originating prior to the Doctrines giving the bonus AP. More shots combined with the bonus AP for Intercessors arguably still puts out enough fire to make advancing unnecessary, even with another shot.

I think that skills that modify weapon use are better than making half a dozen different types of bolter.

Is the same with aspect warriors, they shouldn't have avenger catapults or scorpion swords, they should have normal weapons and skills that make their use more effective.


On the other hand, there's not really anything special about full auto at close range - emptying your magazine is something anyone can do. Marines aren't adding anything extra to it.

Which comes back to my comments on game design - it's still just trying to represent marines in a brute force way through pure damage.

The current doctrine bonus imo is just allowing them to kill other marines easier.

If you look at what they're trying to do in these scenarios then I think you can get pretty distinct skills that reflect them.

IE long range. Given how vulnerable they are to heavy weaponry, controlling enemy weapons at range before getting closer is better.

So marines could lay down accurate suppressive fire at range that reduces the targets BS.

At short range they might need to pin the target in place for an assault, so attacks cause pinning which reduces movement.

Controlling enemy movements and dictating fighting conditions are both very good ways for a small elite force to be its own force multiplier

^I agree with most of the post, however I will point out that until 8th edition GEQ received no armor save against Bolters, and then all of a sudden were saving 1/3 successful wounds, thwarting imo both reasonable expectations and precedent. The extra shots clear that up. Unfortunately 8th ed is also the edition where S4 wounds T7 on a 5+ :/. Vehicles aside however, I think the core balance should be constructed around the interactions between troops, and the MEQ vs. GEQ wasn't quite where it should be.

That said, I like the idea of suppression, or just meaningful morale rules again.