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 Frozen Ocean wrote:
As has been stated, the purpose of this proposition is that Marines aren't good enough for their points. I don't know how it devolved into a realism discussion, but we should remember the crunch part.

That said, things like Ion Accelerators should still invalidate Marines, as it is effectively a large tank weapon.

EDIT:

Martel732 wrote:
Heavy weapons are all the Eldar pack nowadays. There are no "light" weapons in the lists I face.

That is, unfortunately, not a failing on the Marines' part. Honestly the only real answer to that is to bring fewer Marines.

Fewer marines? Or more marines? Because there's not really that much in C:SM that stands up to massed S6/7 very well. Including most of our "tanks". And by "tanks" I mean cracker boxes.

I didn't say that there was some easy alternative to it, just that heavy weapons are always going to be effective against infantry. The solution isn't to make Space Marine infantry able to stand up to such powerful weapons, but to give them some form of actually viable heavy unit. Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders and Predators are all mediocre. Terminators especially only really useful when used to bully things weaker than them; they're not good enough at "tanking" to take the amount of firepower your average enemy force will throw at them with ease. The toughest thing the SM Codex can field is a Land Raider - 200pts. Not only do the Tau have Riptides which are cheaper and better in every way (except transporting, but nobody cares), but the Tau also have access to actually good tanks/Heavy Support options in the Hammerhead and even the Broadside, while Marines have literally no good tanks (the Predator is a joke).

Funnily enough, you can achieve essentially what you wanted by using Iron Hands Chapter Tactics in the current Codex to get a 6+ FNP.

EDIT: You know, running Sniper Scouts might actually be decent. Rending spam for a bit cheaper than regular Marines. May as well wear a t-shirt if your power armour is irrelevant.

Yes, it's mathematically close. But even BA with 5+ FNP are being massacred. Maybe making marine heavies better would do the trick. I don't have the answer.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

This isn't a problem. You're just assuming that the MEQ stat line should give you awesome protection against even the heaviest weapons, instead of just being good defense against basic weapons like bolters/lasguns/etc. You pay those points so that your opponent has to use heavy weapons to kill your basic troops effectively.

Big, nasty strawman. I never said that the MEQ statline should give 'awesome protection against even the heaviest weapons'. That is just your own imagination running rampant, and I'd prefer if you can get it under control as I'm not interested in debating your fantasies.

This. I've said it a few times, but again, this is a TWO on a six failing. As has happened in the two games we've tested so far, the overall effect of this is minimal, and barely noticeable, but better. A high tier army is still going to plow through the marines almost as fast as they do now. 17% better survivability against high strength weapons is not "marine fanboy wanting his troops to be immortal" territory. It's literally the smallest possible push. Unless you have dice that roll halves or thirds or something.

If you think this change is going to be "OMG HELL NO YOU CRAZY FANBOY! THAT'S WAY TOO OP" Feel free to playtest and report results.


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 Frozen Ocean wrote:
I didn't say that there was some easy alternative to it, just that heavy weapons are always going to be effective against infantry. The solution isn't to make Space Marine infantry able to stand up to such powerful weapons, but to give them some form of actually viable heavy unit.

33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."

It's "scraping by a little better."

Some of the people ITT seem to not be grasping that. In both games I've tested, the rule has actually been applied to discount a wound approximately 6 times per marine ARMY per ENTIRE GAME.

One extra side on the d6 is not much. Go ask ork players if they really give a damn if their lootas need to move and snap shot or just shoot normally. Most of them will tell you if the possible target is juicy enough, they'll move and snapshot for it any day of the week.

Finally got in a game against a triple-dip riptide tau with markerlight and ionhead sprinkles, while I was BA assault marine spam with hidden centers of librarians and priests, making this probably one of the most one-sided matches possible. (I told him it was ok since I wanted to see what happened when I was up against that much save-ignoring high str firepower.) Oh, and he went first and I failed to seize.

Turn 1: I ignored 6 ignore-armor-ignore-cover wounds, but still had massive casualties. One jump unit ran EIGHTEEN inches and left the board after a decent IA shot. (I did combat squad alllll over the place just to make him waste excess wounds from wound pools more often, since we were on emperor's will. -_-
Turn 2: I ignored 3 more ignore-armor-ignore-cover wounds. My forces are thinned, but I at least managed to cut down on some markerlight numbers with a few deep strikes.
Turn 3: Ignored 1 more that wouldn't have allowed armor or cover, and I was down to one and a half squads that made it to combat with some kroot, and some scouts hiding behind BLOS on my objective. Granted I'm losing because of first blood and WL kill anyway, but it'll be nice to at least hold my objective. With that in mind, my ASM's are just trying to stop his army from going over and snacking on the minimum set of scouts that I snagged with leftover points. (They didn't do too badly, considering they rended two wounds off a riptide on turn 1, before retreating to my objective.)
Turn 4: No wounds ignored, everyone but hiding scouts and a libby, priest, sarge, and single marine wiped. I DID down the most wounded riptide though.
Turn 5: Obvious slaughter of the 4 PA models that were now out of combat in the middle of his army. Hoping game ends to keep some VP/dignity.
Turn 6: scouts murdered. Tabled.

Yeah about par for the course in that matchup. All told I had 10 marines NOT die to markerlighted ionization due to rolling a 2 to wound through the whole game, in a game where my army was virtually all marines and his was heavy on save/cover ignoring high str firepower, so the prime example for a stress-test of this rule.

And the marines were still slaughtered to the man. >.> But the rule seems like a step in the right direction! It was like I had approximately 180 more points worth of marines thanks to it.

Martel732 wrote:
Yes, it's mathematically close. But even BA with 5+ FNP are being massacred. Maybe making marine heavies better would do the trick. I don't have the answer.

As i've suggested once, add FNP 5+ and bolters being rapid fire 2/3 (or salvo 2/3), price them correctly - like 16-17 pts for a tactical marine (2-3 pts for fnp, 2 pts for better bolter) . And they are oki again, not over the top, not shifting meta too hard but look more fluffy and act good.

Yep, they'll still die to same things they die now but all basic troops have problems in current ruleset bar few exceptions. Especially offensive and mid-ranged. And mellee-oriented basic troops are even worse on their own. The point is, if you're adding buffs, they mustn't be free.

How would you change Apothecaries, IH CT, Plague Marines, Icon of Excess etc?

Apothecaries, Plagues, Icon: Improve FnP save by +1.

Iron Hands: 6+ WBB in addition to FnP.

What if there were several rules akin to "...And they shall know no fear" that a player could choose to take instead? For example:

"Survival Instincts" - all Space Marine infantry models are allowed to take cover saves regardless of what weapon they are being attacked with. This includes weapons that would cause Instant Death or otherwise ignore armor saves. The unit must then take a morale test.

Or something like that. Either way, it increases the survivability of infantry and the loss of ATSKNF is pretty major, so I think something along these lines could work.


.

Survival Instincts is very much not something I'd associate with Astartes.

And you get cover saves against armour-ignoring weapons and ID weapons anyway, so what would be the point?...

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Survival Instincts is very much not something I'd associate with Astartes.

And you get cover saves against armour-ignoring weapons and ID weapons anyway, so what would be the point?...

Anti-markerlight rule

But hey, SM certainly do have survival instincts! If you've read the HH novels then there are tons and tons of instances where said marines use their heads to avoid throwing their lives away. One of my favorites was the WE captain Skrall hiding inside the WB battleship Furious Abyss - he employed guerrilla tactics for what seemed liked weeks inside that thing while avoiding and running from large groups of WB marines.

I wouldn't improve plague marines other than with a better bolter like i've proposed. Right now they cost +11 pts over regular csm iirc. This includes MoN, Fearless, FNP, Blight nades, 4+ poisoned blades but -1 Ini. All this stuff is well worth their pts if you ask me. So i'd just give them improved bolters for +1/+2 pts from what they cost now.

Don't know if +1 fnp is a good way to go. Though Miko's interpretation of WBB rule for marines is a great idea! Maybe, apothecaries and icons could give it. 5+ or 6+. It all requires some appropriate mathhammer to decide.

Markerlights ignore cover, not armour.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Markerlights ignore cover, not armour.

Exactly. Read the suggested rule I wrote again...

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
This includes weapons that would cause Instant Death or otherwise ignore armor saves.

Why even bother to mention this, then?

With a rule like that, I always find it better to state something specific than leave it ambiguous. I remember being confused about Necron Warscythes back when I was still playing that army because of the wording of invulnerable saves vs the Warscythe's ability to ignore all armor saves, including invulnerable ones. This actually caused arguments several times in a few of my games, so I just always try to be as specific as possible. Obviously I'm not a game designer and the rule would be re-written to the same effect, but I came up with it in 30 seconds, so it's not perfect by any means.

Martel732 wrote:
Yes, it's mathematically close. But even BA with 5+ FNP are being massacred. Maybe making marine heavies better would do the trick. I don't have the answer.

This problem is a mix of the fact that you pay a simply RIDICULOUS amount to take one squad with a Sanguinary priest which is how you access that 5+ FNP and that that FnP roll is discounted by Instant Death weapons.

Now it is good that the Sanguinary priest can hand this buff out to multiple squads (if you clump them together) and he gives out Furious charge as well, actually kind of maybe making Assault marines competent on the charge (Assault marines receiving the charge will lose against any unit that actually wants to charge them since they are almost just Tactical marines, but I digress) thus splitting up the cost among more marines and lowering their ppm but the fact of the matter is that we still pay a premium to add that modicum of survivability that gets discounted by str 8+ weapons (which are usually AP3 or better) anyway.

So a marine should survive an Orbital Bombardment 1/3rd of the time? A direct hit. Which levels buildings, tanks, etc. A marine should survive that... why? Simply because it's a marine?

In that case, my Riptide should always hit, because it's a Riptide.

 liquidjoshi wrote:
So a marine should survive an Orbital Bombardment 1/3rd of the time? A direct hit. Which levels buildings, tanks, etc. A marine should survive that... why? Simply because it's a marine?

In that case, my Riptide should always hit, because it's a Riptide.

Now you're being intentionally obtuse.

A Conscript does not parry every third attack an Avatar or Bloodthirster makes.

The game mechanics are abstract, so odd scenarios like the one you mention can be sacrificed.

No offense.

Saying "No offense" doesn't excuse it.

And neither scenario that I mentioned is odd. If a marine should just naturally be able to survive an Orbital bombardment better than, say, Ogryns or Orks, then my Riptide should just hit. Because reasons.

Justify to me why a marine should be more resilient to an OB than an Ork or Ogryn. Because, while it is abstract and silly sometimes, that doesn't justify creating more silly situations.

 liquidjoshi wrote:
So a marine should survive an Orbital Bombardment 1/3rd of the time? A direct hit. Which levels buildings, tanks, etc. A marine should survive that... why? Simply because it's a marine?

In that case, my Riptide should always hit, because it's a Riptide.

There is no always. If you markerlighted your riptide up to BS10, then you would hit 97% of the time. A ratling already survives an orbital bombardment 17% of the time, as does a gretchin, a human infant, a guardsman, a marine, a marine character who fails his invuln, or a tyranid warrior. A necron, assuming the squad doesn't get completely wiped, survives it an alarming 44% of the time, or 58% if there's a res orb present. If you get a nice cover ignoring blast on normal necrons while they have a res orb hanging out in back, you will kill less than half that you hit with anything short of strength D. Bear in mind that a necron warrior costs less than a tactical marine, and while he doesn't sport a 3+ save, atsknf and 4 initiative, he does have a better gun (that can hurt a land raider!) and max leadership.

Again, I refer you back to the baby example. If a baby enters close combat with you and throws a weak little baby punch, he will hit you on a (let's assume for hilarity that you have marine stats IRL) 5, wound you on a 6, and then you will die 1/3 of the time from that hit. After figuring in your ACTUAL REAL LIFE POWER ARMOR, you will die 4% of the time a baby flails at you. If 50 babies attack you, by odds you're dead. It only takes 25 if they get the charge. As a side note, you MISS the baby 33% of the time when striking back, and despite your overwhelming strength and killing intent, it still manages to live 17% of the time, totalling to a 55% chance that you will kill a baby with your attack. Oh, and you can only kill one baby per round, so all the others get to attack again. (This example is hilarious.)

WARHAMMER DOES NOT WORK ON REALISM. IT MIMICS IT. Eventually they have to drop part of the realism to actually have a game, or we'd have to call in a local physics professor to judge every match. I could go on and on about all the stupidly ridiculous situations that can come up in 40k in like 10%ish odds that, in real life, would literally be one-in-a-billion. Yes, if we were operating on realism, the shooting would be incredibly OP, and every silly crazy-advanced-tech gun would instantly kill anything it hit, and they'd have all kinds of targeting software that makes you hit with a HELL OF A LOT MORE than 66% of your shots. And that's the elite shooters in the universe only hitting 2/3's of the time, mind you.

And yes. Simply because it's a marine. Or more elaborated, because it's a model that is paying much more for survivability than most of the other models, and the points being paid to that effect are not functioning. IE in the current game it would be a better deal to just pay 8ish points a man for marines with no armor, and swarm taudar bases with loincloth-sporting hordes of men.

Yes, if the current game didn't have loads of high str shots going all over the place, this rule wouldn't be necessary. But certainly you would agree that rummaging through each codex trying to dumb down all the high firepower is MUCH MUCH MUCH (x100000) harder than having a one line rule that says "you don't wound marines or chaos marines on 2's."

It's literally the simplest possible rule. One line, always the same effect. Anyone who isn't slowed can grasp the rule on the first reading and apply it correctly in game, without even trying, with no errors.

I'm open to marines and chaos marines getting some other ability that helps their survivability for their steep point cost. I figure the single uncomplicated line is probably one of the best options though.


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 liquidjoshi wrote:

Justify to me why a marine should be more resilient to an OB than an Ork or Ogryn. Because, while it is abstract and silly sometimes, that doesn't justify creating more silly situations.

A combination of many genetic implants increasing survivability, armor that is akin to wearing a light vehicle, and a steep point cost with not much else to show for it than the prior two pieces of info?

Nope.

Orbital bombardment cares not for these things.

All you've proven is that you want marines to survive, because they're marines. By that logic, Tau should always hit because they're Tau, Eldar should never count as being in LOS because they're Eldar, Necrons should get back up anyways because they're Necrons, Orks and Nids should be allowed to bring infinite models because They're Orks/Nids... see where I'm going here?

And really, I'm inclined to call in fanboyism when someone is arguing that a marine should flat out ignore an Orbital Bombardment, which can level buildings, make Land Raiders explode, and so on, simply by virtue of being a marine.

There's a point where it simply doesn't matter. Marines are tougher than other models; the meta has simply shifted so the guns that make that not matter are more prominent now.

Tl;DR: I disagree, shifting meta is the only "problem".

P.S. If you wouldn't mind not "shouting" at me (i.e. using all caps BECAUSE THEY MAKE COMMUNICATING IN A POLITE AND COURTEOUS MANNER SO EASY, RIGHT?), that'd be lovely, cheers

 liquidjoshi wrote:


And really, I'm inclined to call in fanboyism when someone is arguing that a marine should flat out ignore an Orbital Bombardment, which can level buildings, make Land Raiders explode, and so on, simply by virtue of being a marine.

And now you pull a Peregrine.

Asinine strawmen won't convince anyone.

An OB wounding on a 3+ is not 'flat out ignoring' it.

By the way, as niv says above, even with his change a human infant would have a greater chance of surviving a weapon strike from a Phantom Titan Power Glaive than a Marine would have of surviving an OB, lols.

Rationalise that away, my good sir.

33% chance of not dying over the typical 17% is NOT "flat out ignoring." You're strawmanning here and making it sound like a squad of marines will be pristine and untouched after an OB blast. I have playtest data that suggests otherwise. They still got slaughtered when I ran a jump marine list against what was pretty much a hard counter from tau. (But at least some scouts in hiding made it to turn 6 before getting murdered!)

You seem to be advocating the "apocalypse style" of the game, where anything that a blast template touches just vanishes. If that's so, why not just play that way? Just tell your LGS that if something is instadeath, there's no roll to wound to get rid of that pesky 17% survival. As long as you're not messing with my LGS's house rules, what do I care?

I don't enjoy "D-strength blasts everywhere" apocalypse gameplay. I think the middle-game, IE not kill teams and not apocalypse, is where I find the most fun. You could bring big toys, but troops still matter. Apocalypse makes a lot of non-super-heavies insignificant, unless it's a unit that's really really good at alpha striking a titan from reserve or something. (or a flyer, since those titans have a hilariously hard time with flyers!)
Unfortunately the high str guns prominence "meta-shift" that we've witnessed has moved the game closer to apocalypse gameplay style, where standard troops just get brushed off the table in droves, and can only contribute if they are good shooting, or have some gimmick giving them nigh immortality/we appear right in your face ability.

Also yep, yet another post calling marine fanboyism even when the rule in question also wants to help chaos.

If orks were the race paying as much as necrons for each man with no real offense, and a barely-functional focus on defense, I would be advocating this rule for orks instead sir. I don't actually care about the fluff, but I'd like to play a game where the players both get what they pay for in points, whether it's me or the guy on the other side of the table. And right now, one of the biggest offenders at failing at that is marine troops.

I find it very impolite to strawman to ridiculous extremes. The "logical conclusion" argument you put forth is quite ludicrous.

You admit yourself that the meta has shifted so that their increased survivability at an increased cost is largely superfluous. What would you give them in return for those wasted points then, that's easy to implement and doesn't require going through either all the marine codices or all the codices with the offending weapons, cherry picking specific things to change?

PS: I don't care what the internet thinks, I use caps in the same manner I use bold text, to draw attention to certain lines. In this case, a line that I've had to repeat several times now, since people keep trying to argue "muh realism" in a game that's about crazy space aliens and psychic humans. If you take offense to that, it's only your perception of it, not my intent.

niv-mizzet wrote:


33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."

It's "scraping by a little better."

That's a pretty big survivability boost, lets not trivialize this. If it were trivial, it wouldn't be advocated as a solution to a perceived problem. You're dropping effective casualties by 20% against such weapons, for what are generally already the hardiest basic troops in the game. That's not small, especially as an across-the-board thing.

 Vaktathi wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:


33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."

It's "scraping by a little better."

That's a pretty big survivability boost, lets not trivialize this. If it were trivial, it wouldn't be advocated as a solution to a perceived problem. You're dropping effective casualties by 20% against such weapons, for what are generally already the hardiest basic troops in the game. That's not small, especially as an across-the-board thing.

Necrons say sup.

 Vaktathi wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:


33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."

It's "scraping by a little better."

That's a pretty big survivability boost, lets not trivialize this. If it were trivial, it wouldn't be advocated as a solution to a perceived problem. You're dropping effective casualties by 20% against such weapons, for what are generally already the hardiest basic troops in the game. That's not small, especially as an across-the-board thing.

Do you have playtest data to contribute sir? In a 2k game against a list designed to "stress-test" this rule, where I brought only marine bodies, and the opponent had high str good AP shots in abundance, aka a hard-counter to my list, the rule saved me 10 wounds. I still got slaughtered to the man. I would've still had models on the table if the game had ended at turn 5, although still obviously lost by a large margin. If you were to assume that some of those 10 wounds would've caused him to get to my last remaining guys a little quicker, then you could reasonably assume that the rule moved me from tabled in 5 to tabled in 6.
Now granted, that's worth a whole 200 point jump assault squad, but this is a game where the rule came up about as often as possible. In the games with less high str weapons, it came up about 6 times per game, with some of those allowing armor saves. (thus by odds saving 3ish marines from otherwise-death in the whole game.)

I would argue that, after necrons, orks are the hardiest for their point cost, in our current game-state. Possibly daemons. Tough call there and lots of variables to consider.

edit: after a quick look, in terms of survivability for point-cost, I'd say only dark eldar troops, and the non-jetbike non-sniper troop choices from eldar are worse off, after being dumped out onto the field in this gamestate we have. And that's obviously with no special options taken. And those troops do still cost less and have other abilities to consider into their cost, IE they weren't costed FOR their survivability. Chaos basic marines are obviously neck and neck with the loyalists in this situation, and sisters are better than both, and cheaper. Guardsmen and cultists are super-cheap, so they rank up there...probably right near orks. They cost less, but have morale issues.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Apothecaries, Plagues, Icon: Improve FnP save by +1.

Iron Hands: 6+ WBB in addition to FnP.

6+ WBB is the old bionics wargear from 3e. it cost 10 points.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 liquidjoshi wrote:


And really, I'm inclined to call in fanboyism when someone is arguing that a marine should flat out ignore an Orbital Bombardment, which can level buildings, make Land Raiders explode, and so on, simply by virtue of being a marine.

And now you pull a Peregrine.

Asinine strawmen won't convince anyone.

An OB wounding on a 3+ is not 'flat out ignoring' it.

By the way, as niv says above, even with his change a human infant would have a greater chance of surviving a weapon strike from a Phantom Titan Power Glaive than a Marine would have of surviving an OB, lols.

Rationalise that away, my good sir.

If you could drop the condescending attitude on a game of plastic shootbangs, that'd be wonderful. Also, calling out users by name? At least attempt to remember rule 1 mate, cheers

I have no reason to engage with the rest of your argument.

 liquidjoshi wrote:


I have no reason to engage with the rest of your argument.

Well, you made your stance known, and, while I'm not sure of others, you have failed to convince me that it is the correct stance, as I found much of it to be built on a strawman argument. If you have nothing further, then we shall see you elsewhere on dakka. Happy gaming.