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As a person who plays multiple armies, including non-imperial flavors my perspective may be a bit more contrary, but it IS based upon actual experience and not just "grass is greener" thinking.

Marines are fine.

I think its more a matter of what the expectations are, and how they are used.

"They die too easily".
The things that kill marines easily are few and far between....and those weapons that do so...evaporate other armies scoring units. Couple this with the immunity to being swept... and their leadership, and they have amazing durability.

"they don't put out enough damage"
Compared to? That elite squad somewhere else?
To a squad of sternguard? To equal points of hormagants?
Is this the damage of two units just putting out shots with no context?
How much damage does a squad of marines put out after being hit by a squad of biovores? Eldar and tau troops dont put out squat for damage once hit this way, as they are dead.
Have you ever tried to pin a squad of marines? My marines mock your silly pinning attempts.

A friend the other day said "my troops just die too fast..."
I pointed out..."all troops dies faster now..."
He had to remember this...as he was only thinking of his eldar...then he remembered his marines and said "well, yeah, I guess....".

When sixth edition came out we all realized things die a LOT more. Ask a guard player or a tyranid player about how fast their troops die compared to their cost.

Don't get me wrong, yes, marines die.
We also have to remember that the basic tac marine is not the end all be all of a game - other units matter.
They are great for what they are.... troops.

I strongly encourage other players to play non-marine armies...until I did, I did not appreciate marines and the unique strengths of their book.

I had to clean a lot of garbage out of this thread. If I have to do it again, Bad Things will happen to the people involved.

 TheCustomLime wrote:


Or they could revamp the army as a small, elite strike force like they are meant to be.

problem is they're supposed to be,but for a varity of reasons Marines are the "base line" this won't ever change given the number of SM players, and space Marine codexes out there. even if we generlously assume equal numbers of players play each codex, you're still looking at a scenerio where over half the player base plays "guys with toughness 4, 3+ armor saves and uses boltguns on their troops" and THAT is why Space Marines might seem "not as great as they could be" not because they actually suck, but because people tend to plan around them when they craft their TAC lists.

It also means of course that GW is going to, essentially design all armies with space Marines in mind, so few if any armies are going to not have something that can handle the SMs "useal tricks"

I like tac squads, think they do just fine.

BrianDavion wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:


Or they could revamp the army as a small, elite strike force like they are meant to be.

problem is they're supposed to be,but for a varity of reasons Marines are the "base line" this won't ever change given the number of SM players, and space Marine codexes out there. even if we generlously assume equal numbers of players play each codex, you're still looking at a scenerio where over half the player base plays "guys with toughness 4, 3+ armor saves and uses boltguns on their troops" and THAT is why Space Marines might seem "not as great as they could be" not because they actually suck, but because people tend to plan around them when they craft their TAC lists.

It also means of course that GW is going to, essentially design all armies with space Marines in mind, so few if any armies are going to not have something that can handle the SMs "useal tricks"

Hmm. Well, what they could do is to just ignore the players on this count and just build a balanced game that doesn't screw over part of it's fanbase. With this revamp they could start giving more love to the other factions too to encourage more variety.

It would be better, from both a mechanics standpoint and a narrative standpoint, if the standard Tac-Marine was both an expensive unit, but also designed in such a way that a 1000-point army includes maybe 10-15 of them (with upgrades and bling) and 1 DT, but they're feasibly able to handle three to five times their numbers of any other infantry... assuming intelligent use of terrain, tactics, etc.

Not saying that the Tac-Marine should be an auto-win, but if you wanted to keep it fluff-friendly, but also fairly balanced, 10 Marines should (again with proper tactics and deployment...i.e., not playing like a moron) be able to handle 10 other line-troops of any army.

Of course, if you walk your 10 Marines out into an open field in the face of a Fire Warrior gunline... yes, expect to get shot to pieces and die, and consider renaming your army to the StupidMarines, but again, that's also fluff-friendly.

"Of course, if you walk your 10 Marines out into an open field in the face of a Fire Warrior gunline... yes, expect to get shot to pieces and die, and consider renaming your army to the StupidMarines, but again, that's also fluff-friendly."

Cover doesn't help against fire warriors. They are wound-spamming you to death. You might as well be in an open field. The math is the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

davethepak wrote:
As a person who plays multiple armies, including non-imperial flavors my perspective may be a bit more contrary, but it IS based upon actual experience and not just "grass is greener" thinking.

Marines are fine.

I think its more a matter of what the expectations are, and how they are used.

"They die too easily".
The things that kill marines easily are few and far between....and those weapons that do so...evaporate other armies scoring units. Couple this with the immunity to being swept... and their leadership, and they have amazing durability.

"they don't put out enough damage"
Compared to? That elite squad somewhere else?
To a squad of sternguard? To equal points of hormagants?
Is this the damage of two units just putting out shots with no context?
How much damage does a squad of marines put out after being hit by a squad of biovores? Eldar and tau troops dont put out squat for damage once hit this way, as they are dead.
Have you ever tried to pin a squad of marines? My marines mock your silly pinning attempts.

A friend the other day said "my troops just die too fast..."
I pointed out..."all troops dies faster now..."
He had to remember this...as he was only thinking of his eldar...then he remembered his marines and said "well, yeah, I guess....".

When sixth edition came out we all realized things die a LOT more. Ask a guard player or a tyranid player about how fast their troops die compared to their cost.

Don't get me wrong, yes, marines die.
We also have to remember that the basic tac marine is not the end all be all of a game - other units matter.
They are great for what they are.... troops.

I strongly encourage other players to play non-marine armies...until I did, I did not appreciate marines and the unique strengths of their book.

I've army swapped quite a bit. There is no substitute for firepower in this edition, and marines don't have it. Well, tac marines at least. And most of the codex, actually. They have very specific units that have to be used very specific ways. T 4 is largely useless against all the ST 5/6/7 shots being tossed around like candy now. Marines are spitting back S4. Our elites spit out S4. So many weapons in this army are S4 and S4 is just not cutting it in the S 5/6/7 paradigm.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
For 300 points, a single platoon in my guard army can put out 72 las shots, 4 Str9AP2 shots and 6Str7AP2 shots, that all ignore cover and re-roll failed to-hits. What the feth is a 10 man squad of tactical marines supposed to do against that? Nothing, it's erased from the board. 2 Tactical squads? 2 Tactical squads both armed with heavy bolters in 4+ cover? Erased from the board, one after another. If you want to go smaller than that, a single squad of triple-plasma vets under FRFSRF will kill 5 tacs in a single round of shooting. What are tacs supposed to do against that?

What's that platoon build? Four Infantry Squads, four lascannons, a command squad, three plasma guns and a psyker? How is that under 300 points? Seems more like 400 to me.

As to what the marines can do, well they can start by killing off the command squad. That reduces the enemy firepower by a considerable margin and one tactical squad should be able to do it in a single turn of shooting (you may need two squads if the PCS goes to ground in decent terrain, I guess).

Then they can advance, forcing the guard to either enter close combat or retreat. In close combat, the guard will struggle even harder to deal with the marine's armour saves, don't benefit from orders and can be swept (unless you spend the points to take a priest). If they retreat they can only snap-fire their lascannons and may be forced away from objectives or cover.

As for the plasma vets, I'm not sure how you are calculating your numbers, but that doesn't seem right to me...

3 Plasma Guns: 6 shots, 4 hits, 3.33 wounds, 2.22 casualties with 5+ cover. Also causes one gets hot result, on average.
6 lasguns: 18 shots, 12 hits, 4 wounds, 1.33 casualties after armour saves.
1 laspistol: 1 shot, 0.67 hits, 0.22 wounds, 0.07 casualties after saves. Goes up to 0.22 if he has a boltgun or 0.37 with a plasma pistol.

The only way it approaches five casualties is if there is no cover or the squad has something buffing it to ignore cover. In the first instance, the guardsmen are going to take terrible casualties if they don't have carapace and still get pretty chewed up if they do. If there's a buff, then the total cost is way more than a tooled-up marine squad.

Actually, we know that there's a command squad around somewhere, because the FRFSRF has to be coming from an officer. Might as well add 4 lasgun shots from them for another 0.3 casualties. That's a minimum cost of 135 points for the two units though, so you're paying around the same price as you do for the ten-man marine squad. Probably 160 points, so you can take carapace and camo gear on the veterans.

If the marines get to shoot first:

8 bolters: 16 shots, 10.67 hits, 7.11 wounds, 3.56 casualties with carapace and/or cover and camo gear.
1 heavy bolter: 3 shots, 2 hits, 1.67 wounds, 0.88 casualties with cover and camo gear.
1 bolt pistol (assuming the special weapon guy has a flamer and isn't in range or something): 1 shot, 0.66 hits, 0.44 wounds, 0.22 casualties.

So, the guardsmen are slightly more expensive and take slightly more casualties per turn (EDIT: actually about 30% more per turn, if you include plasma gunner suicides). They make up for that somewhat by having more bodies to soak up casualties (if you include the command squad). But once the guardsmen break, they are gone, while the marines will auto-rally. Plus chapter tactics could give the marines 17% more damage output (Imperial Fists) or 17% fewer casualties (Iron Hands). I'm not really seeing any real advantage for either side.

TheCustomLime wrote:I thought Tactical marines were bad because if you run up 300 points of infantry up against 1500 points of your opponent's army they die horribly. I mean, if they can't take on an entire army with just 20 guys and APCs they must totally suck.

Oh, my bad. It's also this.

Savageconvoy wrote:So basically nobody has bothered playing with Thousand Sons at all? Or just not enough?

I'm saying that versatility is subtle, and getting all the use out of 1ksons isn't pushing a big red easy button.

Savageconvoy wrote: couldn't be that they've tried and tested multiple times and the consensus is that there are few situations in which they are adequate and many more in which they fail to perform?

Lol. Let's ignore the ad populum fallacy for a moment. The internet is mostly populated by lemmings with absolutely zero creativity and no desire whatsoever to stick things out and try to make difficult stuff work.

A person can deconstruct the rules to draw correct conclusions. They don't need to race around and pick up a few lemming turds.

If you think Marines are specialized, you should try a Swordwind (Eldar) army. My Marines are a lot more adaptable.

Used correctly, my Tac Marines can pop light vehicles with Krak grenades, mop up troops with bolters, charge a weapons team or gunners, or counter-charge a Tide army. They'd obviously fail to take down AV12 unless I had a ton of them, and they can't charge a Heavy Weapons team if they're too far away, and if too many Orks are left when the Tide gets to my line, the countercharge will fail, so it all takes finesse.

For instance, if Marines play on Dire Avengers terms (kiting the Marines at 13-18 inches, no cover), of course the Dire Avengers should win. They chose the best possible terms of engagement. Now, most other terms of engagement Marines will beat Avengers, sometimes horrendeously:
->24" - Marine Heavy Weapons will kill Avengers. Just think about a Heavy Bolter...
-19-24" - Marines eat Avengers
-13-18" No Cover - Bolters are more deadly to Avengers than Catipults are to Marines shot-for-shot, but Avengers get 2 shots. So let them do this too much, and Avengers will win this one.
-13-18" 4+ or 5+ Cover - Marines outshoot Avengers, I think (might be close)
-6-12" - Regardless of Cover, Marines outshoot Avengers
-0-6" - Marines win shooting, and then if they charge, they destroy Avengers. If Avengers shoot and then charge, they might win melee, if shooting killed enough, but it is very risky.
-In Melee - Avengers get dominated.

So really, the only situation where the Marines are losing to the Avengers is when they don't have a special weapon, and let the Avengers choose the engagement terms. While Avengers alone are more mobile than Marines, Marines alone should still easily get first salvo, and neither unit should be alone, they both belong to combined-arms armies.

I'm saying that versatility is subtle, and getting all the use out of 1ksons isn't pushing a big red easy button.

You mean besides the fact that math-hammer has proven that point for point, a base unit of CSM does their job better except on an entirely open field and so long as they are shooting 3+ units?

And that point for point, they die just the same as a result? Especially to wave serpents, who care not for 4++.

Before the Codex Astartes update, the general consensus was that Marines were good for troops, but other parts of your list do the heavy lifting.

Since the update, they got a price decrease, and Chapter Tactics are generally seen as a buff. Now, everyone talks about how bad they are.

I don't think they've gotten worse. I think two things have happened:
-Other factions have gotten a lot better at killing marines (Die, stoopid riptide!)
-Probably more importantly, Bikes have become stupidly cost-effective en masse. I think that having a viable alternative is what really makes Tac Marines feel bad.

That said, 2x10man Tacs are still the backbone of my Marines force, because that's what I enjoy fielding. Fun games can be hand with fielding them. Assault Marines are in the same boat, and some people tell me my Devs are too (stupid Centurions), But as my chapter use Ultramarine gene seed, those are usually most of my lists.

Bharring wrote:
If you think Marines are specialized, you should try a Swordwind (Eldar) army. My Marines are a lot more adaptable.

I don't think people are complaining they're specialised, quite the opposite, they pay for adaptable when adaptable isn't actually all it's cracked up to be.

Yeah, they can krak a vehicle... but a 60pt IG chaff squad can lay down just as many krak grenades in to a vehicle. They score. So does a 40pt Termagant squad. The can shoot with bolters, but less effectively than the significantly cheaper Tau. They can fight in close combat, but worse than basically any squad in the game that is remotely geared toward CC.

At least that's what I reckon, you're almost always better off buying a troop that has a dedicated task and balancing those different troops across your army than trying to do a one size fits all squad that is too expensive for any single role.

With my Marines I usaly run 3 10 model Tactical Squads.
>Sarge: Lighting Claw/Combi-Plasma
>Special Weapon: Plasma-Gun
>Heavy Weapon: Plasma-Cannon
I do well with them, nothing special, but they are leathal/durable enough to do their Jobs, Hold Objective.
I use Pedro and my Stern Guard to take objectives.

With My Space Wolves I take 2-4 Grey Hunter Packs and they also do their jobs to.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Yeah, they can krak a vehicle... but a 60pt IG chaff squad can lay down just as many krak grenades in to a vehicle. They score. So does a 40pt Termagant squad. The can shoot with bolters, but less effectively than the significantly cheaper Tau. They can fight in close combat, but worse than basically any squad in the game that is remotely geared toward CC.

You see that, though? You just had to compare it to three different units to make that statement. That's what versatility is about. It can't do krak grenades as cheaply as guard, but they do everything else better than guard. They don't score as cheaply as termagaunts, but they do everything else better. They don't shoot bolters as well, but do everything else better.

That's what you're missing. Other troops choices do one thing very well and everything else poorly. Space marines do everything regularly well.

Whatever your problem, a tac squad has a solution. That's really not true for most other infantry squads, much less most other troops choices.

 Psienesis wrote:
Not saying that the Tac-Marine should be an auto-win, but if you wanted to keep it fluff-friendly, but also fairly balanced, 10 Marines should (again with proper tactics and deployment...i.e., not playing like a moron) be able to handle 10 other line-troops of any army.

Have you ever seen these rules by chance? I think you might appreciate them. Sadly they never got re-made for 6th, but the general idea still stands.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/12/40k-playtest-movie-marines-in-5e.html

Combat squads in the transports.

One of the best troop stat lines in the game.

3+ save.

ATSKNF.

Tactical marines are pretty sweet. Certainly not the best unit in the codex, but damn tasty nevertheless. (And certainly the best troop choice, in my opinion.) They are extremely versatile, while at the same time not sucking in whatever role you put them in. They can't handle any specific primary role all on their own, but they can support your heavy-hitters (either at range, in melee, against infantry, or against vehicles) well enough to pick up any slack from bad dice rolls or just general over-extension. They work best when used against your opponent's weak points (up close against Tau, at range against Orks).

A few people seem to want 'generalist' to mean 'great at everything,' and decry the unit as worthless when it can't live up to that impossible standard. The advantage of the generalist is that while it might be average at everything, specialists will always suck at one thing, which is where the generalist can attack them. So should tac marines be used.

 Ailaros wrote:

TheCustomLime wrote:I thought Tactical marines were bad because if you run up 300 points of infantry up against 1500 points of your opponent's army they die horribly. I mean, if they can't take on an entire army with just 20 guys and APCs they must totally suck.

Oh, my bad. It's also this.

Savageconvoy wrote:So basically nobody has bothered playing with Thousand Sons at all? Or just not enough?

I'm saying that versatility is subtle, and getting all the use out of 1ksons isn't pushing a big red easy button.

Savageconvoy wrote: couldn't be that they've tried and tested multiple times and the consensus is that there are few situations in which they are adequate and many more in which they fail to perform?

Lol. Let's ignore the ad populum fallacy for a moment. The internet is mostly populated by lemmings with absolutely zero creativity and no desire whatsoever to stick things out and try to make difficult stuff work.

A person can deconstruct the rules to draw correct conclusions. They don't need to race around and pick up a few lemming turds.

Yeah 1ksons aren't a big red easy button. They are actually a big, lovingly made button that is well crafted, surrounded by egyptions markings within gold and sapphire that, when pressed, detonates killing you. They aren't versatile by any means and are very bad at their job. They suck at killing marines and are even worse at survival. Their fluff is awesome though.

As per troops, I wouldn't really call Tactical Marines themself bad in comparison to other troops. There are a few exceptions (Kroot are phenominal), a few are worse (CSM), and a few are distinctively worse (Bloodletters and Thousand Sons come to mind). The problem more comes due to the sum of the parts. The meta has weapons to erase them from the board thanks to units such as the Riptide and the sorts. The only other problem with Tactical Marines is that they can't double up on special weapons. Thing is, Tactical Marines pay for versatility. They are pretty average at everything they do. That's their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.

 Ailaros wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Yeah, they can krak a vehicle... but a 60pt IG chaff squad can lay down just as many krak grenades in to a vehicle. They score. So does a 40pt Termagant squad. The can shoot with bolters, but less effectively than the significantly cheaper Tau. They can fight in close combat, but worse than basically any squad in the game that is remotely geared toward CC.

You see that, though? You just had to compare it to three different units to make that statement. That's what versatility is about. It can't do krak grenades as cheaply as guard, but they do everything else better than guard. They don't score as cheaply as termagaunts, but they do everything else better. They don't shoot bolters as well, but do everything else better.

That's what you're missing. Other troops choices do one thing very well and everything else poorly. Space marines do everything regularly well.

Whatever your problem, a tac squad has a solution. That's really not true for most other infantry squads, much less most other troops choices.

...yes, what you are calling a strength I am calling a weakness. Being able to do everything AND paying the points for being able to do everything is not an advantage. The IG squad can lay down as many Krak's at half the price... leaving you to spend points on the rest of the army to fill the other roles. The Termagants are scoring the same way the Marines are scoring, but at a fraction the cost so you can take other units that can kill even better and/or take vastly more units of Termagants so you can spread your scoring further. The Tau outshoot marines for a lower price, meaning you can take a crap ton more of them.

It means Marines get out special-weaponed by guard, they get well and truly out-gunned by anything that shoots, they get comprehensively out CC'd by anything that fights.

Having multiple units that fulfill individual roles at a lower cost means you can take more bodies in more dedicated roles and each casualty is less of an impact to the overall army.

At least that's how I feel, I don't play standard Space Marines, I play SW, by comparison, GH I think are much more viable to take in number than Tac marines because they pay only 1pt more for a lot more utility, thus actually fulfilling the all-rounder roll much more efficiently.

 Ailaros wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Yeah, they can krak a vehicle... but a 60pt IG chaff squad can lay down just as many krak grenades in to a vehicle. They score. So does a 40pt Termagant squad. The can shoot with bolters, but less effectively than the significantly cheaper Tau. They can fight in close combat, but worse than basically any squad in the game that is remotely geared toward CC.

You see that, though? You just had to compare it to three different units to make that statement. That's what versatility is about. It can't do krak grenades as cheaply as guard, but they do everything else better than guard. They don't score as cheaply as termagaunts, but they do everything else better. They don't shoot bolters as well, but do everything else better.

That's what you're missing. Other troops choices do one thing very well and everything else poorly. Space marines do everything regularly well.

Whatever your problem, a tac squad has a solution. That's really not true for most other infantry squads, much less most other troops choices.

An ineffectual solution that they never get to use. But hey, they paid the points for it!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Combat squads in the transports.

One of the best troop stat lines in the game.

3+ save.

ATSKNF.

Tactical marines are pretty sweet. Certainly not the best unit in the codex, but damn tasty nevertheless. (And certainly the best troop choice, in my opinion.) They are extremely versatile, while at the same time not sucking in whatever role you put them in. They can't handle any specific primary role all on their own, but they can support your heavy-hitters (either at range, in melee, against infantry, or against vehicles) well enough to pick up any slack from bad dice rolls or just general over-extension. They work best when used against your opponent's weak points (up close against Tau, at range against Orks).

A few people seem to want 'generalist' to mean 'great at everything,' and decry the unit as worthless when it can't live up to that impossible standard. The advantage of the generalist is that while it might be average at everything, specialists will always suck at one thing, which is where the generalist can attack them. So should tac marines be used.

Just curious. Do you play marines vs Eldar and Tau? Tac marines don't seem to "sweet" to me. I want to be able to sell back a lot of worthless tac gear and make my guys cheaper. I need cheaper guys because at least 50% of them die before they can do pretty much anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:Yeah, they can krak a vehicle... but a 60pt IG chaff squad can lay down just as many krak grenades in to a vehicle. They score. So does a 40pt Termagant squad. The can shoot with bolters, but less effectively than the significantly cheaper Tau. They can fight in close combat, but worse than basically any squad in the game that is remotely geared toward CC.

You see that, though? You just had to compare it to three different units to make that statement. That's what versatility is about. It can't do krak grenades as cheaply as guard, but they do everything else better than guard. They don't score as cheaply as termagaunts, but they do everything else better. They don't shoot bolters as well, but do everything else better.

That's what you're missing. Other troops choices do one thing very well and everything else poorly. Space marines do everything regularly well.

Whatever your problem, a tac squad has a solution. That's really not true for most other infantry squads, much less most other troops choices.

...yes, what you are calling a strength I am calling a weakness. Being able to do everything AND paying the points for being able to do everything is not an advantage. The IG squad can lay down as many Krak's at half the price... leaving you to spend points on the rest of the army to fill the other roles. The Termagants are scoring the same way the Marines are scoring, but at a fraction the cost so you can take other units that can kill even better and/or take vastly more units of Termagants so you can spread your scoring further. The Tau outshoot marines for a lower price, meaning you can take a crap ton more of them.

It means Marines get out special-weaponed by guard, they get well and truly out-gunned by anything that shoots, they get comprehensively out CC'd by anything that fights.

Having multiple units that fulfill individual roles at a lower cost means you can take more bodies in more dedicated roles and each casualty is less of an impact to the overall army.

At least that's how I feel, I don't play standard Space Marines, I play SW, by comparison, GH I think are much more viable to take in number than Tac marines because they pay only 1pt more for a lot more utility, thus actually fulfilling the all-rounder roll much more efficiently.

I agree. It's not a strength. It's a weakness. I think being a generalist in 6th ed is a death sentence.

Ailaros wrote:
You see that, though? You just had to compare it to three different units to make that statement. That's what versatility is about. It can't do krak grenades as cheaply as guard, but they do everything else better than guard. They don't score as cheaply as termagaunts, but they do everything else better. They don't shoot bolters as well, but do everything else better.

That's what you're missing. Other troops choices do one thing very well and everything else poorly. Space marines do everything regularly well.

Whatever your problem, a tac squad has a solution. That's really not true for most other infantry squads, much less most other troops choices.

I don't normally see eye to eye with Ailaros, but this explains it all really.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:...yes, what you are calling a strength I am calling a weakness. Being able to do everything AND paying the points for being able to do everything is not an advantage. The IG squad can lay down as many Krak's at half the price... leaving you to spend points on the rest of the army to fill the other roles.

Usually more of that same squad because when you need them the first one you bought will be dead, and the second will be pinned. Also if there's nothing particularly useful to do with Krak grenades the IG squad ends up doing nothing.

The Termagants are scoring the same way the Marines are scoring, but at a fraction the cost so you can take other units that can kill even better and/or take vastly more units of Termagants so you can spread your scoring further.

They also die at a much higher rate and individually lack the killing power of a Marine. With Combat Squads, marines can get as many if not more scoring units on the table as anyone else except the Imperial Guard.

The Tau outshoot marines for a lower price, meaning you can take a crap ton more of them.

Yes, they outshoot the marines. They also die significantly easier than the marines and are of negligible use against vehicles, unlike the Marine squad which can take anti-tank guns and comes equipped with anti-tank grenades at a lower marginal cost than the Fire Warrior can take them. The Fire Warriors also can only present a threat to an enemy from one vector, the Shooting phase, but remains highly vulnerable to morale, close combat, and enemy shooting, while your own Marines are much more resilient in each area and can present a threat in both the Shooting and Assault phases of the game.

It means Marines get out special-weaponed by guard, they get well and truly out-gunned by anything that shoots, they get comprehensively out CC'd by anything that fights.

And they can outfight the Guard and anything that shoots, and outshoot anything that fights. The marines can usually adapt much easier to a wider array of opponents than their foes can, and usually have a greater chance of recovery from a bad turn.

Having multiple units that fulfill individual roles at a lower cost means you can take more bodies in more dedicated roles and each casualty is less of an impact to the overall army.

In some cases this is true, however it's not always true, and by having squads that can do a little of everything you can always apply pressure no matter the circumstances while those other, cheaper, more specialized units often sit idle or dead.

Martel732 wrote:

An ineffectual solution that they never get to use. But hey, they paid the points for it!

Successful marine armies have always had to utilize those diverse capabilities to win, there's nothing wrong with the units themselves with regards to that. I regularly see MEQ units outshooting what they can't outfight and outfighting what they can't outshoot. The biggest problem to my eyes isn't the tac's themselves, but that their delivery systems one-dimensionally favor only the Shooting phase, meaning it's more difficult than it should be to make use of their Assault capabilities. To me this issue rests largely with the changes to the assault, transport, and vehicle rules changes in this edition.

". To me this issue rests largely with the changes to the assault, transport, and vehicle rules changes in this edition. "

Yes. Those changes make them suck. Other lists can blast them off the table and they can't use their assault "advantage" very often at all. This makes them suck. I understand what they are SUPPOSED to do, but the mechanics of the game don't usually allow for this. Making them suck. We are prevented from using these diverse capabilities after being scatter lasered to death.

Versatility has been rendered moot by the all-powerful shooting phase in 6th ed.

And, yes, marine tanks being awful doesn't help either.

Honestly errataing Rhinos to assault vehicles would pretty much perfectly solve a number of issues with a number of marine 'dexes

They're bad because they're just too expensive, all things considered. Including the consideration of how weapons have gotten cheaper and deadlier. I find that they suck out loud in combat. I watched one tactical marine fight one tau fire warrior in melee from turn 2 to the game end just a couple weeks ago. Unlike guns, where each little step of skill or strength affects the dice rolls required, the weapon skill chart is...well...dumb. A marine may shoot twice as good as an ork, because his stat is double, but he only melees 17% better than a fire warrior, who his stat ALSO doubles. And the fire warrior hits back at a 4+ whether he's hitting another fire warrior, or a marine.

-They seriously, seriously, seriously, aren't the threat in melee that even an "all-rounder" should be for their cost. Maybe if they came with 2 base attacks, or the weapon skill chart was made less "let's give the low WS shooting guys a good chance in melee just to make it more lulzy" then maybe I'd respect them more.

-Dying in droves hurts marines more than any other army. If an IA blast knocks 3 marines off the table, and another knocks 6 orks off the table, the orks still lost quite a few less points. 30 to 42 in fact. They could have lost 2 more boyz and come out even.

-Ignoring their armor hurts more than ALMOST any other army. Such a huge part of their cost is in the power armor. And when it gets ignored, they just drop like an ork boy. A very expensive ork boy.

-Ignoring their T4 hurts more than most other armies. Guns have gotten, lets be honest, out of hand. S6-8 is everywhere and a half, and it all wounds marines just as easily as gretchin. This causes a squad of 10 marines to drop just through the sheer number of saves. I once suggested a fix to this by adding a rule to all astartes, including the chaos ones, where they could not be wounded on less than a 3, mainly due to all their genetic superhuman improvements. Our group plays with that rule regularly, and have found that, while on average it only stops about 3-6 wounds per game, it gives the much much more expensive marines a bit better foothold in survival than gretchin, guardsmen, and ratlings. Even the non-marine players like it. I'm still of the opinion that people wouldn't even blink at it if GW had already put it in in an older edition. If you want to hear more, http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/581997.page is the thread.

-The old football saying "offense wins games, defense wins tournaments" does NOT apply in 40k. Every score you make in football does effectively nothing to influence the rest of the game (morale not withstanding.) Every kill you make in 40k reduces the amount of attacks you have to receive for the entire rest of the game though. Marines don't kill things. They were made to be able to take punishment, and the punishments have grown more severe. Now they can't take it, and they can't kill the enemies fast enough to stop the punishment. As was said above, the underlying goal of the game, as well as almost any strategy game, is to remove options from the opposition. Any tool you have that doesn't help towards that goal is of negligible use.

-Rhinos suck. Even when I see spam rhinos or razorbacks, they're up in flames SOOOO fast my head spins. Either that or they're just stunned or immobilized right in the spot where they deployed. This is somewhat related to the ever-rising amount of s6-8 shooting for lower and lower prices. So tac marines are walking everywhere unless you for some reason decide to shell out for a land raider or storm raven for one.

-Shooting rules, assault drools. The tac marines are paying for a slight bit of assault ability. (Part of which entails the almost-pointless weaponskill stat.) But they are typically only found in two states in the games I see: Shooting, or dead. Only rarely do I see one or two lucky men make it to assault, where...well...they just aren't as good as they're cracked up to be. See the first paragraph for example.

There is a reason I play Blood Angels over other marines. I can't stand taking tactical squads when I could have an ASM squad with two meltas actually go accomplish something, or at least be somewhat threatening to my opponent. Any time I play against other marines, I just focus everyone against their optional guys who CAN do things, and then go mop up tactical squads last. I haven't lost to a marine army in a loooooong time. Like...before 6th edition came out. Granted, I haven't played against the grav-star with my BA, so there's one high tier list that would probably bite into me. But your typical "here's some heavies, some elites, an HQ, and a couple tac squads" lists? I eat them the same way every time. Toppings then boring crust.

Whenever I want to run typical codex marines, I just take two bare bones 5 man scout teams and reserve them for objectives. The rest is all guys meant for actually fighting the battle.

I'm guessing you don't play orks, because you either pay for your cover with a KFF or have to cram into limited space (which means you have to take a unit too small to be useful and make yourself vulnerable to blasts). Wouldn't really say that 18" Assault 2 is any better than 24" rapid fire. The fearless isn't too helpful either, since it only lasts until you take serious casualties.

I played a game today where we rolled a 1 for terrain density for EVERY 2x2 square. During the first two turns, EVERY UNIT in both armies had cover against the entire enemy army. You get to place half the terrain. That means its half your fault if your orks can't find cover.

Forcing the enemy to finish off every single model is worth something.

Or he could just wait until he's out of other good targets to throw the last few shots and finish them off. If its down to a couple tac marines, they're now a .01 on the threat scale. Just work on the other stuff and come back to them.

Marines can take twice their number in orks easily if they get the charge, more if they have a flamer. Yeah, orks are cheap, but marines are at least twice as good as them at pretty much everything.

I have never ever ever seen a group of tactical marines win out against double their number in orks in an assault, even including the bolt pistols before-hand. The flamer is making things a little farfetched, as any ork player I know would bring their squad formation up in such a way that the flamer guy would only net a couple possible wounds, so that argument would imply that the ork player is just not moving tactically. Even shoota boyz get 2 attacks base, plus the literal always-there nob with klaw and pole. Even my furious charging BA assault squads are a little nervous going into the middle of twice their number of orks.
Marines are not twice as good at everything. They're worse at melee than shoota boyz are. They're going to get absolutely stomped by choppa slugga boyz. 6 times the attacks is way more than enough to make up for the fact that the orks aren't furious charging. Orks are also better at sucking up damage and not caring, since they just have more wounds on the table. Green tide is surprisingly effective when everyone else keeps bringing grav guns and such to take out riptides and knights.

I'm actually wondering how you should point cost Tactical Marine squads now. It's kind of bothering me. I'm not a game designer, but I enjoy trying to puzzle out mechanics and create interesting ones, so it's a subject that has captured my interest.

I guess you have to cost models based on the best thing they can do, then add a very small additional cost if they can do something else as well. I think GW is applying an "additive capability" mindset to their costing where the ability to do multiple things adequately is costed like the sum of all their abilities.

This would make a lot more sense. The tac marines can't use all their skills at once. If they're firing guns, they aren't in melee. If they're in melee, they aren't firing guns. They are literally less than the sum of their parts. I agree with your logic here, and immediately recognize you as a better game designer than the GW staff, if for no other reason than you actually like thinking about it instead of just writing something down to get it out the door.

It's fun but all that whining and desperation about tactical marines strengthens them. Everyyone starts believing that they're actually bad. Which is obviously not true. They're not overpowered but by no means bad. They're somewhere around fairly decent.

I've played a ravenguard list with 3-4 full squads of marines in rhinos and they worked good. When marines are backed up with drop-pod ironclads, sternguards, gravcents or some other good support units, they shine.

People just want to point, click and erase any target at will and not get killed in return. Tactical marines are just not working like this. You just need to use your brain a bit unlike in serpentspams, fmc spams, triptides and stuff alike.

No, I want troops that have an effect on the game remotely proportional to their high cost.

" Any time I play against other marines, I just focus everyone against their optional guys who CAN do things, and then go mop up tactical squads last. I haven't lost to a marine army in a loooooong time. Like...before 6th edition came out. Granted, I haven't played against the grav-star with my BA, so there's one high tier list that would probably bite into me. But your typical "here's some heavies, some elites, an HQ, and a couple tac squads" lists? I eat them the same way every time. Toppings then boring crust. "

This is how I pound other marine armies with my BA and counts-as Iron Hands. Been using a lot of sniper scouts with IH.

" But your typical "here's some heavies, some elites, an HQ, and a couple tac squads"

This part in particular stands out. This is a horrible way to build a marine list, and yet I see it ALL THE TIME on the army list section. Even BA kind of snicker at this.

" Which is obviously not true"

Actually, it pretty much is. So much for your "obviously".

"When marines are backed up with drop-pod ironclads, sternguards, gravcents or some other good support units, they shine. "

Except that tac marines still suck and those other units are all doing all the work. They are dead weight. Meq lists can't afford dead weight and against tier 1 lists.

" You just need to use your brain "

And if those other generals using those lists uses their brains as well? Then we are back to list building dominating. And marines without a gravstar lose that BECAUSE THEIR TROOPS ARE HORRIBLE.

 Vaktathi wrote:

It means Marines get out special-weaponed by guard, they get well and truly out-gunned by anything that shoots, they get comprehensively out CC'd by anything that fights.

And they can outfight the Guard and anything that shoots, and outshoot anything that fights.

What? Not without some dice-love they can't. A charging guard squad would annihilate their own point-cost in tac marines. And they can't dish out enough damage to stop "anything that fights" from getting in their face...and then removing their face.

Having multiple units that fulfill individual roles at a lower cost means you can take more bodies in more dedicated roles and each casualty is less of an impact to the overall army.

In some cases this is true, however it's not always true, and by having squads that can do a little of everything you can always apply pressure no matter the circumstances while those other, cheaper, more specialized units often sit idle or dead.

In terms of 40k, the only time a unit can literally do nothing is if they are non-scoring, and their only target is a vehicle or creature with sufficiently high armor/toughness. Even little squads of termagants with the twin-linked s3 guns can find something to do if you aren't completely high when you deploy them.

I regularly see MEQ units outshooting what they can't outfight and outfighting what they can't outshoot.

I do NOT regularly see this. I see them shoot barely better than the worst shooters, and fight barely better than the worst fighters. The slightest tip in the wrong direction of the dice, and they lose. I've lost a 3 on 5 melee with white scars charging into fire warriors before.

The biggest problem to my eyes isn't the tac's themselves, but that their delivery systems one-dimensionally favor only the Shooting phase, meaning it's more difficult than it should be to make use of their Assault capabilities. To me this issue rests largely with the changes to the assault, transport, and vehicle rules changes in this edition.

That IS a major problem, yes. Vehicles made of paper that you can't assault from even if it does somehow live. Heck, you can't even assault if it dies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
It's fun but all that whining and desperation about tactical marines strengthens them. Everyyone starts believing that they're actually bad. Which is obviously not true. They're not overpowered but by no means bad. They're somewhere around fairly decent.

And I think that it's obvious that they ARE bad. They're not so bad that you instantly lose when you deploy a squad of them, but I definitely wouldn't want more of my army points eaten up by them than I had to have eaten.

I've played a ravenguard list with 3-4 full squads of marines in rhinos and they worked good. When marines are backed up with drop-pod ironclads, sternguards, gravcents or some other good support units, they shine.

That sounds like the squads of marines are just kind of cheering and throwing some random shots while all the important damage came from the good support units. Almost any troop unit in any army in the game could have waltzed in and been effective at that point. And usually for cheaper. And they probably could've helped more than the marines.

People just want to point, click and erase any target at will and not get killed in return. Tactical marines are just not working like this. You just need to use your brain a bit unlike in serpentspams, fmc spams, triptides and stuff alike.

Or GW isn't perfect, and they aren't correctly priced? Is that not a possibility to you? You think GW has them nailed down perfectly?

As said above, the game has shifted to being hyper-offensive. Defense is weak. Instead of 7-6 games where a team won with the bonus kick, we (at least in my group) now see 42-14 blowouts all over the place. Only a couple games in the last 50 easily that I've played in or seen have even been close enough at the end to count up VP's. Most of them are just tabling or near-tabling of one force.

I don't see how "using my brain" suddenly makes a below-mediocre unit not below-mediocre. Unless maybe you mean I should like...use telekinesis to cheat when my opponent isn't looking.

niv-mizzet wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

It means Marines get out special-weaponed by guard, they get well and truly out-gunned by anything that shoots, they get comprehensively out CC'd by anything that fights.

And they can outfight the Guard and anything that shoots, and outshoot anything that fights.

What? Not without some dice-love they can't. A charging guard squad would annihilate their own point-cost in tac marines.

If you *get* charged by IG like that (and you've probably done something bad to get into that spot), assuming 3 naked infantry squad units (150pts) units and barring huge investments in power weapons and commissars (making the unit worth a whole lot more than that tac squad) the two should be fairly even, with an edge to the marines (10man tac, 150pts). If the guardsmen never break, they'll eventually grind down and kill the marine unit after 4 or 5 rounds of combat, but they'll be losing combat by 1-2 each round and having to test each time and risk breaking and getting swept.

And they can't dish out enough damage to stop "anything that fights" from getting in their face...and then removing their face.

You'll find even this is true even for the shootiest of troops, but generally, if an equal number of points of enemy killy are dumped on them, they can deal with it at least as well as other armies. I'd certainly take a Tac squad having to deal with a unit of Genestealers than an IG Vet squad.

In terms of 40k, the only time a unit can literally do nothing is if they are non-scoring, and their only target is a vehicle or creature with sufficiently high armor/toughness. Even little squads of termagants with the twin-linked s3 guns can find something to do if you aren't completely high when you deploy them.

Nothing may be in that table quarter for that krak grenade squad to engage, but the tac squads missile launcher may have range to something for example. The Grenade squad isn't going to be able to counter an outflanking unit, counterattack to retake a position, or do anything but shoot krak grenades at stuff. It can't pack a heavy weapon for long range, and it's not packing much heat for overwatch and it's damn sure not gonna hold a position against even depleted enemy units.

I do NOT regularly see this. I see them shoot barely better than the worst shooters, and fight barely better than the worst fighters. The slightest tip in the wrong direction of the dice, and they lose. I've lost a 3 on 5 melee with white scars charging into fire warriors before.

And I've lost Terminators to grots. Actually just today, I had my Rapier Laser Destroyer gun crew of 3 dudes fight off and sweep an enemy Necron Lord. Just because these ridiculous things happen doesn't mean they're good judges of the value of the unit. Typically, on average, 3 Space Marines will crush 5 firewarriors in close combat. I'm just not going to buy that they're so weak that Tau Firewarriors are a realistically worthy CC opponent that they only beat out with straight average dice. They can have the dice go pretty lame and still end up on top in that situation, 3 tac marines should outkill 5 firewarriors 2.44-1 in close combat, and that's not taking into account the fact that the marines strike first.

BrianDavion wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:


Or they could revamp the army as a small, elite strike force like they are meant to be.

problem is they're supposed to be,but for a varity of reasons Marines are the "base line" this won't ever change given the number of SM players, and space Marine codexes out there. even if we generlously assume equal numbers of players play each codex, you're still looking at a scenerio where over half the player base plays "guys with toughness 4, 3+ armor saves and uses boltguns on their troops" and THAT is why Space Marines might seem "not as great as they could be" not because they actually suck, but because people tend to plan around them when they craft their TAC lists.

It also means of course that GW is going to, essentially design all armies with space Marines in mind, so few if any armies are going to not have something that can handle the SMs "useal tricks"

Agree.

Once upon a time - a long time ago, in fact - the common guardsman with his flashligt was the base-stat of the game. Marines were way more expensive because they were, in every way imaginable, better that this base-stat.

Now, sadly, the Marines has, for all intents and purposes, become the base-stat of the game. Everyone tailors their lists to deal with 3+ armour. And, to make it worse, there's now an awful lot of weapons out there that has either high strength or low AP.

And let's not forget the effect of changing to an all-or-nothing save. With save modifiers Power Armour was tough as they would get a save against most things, bar the heaviest of weapons. But now there're plenty of weapons that will defeat their armour completely and they never really got a points adjustment to counter that.

In a sense, this is a logical outcome of Games Workshops insane drive to make this a mass-combat game. In second edition an Imperial Guard army might have one or two Russ' and a couple of Plasmaguns. Now Russ' are fielded in squadrons and Plasmaguns are nowhere near as rare as their fluff would suggest. The numbers have turned against Marines who now encounter so many "marine killers" that it's starting to hurt.

A Tactical Squad ought to be the premium all-round unit in the game. They're a basic unit, yes, but every other army needs either a specialist close combat unit to outfight them or a specialist ranged unit to outshoot them. Once parked on an objective they ought to be extremely tough to remove again as you need specialist units to do so. But now we see so many units on the table that seemingly every army has the tools to deal with Tactical Marines.

"You'll find even this is true even for the shootiest of troops, but generally, if an equal number of points of enemy killy are dumped on them, they can deal with it at least as well as other armies. I'd certainly take a Tac squad having to deal with a unit of Genestealers than an IG Vet squad. '

I wouldn't you lose less with the IG squad. They both die.