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An Orc Warboss and Demon Prince is toughness 5, so no.

I'd lean towards them having 2 wounds though because of the 2 hearts.

Shouldn't Guard be better at drowning things in bodies than Marines?

Bharring wrote:
Shouldn't Guard be better at drowning things in bodies than Marines?

There's supposed to be a tradeoff that the marines have a chance of winning in combat. There's too many units now that marines don't have a prayer against. It's actually been this way since 5th.

Since they are no more efficacious than guardsmen in these cases, they should be just as good at fighting the futile battles. Otherwise, why bother ever playing marines? You are just overpaying for units that die like guardsmen.

A Wraith kills guardsmen at:
(2/3)(2/3)(2/3) nonrends (8/27) +
(2/3)(1/6)(1) rends (1/9)
Or 11/27 per attack

Kills a Marine at:
(1/2)(2/3)(1/3) nonrends (1/9) +
(1/2)(1/6)(1) rends (1/12)
Or 21/108

Even at nearly their worst, the Marines take *half* the losses against this undercoated abomination.

To exacerbate problems, Wraiths have a *very* good chance to sweep even a 30 man blob in one round, even higher against two.

The Marines, on the other hand, can't be swept. Even if they break, the Marines merely regroup and keep shooting. And the odds are that both the PG and combi will survive. If they don't break, it'll take an equally costed Wraith unit much longer to mulch through the Marines than it'll take to sweep the Guardsmen, on average.

And that 30man blob costs a bit more than that 5man plas squad.

The sm in books: Massacres 500 humans naked and doesn't give a dam

sm in game: Shot gun to the chest = dead

They need to be w2

@Martel: While I acknowledge that you have some good points, I think it's also important to remember that you apparently play in a hellish meta where nothing but skyhammer, scatbikes, and wraithknights exist. Even in our local tournament scene, we only have one player who does the scatterbie + wriath knight combo, and I never see anything that nasty in friendly games.

So while yes, scatterbikes are OP, they shouldn't blind us to the existence of less awful-to-face lists. And before someone says, "But they exist, so everything has to be based off them!" I'll say no. Everything does not. There are many players who don't play competitively or who do play competitively but don't face scatterbike list after scatterbike list. In friendly games especially you are more than welcome to let your opponent know you'd rather not face a scatterbike and wraithknight list. Your opponent, while understandably disappointed that they don't get to use their shiny toys, has no inherent right to smash your list into the pavement just because he put together a net list.

@Bharring: I generally agree with you on topics like this. You may recall that we were on the same "side" in the "is bladestorm OP" thread a while back. That said, I do feel you may be overlooking certain logistics where tac marines are concerned. Yes, marines have plenty advantages that things like dire avengers or fire warriors don't, and yes they tend to live longer than said avengers or fire warriors as I don't play in Martel's meta where every weapon is either a battle cannon or a scatter laser. That said, many of their advantages conflict with one another in some way.

Their rapid fire guns can't be used the same turn that they charge to take advantage of their grenades, strength, WS, and initiative. Their moderate anti-tank ability, while far from terrible, means that their strength 4 guns get to do nothing while the meltas/plas shoot, and the guy lobbing a krak grenade has a good chance of not doing much damage against many common vehicles.

Marines have their strengths, but the unit lacks synergy within itself. It can't leverage all of its strengths at once very easily, and even if it does, you're probably still paying for a couple of boltguns or some melee ability that you won't get to use that turn. The fact that 7th is a shooty edition doesn't help either. Despite their armor, marines have a hard time not evaporating to the point of being ineffective offensively if you have to sit around being shot at for a turn before you can assault.

Which is why I wish they had assault weapons or some other way of leveraging their strengths all at once. A mild price hike (back up to 14ish point I think) would be pretty reasonable if you could assault after shooting (thus getting 4 strength 4 attacks off of a normal guy in a single turn). I don't feel giving tacs an option for a close combat wepaon and pistol in addition to their bolters (ala chaos marines) would be unreasonable either. 5 strength 4 attacks per model at a total of, say, 16 points per guy doesn't seem too ridiculous to me.

I'm disappointed when I look at how marine points have gone down in the last few Vanilla Marine books. I'd much rather see marines go up in price and be more threatening than go down in price but remain ineffective. Someone mentioned earlier that they don't like the idea of a single marine being worth 100 guardsmen, and I can certainly get behind that, but I'm not opposed to a squad of marines feeling more scary than they currently do.

Again, I'm in the "Movie Marines But Less So" camp.

Bharring wrote:
A Wraith kills guardsmen at:
(2/3)(2/3)(2/3) nonrends (8/27) +
(2/3)(1/6)(1) rends (1/9)
Or 11/27 per attack

Kills a Marine at:
(1/2)(2/3)(1/3) nonrends (1/9) +
(1/2)(1/6)(1) rends (1/12)
Or 21/108

Even at nearly their worst, the Marines take *half* the losses against this undercoated abomination.

To exacerbate problems, Wraiths have a *very* good chance to sweep even a 30 man blob in one round, even higher against two.

The Marines, on the other hand, can't be swept. Even if they break, the Marines merely regroup and keep shooting. And the odds are that both the PG and combi will survive. If they don't break, it'll take an equally costed Wraith unit much longer to mulch through the Marines than it'll take to sweep the Guardsmen, on average.

And that 30man blob costs a bit more than that 5man plas squad.

The squad is still a write off. And then let's look at MCs, that, by definition, ignore armor saves. And there are so many MCs in play now. From my experience, it's almost always better to throw away fewer points. Plus, I WANT my unit to lose in one turn so I can shoot the assault unit some more. The marine scenario you describe is a nightmare because the Wraiths will still be in CC on the marine turn. So marines are paying more points to still lose the combat and deny themselves shooting opportunities.

Martel -
The Wraiths, at equal points, aren't very likely to finish the Marines in 2 rounds of CC.

Why is it less effective for 95pts of Marines to hold Wraiths for a few game turns than 150pts of IG getting swept quickly?

Sure, a 50pt Guardsmen squad has some appeal, but that's not far off from a 55pt Scout squad. But they are Guard. That's what they do.

Wyld -
Tac strengths certainly don't synergize well. And they shouldn't. Tacs pay more than any one skill set is worth, certainly, but they also pay a ton less than the combined value of all their skills. They are generalists. They make worse Fire Warriors than Fire Warriors, but are better at it than Orks. They make worse Orks than Orks, but are better at it than Fire Warriors.

If Marines got full usage out of all their skills, they'd be incredibly OP compared to most troops. If their price were jacked up to pay for all their skills, they'd be incredibly overpriced.

The Marine needs to threaten to chop the shooty and shoot the chopy. They can't outshoot Tau Firewarriors, so they need the threaten to krump. They can't outkrump Orks, so they need to outshoot. And they can do those things well, compared to most troops.

Compared to most troops, Tacs have a way to beat them. Compared to some, they beat them in almost every way. But if they go up against a specialist on the specialists terms, they should lose.

Tacs certainly aren't OP, but they are one of the better basic troops in the game. Its just that nobody brings most of the troops in the game, because they lose harder than Tacs do against most things.

"The Wraiths, at equal points,"

They often show up in very unequal points, however.

"But if they go up against a specialist on the specialists terms, they should lose. "

The game is all specialists that force you to fight on their terms now, though.

"The Marine needs to threaten to chop the shooty and shoot the chopy."

That's very, very difficult to do in 7th.

" But they are Guard. That's what they do."

This is not an excuse for tac marines performing no better than guardsmen on the 7th ed battlefield despite costing three times as much.

My current competitive list pretty much treats marines like expendable guardsmen in power armor. I think I sacrifice like half a company or more of white scars every game. So I definitely understand the feeling of "these do NOT feel like super-elite troops."

I did eventually find a solution in friendly games: use them as counts-as necrons.

Scouts= warriors. Marines= immortals. Jump assault marines = wraiths. Apothecary= cryptek. Sniper scouts = deathmarks. Terminators = lychguard. Toss in some guard or servitors to be scarabs, dreadnought = spyder, etc etc.

It actually plays a lot more like "an army full of elite troops" than marines do.

" So I definitely understand the feeling of "these do NOT feel like super-elite troops." "

They don't feel elite in any sense of the word.

So what do you want? For 95 points of Marines kitted for shooting TEQ to wipe their asses with 200+ pts of Wraiths when assaulted?

How do Ork boys force you not to shoot? How do Guardians avoid getting destroyed at 12+ inches, or destroyed in CC? How do Wyches or Harliquin Troups keep you from blasting them? How do Guardsmen always get the alpha in RF range, but never get charged?

"So what do you want? For 95 points of Marines kitted for shooting TEQ to wipe their asses with 200+ pts of Wraiths when assaulted? "

I don't want to have to "kit" my units. I don't want my 95 pts unit to be a complete liability, which is mostly is in 7th ed. I DO want 95 pts of marines to put up a better fight in melee than 50 pts of guardsmen, which they basically don't.

"How do Ork boys force you not to shoot?"

There are far too many Orks for tac marines to effectively shoot.

"How do Guardians avoid getting destroyed at 12+ inches"

They have their scatterbike buddies shoot me and their WK buddies assault me.

"How do Wyches or Harliquin Troups keep you from blasting them"

They don't show up.

" How do Guardsmen always get the alpha in RF range"

They use autocannon spam to kill marine transports and then AP 3/2 blasts to kill them.

Very simply, no one plays the game that units like tac marines are good at. There are other units in the same boat, and they simply aren't used.

It sounds like your group has a very different way of playing this game. In my group, tac marines are irrelevant no matter how you kit them, so I might as well pay less for guardsmen.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want to have to "kit" my units. I don't want my 95 pts unit to be a complete liability, which is mostly is in 7th ed. I DO want 95 pts of marines to put up a better fight in melee than 50 pts of guardsmen, which they basically don't.

They're MSU, they are not supposed to dominate the game.

Why don't you experiment a little and try playing Bolter Centurions as troops? They are T5 2W and are focused only around shooting. Might be fun to see how it works out in practice.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want to have to "kit" my units. I don't want my 95 pts unit to be a complete liability, which is mostly is in 7th ed. I DO want 95 pts of marines to put up a better fight in melee than 50 pts of guardsmen, which they basically don't.

They're MSU, they are not supposed to dominate the game.

Why don't you experiment a little and try playing Bolter Centurions as troops? They are T5 2W and are focused only around shooting. Might be fun to see how it works out in practice.

I'm not looking for domination. I'm looking for them to do something, anything.

I'm more interested in hearing your thoughts on a pure shooty troop capped at S4/S5, regardless of being T5 2W.

Yoyoyo wrote:
I'm more interested in hearing your thoughts on a pure shooty troop capped at S4/S5, regardless of being T5 2W.

That would be interesting. However, it's not really more durability I'm looking for. As I've stated, I think marines have become victims of lack of granularity. I'd give marines a 2.5+ save and a STR 4.5 gun. However, this is not possible.

On a D10 based system, I'd give marines 4+ armor, terminators 3+ armor, broadsides and centurions 2+ armor, fire dragons and warp spiders 5+ armor and things like guardsmen 7+ armor. There is no mathematical niche to differentiate the space marine in 40K anymore.

If you want a Plas unit to do something, then shoot. How does that 95 pts measure up to 95 pts of Necron Warriors, even at just shooting?

I don't know, but I'm sure you are going to tell me.

I'll tell you what though. Those Necron units are better off in a general sense, because if they see a death star coming, they have Wraiths to put in the way.

What do BA have? Nothing like that, that's for sure. So the reality of tacs ending up in CC with something that eats them is significantly higher.

It's not just tacticals being bad in a vacuum. They don't offer anything to list and the list doesn't offer anything back. I suppose they are supposedly designed to work on their own, but they don't work against so many things now.

To be fair, wraiths aren't especially killy. They're just killy enough while also being quite durable. They're basically T-Wolves without formations shenanigans, and much more durable than T-Wolves with them. What I"m getting at is that wraiths won't tear apart deathstars so much as slap fight them for the rest of the game as deathstars are generally built around being survivable.

Regarding not "kitting out" units, I'm afraid that's kind of the whole shtick of tac marines. They're kind of meant to be small, teams of dudes with weapons built for a certain job, so their utility is going to be limited without at least one special gun in the squad. That said, I still agree that it would be nice to see marines be able to do more (even at a higher cost) in exchange for a price increase.

@Bharring: I agree with you in theory, but it just doesn't seem to work out that way on the table. Theoretically, I should be able to shoot up orks and punch tau with my tacs. In practice, I can't kill enough orks (due to cover saves and FNP) to take the steam out of their sails even if I focus on kiting, and Tau (or other shooty armies) just get to do too much to my marines between shooting me upon leaving my rhino (or outflanking or infiltrating or whatever; I play with Raptor chapter tactics) then shoot me again in overwatch, then possibly shoot me some more if the tau use their overwatch shenanigans or if I get unlucky on a charge roll.

I've dragged down a C'tan with a Tac squad (and some librarian support), and I can pop non-jinking vehicles reasonably well, but the former was largely luck, and the latter is sort of a semi-effective suicide tactic.

Honestly, tac marines work reasonably well for a friendly game. They are not good for competitive play (except as a way to spam free points), but that doesn't really affect me. My gripe is that they aren't really advertised as "guys who are okay but not great at both shooting and punching." The way marines are advertised is, "Hey. These guys are pretty serious. You can kill them, sure, but each dude is going to drag quite a few of your guys down with him."

Again, that's not to say I want OP marines. I just want points expensive marines that feel scarier than a regular "troop." I meant, we can pretty much agree that necrons have the edge in a straight-up one-on-one fight, right? But should they? A basic 'cron warrior is a lot less hyped up than an astartes. From a story standpoint, one is the random encounter your D&D party smashes in a necromancer's dungeon, and the other is a character with at least a couple lines of dialogue in an action movie. Marine plot armor should probably let you take down at least a couple 'cron warriors per marine, if you have to pay more points to get your marine to that power level.

I'd also like to point out that I agree with Bharring in theory. My complaints are all based in practical application. Nothing works out the way that is being claimed. I never get to fight other troops in a vacuum. There's always those pesky LoW and elites running around.

Everyone is raising good points, however I believe they should stay at T4 W1 (Don't forget they have a 3+ sav). If you compare them to Guardsmen (Which are just normal mortals) They're T3 S3 5+. So I do think they should stay how they are.

However I do understand where you're coming from though, in Novels and Short Story's they are these Super Soldiers who can fight the odds of 2 to 1, but the TT often strays from the Lore due to balancing etc.

I still dont understand why you are putting your tac marines into fights they cannot win....

 Tenzilla wrote:
I still dont understand why you are putting your tac marines into fights they cannot win....

It happens because my opponent gets a turn, too. And tacs are the cheapest units BA have (other than scouts) to throw away.

Martel732 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Shouldn't Guard be better at drowning things in bodies than Marines?

There's supposed to be a tradeoff that the marines have a chance of winning in combat. There's too many units now that marines don't have a prayer against. It's actually been this way since 5th.

Since they are no more efficacious than guardsmen in these cases, they should be just as good at fighting the futile battles. Otherwise, why bother ever playing marines? You are just overpaying for units that die like guardsmen.

Perhaps you should just play a different army....SM is one of the top armies right now and you cant seem to make it work for you, maybe it is time to move on.

 Tenzilla wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Shouldn't Guard be better at drowning things in bodies than Marines?

There's supposed to be a tradeoff that the marines have a chance of winning in combat. There's too many units now that marines don't have a prayer against. It's actually been this way since 5th.

Since they are no more efficacious than guardsmen in these cases, they should be just as good at fighting the futile battles. Otherwise, why bother ever playing marines? You are just overpaying for units that die like guardsmen.

Perhaps you should just play a different army....SM is one of the top armies right now and you cant seem to make it work for you, maybe it is time to move on.

I play BA, not SM. Or maybe you didn't catch that. And BA are arguably the worst list atm. And SM are not good because of tacs, I can assure you of that.

I could definitely see Marines getting 2 Wounds for basic models and 3 for Sergeants.

I could also see an adaptation of a rule that just showed up for Age of Sigmar and the "Chaos War Mammoth".

The rule "Mountain of Fur & Rage" makes it so that the Chaos War Mammoth can re-roll failed armour saves against any weapon attack with a Rending characteristic of "-".

Doing a similar rule for Power Armor(and Terminator Armor!) for AP values of 5+(Power Armor) and 3+(Terminator Armor) could be interesting to test out.

So Terminators have a rerollable 2+ against AP3 and a 5+ against AP2?

Too sharp a drop.

 Ashiraya wrote:
So Terminators have a rerollable 2+ against AP3 and a 5+ against AP2?

Too sharp a drop.

For the points cost of Terminators--and what Terminators actually are armed with?

Not sharp enough.

 Ashiraya wrote:


I recommend the RPGs for those who want to immerse themselves in some more granularity and stats that match the background.

I'll have to check them out. It'd be refreshing to see "proper" Astartes on the tabletop.