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Hi guys

With many xenos troop choices now having fairly good standard weapons
•crons can glance on 6's
•tau range 30 s5
•eldar bladestorm
• hell even the lasgun is pretty effective when used with orders and weight of fire

Do you think the Bolter needs a buff be it even a small one to bring it up to the levels of xenos troops

I mean the problem is its damage out put from a tactical squad isn't brilliant but yet stern guard do quite well with the special ammo

What do you guys think ??

It's not the boltgun. It's the whole marine battle plan now. 3+ armor soliders with gak vehicles isn't cutting it anymore.

Bolters don't need a buff because space marines are supposed to be generalists, not equal to the shooting-specialized xenos armies. It's an adequate weapon, and that's all that marines deserve. Just be glad you have better than a flashlight.

Bolters are fine. It's just that the meta is heavily stacked against MEQ armies right now.

I reckon it would be awesome if they had custom ammo layouts for different targets. Before the game you choose the ammo types for each squads bolter weapons. Kinda like the gun on that judge dredd movie except you get one round type.

I dont overly care if they dont need it but i think iw would be awesome. Not that i do marines.

 Peregrine wrote:
Bolters don't need a buff because space marines are supposed to be generalists, not equal to the shooting-specialized xenos armies. It's an adequate weapon, and that's all that marines deserve. Just be glad you have better than a flashlight.

At 15 points a model, it's not a "be glad you have" situation. It's a "damn right I have this, and frankly this is the bare minimum" situation.

But yeah, bolters are fine. It's MEQ as an army that need help.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
But yeah, bolters are fine. It's MEQ as an army that need help.

How do they need help (I'm not challenging you here, I'm just interested to here your thoughts)?

Bolters are great.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
But yeah, bolters are fine. It's MEQ as an army that need help.

How do they need help (I'm not challenging you here, I'm just interested to here your thoughts)?

They need either a way to survive the wound spam of Eldar/Tau better or a better way to hit back at range. Because assault might as well not exist right now.

They need 36 inch range.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
But yeah, bolters are fine. It's MEQ as an army that need help.

How do they need help (I'm not challenging you here, I'm just interested to here your thoughts)?

Well from my thoughts, when I'm pulling off my CSM in the same numbers as my cultists to the same weapon, that statline and 3+ aint pulling it's weight anymore.

Marines (all marines) need some sort of lesser FNP and if bolters got the stormbolter statline and they became assault 3, then I think it would bring the PA lists back up to top tier.

Though I'm fine with them being middle of the road.

No buff to the bolter will fix the marines' matchup problems against Xeno firepower. S4 shots with no pseudo rending are just weak sauce.

Bolters are less junk since rapid fire is less awful now. I always love how the 'generalists' thing comes up. Only problem is marines suck at everything atm. Only thing that made them worth it in 5th was cheap boxes and not dying easily so now...yeah

That's also a weird thing. Marines aren't generalists. They're an army of elites (at least from a fluff perspective).

They don't really need a better gun since they're shooting at squishier targets most of the time.

Bolters are fine, the game isn't. Power creep has made a lot of "normal gear" less effective.

The biggest concerns an army has to plan for is AV13+, MCs, Fliers, and other Melee Gods. A Bolter firing line isn't the solution for any of these (unless you had a ridiculous amount of bolters, which would be point expensive to bring that many marines).

On a side, I was able to wound a GUO this weekend on Overwatch with 6 bolt pistols! Still lost, but hey!

Martel732 wrote:
No buff to the bolter will fix the marines' matchup problems against Xeno firepower. S4 shots with no pseudo rending are just weak sauce.

That's not true at all, but no SANE fix will fix marine problems. I mean, if the bolter was S10 and assault 25, that would probably do it, but is clearly insane.

The problem with marines is that they are 14 points each, and they are pay 75% of their points for defensive stats, and 25% for offensive, but in the current meta, the majority of their expensive defensive stats are ignored. S6/S7 spam ignores the points they've paid for T4, and all those AP3 weapons out there are ignoring the points you've paid for your expensive power armor....so they are left with the effectiveness (against a lot of weapons) of about a 6-7 point model....which is crap for 14 points. It's very similar to the problem tyranids faced when the Dark Eldar book was upgraded. The VAST majority of the codex ignored the excessive amount of points the tyranid paid for their increased toughness, I mean, a 280 point swarmlord had the same survivabilty to Dark eldar weapons fire as 5 sisters of battle worth ~60 points. That's dumb.

Look at the most basic model you can, a naked human stat line of mostly 3s straight across. This is worth ~2-3 points.
A guardsman get his orders, lasgun and flak armor for 5 points.
A henchman with a bolter is 5 points.

So we know we can get a boltgun on the table for 5 points, which means marines are paying 9 points (basically tripling their cost) for power armor, frag and krak grenades, ATSKNF and the bump from mostly 3s to 4s. True, it's more than a 3 fold increase in staying power to small arms, but it's only a TINY increase in the damage output comparatively...which is the crux of the problem. When you triple something in cost, your have to triple is damage output AND staying power. In 40k, it's almost ALWAYS better to do more damage than to pay for mediocre staying power increases, it's just how the game plays out these days.

Look how long it takes a marine to kill equal points of the following;

Imperial guardsman (5 points, need to kill 2.8); 6.3 bolter shots, 9.45 if they are in cover.
Termigant (4 points, need to kill 3.5); 7.8 bolter shots, 11.8 if they are in cover.
Space marine (14 points, need to kill 1 ); 9 bolter shots, cover doesn't matter
Fire warrior (9 points, need to kill 1.55); 7 bolter shots, cover doesn't matter

As you can see, that bolter marine basically needs 3-6 turns of double tapping the boltgun into enemy troops to offset his investment. Sure, you can round all those numbers down a bit because they are also contributing by being a scoring unit, and sure, that krak grenade barrage might kill the odd lemun russ, or carnifex, or whatever but those would be odd situations. Basically, it's almost impossible for a basic bolter marine to offset his investment via killing the enemy. I mean, if your whole army was of equal "quality" as these guys, I don't see how you could ever win a game. You can run the math for the other troops, and I think you will find they they all come out significantly better off than your basic tactical marine.

If we are going to "fix" the humble bolter marine, upping the damage on the bolter isn't the way to do it IMO. It would destabilize the game too much, eg, bolter henchmen would get completely out of hand, and things like the Land Raider Crusader and bolter-banner affected dark angels would see unexpected returns on the change. Honestly, the best fix I can think of at the moment is to allow tactical marines/chaos boys, as a special rule, to fire 2 shots at max range if they don't move. That was the "rapid fire" rule in 2nd edition, and it should be enough, especially consider they are often stuck standing still for their heavy weapon anyways. This wouldn't overpower bikes, henchmen, hurricane bolters or the Dark Angel bolter banner boys in the process either.

Things like Tau Pulse Rifles need to be brought in line with other standard issue shooti - 24" range guns are the standard. at 30" and 15" rapid fire, giving them that + Str 5 is a kick in the ball-berrings to all other races when you factor in the amount of CHEAP FIREPOWER you can stack with just a simply troop choice...

Look at Noise Marines for CSM... easily the best basic shooting on a marine you can get for the army... EASILY... and how much do they cost? More than a land raider for a squad of 10... MORE... at 10 members 2 Blast masters 7 Sonic Blasters, and FNP on an illogical piece of paper attached to a pole (That disappears if you shoot it) you're looking at 291 point.... That's also if you don't want to upg your ASP. CHAMP. to have anything besides a CCW. Throw the Doom Siren in for another 15 points, add a LC, 15 points.. or nothing.

Fact simply is, where your weapons are cheap AND effective, there is a problem when your entire troop choice can run around with str 5 30" guns. 108 Points for 12 of these...

I WISH my Noise Marines didn't cost 21+ points a model depending if you want them as your troop choice, or not, factor in the lord you have to take with them... 65+15.. so divide that 80 points into your Marines because he's literally not going to be used as anything BUT that simply unlocking of your cult to Troop. So... 29 points a model? No thanks, I'll take the fish-heads.

 Peregrine wrote:
Bolters don't need a buff because space marines are supposed to be generalists, not equal to the shooting-specialized xenos armies. It's an adequate weapon, and that's all that marines deserve. Just be glad you have better than a flashlight.

But you flashlight can be taken buy guys that are the same bs as marines and also you get orders to double or even triple your shots and I dread to think what's going to happen with the new codex

@H.B.M.C but that's the thing they really arnt anymore

@the custom line

That could be a good idea but pay for 1 type of sternguard ammo I.e.
Ap3 30pts or 3 points per
Poisoned 25pts
Ignore cover 15 Pts
30" range 20 points

??

And the 36" range wouldn't play well ( even though a Bolter can shoot at up to 1000m) it would turn marines into the new tau

I don't have a problem with their survivability most of the time I do hate their damage output though I think they just need that extra something to help them stand toe to toe with the enemy that easily bring down the gates these days

GoliothOnline wrote:
Things like Tau Pulse Rifles need to be brought in line with other standard issue shooti - 24" range guns are the standard. at 30" and 15" rapid fire, giving them that + Str 5 is a kick in the ball-berrings to all other races when you factor in the amount of CHEAP FIREPOWER you can stack with just a simply troop choice...

Well yeah, but that's kind of stating the obvious. Of course the pure shooting army is going to have the best shooting troops. They're supposed to be better than everyone else in that area, and they pay for it with limited durability and a complete inability to do anything besides die in the assault phase.

2 disadvantages that mean almost nothing in the current meta.

Any assault unit that can feasibly survive long enough to get into close-combat with Tau and destroy them will be powerful enough to destroy MEQ just as easily (thanks, smash), thus the increased durability and CC prowess they pay for means nothing.

Any army that can shoot tau off the board can shoot MEQ off the board just as easily, thus the increased durability they pay for means nothing.

The problem is indeed the meta. With volume of fire and access to AP3+ weaponry being what it is, MEQ might as well just be 15 point hybrids between Guardsmen and Firewarriors; stronger than the former and weaker than the latter.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Any assault unit that can feasibly survive long enough to get into close-combat with Tau and destroy them will be powerful enough to destroy MEQ just as easily (thanks, smash), thus the increased durability and CC prowess they pay for means nothing.

Sounds like you aren't playing with enough LOS blocking terrain if non-MC assault units have no chance of surviving to get into combat.

With volume of fire and access to AP3+ weaponry being what it is, MEQ might as well just be 15 point hybrids between Guardsmen and Firewarriors; stronger than the former and weaker than the latter.

Not even close to true. AP 3- weapons aren't all that common compared to AP 4+ weapons. Just look at the common lists: Tau spam missile pods and pulse rifles and only really get mass AP 2/3 from their Riptides and tanks, while Eldar spam scatter lasers and serpent shields. Sure, there are shooting death stars that laugh at MEQs, but the rest of the army still exists you know.

You only have to look at tournament results to see that marines arnt exactly doing well unless you copy and paste a grav bike army.

I for one don't think there survivability is the problem I think there low damage output for a 200pt unit is the problem.

Although yes the current state also bashes the marines into submission with tau and eldar blatantly being made to kill marines they need an edge to bring them back up to par.

I used to play marines for fun and I can't even do that anymore because of how easy it is to table marines makes me want to permanently shelf them. And with the new guard and ork codex coming out my poor Astartes are cowering in fear of what's to come

 Peregrine wrote:
Sounds like you aren't playing with enough LOS blocking terrain if non-MC assault units have no chance of surviving to get into combat.

Nice try. 1. This doesn't actually address my point at all, since I didn't assert that *only* MC's can get into close combat, rather they're a good example of the type of unit you commonly see that are fast enough and durable enough to get there, and when they do there is no difference between a 15-point marine a 4-point hormagaunt. 2. That being said, how many non-MC assault units do you commonly see in a competitive environment that aren't apart of a deathstar? List them.

Not even close to true. AP 3- weapons aren't all that common compared to AP 4+ weapons. Just look at the common lists: Tau spam missile pods and pulse rifles and only really get mass AP 2/3 from their Riptides and tanks, while Eldar spam scatter lasers and serpent shields. Sure, there are shooting death stars that laugh at MEQs, but the rest of the army still exists you know.

AP3 might not be *as common* as AP4, but it doesn't NEED to be. Why? Because MEQ armies by nature don't have as many models on the board as 4+ save armies. The AMOUNT of AP3 and volume-of-fire has risen steadily through 5th and 6th edition, but the amount of MEQ you can put on the board hasn't risen by a comparable amount.

And let's not try to downplay the rise of AP3 here. We have an entire ARMY that just got pseudo-rending for free. Calm down bro.

Plus there's also a fair amount of AP2, which gets the job done just as fast.

A lighter version of Sternguard ammo would do it. 4+ poison instead of 2+ etc.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
2. That being said, how many non-MC assault units do you commonly see in a competitive environment that aren't apart of a deathstar? List them.

I have no idea, because there isn't really a competitive environment that has sufficient LOS blocking terrain. Tournaments usually have lots of big open fields where gunlines can dominate because the TOs don't have access to enough terrain to make proper tables for everyone.

AP3 might not be *as common* as AP4, but it doesn't NEED to be. Why? Because MEQ armies by nature don't have as many models on the board as 4+ save armies. The AMOUNT of AP3 and volume-of-fire has risen steadily through 5th and 6th edition, but the amount of MEQ you can put on the board hasn't risen by a comparable amount.

It might be rising, but it's still limited to heavy/special weapons. A MEQ army is still going to take a lot of hits that it gets its T4 and armor save against, and that makes a big difference in durability compared to T3/4+ fire warriors or T3/no-save GEQs. Plus, the amount of melee AP 3 hasn't changed all that much and charges with anything short of a death star involve lots of STR 3/4 AP- attacks.

And let's not try to downplay the rise of AP3 here. We have an entire ARMY that just got pseudo-rending for free. Calm down bro.

At short range, with squishy infantry units. Even against Eldar you're still going to face large amounts of AP 4+ weapons, and even against rending weapons a 3+ save is still useful against the 2/3 of the wounds that aren't AP 2.

 Peregrine wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Any assault unit that can feasibly survive long enough to get into close-combat with Tau and destroy them will be powerful enough to destroy MEQ just as easily (thanks, smash), thus the increased durability and CC prowess they pay for means nothing.

Sounds like you aren't playing with enough LOS blocking terrain if non-MC assault units have no chance of surviving to get into combat.

This I have to actually agree with. I haven't got into the hobby yet, but I'm used to other miniature games (and realistic RTS's), and cover is very important to any game involving cover saves, and if peoples' tables are similar to those I keep see in batraps, yeah, they're in a sorry state. And it obviously isn't an issue about the price. If I wanted, I could march down to Target and practically buy stock in crayola clay and mass-produce rocks and rubble like mad for a table to provide a large amount of cover to aid everyone.

The fact that there is little cover doesn't even make sense with the W40K narrative, which is largely urban combat unless it's a fortress on a death world or an agri world. There's no reason why there should be just nine or less pieces of cover slapped on the table and everything called a day. Seriously. It isn't hard at all to model rocks, ditches, trenches, rubble, etc for dirt cheap.

Large number of high strength AP4 shots will do the trick. Or do you imply that e.g. scatter laser is not feared?

Let's face it, SM won't ever get such boosts as the xenos can have. Dark Angels codex being out first sort of tied the hands and codex power creep did not help.

I shall point at the bikers with T5, where their armor rarely comes to play for their saves. And we know how useful jink saves are against Eldar and Tau.

Unfortunately the bolter itself can't be fixed, but I like the idea of using special ammo. That said, I don't see it ever happening.