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I was wondering how would people like to play their Space Marines. By that I mean would you like to play them fluffy and be very strong but few in number? Do you like how GW has done it now or would you like to change it? If you would like to change it, how would you do it?

How do you want your SM to play on the table top? For me, I would like them to be the Elite force they are. Few in numbers, they hit hard, and hard to take down. They would be expensive and few in numbers. Few in numbers don't sell miniatures so I understand what GW has done. But let's forget sales.

How would you play your SM? What rules would you have for them? What stats would you have for them? What weapons and toys would they use? What wouldn't they have or use?

*edit*. I thought I was in the 40K general forum. Can a mod please move this to the 40K General forum please.

Davor wrote:
...be very strong but few in number?

Problem is that you wind up with a game like Necromunda where you have a large gang going against three Spyrers. Really obnoxious to play if you're not the Spyrers.

If you would like to change it, how would you do it?

Fluff wise, i'd toss the 1000 Marine thing. It's just too small a force to do anything other than special ops type stuff. And with current fluff spreading chapters all over the galaxy, chapters are nothing more than logos on the Marines' shoulderpad.

Think of it as the difference between worlds in Star Trek and Star Wars. In Star Trek, worlds are small. They easily fit on a viewscreen and you can shake down an entire planet by talking to just one or two people. Legislatures rarely figure into anything and there are nearly no military forces other than a few ships (at least until the last few seasons of DS9). In Star Wars, worlds are very large. They rarely fit entirely on the movie screen. They require an entire fleet to establish a blockade and even then craft are able to enter and escape. In Star Wars, leaders have to deal with legislatures and have military forces of several million people.

I prefer to have a universe that has large worlds like Star Wars, not ones that are teeny like Star Trek and Warhammer 40k.

How would you play your SM?

I'm not a fan of the FOC but I do prefer that army selection be homogeneous to the race/chapter/whatever that you are using. In MechWarrior by WizKids they had zero restriction on what you could use and that made factions fairly pointless.

The problem isn't just with the space marine codex, its intertwined with the main rules and the other codexes.

I'd like to take tactical squads as troops, and know that i'm not shooting myself in the foot by doing so. I'd like to be able to load out my tactical squad for different situations. I'd like marines to be elite and priced accordingly, but they still need to be balanced against the other armies. There's a lot of things i'd like for 40k, but it's just never going to happen so why bother?

I don't want the Movie Marines, but I do wish that Marines were more capable, powerful, and expensive. I wish that 10 Tactical Marines were a genuine threat to a small enemy force, and that 5 Terminators were a intractable force. The overabundance and underpricing of AP 2 and 3 weaponry, and the insertion of D weapons into small games has made that very difficult. I'm not sure what exact ratio I am looking for, but I do wish that say, 2 Tactical Squads, an Assault Squad, a Dev Squad, and some scouts and terminators were actually a substantial force to be reckoned with, even for a relatively massive opposing army.

Davor wrote:
I was wondering how would people like to play their Space Marines. By that I mean would you like to play them fluffy and be very strong but few in number? Do you like how GW has done it now or would you like to change it? If you would like to change it, how would you do it?

How do you want your SM to play on the table top? For me, I would like them to be the Elite force they are. Few in numbers, they hit hard, and hard to take down. They would be expensive and few in numbers. Few in numbers don't sell miniatures so I understand what GW has done. But let's forget sales.

How would you play your SM? What rules would you have for them? What stats would you have for them? What weapons and toys would they use? What wouldn't they have or use?

*edit*. I thought I was in the 40K general forum. Can a mod please move this to the 40K General forum please.

I don't really think that SM's are particularly terribly represented on the table, I think the bigger issue is that a lot of the fluff has been written to an increasingly astounding power level standard over the last few years, resulting in a twofold problem of fluff that just smashes that suspension of disbelief as well as making it impossible to have a functional game that reflects such exaggerated tales. A big problem is that people assume the old Movie Marines gag list are what Fluff Marines should be, when this really is not the case at all.

There are perhaps some issues with the level of flexibility of some marines units (particularly with transports) and some internal balances issues, but on the whole, I think Marines are generally already relatively few in number, hard to take down, and hard hitting.

 Breotan wrote:

Fluff wise, i'd toss the 1000 Marine thing. It's just too small a force to do anything other than special ops type stuff. And with current fluff spreading chapters all over the galaxy, chapters are nothing more than logos on the Marines' shoulderpad.

So much this. 1000 chapters of 1000 Space Marines simply is a completely irrelevant number on a galactic scale, especially when there's hundreds of millions if not billions of other soldiers (PDF, IG, Stormtroopers, Sororitas, Rogue Trader private armies, Skitarrii) to each and every single Space Marine. At numbers that small, they can be present basically nowhere, would be absurdly vulnerable to even very small casualties, and realistically there would be *many* things that even the entirety of the Astartes would be completely unable to make even the smallest impression on.

I think the whole galactic scale thing is something far too few GW writers properly understand.

I don't have a problem with the way SM play on the tabletop. The problem is the base price. Standard marines should be 25 points and everything should scale from there. It gives more wiggle room for other non powered armor races to be pointed. It also means things like TWC would be 60 points each but oh well.

The only thing that would need to happen to help represent their fluff a bit would be a reduction in general of AP 2/3 guns in the game and maybe make the bolter a little more powerful.

As it is right now at 14 points each its almost getting to minor horde numbers on the table top for a specialist army.

This is something I've been grappling with since I picked up Crimson Fists a couple of months back, and I think (in my head anyway) it's a fluff vs tabletop issue.

On the one hand, I can see why a Tactical Marine is the way he is in terms of game balance. Making them god-like killing machines who can solo entire armies (read: the fluff angle) would be silly, and the game struggles enough with balance. On the other hand (usually when I'm being pantsed in a game), I resent having to take 10 Tactical Marines in my army, and I use them as objective campers and a way to unlock a Razorback.

In part, this is because I'm used to Noise Marines and Daemonettes as Troops, both of which are very good at what they do. However, I feel ripped off when in the fluff a SM is supposed to be able to rip through dozens of Daemons before taking a scratch and bring down 100 more before dying, while on the table I'll happily throw 8 Daemonettes into 5 enemy Marines and expect some change.

It's a bit like having your favourite sports team talked up for months before a game, and then having them turn up and lose- you feel gutted, whereas if the hype train had been more realistic you would have been more accepting of the result.

I would like the super human scale guys personally, but by that token i want them to be limited to something like 1-5 guys in a strike force.

I have to admit i feel the 40k scale of everything is off. The idea that in the future we line up and march across a battlefield is hilarious. Didn't we stop doing that several millennia before?

its basically fantasy 40k where we just replace options with space equivalents.

I'd prefer the 40k game was smaller scale on a collective basis, but it isn't possible in it's current format.

They way I would like to play marines would be putting them in the 35-40 point range. With marines having 2 wounds and a 4+ invo on a str5 t5 2A profile.

All marines should have special ammo like sterngards do now and a sterngard marine should just be a more bad ass marine having an ability like fast shoot or crack-shot like eldar exarcs and more attacks for something like 50 points.

terminators I'd go a step forward with t5 2w 2+ save and 4+ invo and FNP for something like 80 points and much better standard weaponry. Armed with siege storm bolters which put out 5 rending str 4 shots and str 10 power fists.

I'd like to be an entirely elite army with marines able to meet other elite options whilst costing generally more because they can shoot and assault well.

Keep in mind I don't want auto win because I'm playing marines. I want the points to balance out for their power - I just want to cut the model count down in marine armies and increase the quality of each unit. Not because I'm looking for an advantage but because that's the way I'd like to play it.

For one, there's still no reason I shouldn't be allowed two Special Weapons in a Tactical Squad. I don't want to play Space Wolves to get a decent MEQ unit, as I hate Space Wolves.
After that, Bikes should be an upgrade, as so that way we see more variety with HQ's. Sure, some people will just do a minimal Librarian, but overall some of us like our beatstick Terminator HQ's that we made.
Make Terminators 35 points with the Power Fist.

That's how I would LOVE to play them.

The suspension of disbelief is exaggerated by the fact that any remotely competent melee unit can beat down tac marines mercilessly. But not Grey Hunters. WTF?

 Xenomancers wrote:
They way I would like to play marines would be putting them in the 35-40 point range. With marines having 2 wounds and a 4+ invo on a str5 t5 2A profile.

All marines should have special ammo like sterngards do now and a sterngard marine should just be a more bad ass marine having an ability like fast shoot or crack-shot like eldar exarcs and more attacks for something like 50 points.

terminators I'd go a step forward with t5 2w 2+ save and 4+ invo and FNP for something like 80 points and much better standard weaponry. Armed with siege storm bolters which put out 5 rending str 4 shots and str 10 power fists.

I'd like to be an entirely elite army with marines able to meet other elite options whilst costing generally more because they can shoot and assault well.

Keep in mind I don't want auto win because I'm playing marines. I want the points to balance out for their power - I just want to cut the model count down in marine armies and increase the quality of each unit. Not because I'm looking for an advantage but because that's the way I'd like to play it.

I'd like for something like this as well.

GW has shot themselves in the foot by designing a game and a background that are not compatible with one another. I think a major problem is the way that 40k is straddling between different battle scales. Space Marines work in the RPGs because there's enough granularity to accurately represent them. They also work in some Epic-like game where a GEQ squad is a 'blip' and a MEQ squad is five 'blips' and a TEQ squad is ten 'blips' and all squads are otherwise identical.

But in the current core mechanics of the actual game, you can't reconcile the background with the fluff in any way. Even things like wounds (commanders can often eat 3 times as much small arms fire as their friends, because reasons), the melee to-hit table (Gretchin parry every third attack made by the Solitaire), etc. require obscene amounts of conjecture to get any sense out of, and even then it is haphazard and fragile to say the least.

Marines don't play "elite" at all. Especially their relatively weak tanks. The way they are represented on the table top, I'm not sure what their mission actually is.

I've always liked how they've played on the tabletop, but I think the increased lethality of everything in 6th/7th edition has hurt my Tactical Marine-centric armies a lot. I understand the books and fluff are pretty removed from the tabletop, but I can enjoy them both equally.

 Brother SRM wrote:
I've always liked how they've played on the tabletop, but I think the increased lethality of everything in 6th/7th edition has hurt my Tactical Marine-centric armies a lot. I understand the books and fluff are pretty removed from the tabletop, but I can enjoy them both equally.

Most players in my group gave up on tacs in 5th. The boltgun was even more horrendous in that edition.

Marines looked at in a vacuum in relation to the core rules are fine, for the most part. In no universe to Tacticals make sense (BP+CCW upgrade and some sort of pseudo-relentless would make them not horrible), but otherwise the broad scope makes sense. The problem really lies in their opposition in how most armies can now easily out-elite, and out-tough Marines, even Eldar with all Wraith Armies. As the scale of the game has gone up, other armies elite options have become more plentiful, spammable and powerful to react or create a power creep, but not so for the Marines, they have largely stayed unchanged just cheaper, which doesn't fix the problem on its own.

They should be an elite army, few in number (though not Movie Marines, as fun as they were), and generally able to out-elite their opponents. Some armies should have genuinely more powerful units' Mega-Armoured Nobz should be hell on earth to kill, Wraiths should be very tough, etc, but no army should be able to bring as many elite, high-durability, high damage output units as the various flavours of Marine (chaos included here).

The current power creep has made most marine units mediocre in comparison, with what should be very impressive units, such as Vanguard Veterans, Sternguard Veterans and so on little more than slightly better than most armies basic units for a massive points premium.

This is how we got here, where we go, well, as we all know GW won't fix anything in its current state, whether that be cutting back the power creep or evening out the current dexes to their current "standard" (Necrons threw any pretense of a consistent balance which had been hoped for with the bland, but tame 7th edition books thus far) , but whether such a theoretical rebalance of marine roles occurs, it doesn't much matter if they were to get better, or the power creep cut back and then, by extension, Marines would fulfill their fluff better.

Of course, I'd also like to see GW show some sanity in the fluff side; the stories with a single squad of marines taking out whole rebellious planets is nonsense, as is 1000 chapters of 1000 marines having any kind of galactic impact in comparison to the trillions of Imperial Guardsmen, the Titan Legions, the PDFs, etc. The gold standard, for me, is how FW wrote the Dark Angels and other Marine forces in the Seige of Vraks; attack with speed and precision and concentration of force otherwise impossible to acheive with normal IG while the IG hold the bulk of the enemy in place, seize strategic locations before enemy can react, destroy enemy logistics, communication and command while thinning their reserves/elite forces which would otherwise be a challenge to the IG, and before the enemy can really react in decisive force, withdraw and leave the enemy crippled with little to show for it. They also accentuate their role as fighting Daemons and other otherworldly foes, as well as forming/seizing breaches in otherwise formidable defenses. Decapitation, surgical strike, "Schwerepunkt" and dealing with monsters of the void, and the numbers to actually pull it off and justify their lavish attention in the fluff, none of this "7 marines depopulate a planet over 5 days," the bloody models don't even have extra magazines for their bolters!

In the mean time, my suspension of disbelief is more broken by my single squad of guardsmen killing 3 tacticals behind cover with their angry flashlights, and how cultists will almost always come out ahead of Assault Marines, or even Terminators for equal points investment, to say nothing of basic Eldar small arms cutting down 1st Company veterans as if they were so much chaff.

Well I play Black Templar and honestly I wish they played like my Orks, but with a few changes.

Space marines should be less random. however, with orks getting to reroll one die on a charge distance, that makes them better at charging than a space marine on a bike. How silly.

But really, I want waves of Black Templar in assault vehicles charging across the battlefield and attacking with 4 attacks each, using the fury of their chaplain to get them rage or furious charge or something.

I wish Terminators were more like nobs/meganiobz, but with higher ld and the same armor. So 2 wounds. 3 attacks on the profile, and the ability to take whatever custom weapon they want.

I wouldn't say the Space Marines including to certain degree their Chaos nemesis are a bad representation of what they are in the fluff. Or, has I would like to point out, the fluff isn't a bad representation of what's on the tabletop.

They are the best unit in the game on one on one by a solid margin. They are supposed to be highly durable infantrie with good weapons and excellent close combat capacity, incredible morale and flexible tactical use. They should be either highly mechanised or deploy via drop pods anywhere they want with good precision. They are capable of doing all these things reasonably well and perform well when you design your army with this in mind. They would benefit from a little rework of the unit selection system that would reduce the quantity of anti-tank weapon on the tabletop. In fact most army would benefit from that too.

Now 40K on the tabletop present two problem for hardcore Space Marine fans. First, all armies on the tabletop are designed to take out things like heavy armor and elite infantrie with relative ease and predictability. No where in any of the fluff will you see more massive weapons or high number of special/heavy weapon than on the tabletop. Think about even the most movie marine story you ever heard or read about. How many plasma gun, melta gun, autocanon or even snipers the poor bloody guardsmen or cultitsts had? You don't see very often a squad of marine engaging in a firefight a squad of guard veteran with carapace armor with three plasma gun, an autocanon and their chimera transport. That's one of the most common built for guardsmen on the tabletop. I bet that a squad of marine faced with some much special weapons and a tank would be sweating and cursing a lot more against that than against a bunch nameless, faceless poor quality guardsmen.

The second problem is lack of fluff knowledge about how awesome the other guy his. If Space Marine are demi-gods of war clad in nearly indestructible armor, their ennemies are in the same vein: Nighmarish monsters and aliens capable of destroying entire worlds with bizarre and powerful technologie. Hell even the basic human soldiers get out of proportion in the 40K setting. The typical poor bloody guardsmen is a Cadian born on world dedicated to war, trained since the age of 6 by a military state that will not fear putting him through monstruous test and training to make him a killing machine by the age of 14 and than call him cadet, not even guardsmen yet. For that he will have to reach adulthood. A poor Cadian soldier would look a our best soldiers and think they would be good has third line of reserve. Of course Marines are ridiculously powerful, but they fight ridiculously powerful foes so it doesn't show that much.

The best analogie about Space Marine I can think of is that of a mid 13th century knight. These men were trained since the age of 7 for war. At age 13 they entered service with another noblemen has squire where he would escort him in battle and learn by his side. Squires even participated in actual battles on many occasions. When they reached adulthood they had years of training with experimented warriors and good experience of real combat. They would then be equipped with the best armor money could buy, carry excellent swords of various design, long spears made for charges and barded warhorses. Each of them is a little killing machine capable of routing dozens of common men at arm. Yet a single peasent with six hours of training with a light crossbow could kill one without any difficulty. That's why knights tried to ban crossbow and almost succeded on several occasion. War is cheap like that sometimes, even the strongest warrior can be killed by the most humble one without any difficulty.

I would at least like the OPTION of playing movie marines.

To me the best way to fix this would be just adding more wargear/options to all marines. This way if I want to kit out my tactical squads to be a serious threat to anything on the board I can pay for it (and represent it on the model) and there it is! But if I want to go with the standard representation I can, and everything in between.

I think the main reasons why this isn't already a thing is a) selling less models means less money for GW, b) it would require a LOT of playtesting to add in some 5-10 new upgrades to ALL marine units and then try them in various combinations against the rest of the game.

Still: that's where I want marines to go.

 Jayden63 wrote:
The only thing that would need to happen to help represent their fluff a bit would be a reduction in general of AP 2/3 guns in the game and maybe make the bolter a little more powerful.

This right here. The overabundance of ranged, high strength AP2/AP3 makes a mockery of what is supposed to be the Space Marine's greatest advantage, their "durability". Their lauded close combat skill is also a total whiff, since they are typically no more skilled than the simplest of Orks and Eldar (and many Nids). While Eldar WS makes sense, Orks and Nids do not. Primal savagery should be represented by number of attacks or speed/iniative, not WS.

WS is a crap stat anyway.

Most Tyranids have a WS of 3 not 4.

Personally I think a lot of the fluff to tabletop discrepancy is due to 6 sided dice. There isn't enough wiggle room to make a unit feel better than one but worse than another.

My favorite example, a Space Marine as depicted in the books is a crack shot BS4. A basic guardsman is almost as good at BS3 and a veteran is BS4. Same thing goes for all the other stats. I think the game is fairly well represented - or as good as it's gonna get - at the moment.

Just my .02.

@Martel732

How would you name the stat that dictate the chances of something hitting something else in close combat then?

SGTPozy wrote:
Most Tyranids have a WS of 3 not 4.

I thought just the gaunts had WS3....oh well, I stand corrected.

 GearheadXII wrote:
Personally I think a lot of the fluff to tabletop discrepancy is due to 6 sided dice. There isn't enough wiggle room to make a unit feel better than one but worse than another.

My favorite example, a Space Marine as depicted in the books is a crack shot BS4. A basic guardsman is almost as good at BS3 and a veteran is BS4. Same thing goes for all the other stats. I think the game is fairly well represented - or as good as it's gonna get - at the moment.

Just my .02.

This is absolutely true. It's the single biggest obstacle to any true balancing in 40K.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
Most Tyranids have a WS of 3 not 4.

I thought just the gaunts had WS3....oh well, I stand corrected.

No, basically all of the MCs are Ws3 too.

@ClassicCarraway

Genestealer have WS 6, Tyranid Warrior WS 5, while Prime are 6, Hive Tyrant are WS 8, Trygon are WS 5, Raveners are WS 5, the rest is pretty much stuck at WS 3

Martel732 wrote:
WS is a crap stat anyway.

The stat itself isn't crap, its the stupid chart. Why they didn't do a standard comparison like the S/T chart I'll never know. The 3+ minimum roll is just stupid and always has been.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
WS is a crap stat anyway.

The stat itself isn't crap, its the stupid chart. Why they didn't do a standard comparison like the S/T chart I'll never know. The 3+ minimum roll is just stupid and always has been.

The chart makes it a crap stat. I thought that was implied in my statement. Sorry.