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So, firat everyone complains that GW made 40k into the space marine game, now you're complaining that it's not friendly to marines anymore?

So standard C:SM MEQ should be 13 points, matched point for point with Combat tactics and ATSKNF against CSM with no special abilities at all, all because of one unit.

They get the Chaos boon table for free and you can purchase upgrades for them that give bonuses.
Combat tactics is just split the squad into two, if you want it to be something different you have to pay 200+ for a unique character.

If your that worried about leadership pay 1ppm and get a LD 10 squad. IIRC thats more Ld than a tactical squad






Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'm a Marine, I kill MC's, not field them....!

too true. Theres a reason space Wolves have beastslayer.

DOOMONYOU wrote:

They get the Chaos boon table for free

You say this like its a good thing...there's that whole mandatory "must always challenge" thing to go along with that as well that routinely kicks CSM players in the junk, and the chaos boon table affects only one model in the unit and doesn't necessarily do anything useful (oh boy, Eternal Warrior on my W1 Champion!) or at all in some cases.

and you can purchase upgrades for them that give bonuses.

Yes, purchase, at a points increase, usually a substantial one.

If your that worried about leadership pay 1ppm and get a LD 10 squad. IIRC thats more Ld than a tactical squad

It is indeed, however ATSKNF is still better.

DOOMONYOU wrote:

So standard C:SM MEQ should be 13 points, matched point for point with Combat tactics and ATSKNF against CSM with no special abilities at all, all because of one unit.

They get the Chaos boon table for free and you can purchase upgrades for them that give bonuses.
Combat tactics is just split the squad into two, if you want it to be something different you have to pay 200+ for a unique character.

If your that worried about leadership pay 1ppm and get a LD 10 squad. IIRC thats more Ld than a tactical squad

The chaos boon table isn't good, and against some armies it'll never see an upgrade because they lack a large amount of Sargent type units to even upgrade against, and yet still forces you to single out your champion and force him to challenge regardless of who he is. Not to mention the fact that Gift of mutation is 5-7 PPM overcosted.

Combat Squadding gives you double the scoring units, and you can have two squads leaving a drop pod, not to mention it's still a stronger ability

Chapter tactics gives all of your units a free ability based on which SC you have, and allows you to fail morale checks and run back if need be.

Also you pay 1ppm to get LD10...And that's still not better then ATSKNF, and now you've matched DA in price, who also have stubborn.

oh boy, Eternal Warrior on my W1 Champion!

And there are 22 that benifit them. Including turning them into a Deamon prince.

It is indeed, however ATSKNF is still better.

And you can get better than ATSKNF by getting fearless units as troops choices.

You can have a 19ppm unit with 4 strength 5 attacks on the charge

a 23 ppm with 4++ and AP 3 bolter

a 24 ppm with toughness 5, fnp with poisoned CC attacks

and a 17 ppm with Init 5 and the option for ignores cover weapons.

DOOMONYOU wrote:

oh boy, Eternal Warrior on my W1 Champion!

And there are 22 that benifit them. Including turning them into a Deamon prince.

It is indeed, however ATSKNF is still better.

And you can get better than ATSKNF by getting fearless units as troops choices.

You can have a 19ppm unit with 4 strength 5 attacks on the charge

a 23 ppm with 4++ and AP 3 bolter

a 24 ppm with toughness 5, fnp with poisoned CC attacks

and a 17 ppm with Init 5 and the option for ignores cover weapons.

Fearless is not better then ATSKNF, costs more (for non culttroops) and can be sniped (non cult troops)

Bezerkers are weak, and poor in this edition

Thousand Sons are Worse

Plague marines are awesome.

Noise marines are second best

And you can get better than ATSKNF by getting fearless units as troops choices.

You can have a 19ppm unit with 4 strength 5 attacks on the charge

a 23 ppm with 4++ and AP 3 bolter

a 24 ppm with toughness 5, fnp with poisoned CC attacks

and a 17 ppm with Init 5 and the option for ignores cover weapons.

ATSKNF is objectively better than Fearless.

DOOMONYOU wrote:

oh boy, Eternal Warrior on my W1 Champion!

And there are 22 that benifit them. Including turning them into a Deamon prince.

Yes, but again, lots of rolls are useless, some are detrimental, and they only affect 1 model in a unit and he *has* to challenge. It's not really a "benefit".

It is indeed, however ATSKNF is still better.

And you can get better than ATSKNF by getting fearless units as troops choices.

The marine statline isn't the problem. Nor is the armour value in my opinon. The amount of weapons that are AP 3 is probably at a good level.

I think the problem is the amount of weaponry that just totally negates the advantage of been toughness 4 instead of 3 these days. Mainly because of the reduction in small arms fire at the moment. The amount of times that my marines are not getting wounded on a 2+ these days is slim. Why is this? probably because the latest string of Codex's that have come out favour weaponry mounted on Vehicles, Battlesuits, large monsterous creature weapons platforms, where high Str weapons are abundant. We see few lists at the moment where there are troops on the board that marines (or xenos for that matter) can use their standard anti infantry weapons on to any sort of effect, so they feel like they have become, and somewhat have, a walking special weapon in the end.

I'm hoping as we see more codex releases that utilize their high troop count infantry more (Black Templars, Orks, Tryanids, possibly guard if their mech is toned down a bit.) the humble marine may find his place again.

I don't think the new Space Marine codex release will be what actually saves the marine at the moment. I think it will be brining the horde army codexs out quickly to push the meta into a place where certain armies will consider bringing more small arms fire to deal with the model count they are facing. Once we see more small arms fire the Marine toughness and armour saves comes into play more often.

 vossyvo wrote:

Spoiler:

The marine statline isn't the problem. Nor is the armour value in my opinon. The amount of weapons that are AP 3 is probably at a good level.

I think the problem is the amount of weaponry that just totally negates the advantage of been toughness 4 instead of 3 these days. Mainly because of the reduction in small arms fire at the moment. The amount of times that my marines are not getting wounded on a 2+ these days is slim. Why is this? probably because the latest string of Codex's that have come out favour weaponry mounted on Vehicles, Battlesuits, large monsterous creature weapons platforms, where high Str weapons are abundant. We see few lists at the moment where there are troops on the board that marines (or xenos for that matter) can use their standard anti infantry weapons on to any sort of effect, so they feel like they have become, and somewhat have, a walking special weapon in the end.

I'm hoping as we see more codex releases that utilize their high troop count infantry more (Black Templars, Orks, Tryanids, possibly guard if their mech is toned down a bit.) the humble marine may find his place again.

I don't think the new Space Marine codex release will be what actually saves the marine at the moment. I think it will be brining the horde army codexs out quickly to push the meta into a place where certain armies will consider bringing more small arms fire to deal with the model count they are facing. Once we see more small arms fire the Marine toughness and armour saves comes into play more often

.

Excellent points. Tau broke the flyer heavy meta, and Orks and BT will break low model count Tau... Does that mean DCA GK are back on top ?

dont worry, im sure theyll think of some half baked way to invalidate tau and eldar and make a shiney new marine codex top dog again.

all the tau players will flock to the new shiney marines $$

Which have no viable delivery method and no mentionable ranged weaponry

Rhino, Land raider. And they are beserkers, their not meant to want to shoot, they want to slice and dice.

And how often do you see this guys? Oh right, never.

We have a player who uses thousand sons at our local club. They are as tough as nails and mop the floor against any infantry army.

DOOMONYOU wrote:

Which have no viable delivery method and no mentionable ranged weaponry

Rhino, Land raider. And they are beserkers, their not meant to want to shoot, they want to slice and dice.

And how often do you see this guys? Oh right, never.

We have a player who uses thousand sons at our local club. They are as tough as nails and mop the floor against any infantry army.

Rhino's are not assault vehicles, land raiders aint worth it for just berzerkers.

Most infantry armies will make toast of Thousand Sons, as proven already in the Thousand Sons Tactics post.

You've never actually played Chaos have you?

 Kain wrote:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 SickSix wrote:
No, I don't think it's enough. 1 Annihilation Barge can wipe out nearly an entire 10man SM tac squad in one shooting phase.

Where did you get this idea? Not even close. On average, even when remaining stationary, an A barge kills 2-3 Tacs at most.

Maybe with ridiculously lucky Tesla rolls and really poor armor saves?

Even with rolling all 6s from the main gun and secondary gun, you are still looking at roughly 5 dead marines.

DOOMONYOU wrote:


Rhino, Land raider. And they are beserkers, their not meant to want to shoot, they want to slice and dice.

Rhinos aren't a viable delivery method in 6E, they earliest they'll get stuck in is turn 3 thanks to the vehicle changes. Land Raiders are 250pt transports for a 200pt squad...

And yes, they want to slice and dice, but lacking any shooting ability means they don't have much of a way to engage many types of targets, in an edition heavily built around shooting.

We have a player who uses thousand sons at our local club. They are as tough as nails and mop the floor against any infantry army.

This does not tend to be popular experience with these, usually it's the TSons getting attritioned to death even by relatively non-horde armies, I haven't seen them on a table in years, and haven't seen one that did will in...well, lets say several editions. One will note they're basically non-existent in tournament scenes. Yes, they're very good at killing other marines in short range firefights.They die like normal marines to most fire, basic marines in cover will match (or not be far off) their survivability against AP3 or better weapons, aren't any better in CC, and they cost 77% more than basic marines.

You've never actually played Chaos have you?

No I haven't. But I have faced them.

All other armies don't have ATSKNF and they seem do do alright without it.

The new space marine codex will have them for 13-14 points, same statline with ATSKNF and chapter tactics, sergeant will have the choice of choosing from an armoury and they will keep the special weapon/heavy weapon choices they still have.

I guess thats why it is MEQ, i think a lot of counter units have been made to those stats over the years. I look at it as the bar to beat.

 Rotary wrote:
I guess thats why it is MEQ, i think a lot of counter units have been made to those stats over the years. I look at it as the bar to beat.

It's the same reason why a generic Space Marine Captain is not really that impressive. Every other assault HQ should be able to beat him or there's no point in using them.

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:

 Rotary wrote:
I guess thats why it is MEQ, i think a lot of counter units have been made to those stats over the years. I look at it as the bar to beat.

It's the same reason why a generic Space Marine Captain is not really that impressive. Every other assault HQ should be able to beat him or there's no point in using them.

Well that and the Chapter Master tends to pack more goodies in a small points cost in terms of upgrade. Even the Honor Guard is a bump up over the Command Squad in terms of options available to it.

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:

 Rotary wrote:
I guess thats why it is MEQ, i think a lot of counter units have been made to those stats over the years. I look at it as the bar to beat.

It's the same reason why a generic Space Marine Captain is not really that impressive. Every other assault HQ should be able to beat him or there's no point in using them.

They're the baseline by which everything else is measured, but that doesn't mean they're bad. Relative to the "fighty" HQ's of many other factions, they're rather impressive. It's generally only when you start getting stuff like Ork Warbosses and MC's, or stuff with specialized wargear like DE Archons with shadowfields or Necrons with Mindshackle scarabs that the baseline Captain is surpassed. I certainly wouldn't want to match an Autarch, Herald, Lord Commissar, Succubus, etc against one.

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:

 Rotary wrote:
I guess thats why it is MEQ, i think a lot of counter units have been made to those stats over the years. I look at it as the bar to beat.

It's the same reason why a generic Space Marine Captain is not really that impressive. Every other assault HQ should be able to beat him or there's no point in using them.

Considering most generic Space Marine Captains are woefully overcosted (BA, C:SM). It's no wonder.

Bezerkers 1ksons and noise marines aren't the best cult troops because they dont have the survivability of Plague marines in an edition with tons of shooting and heavy weapons, but really the other three exceed when there are more infantry models and small arms on the board. There isn't really any good delivery system for csm unless you take unites with deep strike and such.

Really when it comes to if marines are enough this edition, id say its situational, : for example, No when there are hell turkeys on the board spewing fire from their butt, but yes when there is more manageable units to deal with rather than flyers, like guardsmen. C:sm marines could do for a little buffing but not much considering their special characters can take artificer armor stormshields and the like.

Honestly I think if they return chapter traits it could tip the scales for C:SM to make a comeback. If the traits actually come back and are really useful, such as replacing chapter tactics with crusader/zealot and the likes then it'd really help out.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:
I agree, to a degree... ATKNF and Combat Tactics helps even more than it used to... SM players just need to be as wise as serpents... and use Rhinos and DPs. I am very careful with my marines, making sure they have cover (using those Rhinos and DPs as LoS blocking barriers) and giving their cover cover when needed (hello smoke launchers)... instead of treating them as invulnerable, I shepherd them around the battle field, and they pay me back by doing well.

Don't Drop Pods allow line of sight to pass through them?

Depends on whether you model them with doors open or closed (and let's not argue the legality of that again, that thread has only been dead for around a month or so).

Actually, if you put all the little fiddly bits inside the DP, it pretty much blocks most LoS with the doors open. I think a lot of people don't bother putting all those extra pieces in and so that opens up the LoS by a lot.

 Vaktathi wrote:
They're the baseline by which everything else is measured, but that doesn't mean they're bad. Relative to the "fighty" HQ's of many other factions, they're rather impressive. It's generally only when you start getting stuff like Ork Warbosses and MC's, or stuff with specialized wargear like DE Archons with shadowfields or Necrons with Mindshackle scarabs that the baseline Captain is surpassed. I certainly wouldn't want to match an Autarch, Herald, Lord Commissar, Succubus, etc against one.

A decently equipped Autarch or Herald of Khorne or Slaanesh should be able to beat a Space Marine Captain/Chapter Master on most occasions thanks to higher initiative and low AP, At-Initiative weapons. So the master of an entire Space Marine chapter can generally defeat, what, a basic human officer or a sub-commander level Dark Eldar....and nobody sees a problem with that?

I think Chapter Masters and Captains should come stock with artificer armour if the points remain the about same. It doesn't make sense that a high level officer is running around in armour that is inferior to his mechanic's.

The basic marine statline is one of the few statlines that hasn't changed at all since 2nd edition. I think all of the original 2nd edition armies besides IG have had some sort of statline tweak over the years. The basic bolter hasn't changed any either, but most of the older armies have had improvements on their basic firearms (again, except for IG...sensing a trend here). Now, we already know nothing is getting changed in 6th to those main components, and so I hardly think that C:SM will suddenly make the basic marine army top dog (have they ever been top dog???). However, there is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and its possible to make C:SM a top tier army with what we have already established.

One way is more options. Tacticals would greatly benefit from the ability to take 2 special weapons or the standard 1&1. Its a small change, but one that would greatly increase the usefulness of the basic marine squads. The other option is to stick with the 1&1, but include an upgrade (for a small price) to allow the heavy weapon to be Assault. I think it was in Rogue Trader they had suspensor (or whatever they were called) that allowed heavy weapons to move and fire. Bring that back for tactical squads, even if its at a slightly reduced BS. Some new weapons would be really nice. I'm kind of sick of the stock Las/Plasma/Melta/Bolter weapon list. How about unique weapons for vehicles instead of just twin-linked versions of the same things.

Another step is to make the elites actually, you know, ELITE! Dreadnaughts die if you look at them wrong, and tactical terminators are overpriced and really can't dish out the punishment like their price would indicate. 2+/5++ is not special, certainly not 40 points per model special, especially considering the amount of AP2 armies can field now (and given that they generally only have to deal with 5 terminators, they don't need a lot). The ability to take 2 heavy terminator weapons per 5-man squad might make tactical termies enticing again since we know a steep points reduction isn't coming. Sternguard have the right level of capabilities, but should probably be reduced by 3-4 points. I'm sure the rumored new uber-terminators will come out of the Elites section, so I'm curious as to how badly they will invalidate tactical terminators.

My hopes are not that high for the new SM codex to be honest. I'm sure it will have some nice options, but ultimately, C:SM will remain a decent, but just slightly short of top-tier, army.

The basic bolter hasn't changed any either, but most of the older armies have had improvements on their basic firearms (again, except for IG...sensing a trend here).

Orks got worse, what with originally using Imperium weapons, losing that access, and going down to BS2 (they used to be 3 and 4!)

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

The basic bolter hasn't changed any either, but most of the older armies have had improvements on their basic firearms (again, except for IG...sensing a trend here).

Orks got worse, what with originally using Imperium weapons, losing that access, and going down to BS2 (they used to be 3 and 4!)

Orks were actually a BETTER shooting army than Guard and Marines in 4th because Shoota Boyz actually get 2 shots at 18" whereas Guard or Marines would have to stand still in order to fire a single shot at 24" or 2 shots at 12".

They're not nearly as good now thanks to change in the main rulebook of course.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

The basic bolter hasn't changed any either, but most of the older armies have had improvements on their basic firearms (again, except for IG...sensing a trend here).

Orks got worse, what with originally using Imperium weapons, losing that access, and going down to BS2 (they used to be 3 and 4!)

But Orks got much better at being, well, being Orks. 2nd edition Orks couldn't assault their way out of a wet paper bag with a hole in it. 3rd turned them into a true dedicated assault army, with bumps in the statline where it counted.

4th edition made the shoota useful (prior to that codex, who took shoota boyz?). Assault 2 at 18" in the hands of a mob of orks is a bit more useful than a rapid fire bolter. Oddly enough, now slugga boyz are the odd troop unit out because the extra range and mobile firepower are better in 6th than an extra attack.

 vossyvo wrote:
I don't think the new Space Marine codex release will be what actually saves the marine at the moment. I think it will be brining the horde army codexs out quickly to push the meta into a place where certain armies will consider bringing more small arms fire to deal with the model count they are facing. Once we see more small arms fire the Marine toughness and armour saves comes into play more often.

This!!!

Drop in a few pods full of sternguard with BA libby's on any Xenos, 60 poison rounds with a re-roll on successful saves (divination) will take most of the oomph the Xenos codex's have gotten in 6ed right out of the equation. As for bladestorm and Tau defensive fire, heavy flamers clear the mind of the alien quite nicely.

Apart from being allowed to purchase chapter tactics without having to field a specific special character, I play Raven Guard and HATE Shrike. There are only a few things that I think the Marines need.

1. Give tac squads the option of one special or heavy at 5 models, at ten they unlock a special. So they can do either the SW build or the reg Tac build without allowing the 6 strong lascannon/plasmagun squads we saw in 3ed. This is so much better than the 10 or nothing squads we have now. Doesn't have to be free upgrades, just let them be task specific.
2. Bike mounted captains currently allow bike squads as troops. Expand this to jump packs and TDA. Would allow for a lot of the toys to come out without having to dump a fourth of your army into troop choices your play style may not want.

And most importantly.

3. GIVE FRIGGIN VANGUARD VETS JUMP PACKS AS PART OF THE BASE 25PT COST! I love these guys, and still sneak them into a list when I get the chance. But dropping 100 points into packs to get a squad of 10 on the table with just an AP3 power weapon on the sgt makes them an almost unacceptable point sink. I play mine out of spite, I like them. /shrug

Personally, I'd like to see Tactical squads be allowed to take either 2 heavy or 2 special weapons or 1 of each, instead of JUST 1 of each like now.

That, and either:
A) make bolters assault 2 (will never happen) (or just give them storm bolters like GK)
B) give them another CCW
C) give them counterattack (again, won't happen)

Then, transport is probably the biggest problem, rhinos are cheap but slow, easily popped, and aren't assault vehicles. GW doesn't need to address all three of those issues to make them good, but it'd be nice to see them do something there.

Land Raiders and Stormravens are just too expensive to be ferrying standard 3+ power armor marines into combat.

Allowing apothecaries to break off into squads would certainly help with survivability, but I somehow doubt that happens, since that's the BA thing, along with fast vehicles.


Or better than all of that, how about they just tweak Sternguard to 23pts/model (in line with Thousand Suns), and Vanguard base cost to 25pts/model WITH a jump pack (and maybe WS5, if they're feeling generous), make them troops, and then make the Rhino an assault vehicle (or new STC, the Hippo).

I don't think they'll do much though. If they do anything except drop the points by 2 per guy, I'll be surprised.

EDIT: Whoa, dracpanzer said a bunch of the same things 34 seconds before I did. Cool.