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Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

A Lasgun is a lot scarier to a Marine than a Guardsman already, but when it feels like everything that's shooting is plasma or better, it doesn't seem to matter.

If it were harder/costlier to field S6+ and/or AP3-, and harder/costlier to run t6+/AV12+ models with 4+ wounds/HP, or 2+ saves, perhaps then Marines would feel more like Marines.

FNP might be good for SM/CSM. Would fit the idea that Astartes can shrug off wounds that would kill a lesser being. At 5+ it's not an absolute cert that you'll pass the test.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
FNP might be good for SM/CSM. Would fit the idea that Astartes can shrug off wounds that would kill a lesser being. At 5+ it's not an absolute cert that you'll pass the test.

That might work, but how would Iron Hands chapter tactics work? :/

This has been discussed over and over OP. All thats gonna happen is a bunch of IG players are gonna chime in and say how marines aren't acutally that strong and that current marines are OP. Even though marines are so bad they are avoided like plague in competitive settings - unless they get relentless grav cannons or come with free razorbacks.

Fact of the matter is in the current game we have - the survivability you you pay for is mostly wasted. Loading up on wounds cheap wounds and abusing cover nets you much better surviability per point than 3+ saves.

I don't think T5 is needed but 2 wounds at about a 6 point increase would go a long way. It would make marines viable damage soakers. People will cry about this but it would put marines back on the map as being viable table top units and it would also suit the fluff better.

T5 2W? Enjoy killing it with lasguns....

You would need a whole platoon to kill one squad.

And then we get into the 'Viable compared to what' conversation.

Do we want Tacs to be auto-win vs 90% of the units in the game so that they can "be competitive" with the top 10%? And what about the unit it will now push out of the top 10%?

 Harley Quinn wrote:

 angelofvengeance wrote:
FNP might be good for SM/CSM. Would fit the idea that Astartes can shrug off wounds that would kill a lesser being. At 5+ it's not an absolute cert that you'll pass the test.

That might work, but how would Iron Hands chapter tactics work? :/

Err... better FNP? Since they like to chop bits off themselves and replace with bionics?

Isn't there already a way for SM's to get a 1+ fnp on a character?

 Hawky wrote:
T5 2W? Enjoy killing it with lasguns....

You would need a whole platoon to kill one squad.

What kinda gard squad doesn't have plasma guns? Also - what kind of gard army doesn't have wyverns?

Wyvern won't do well, you're going to need basilisks

 Bobthehero wrote:
Wyvern won't do well, you're going to need basilisks

Wyvern will still chew up t5 models. it comes with shred. Then theres basalisk, battle cannons, imperial knights, wraithgard, demolisher cannons, ect...

Literally an endless list of crap that would dismiss these marines easily. OFC - good old plasma cannons too...

Don't IG have a tank that puts out 5 plasma blasts?

At the chance of getting hot. And 2W means that STR 8 won't dismiss them easily.

Maybe just 2W sounds better with a point increase.

It was just me putting it out there, just to see what people thought.

What about the just giving SM models in PA or TA a re-rollable armor save? It greatly increases their survivability against things that are not at least AP 3, but they still die easily against weapons that can puncture 3+ armor.

Thus they will still seem like a armored shock force that are incredibly hard to kill with normal small arms fire but still die if you hit them with high armor penetrating weapons.

Bharring wrote:
Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

Interesting idea! Let's imagine we triple the price of a Plasma gun to 45pts.

You're not going to want to waste that kind of investment on targeting a poor 70pt Tac Squad, right?

 bomtek80 wrote:
What about the just giving SM models in PA or TA a re-rollable armor save? It greatly increases their survivability against things that are not at least AP 3, but they still die easily against weapons that can puncture 3+ armor.

Thus they will still seem like a armored shock force that are incredibly hard to kill with normal small arms fire but still die if you hit them with high armor penetrating weapons.

Oh, I like this one. I think it'd be great.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

Interesting idea! Let's imagine we triple the price of a Plasma gun to 45pts.

You're not going to want to waste that kind of investment on targeting a poor 70pt Tac Squad, right?

You wouldn't use it on anything because it would be the shittiest upgrade ever.

 Xenomancers wrote:
This has been discussed over and over OP. All thats gonna happen is a bunch of IG players are gonna chime in and say how marines aren't acutally that strong and that current marines are OP. Even though marines are so bad they are avoided like plague in competitive settings - unless they get relentless grav cannons or come with free razorbacks.

Fact of the matter is in the current game we have - the survivability you you pay for is mostly wasted. Loading up on wounds cheap wounds and abusing cover nets you much better surviability per point than 3+ saves.

I don't think T5 is needed but 2 wounds at about a 6 point increase would go a long way. It would make marines viable damage soakers. People will cry about this but it would put marines back on the map as being viable table top units and it would also suit the fluff better.

What, and regular Tactical Marines that get 18+ points worth of gear, stats and rules at 14 points are not good? When compared to the Guardsmen?

Okay, let us do the maths.

As things currently stand I need a full platoon within Rapid Fire range to kill 4 Marines. Throw in 5 Plasma guns. Now it is 7.5 Marines dead, along with two Guardsmen whom overheated their guns. Finally add in a line of FRFSRF. Now that is 9.5 Marines dead.
Congratulations, I just threw an entire platoon geared for MEQ busting at your one cheap Tactical Squad and even with 45 Lasguns and 5 Plasmaguns failed to wipe out 10 Marines. That is 280 points worth of IG failing to remove even 140 points worth of Marines from the table.

Now let us upgrade the Marines to T5 and 2 Wounds. The 45 Lasguns do 3 wounds - 1 Marine dead, 1 injured. The Plasmaguns do 4 wounds - 3 Marines dead and 1 wounded and two Guardsmen also dead through overheating. Finally FRFSRF adds in an extra 1 wound.
4 Marines dead from an entire MEQ busting Platoons worth of shooting.

As for your comments about Marines not being seen in competitive settings, well I think we can all see that you have never been to any competitive events have you? Space Marines are the most played army out of all the forces within 40K and I can guarantee you that at any competitive event that you should wish to go to you will see at the very least 40% minimum of the players will be using Space Marines. Why? Because they are THAT good. The Space Marine army list is one of the most diverse and flexible around and they also receive more love from GW than any other faction out there.
Your troops are tough, they are survivable and they can really put the hurt downrange, so why do we have this constant and continuous whining from SM players wanting more? And the arguement is always "Well in the fluff Marines always win" or "In the fluff 10 Marines wipe out an entire army" or "In the fluff Marines blah blah blah [insert endless blather about how good Marines are here]".
This game is not the fluff. Accept it. You cant be the best all the time. Your Marines are not special snowflakes and despite what GW says the other non Marine players - yes those peasants - are not there to powder your privileged backside on demand (IE roll over and die, losing the game to your all conquering Marines). They are there to have fun.

And we Imperial Guard players are sure as hell not here to be mocked and made fun of. We have a terrible codex with almost no viable units and yet the idea that the Guard should be effective and actually able to stand up to the Mary Sue Marines seems to be beyond the capacity of your kind to grasp. "Whats this, Imperial Guard peasants wanting to be able to stand on an equal footing with we lords? How DARE they!". Well too bad. You can not have everything your way just because you play an army of special snowflake Mary (or Marty) Sues whom never lose because G dubs days so. Sorry kiddo but your going to have to accept that we IG players are allowed to have an equal footing with you.

And as for this Eldar and Necron nonsense, do you really think that you are the only ones affected? Well, your not. Try coming down to the trenches once in a while, we in the Guard get stomped by you top tier codexes regularly but we do not complain anyway near as much as you lot. Hell, we get back in there and actually modify our tactics (Yes, that is a new word isnt it) to fight these and you know what? We actually win sometimes. Sure, it isnt often and our opponents often just breeze over us but we win sometimes and when we do, damn but does it feel good.

All in all quit whining. Seriously, just stop it. You are in a really good place with that codex of yours. And the next time you feel the urge to whine because Special Snowflake Bobinius Maximum with his Bolter from Tactical Squad Sueus was killed by a lucky lasgun shot stop for a moment and actually look at the codexes such as the Imperial Guard and the Sisters of Battle. Maybe play a few games with them.
Then think long and hard.

@MasterOfOrdinance: I realize you're mostly replying to xenomancer there, but there are a few things about your post I'd like to point out.

First of all, most of the posters in this thread (including Harley, the original poster) aren't trying to approach this from the standpoint that marines as an army are too weak. Most of the posters seem to be saying that they'd be fine with a completely horizontal shift if it made the marines reflect their fluff a bit better. That is to say, they aren't asking for the marine army as a whole to be better but for guys in power armor to feel less squishy and to have their points costs modified appropriately to reflect this.

It's not that we're saying marines aren't good enough or that your guard army is too good compared to marines. We're just saying that it's sort of unfluffy and disappointing when the marines end up dying to the first lasbolt that gets sent their way.

Take, for example, the numbers you crunched in which the guard killed off 9.5 marines. You're absolutely right in feeling that that's a ton of firepower being used to underwhelming effect. On the other hand, the marine player basically just lost 10 marines when he got too close to a platoon of guardsmen. If that scenario happens 10 more times across the span of whatever war the marines are fighting in, they should theoretically end up losing their entire company in short order.

And say they shot back at that same guard platoon as they were dying. You'd see something like:
7 bolters double-tapping for 14 attacks for 9.38 hits for 6.28 wounds.

Then let's say they have two plasmas and a combi-plas in the squad (using plasma because it's more generally useful than a melta or flamer), you'll have 6 shots, 4 hits, for something like 3.5 wounds.

So all together you're looking at about 10 wounds. Now the scenario you laid out was 140 pts of marines versus 280 points of guardsmen, so let's double that and say 20 wounds from a second plasma marine squad. And then there's a good chance the guard ignore a big chunk of those wounds with cover or something. The marines would ignore a few plasma wounds with cover too, to be fair.

Considering guardsmen are about half the cost of a marine, isn't killing 10 marines and losing 20 guardsmen a pretty good exchange?

Eh. I'm letting myself get off-topic. My point is that losing 10 marines every time they get close to a group of guardsmen just doesn't mesh with the advertising that comes on the marine tin. And then you add in t hings like ordnance that just makes marines evaporate (which, to be fair, it probably should), and you find yourself scratching your head trying to figure out why anyone would bother making these marine guys if you're killing twice as much as a guardsman but using up ten times the resources.

Marines are advertised as an extreme elite army. Mechanically, they're more like a semi-elite army that serves as the scale other armies are measured against. They're the "Mario" army rather than the army with a low model count and high efficacy per guy. Thus the desire for a horizontal shift in marine power that makes the marines feel more durable.

For the record, I very rarely play my marines, instead preferring my eldar, dark eldar, or harlies. I play my marines about as often as I play my 'nids or my new chaos army. So this isn't just a marine player complaining that his marines aren't curb stomping his friends enough.

 Bobthehero wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

Interesting idea! Let's imagine we triple the price of a Plasma gun to 45pts.

You're not going to want to waste that kind of investment on targeting a poor 70pt Tac Squad, right?

You wouldn't use it on anything because it would be the shittiest upgrade ever.

Which now means Tac Squads don't have to worry about Plasma, and get a lot more survivable in the shooting phase.

Obviously you can find a middle ground, I'm just trying to illustrate a point here.

Wyldhunt wrote:
@MasterOfOrdinance: I realize you're mostly replying to xenomancer there, but there are a few things about your post I'd like to point out.

First of all, most of the posters in this thread (including Harley, the original poster) aren't trying to approach this from the standpoint that marines as an army are too weak. Most of the posters seem to be saying that they'd be fine with a completely horizontal shift if it made the marines reflect their fluff a bit better. That is to say, they aren't asking for the marine army as a whole to be better but for guys in power armor to feel less squishy and to have their points costs modified appropriately to reflect this.

It's not that we're saying marines aren't good enough or that your guard army is too good compared to marines. We're just saying that it's sort of unfluffy and disappointing when the marines end up dying to the first lasbolt that gets sent their way.

Take, for example, the numbers you crunched in which the guard killed off 9.5 marines. You're absolutely right in feeling that that's a ton of firepower being used to underwhelming effect. On the other hand, the marine player basically just lost 10 marines when he got too close to a platoon of guardsmen. If that scenario happens 10 more times across the span of whatever war the marines are fighting in, they should theoretically end up losing their entire company in short order.

And say they shot back at that same guard platoon as they were dying. You'd see something like:
7 bolters double-tapping for 14 attacks for 9.38 hits for 6.28 wounds.

Then let's say they have two plasmas and a combi-plas in the squad (using plasma because it's more generally useful than a melta or flamer), you'll have 6 shots, 4 hits, for something like 3.5 wounds.

So all together you're looking at about 10 wounds. Now the scenario you laid out was 140 pts of marines versus 280 points of guardsmen, so let's double that and say 20 wounds from a second plasma marine squad. And then there's a good chance the guard ignore a big chunk of those wounds with cover or something. The marines would ignore a few plasma wounds with cover too, to be fair.

Considering guardsmen are about half the cost of a marine, isn't killing 10 marines and losing 20 guardsmen a pretty good exchange?

Eh. I'm letting myself get off-topic. My point is that losing 10 marines every time they get close to a group of guardsmen just doesn't mesh with the advertising that comes on the marine tin. And then you add in t hings like ordnance that just makes marines evaporate (which, to be fair, it probably should), and you find yourself scratching your head trying to figure out why anyone would bother making these marine guys if you're killing twice as much as a guardsman but using up ten times the resources.

Marines are advertised as an extreme elite army. Mechanically, they're more like a semi-elite army that serves as the scale other armies are measured against. They're the "Mario" army rather than the army with a low model count and high efficacy per guy. Thus the desire for a horizontal shift in marine power that makes the marines feel more durable.

For the record, I very rarely play my marines, instead preferring my eldar, dark eldar, or harlies. I play my marines about as often as I play my 'nids or my new chaos army. So this isn't just a marine player complaining that his marines aren't curb stomping his friends enough.

I get where you are coming from and I can understand. Actually, I should apologise for my rant. It was not entirely called for, although in all honesty the amount of whining that many SM players seem to be doing lately because something goes wrong for them or doesnt work out how they want it to or some unit or vehicle is not "da bestest" is just reaching stupid levels.

Right now we have a situation where an Imperial Guard army will struggle to compete with a Space Marine army of equal points values, as I illustrated above. That was a bare bones 10 man tactical squad and it survived an entire platoons worth of MEQ busting firepower. That was firepower from 5 fully upgraded Imperial Guard infantry sections which come, to now that I have done the maths again, 325 points (5 x Infantry Sections @ 50 points each) + (5 x Plasma Guns @ 15 points each) failing to kill off a 140 point Space Marine section (I was assuming that neither side was in cover, the Guard where blobbed so as all to receive the order and all where in rapid fire range - something that rarely happens on the battlefield).
Sure, we can throw in our Ordnance and Tanks too and we kill off 1 Tactical squad per every two tanks on average - assuming that the Marines are in the open - but this is once again bad trade as we are talking 280+ points to kill A squad which costs 140 points.

Whilst I can see where you are coming from with the thematic thing the game does not revolve around the fluff as much as all that. Tougher Space Marines, even at a points increase, would be too good. They would be next to impossible to kill off with our regular infantry and our tanks would struggle to make a dent in the multi wound models whilst our heavy weapons with multiple shots would be prioritised and picked off - and this would be incredibly easy to do as we lack high ROF heavy weapons that are good for marine busting.
Our only hope would be to lean even heavier on the crutch that is the Melta Vet section and the few tank designs that we have which are actually usable for their massive price, and this is something that many of us are already being forced to do.

Right now the average Space Marine is in a good place. He is 4+ points cheaper than he should be for all that gear and those rules, he has a good stat line and his armour is some of the best issued to basic infantry in the game - IE he actually gets a save against most weapons - whilst his gun is fairly average.
To add to this once per game (or twice if he is using the Smurf chapter tactics) he can reroll all rolls of a 1 to hit whilst his heavy weapon toting brethren can move and fire to full effect.

He is in a really good place. He does not need buffing any more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yoyoyo wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

Interesting idea! Let's imagine we triple the price of a Plasma gun to 45pts.

You're not going to want to waste that kind of investment on targeting a poor 70pt Tac Squad, right?

No. Plasma is too expensive as it is, especially for the Guard. Stop trying to remove the counters to your Infantry.

to the OP, No. That is all.

For all the passing and moaning from guard players, they don't realize how good they have it compared to blood angels.

Tac marines are terrible in the current meta. Actually they have been terrible since fifth edition. They have above average durability and craps firepower in a game about firepower, not durability.

No one is using vanilla marines for tac squads. They are using white scars, Skyhammer formations, grav stars, etc. The tac squads is one of the worst units in that book now.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
to the OP, No. That is all.

Hmmm.. Yes. I see what you mean. Very thought provoking.
Hahaha.

Martel732 wrote:
For all the passing and moaning from guard players, they don't realize how good they have it compared to blood angels.

Tac marines are terrible in the current meta. Actually they have been terrible since fifth edition. They have above average durability and craps firepower in a game about firepower, not durability.

No one is using vanilla marines for tac squads. They are using white scars, Skyhammer formations, grav stars, etc. The tac squads is one of the worst units in that book now.

I.... I.... I...
Look son, have you ever played the Imperial Guard? Once? I wish I had a 3+ armour save and high S and T and that my Infantry where no wiped from the board by just about every basic infantry weapon out there.

Yes, I have. A few times. You just have to understand what you are looking at. One big issue is that everything gets wiped in 7th ed and it's all about who can wipe the fastest. As I said, tac marines became garbage in 5th and have been garbage ever since, even with the price drop.

Guardsmen are actually more efficient against scatterlasers, which is now a big, big deal since most Eldar lists have at least 25 of the things. The basic infantry weapons you are worried about don't matter so much.

If what you claimed were remotely true, BA wouldn't be god awful. But they are. Worse than the AM for sure.

I will believe that when I see it. A static army without any real armour or firepower on its Infantry better off than a fast moving well armed and armoured army in this day and age?

Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman.
Besides, Eldar Scat Spam kills everything anyway. Is the fault of that codex, not of the other ones.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I will believe that when I see it. A static army without any real armour or firepower on its Infantry better off than a fast moving well armed and armoured army in this day and age?

Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman.
Besides, Eldar Scat Spam kills everything anyway. Is the fault of that codex, not of the other ones.

If I could play you, I would give you my BA and slaughter you over and over with the AM. BA are hardly well armed. That's their biggest flaw atm, actually. They basically don't participate in the shooting phase unless you load up on grav bikers. In which case, why bother to play BA?

"Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman."

Not for their points. Not the way the game works now. Basically the AM pay 5 pts per troop to die miserably and the marines pay 14 pts per troop to die miserably. Both units are very weak in 7th ed. Marines have greandes, S4, WS 4, bolt pistols, and ATSKNF, but none of these "upgrades" mean anything when every power list plans to shoot me off the table before assault ever happens. Which they do.

Also, an AM leafblower list still works against BA. That's how bad BA are right now.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I will believe that when I see it. A static army without any real armour or firepower on its Infantry better off than a fast moving well armed and armoured army in this day and age?

Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman.
Besides, Eldar Scat Spam kills everything anyway. Is the fault of that codex, not of the other ones.

If I could play you, I would give you my BA and slaughter you over and over with the AM. BA are hardly well armed. That's their biggest flaw atm, actually. They basically don't participate in the shooting phase unless you load up on grav bikers. In which case, why bother to play BA?

"Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman."

Not for their points. Not the way the game works now. Basically the AM pay 5 pts per troop to die miserably and the marines pay 14 pts per troop to die miserably. Both units are very weak in 7th ed. Marines have greandes, S4, WS 4, bolt pistols, and ATSKNF, but none of these "upgrades" mean anything when every power list plans to shoot me off the table before assault ever happens. Which they do.

Also, an AM leafblower list still works against BA. That's how bad BA are right now.

Nope, I would easily stomp you.... You seem to be forgetting that the only way a Guardsman survives is through cover. With but one exception ever basic weapon out there ignores our armour. Your BA's bolters ignore my armour entirely, whereas my squads might have 1, 3 at the most, weapons that ignore yours. Shot for shot, your marines will win in a firefight, even if we go equal points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and the Leafblower?
That was Imperial guard allied with the Inquisition. It was a broken codex being used to make a mediocre codex work.

"Nope, I would easily stomp you.... "

I rarely lose to BA. A few ST 8 AP 3 blast hits and many BA builds are completely crippled. Doubling out many BA models at once is really bad for us because it turns off FNP that many lists cough up points for. BA have no chance in a firefight against AM. In fact, I'd go as far to say that BA can't beat ANY codex in 7th in a firefight.

"You seem to be forgetting that the only way a Guardsman survives is through cover."

Overcosted units aside, I think you may be misinterpreting your own unit's roles. Guardsmen are there to die. Take advantage of that by using bubblewrap and ablative units with no equipment to absorb assaults. When I play AM, I don't care if the guardsmen die. Big difference in philosophy.


"That was Imperial guard allied with the Inquisition"

No, it wasn't, because 5th didn't have allies.