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Peregrine did exactly what you did previously in this thread, which is what I am referring to.

When you are 'inclined to call in fanboyism', then you're not following rule #1 very zealously yourself, now are you?

(Apologies if I appeared condescending btw, but after a while one tires of strawmen...)

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 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.

Necron Warriors however are considerably more vulnerable to common heavy anti infantry weapons and lack SM morale special rules and lack the wargear and initiative of a MEQ unit, and can be swept in combat and lose their ability to come back, while the units that have 3+saves are notably more expensive than tactical marines (and equivalents like devastators, assault marines, etc) in most cases.

niv-mizzet wrote:


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.

Marines however, even if not point for point as survivable, have many other advantages over most of these units. They have special morale rules, they don't need to stick to cover as much and can thus remain more mobile, they can be effective in both CC or shooting instead of just one or the other for most units. They can footslog, run in a tank transport, drop pod in, or come in via flyer, etc. These things all matter, and, ultimately, they're still not particularly fragile units, on average, you need 54 BS4 S6+ shots to kill a 10man MEQ squad (assuming no AP3). That's not an insignificant amount of firepower.

I would ask, why do marines, which are probably the toughest all-around troops in the game, need such a survivability boost? I *play* a marine army and have never felt this necessary. A 20% increase in survivability against heavy weapons is warranted...why? Some MEQ units have problems but their root isn't survivability, at least not anymore so than it is for other units, but rather their ability to engage their tactical flexibility has been hammered through changes to transport and assault rules (the whole "we can outfight what we can't outshoot and outshoot what we can't outfight"). Many other units in the game are expensive and are wounded on 2+ against S6/7+ weaponry. What tabletop necessity is there for Marines to get such an ability? High strength gun spam isn't new, it's just different cycling through different armies. If you could survive the multilaser and heavy bolter spam of 5E IG mech lists, I'm not seeing where 6E Tau or Eldar are worse for marine infantry in that regard.

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.

And yet, the basic Sisters squads are laughed at. Guardsmen and Cultists are cheap because they hit like wet noodles and are exceedingly easy to kill or break and are vulnerable to mass-removal cover-ignoring weapons in ways SM's generally are not. Chaos Marines have to pay up quite a bit if they want to be able to ignore morale as effectively as loyalists. Necrons are either even more expensive or are vulnerable to common anti infantry weapons in ways SM's are not.

The only issues really are with Eldar, Tau, and the core rules, and every army has issues with those things right now. If you're playing against another MEQ army, or something like DE, would such an ability really be seen as necessary? I don't think it would.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Peregrine did exactly what you did previously in this thread, which is what I am referring to.

When you are 'inclined to call in fanboyism', then you're not following rule #1 very zealously yourself, now are you?

(Apologies if I appeared condescending btw, but after a while one tires of strawmen...)

Liquidjoshi's stance was much more valid than Peregrine's (which was, essentially "No you are a Marine fanboy that is all", and I think block caps were involved). There is a point where one can be fair to "call in fanboyism"; the Orbital Bombardment example is an extension of things people have been saying the whole thread, the "hit an elephant and a mouse with a battle cannon shell, both have exactly the same chance to survive", etc. While I personally don't think fanboyism is involved, Liquidjoshi is entitled to his opinion and he has arrived at that conclusion through reasonable means. It's not breaching rule 1 to suggest that someone is being a fanboy. If the somone was arguing for Marines to have a 2+ rerollable armour save, T6, four Wounds, WS/BS 9, "because they're Marines, and Marines never die", would it be unfair to say that they are being a fanboy/girl? I'm not saying that the OP is, just that it's okay to call someone a fanboy if you have reasonable cause.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Peregrine did exactly what you did previously in this thread, which is what I am referring to.

When you are 'inclined to call in fanboyism', then you're not following rule #1 very zealously yourself, now are you?

(Apologies if I appeared condescending btw, but after a while one tires of strawmen...)

Liquidjoshi's stance was much more valid than Peregrine's (which was, essentially "No you are a Marine fanboy that is all", and I think block caps were involved). There is a point where one can be fair to "call in fanboyism"; the Orbital Bombardment example is an extension of things people have been saying the whole thread, the "hit an elephant and a mouse with a battle cannon shell, both have exactly the same chance to survive", etc. While I personally don't think fanboyism is involved, Liquidjoshi is entitled to his opinion and he has arrived at that conclusion through reasonable means. It's not breaching rule 1 to suggest that someone is being a fanboy. If the somone was arguing for Marines to have a 2+ rerollable armour save, T6, four Wounds, WS/BS 9, "because they're Marines, and Marines never die", would it be unfair to say that they are being a fanboy/girl? I'm not saying that the OP is, just that it's okay to call someone a fanboy if you have reasonable cause.

It remains uncalled for in this situation, since nobody is arguing for what you are saying.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Peregrine did exactly what you did previously in this thread, which is what I am referring to.

When you are 'inclined to call in fanboyism', then you're not following rule #1 very zealously yourself, now are you?

(Apologies if I appeared condescending btw, but after a while one tires of strawmen...)

Liquidjoshi's stance was much more valid than Peregrine's (which was, essentially "No you are a Marine fanboy that is all", and I think block caps were involved). There is a point where one can be fair to "call in fanboyism"; the Orbital Bombardment example is an extension of things people have been saying the whole thread, the "hit an elephant and a mouse with a battle cannon shell, both have exactly the same chance to survive", etc. While I personally don't think fanboyism is involved, Liquidjoshi is entitled to his opinion and he has arrived at that conclusion through reasonable means. It's not breaching rule 1 to suggest that someone is being a fanboy. If the somone was arguing for Marines to have a 2+ rerollable armour save, T6, four Wounds, WS/BS 9, "because they're Marines, and Marines never die", would it be unfair to say that they are being a fanboy/girl? I'm not saying that the OP is, just that it's okay to call someone a fanboy if you have reasonable cause.

I don't mind if marines get much more durable. Just saying that it must cost accordingly. Marines allready have lots of free buffs like chapter tactics, lessened pointcost, atsknf for basically 1 point. Just compare them to ork boyz. How much did a single marine cost in 4 edition? Around 15-17 iirc. And ork boy cost 6 pts. Now the same marine costs 13 pts and has chapter tactics. Ork boy still costs 6 and has nothing new. But the thing is that all this buffs to marines don't matter much when you're hit with such ammount of high-str shots.

Thus, i think that adding even extra free buffs for marines is not a way to go. If you're adding something - pay for it adequately. I just think that all this problems are here due to poor codex and core rules writing. Some things like riptides and wave serpents should cost more or be less deadly. Such things like random charges, overwatch, death of the closest should also shift the cost of all the units making ranged weapons more expensive like they should be. Can't you see that most ballance problems here are just from a wrong approach.
-"Here you go, shooty mobile guyz, get a free buff!"

The way it should be is:
-"We've made shooty mobile guyz deadlier. So they now cost a bit more/others cost a bit less".

J3f wrote:

 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.

Yes, exactly. Their bionics make them more durable than normal Marines. This is in response to a post asking what Iron Hands should get, if regular Marines get FnP.

Vaktathi wrote:And yet, the basic Sisters squads are laughed at. Guardsmen and Cultists are cheap because they hit like wet noodles and are exceedingly easy to kill or break and are vulnerable to mass-removal cover-ignoring weapons in ways SM's generally are not. Chaos Marines have to pay up quite a bit if they want to be able to ignore morale as effectively as loyalists. Necrons are either even more expensive or are vulnerable to common anti infantry weapons in ways SM's are not.

The only issues really are with Eldar, Tau, and the core rules, and every army has issues with those things right now. If you're playing against another MEQ army, or something like DE, would such an ability really be seen as necessary? I don't think it would.

Nobody who's actually played against basic Sisters squads laughs at them.

 Furyou Miko wrote:


Nobody who's actually played against basic Sisters squads laughs at them.

"They laughed at our squads, we laughed at their corpses."

 Vaktathi wrote:
Necron Warriors however are considerably more vulnerable to common heavy anti infantry weapons and lack SM morale special rules and lack the wargear and initiative of a MEQ unit, and can be swept in combat and lose their ability to come back, while the units that have 3+saves are notably more expensive than tactical marines (and equivalents like devastators, assault marines, etc) in most cases.

Yes, they have differences, however you are incorrect about immortals. They cost the same as core assault marines without a vet sergeant, and LESS than blood angel assault marines before considering the mandatory vet sergeant. They DO cost 3 points more than the new reduced price core tactical marine, without a vet sarge, however that 3 points buys you one of two extremely better guns. Many of their units don't have space marine equivalents without extreme changes, like being T5 relentless jump units for the devastators, so any comparison there is apples and moon rocks. Also, in this edition, NO ONE should be having trouble with large amounts of their crons being swept in combat. Unless you have a warscythe and MSS hiding in the unit, the troop units shouldn't be taking on tough combats, they should be shooting at them. Also they have Ld10 across the board, losing a combat by 1 or 2 shouldn't be a problem. If you have a unit get swept that you weren't just throwing away to hold up some guys, that would be a tactical error on the cron player's part.

I would ask, why do marines, which are probably the toughest all-around troops in the game, need such a survivability boost? I *play* a marine army and have never felt this necessary. A 20% increase in survivability against heavy weapons is warranted...why?

Y'know repeating the same question over and over doesn't actually help any.
To answer that single question, because both the meta and general game-design has shifted in such a way that marine survivability is underpowered, and is not worth the points being paid for it.

Considering that these are the basic troops of several armies, this is a bigger problem than "having a bad unit somewhere in the back of your codex that you never take." You MUST take at least two units of these guys, so EVERY marine offshoot list is running into this problem. You may not notice it, perhaps because your local metagame is calmer waters, or you just haven't thought about it. The reason that marines should get a slight situational boost is because they're the ones having the most points invalidated in the current game, and it's far far far simpler to modify just them with a one line rule than it is to go across EVERY CODEX readjusting the point values properly.
I was able to get my LGS to try out the one-line rule. There's no freaking way I can attempt to put up a 20 page errata for the game on the wall and expect people to try it.

Some MEQ units have problems but their root isn't survivability, at least not anymore so than it is for other units, but rather their ability to engage their tactical flexibility has been hammered through changes to transport and assault rules (the whole "we can outfight what we can't outshoot and outshoot what we can't outfight"). Many other units in the game are expensive and are wounded on 2+ against S6/7+ weaponry. What tabletop necessity is there for Marines to get such an ability? High strength gun spam isn't new, it's just different cycling through different armies. If you could survive the multilaser and heavy bolter spam of 5E IG mech lists, I'm not seeing where 6E Tau or Eldar are worse for marine infantry in that regard.

5th edition vehicles weren't made of paper, so they could reliably get the boys to the lines, even against a bunch of s6 multilasers. The difference there is that in the IG list, the marines weren't taking the hits, the rhinos and razorbacks were. Also heavy bolters aren't affected by this rule, so not sure why you mentioned them. Perhaps you misread it?
Now, anything AV 12 or less goes up in smoke after one movement phase unless it has crazy rules or silly range. But you're aware of this already, or, as I said, your meta must be a very peaceful place.

And yet, the basic Sisters squads are laughed at. Guardsmen and Cultists are cheap because they hit like wet noodles and are exceedingly easy to kill or break and are vulnerable to mass-removal cover-ignoring weapons in ways SM's generally are not. Chaos Marines have to pay up quite a bit if they want to be able to ignore morale as effectively as loyalists. Necrons are either even more expensive or are vulnerable to common anti infantry weapons in ways SM's are not.

Sisters: nope. You may be listening to people scoff at the idea or fluff of sisters, but good sisters armies perform very well right now. Cheap power armor, every squad fearless and rerolling saves in CC, a warlord that almost certainly lives twice, and IS going to get a very nice heavy flamer shot lined up at least once, and you can do jack-all to stop it, and invuln saves everywhere. I've proxied sisters a few times now since their digital update, and it's been a shut-out every time, even against a Khorne-dogs daemon list. The amount of close range firepower they can bring to bear is dizzying.

Cultists/guardsmen: nope. Virtually every game I see with lots of cultists or guardsmen, they end up stubbornly holding an objective while the opponent is unable to kill enough of them. The weak point of these squads is melee units that can REACH them and sweep them, and, surprise surprise, those are few and far between in today's game. You generally HAVE to allocate more resources than the guards/cultist unit cost to get rid of them. If you just try to even-steven it, like say a rhino with a partial squad of marines, you're going to lose that sub-battle. And then there's zombie cultists...the kings of holding ground. Won't even get into them.

Chaos marines: Also benefit from the rule.

Necrons: How are they MORE vulnerable? That flies in the face of math, sir. And I already went over the cost fallacy.

The only issues really are with Eldar, Tau, and the core rules, and every army has issues with those things right now.

That's quite a lot of issues that can be improved with a one-line rule.

If you're playing against another MEQ army, or something like DE, would such an ability really be seen as necessary? I don't think it would.

Against another MEQ army, they both have the rule, so it's a wash. Game plays the same as always. Both playtests that were marines vs. chaos (both have the rule remember?), both armies saved the exact same number of wounds (6 both games) due to the rule. And some of those allowed armor still, so they really would've only lost about 3 extra guys each.

Dark Eldar: The rule would barely come up in this matchup. Disint cannons are s5, so wounding on 3's anyway. 90% of their guns are poison 4+, so that's no different. The only things I can find is if they ignored any vehicles you might have and started dark lancing troops. In which case the other dark eldar players should be smacking him, for one, and only the guys actually shot at by a dark lance even have a chance for the rule to apply. I wouldn't be surprised if an entire DE vs. marine game went by without the rule coming up once.

As above, the armies that aren't high str lots of shots spammy aren't affected. The rule has specifically targeted what I viewed as the problem area, and left other areas of the game completely alone. I think marines SHOULD die to lasguns, bolters, splinters, and high-velocity bug-spawn as often as they do now. That part has no change.

(You'd think that if I was a marine fanboy, I'd want it the other way around, where they're virtually immune to small arms and need to be shot with anti-tank to kill.)

So far my group has now playtested the rule several times, and everyone has found it acceptable, so next saturday we're probably just going to make it a permanent house rule. But then again, I consider my gaming group to be much more open minded than dakka.

I'm tellin ya, if the rule was already in the game for the last couple editions, half the detractors in this thread wouldn't blink twice at it. It's just "new proposed rule" syndrome that makes people look at it in a vacuum and misjudge how effective it is.

Honestly, like 70% of C:SM sucks, with large amounts of things bypassing the #+ save and making the T4 useless. I like this rule.

Well, let's say we all agreed on the rule: "Marines can be wounded on 3+ at best".

How much more will they cost with this buff? +1 pts/+2 pts?

niv-mizzet wrote:
It's just "new proposed rule" syndrome that makes people look at it in a vacuum and misjudge how effective it is.

No, it's the complete pointlessness of it. So far you have yet to establish that there is any problem besides "I want my army to be more powerful", so the fact that you're only asking for a small improvement instead of a big one doesn't make it any more reasonable.

 Peregrine wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
It's just "new proposed rule" syndrome that makes people look at it in a vacuum and misjudge how effective it is.

No, it's the complete pointlessness of it. So far you have yet to establish that there is any problem besides "I want my army to be more powerful", so the fact that you're only asking for a small improvement instead of a big one doesn't make it any more reasonable.

Peregrine sir, you've made your stance that you believe "I'm only in it for personal gain and dont care about balance" known. I and others have addressed that stance. If you remain unconvinced, then you remain unconvinced.

The only points I could possibly add at this point are:

-that even the xeno players in my group think the rule is great, simple, and a step in the right direction.
And,
-that you haven't given the rule a chance by play testing it.

If neither of those help you to be a little more receptive to the proposed rule, then we're just going to have to disagree on the issue. Have a good day sir. And I'll see you elsewhere on the forum.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
Well, let's say we all agreed on the rule: "Marines can be wounded on 3+ at best".

How much more will they cost with this buff? +1 pts/+2 pts?

0. The point is that they are already paying a lot for survivability but aren't any more survivable than a gretchin against what I view as "the problem weapons." It wouldn't be a problem if those weapons were somewhat rare on the battlefield, but they have become quite common, thus spotlighting the problem for many people to see. Even several detractors of the rule in this thread agree to this logic.

Bear in mind that there is no change whatsoever to s5 and below, or to higher str if the marine in question has higher toughness, such as bikes, plague marines/nurgle marines, nurgle bikers, Mephiston, Cassius, TWC, etc.

So a lasgun can still headshot a marine the same as now. A DE disintegrator cannon can still mow marines down, etc.

In a game with ork green tide, IG blob squads, many DE lists, tyranid swarms, and several others, the rule will barely come up, if at all. Against any other marine army list, you both have it, so it's even handed there.
In games against the infamous tau/taudar, it should come up a few times, saving a couple marines here and there, and possibly giving the marine/chaos player just enough push to stand a chance.

I believe that the rule should be implied.

How about marines can only be wounded on 3+ (unless the roll would be higher or if the attack causes instant death).

Here's the problem as I see it.

Marines should be more resistant to small arms fire, but all the augmentation in the world isn't going to protect them from an explosive shell bigger than their own head.

This rule attempts to make them more vulnerable (comparitively) to small arms fire, and less vulnerable to being insta-gibbed by a weapon designed to kill tanks.

Space marines are walking tanks. Protecting them against anti-tank weapons specifically kinda defeats that.

Yeah, fluffwise that doesn't make sense, being tougher than a human being will not help you when you're been spread all over the battlefield in thousand little pieces.

Or your upper body has been disintegrated

Or the lascannon poked a hole through your helmet... and your head... and the other side of your helmet

Etc etc etc

Got in another game while using the rule. Chaos + some tau farsight enclave suits as allies against a razorback assault marine spam BA list with a corbulo/terminator squad in a raven.

Rule saved a total of 3 BA in the whole game. 2 would've gotten armor from missile pods shots, 1 would've gotten FNP from a plasma shot. So by odds, it saved me 1 marine in a 1200 point game, by all likelihood.

His plague marines, surprisingly, didn't benefit from the rule at all, even though by odds, they should've. Went after them with corbulo's thunder hammer squad, and the combat lasted a hilariously long 2.5 rounds. All of my failed wounds were 1's, not 2's, and he passed a ton of FNP's. (It wasn't until I had a libby prescience the termies that things started getting done.)

@miko.
I disagree. I don't think marines should be more resistant to small arms fire or standard weapons.

I think the section of the game involving marines and small arms fire works fine. T4 and 3+ save IS resilient and is also appropriate for the point cost of the marines when we're dealing with weapons in the 3-5 str range. IE almost all troop choice weaponry. An average of 18 BS3 lasgun/autogun shots to kill one marine is pretty stout already. I realize that in fluff, it should take exceptionally stronger shots, but we're talking on the tabletop here, not in the books. So no, I don't think they need any kind of buff there. Their defenses that they pay mucho points for ARE coming into play.

And the rule isn't meant to "protect" them from anti-tank weapons, it helps them in weathering them the slightest possible bit better than things half their point cost or less. This wouldn't be an issue if marines' cost were because they were offensive powerhouses carrying awesome guns way beyond the other basic troops, but that's not the case. The marines are paying for survivability. And when a substantial amount of things ignore that survivability, the marines are then overcosted.

IE its like paying extra for move through cover when your LGS plays on flat no terrain tables all the time. You just have points that are being taxed from you for no reason.

Now if you're talking about the fluff, then sure, go nuts. Single marines should be able to charge a full squad of autogun chaos cultists and completely murder them. But that's fluff, not tabletop.

@bob
If you have split an enemy into a thousand pieces, disintegrated their upper body, or scored a perfect headshot with a heavy weapon, it sounds like you rolled well to wound, like a five or six. It does NOT sound like you rolled a two, which is currently the BARE MINIMUM to score a kill.

If you ABSOLUTELY cannot live without a good fluffy way to describe the occurrence of a marine surviving a two-to-wound heavy weapon shot while it would've killed other, lesser-protected troops, then just imagine that the laser beam went right by his ribs and incinerated most of the power armor and his skin away, but he's still going on with high degree burns on his midsection. Or the krak missile exploding right by him has torn his armor to shreds, and now he has a concussion, and pieces of power armor are barely hanging on to him.

The dice rolls are abstract. You can describe them however you want. They aren't actually the important issue in this regard. I'm talking about points, point costs, and the performance that those costs demand.

You know when you roll a melta shot right into a marine, score a precision shot with your character, and then roll a 1 to wound?

How do you describe that in fluff?

However you do it, just think up something similar for the 2. Done and done.

You're not disagreeing with me at all. I said they should be more resistant to small arms fire.

I did however say that the rule as suggested does not have that effect.

Small arm's fire is very rarely the source of marine's problems. No one goes "Oh i'm going to buy 18 lasgun guardsmen (90 points) to kill a space marine", they think "ill buy 1 or 2 plasmaguns (maybe 30 points) to kill a space marine". Marines are durable enough against infantry level weapons that people train anti-tank weapons at them, which is where the problem comes from, since these weapons so often bypass the expensive 3+ armor and/or T4 they pay for.

Making them more resistant to small arm's fire just exacerbates this problem, as normal weapons will become even less effective, pushing people to aim yet more anti-tank weapons at the space marines to make an immediate impact, making the situation worse and worse. This really is a problem with pricing and availability of weapons rather than the stats of the marines, but that's a much harder problem to tackle. It may not make the most sense to make them more resistant to anti-tank weapons, but as a matter of balance i think its a step in the right direction.

That being said, this rule does double the probability of marines (and any other models who would receive it, cough tyranid warriors cough) surviving weapons that bypass their durability, while not buffing their survivability to truly ridiculous proportions. Definitely make sure this rule is bypassed by instant death though. If someone is willing to aim a S10 orbital strike on my marines, I'm perfectly fine with overkill of that level doing significantly more damage than weapons in the S6-7 range. This would remove the major benefit to tyranid warriors though...food for thought.

I would probably let it slide for no points as it's meant to correct a current problem with balance and is fairly minor, though i would much rather see it tied into a slight points cost increase (1-2 points) alongside some offensive buffs to make marines actually put out some good damage rather than just survive enemy fire while the elites and heavy support options handle most of the killing.

So really, you're saying the problem is that people are taking weapons that can kill Marines?

That's just silly.

No, he's saying that weapons in the S6-7 range are too good at killing them.

niv-mizzet wrote:

You know when you roll a melta shot right into a marine, score a precision shot with your character, and then roll a 1 to wound?

How do you describe that in fluff?

then just imagine that the laser beam went right by his ribs and incinerated most of the power armor and his skin away, but he's still going on with high degree burns on his midsection. Or the krak missile exploding right by him has torn his armor to shreds, and now he has a concussion, and pieces of power armor are barely hanging on to him.

But that doesn't mean that ''because they're Marines'' this should happen more often than it does for others, especially units tougher than marines (Nobz, Ogryns and whatnot)

Some people on this thread are so angry and hateful - remember you're arguing over a fictional wargame instead of a life or death situation. Nerd rage is the worst kind of rage there is...

 Bobthehero wrote:


But that doesn't mean that ''because they're Marines'' this should happen more often than it does for others, especially units tougher than marines (Nobz, Ogryns and whatnot)

Orks are cheap, they're not paying for survivability. Their point cost is tied up in furious charge, higher base attacks, and mob rule mainly. Nobs have an extra wound, and tend not to worry about losing that extra wound to a heavy weapon, as they have a couple dozen boys around them as shields. Ogryns are fairly expensive, but it takes 3 lascannon shots to bring one down. In the span of 3 heavy weapon shots, it's more likely that one of THOSE will fail to wound by rolling a 1 than it is for the marine to skirt death on a two.

It's not "because they're marines." It's "because their point costs and performance don't line up."

And you can't just lower their cost, or the other, cheaper troops, such as guardsmen and most of the xenos, will be overcosted compared to the marines. The only troops that pay similar prices to marines for survivability rather than mobility or fleet and power from pain or some other gimmick are the necrons, and they have a MUCH higher survivability than this rule could ever hope to give.

That leaves the two options being "go through all codices adjusting the prices of all high strength weapons," or "apply a one line rule to marines/chaos marines."

niv-mizzet wrote:
Orks are cheap, they're not paying for survivability. Their point cost is tied up in furious charge, higher base attacks, and mob rule mainly.

So then why are we just ignoring the points marines have tied up in ATSKNF, high leadership, BS/WS 4, combat squads, chapter tactics, etc?

niv-mizzet wrote:
If you have split an enemy into a thousand pieces, disintegrated their upper body, or scored a perfect headshot with a heavy weapon, it sounds like you rolled well to wound, like a five or six. It does NOT sound like you rolled a two, which is currently the BARE MINIMUM to score a kill.

No, it sounds like you hit them with a powerful weapon. Some weapons are just so powerful that "reduced to a pile of ash" is the result of ANY hit. The only reason you only wound on a 2+ instead of automatically is that GW is obsessed with rolling dice and declared that a 1 always fails so you always have to roll some dice and "see what happens" in your cinematic narrative. This is purely a game mechanic that is not at all supported by the fluff, unless you seriously want to argue that a marine standing next to a 50 megaton nuke has a 1/6 chance to survive without suffering any harm (just like a guardsman).

You know when you roll a melta shot right into a marine, score a precision shot with your character, and then roll a 1 to wound?

How do you describe that in fluff?

However you do it, just think up something similar for the 2. Done and done.

Or, if you're going to make house rules, you could just fix the ridiculous situation by making the to-wound chart include auto-wounds instead of stopping on a 2+. That way the melta shot will be realistic and there is no roll of a 1 to explain.

Or, we go with the direct opposite to your headcanon, and give all Marines a 2++ re-rollable.

Or, shock and horror, we go somewhere in between.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In addition, to give some perspective, I do not think that tank turrets like the predator autocannon needs buffing to Battle Cannon levels. Instead, the battle cannon and other equivalent artillery weapons like the Vindicator need nerfing (And reduced pt costs appropriately).

Why, you may ask?

Compare the Battle Cannon to an Ork Blitza-Bommer's bomb.

That bomb is larger than a Space Marine, considerably wider than a Battle Cannon turret.

It is S7 AP4.

A Battle Cannon should not hit harder than that. Ordnance might be OK though to reflect the force of a fired rather than dropped shell.

Before you say 'But ork tech is inferior!' let me remind you that said bomb is filled with high explosives, and the Blitza-Bommer's secondary weapons are the size of heavy stubbers but have firepower not far behind assault cannons.

The idea that IG should somehow have superior explosives is IG fanboyism, and nothing else. IG fanboys, agh. Truly the worst kind.

 Peregrine wrote:


So then why are we just ignoring the points marines have tied up in ATSKNF, high leadership, BS/WS 4, combat squads, chapter tactics, etc?

That, and the loss of FC, mob rule, and 30 man squads does not justify the 8 point increase per model. The power armor is a large portion of the increased cost.
And power armor works fine for its point cost. UNTIL the game becomes a spam of high str good ap shots flying around. Then you're better off taking boyz just because the first thing that hits you will kill you, regardless of your protection. This is fine in fluff, but when we're trying to balance a game, it could use some fixing.

niv-mizzet wrote:
If you have split an enemy into a thousand pieces, disintegrated their upper body, or scored a perfect headshot with a heavy weapon, it sounds like you rolled well to wound, like a five or six. It does NOT sound like you rolled a two, which is currently the BARE MINIMUM to score a kill.

No, it sounds like you hit them with a powerful weapon. Some weapons are just so powerful that "reduced to a pile of ash" is the result of ANY hit. The only reason you only wound on a 2+ instead of automatically is that GW is obsessed with rolling dice and declared that a 1 always fails so you always have to roll some dice and "see what happens" in your cinematic narrative.

And that's your opinion, and I don't share it. Not only do I believe low rolls on the abstract dice show poorly placed hits or "movie-hero-zone" wounds like shoulder hits and burns, (the typical damage a movie hero would take so that he takes damage, but can still win,) but I also enjoy the dice aspect. Even if I'm a bit disappointed when I roll a 1 on a thunderhammer against guardsmen, I still believe that a guy who just barely took a melta shot on the side of the arm shouldn't die 100% of the time.

This is purely a game mechanic that is not at all supported by the fluff, unless you seriously want to argue that a marine standing next to a 50 megaton nuke has a 1/6 chance to survive without suffering any harm (just like a guardsman).

Yes, and this rule is strictly a game mechanic. If we were playing strictly by fluff with doses of realism, then any given footsoldier would die without any rolls as soon as someone looks at them. Granted, we'd also have marines in their light-tank-emulating armor that would be all but invincible to other standard troops. If you want to go that way, furyou miko made a proposed rule a week or so ago that may appeal to you. I don't like it, but hey, it's your game to play.

Or, if you're going to make house rules, you could just fix the ridiculous situation by making the to-wound chart include auto-wounds instead of stopping on a 2+. That way the melta shot will be realistic and there is no roll of a 1 to explain.

Go ahead and do that in your games then. No one's stopping you, (except maybe your opponent.) I don't think the situation is ridiculous from a game standpoint, and I think obsessing over realism in a game is bad design.

You've made it well known that you're not a fan of this proposed rule, and stated your points, I've stated my counterpoints. I remain unconvinced, and I'd assume that you remain the same as well, so as much as I love talking to you, I don't believe we have anything further to discuss in this thread. See you elsewhere on the forum.

Additionally, feel free to make your own proposed rule about ignoring the roll to wound on weapons where, realistically, death is a foregone conclusion.

Apparently, going from flak armour and a lasgun to power armour and a bolter is worth 4-5 points... (Guard Veteran: 6 points. Sister of Battle: 12 points)

niv-mizzet wrote:
I had the idea for a core rule in a Blood Angels thread that seemed to hit an ok approval rating, so I'll repost it here so the people not interested in BA can see.

-Who has the rule?

All Astartes. From scouts to special characters. Anyone who, in the fluff, got a gene-seed from a primarch and went through a dozen surgeries to turn their body into a war machine. This DOES include chaos marines.

-okay, what rule?

Closer to monster than man: Due to the intense amount of alterations, the astartes' bodies are much better equipped to handle extreme damage that would place other races in mortal peril. As long as all models in the unit possess this special rule, any roll to wound made against a model with this rule automatically fails to wound on a roll of 2, in addition to the normal automatic failure of rolling a 1.

-What is the design intent of this rule?

Currently, if a unit of astartes models and a unit of 2 month old helpless babies (all stats .1) are out in the open, and each unit is hit by one of the following: battle cannon, ion accelerator, krak missile, lascannon, meltagun/fusion blaster, plasma, monstrous creature melee attacks, and many many more, there is no statistical difference between the marines and the pile of soon-to-be-dead babies. Assuming the same dice rolls, both units will go down at the same speed.

The intent of the rule is to up the survival rate of all marine models by 17% specifically against higher strength weapons. This would have no effect on any weapon strength 5 or lower. (But would have an effect on poison 2+, making it 3+ instead!)

Do they need this?

In my opinion, yes. Here, have a thread to yank the idea about.

Also, I would absolutely love to hear of any playtest results if someone decides to try the rule out in a game.

So S6+ is now no more effective against marines than S5? Yeah, not a good rule.

If a marine gets hit by a plasma weapon I should expect to wound on a roll of a 2+. Same for lascannon an anti-tank weapon.

Reducing the strength of weapons by 1 if it is over S5 might be a better compromise. Then heavy ordnance (S8+) and Plasma (which is intended to kill heavy infantry like marines) would still be potent.

Though I do agree with Peregrin that the roll of 1 always fail rule is silly when it comes to high strength weapons. Instant Death should be Instant Death.

niv-mizzet wrote:
And that's your opinion, and I don't share it. Not only do I believe low rolls on the abstract dice show poorly placed hits or "movie-hero-zone" wounds like shoulder hits and burns, (the typical damage a movie hero would take so that he takes damage, but can still win,) but I also enjoy the dice aspect. Even if I'm a bit disappointed when I roll a 1 on a thunderhammer against guardsmen, I still believe that a guy who just barely took a melta shot on the side of the arm shouldn't die 100% of the time.

The first thing you have to remember is that being removed as a casualty does not mean death. It can also mean "incapacitated due to extreme pain or injury"
Getting whacked at full strength with a kinetic field generating sledgehammer tends to do that. Likewise with melta - those things are painful.

Melta weapons and ordinance should still fail on a one cause no ones aim is perfect and a marine isn't gonna die if he sees that his pinkie toe has been vaporized.