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Peregrine wrote:

Yep. Therefore marines should be nerfed to being average. Nerf their basic troops to give them some 3s for stats, and take away all the new units they've been given since 5th edition.

Perfect solution to balance issues for people who do not understand the background of WH 40.000:

Space elfs and space cows are eaten by the Tyranids, no more special snowflake nonsense



The Game also changes to a locked/unlocked mode: you are free to play orcs and humans ( IG ) as much as you like, but to get to some different "armies" you will have to unlock the "special game slot" by 10 games of orcs vs IG and the "very rare game slot" by 10 special games....

Lanrak wrote:
The Space Marine Faction is not to blame for currupting the rules for 40k.Its the GW senior management and the GW sales department!

Exactly. Don't blame the Book, blame the author.

This is some serious click-bait trolling.

clearly you simply hate marines as a concept. My army is a top army, but outside of formations, every guy in power armor i take is points I'm putting into an at best average unit.

Lanrak wrote:
Well if we look at the history of 40k..

WHFB was the massive game everyone knew about , and it was the stand by game of non historical gamers.
So when GW plc wanted to increase sales of its scifi line of minatures, basing the new game on WHFB was a sound sales decision to allow for cross over to the new system.

As RP an BA realized the heavy bias towards close combat and maneuver WHFB rules had, they sensibly wrote a skirmish game , which matched the scale of the minatures and the game play restrictions ancient model based rules have.

RT and 2nd ed 40k were over complicated but very characterful rules sets, and it was obvious the rules were just a guide line for players to modify and change to get the games they wanted.Back when WD was a rule supplement and minature catalog, it had lots of new rules ideas and revisions .

If 40k had kept to this skirmish game size , it would have been fine.(Probably closer to BtGoA if RP had been left in charge of it.)
As the compromise of being based on WHFB would not have been such an issue.

Unfortunately 3rd ed onwards was heavily infuenced by GW sales department who upped model count to silly levels and made selling Space Marines to children the focus of 40k.

The Space Marine Faction is not to blame for currupting the rules for 40k.Its the GW senior management and the GW sales department!

However, the desire to push space marines as the go to faction for new players has messed up the game balance.

I sort of agree with the OP.
IF bog standard IG was the most common army in 40k, and was used as the yardstick to measure all other factions against.Then ALL factions would be easier to balance.

Compared to the current set up of ''well they have to be inferior to Space Marines , but being able to deal with them in limited ways''.

This is the same level of ridiculously incorrect crap that the OP had. The reason the game isn't balanced is because rules are written without concern as to how powerful each army will be relative to each other at extreme levels of efficiency. GW expects players to moderate their play to the relative strength of what their local gaming buddies like to play because that's what they themselves do. Also, rules sell models so OP rules sell more models and that's how individually powerful units that become absolutely broken in combinations like librarius conclaves and wulfen come into play.

The game would be exactly the same if guard was the central pivot point because instead of saying 'oh guard are weaker and frailer than SM so here's their stats and 'oh riptides are bigger and stronger than SM so here's their stats' it would be 'oh SM are stronger and tougher than guard so here's their stats and guard are WAY weaker than WAY frailer than a riptide so here's HIS stats. it all leads to the same damn numbers.

They have to put a massive wall back between 40k (skirmish) and apoc (7th edition basically). Put the cat back in the damn bag. Formations are half the problem.

Yeah! Build a wall and make Privateer Press pay for it!

This must be trolling. Normal troops these days are useless. Marines as troops are balanced and great for explain the game to newbies.

The power creep to me comes from gw pushing the big kits to sell more. Simple as...

Although on 5th as a tau and IG player I really curse them...

They should just launch warhammer: 40001, and they can start all over again.

The problem is that now a space marine is considerated "normal" since half of the armies on the game are loyal marines. And if not a marine, a necron with similar stats, or an eldar with still bs4 (less R but also less points)

Join this with a point decrease of the loyal marines on this edition codexs (at least vanilla ones), but keeping the stats, the they shall not know the rules and some nice chapter skills and BAM, there you have because armies with lines as orks boyz feels inferior. Even csm, for only 1 point less are utterly inferior. And a guardsmen or a cultist looks patetic hahaha


The feeling is not that a guardsmen or a cultist or even an ork is the standar. The standar now is a marine

Ummm, 40k is unbalanced because GW is in the business of selling expensive toy soldiers, not writing balanced rules. 40k is just a way to push sales. It is a myopic mess of individual model rules lumped with unit rules and lacking in any proper sense of scale built of an antiquated model developed for loose fantasy wargaming. Most of the game devolves into a mess of rolling 3+/4+ over and over.

That being said, it could certainly be pared down to distill its strengths. Pick a scale, get rid of all the unnecessary special rule exceptions and bring it back to pushing your toy space men across the table.

 jmurph wrote:
Most of the game devolves into a mess of rolling 3+/4+ over and over.

Isn't that the point of the game? To roll dice?

(I do agree that they need to pick a scale however and stick with it, not try to fit everything into one game)

I agree with the OP.
If the designers had tried to balance the game around IG instead of Space marines then there would have been a lot less of the power creep, simply because to weaker basic troops smaller things seem more powerful.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I agree with the OP.
If the designers had tried to balance the game around IG instead of Space marines then there would have been a lot less of the power creep, simply because to weaker basic troops smaller things seem more powerful.

No, there wouldn't have been.

It's a fallacious argument. Balancing around Space Marines isn't the problem, because quite frankly? Even the basic Space Marines are outclassed by Bikers or Monstrous Creatures of all types.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I agree with the OP.
If the designers had tried to balance the game around IG instead of Space marines then there would have been a lot less of the power creep, simply because to weaker basic troops smaller things seem more powerful.

The balance point doesn't matter. The number of outliers do. And boy, are there outliers.

I'm partially confused why the 4s stat line of Space Marines is considered problematic when the majority of the xenos forces don't care about the presence of any other imperial force, but once forces comprising 3.25e^-8% of the imperium of man's forces show up, then the xenos start to worry or plan accordingly. More specifically, as it's usually only a chapter showing up for a conflict (and only a handful at that), if xenos forces are worried about 2.5e^-14% of the IoM's forces showing up for a party, then I don't see how, from a fluff perspective, they wouldn't have better stats reflected on the table. Add on the fact that they've been using upwards of 14,000 year old technology and competing with millions of year old technology, and their be a reason they're considered elite and have better numbers.

I think I had better clarify the issues with using 7 ft tall super humans as the yard stick every army is measure against.

I have no problems with the Space Marine factions or even their stat lines.

But if we used the IG as the base line, then the game play can be based on modern warfare we are all familiar with.
Loyal IG vs Traitor IG defines how the basic game play runs.So the units behave how we expect....

And the 'bog standard shooty infantry hoard' defines the scale and scope of the game.(Modern company level battle game.)

Now the other races can be slightly different to humans eg slightly different stat line, to play differently.And how the races are different is better defined against a well understood analogue.

And this leave Space Marines X times better than bog standard IG, in game terms, and costing X times as much.
Actually making Space Marines match their background, of being a small elite force that is not 'super user friendly'.(As was the case in RT and 2nd Ed.)

However, as GW plc want to sell Space Marines to children.They constantly reduce their PV and or give them special rules to inspire sales.

So the Space Marines can follow any play style they want.Which means the factions that should excel at one or two aspects, need to use special rule to be different to to Space Marines. .

It is this GW sales department influence of just promoting sales of Space Marines, and loosing sight of any real focus on game scale and scope.That has completely compromised the 40k rules.

It is not really the PV issue, (though multiples of lowest value is much easier to manage than fractions of highest value!)
More of an 'in game function' issue.

Lanrak wrote:
I think I had better clarify the issues with using 7 ft tall super humans as the yard stick every army is measure against.

I have no problems with the Space Marine factions or even their stat lines.

But if we used the IG as the base line, then the game play can be based on modern warfare we are all familiar with.
Loyal IG vs Traitor IG defines how the basic game play runs.So the units behave how we expect....

And the 'bog standard shooty infantry hoard' defines the scale and scope of the game.(Modern company level battle game.)

Now the other races can be slightly different to humans eg slightly different stat line, to play differently.And how the races are different is better defined against a well understood analogue.

And this leave Space Marines X times better than bog standard IG, in game terms, and costing X times as much.
Actually making Space Marines match their background, of being a small elite force that is not 'super user friendly'.(As was the case in RT and 2nd Ed.)

However, as GW plc want to sell Space Marines to children.They constantly reduce their PV and or give them special rules to inspire sales.

So the Space Marines can follow any play style they want.Which means the factions that should excel at one or two aspects, need to use special rule to be different to to Space Marines. .

It is this GW sales department influence of just promoting sales of Space Marines, and loosing sight of any real focus on game scale and scope.That has completely compromised the 40k rules.

It is not really the PV issue, (though multiples of lowest value is much easier to manage than fractions of highest value!)
More of an 'in game function' issue.

100% in agreement!

Lanrak wrote:
I think I had better clarify the issues with using 7 ft tall super humans as the yard stick every army is measure against.

I have no problems with the Space Marine factions or even their stat lines.

But if we used the IG as the base line, then the game play can be based on modern warfare we are all familiar with.
Loyal IG vs Traitor IG defines how the basic game play runs.So the units behave how we expect....

And the 'bog standard shooty infantry hoard' defines the scale and scope of the game.(Modern company level battle game.)

Now the other races can be slightly different to humans eg slightly different stat line, to play differently.And how the races are different is better defined against a well understood analogue.

And this leave Space Marines X times better than bog standard IG, in game terms, and costing X times as much.
Actually making Space Marines match their background, of being a small elite force that is not 'super user friendly'.(As was the case in RT and 2nd Ed.)

However, as GW plc want to sell Space Marines to children.They constantly reduce their PV and or give them special rules to inspire sales.

So the Space Marines can follow any play style they want.Which means the factions that should excel at one or two aspects, need to use special rule to be different to to Space Marines. .

It is this GW sales department influence of just promoting sales of Space Marines, and loosing sight of any real focus on game scale and scope.That has completely compromised the 40k rules.

It is not really the PV issue, (though multiples of lowest value is much easier to manage than fractions of highest value!)
More of an 'in game function' issue.

If Space Marines are so broken, how do you explain Wraithknights, Scatter Lasers, and the fact that all Eldar can run and charge? If Space Marines are the cause of all problems, shouldn't they be the most overpowered army? (based on tournament results, they're about even with Eldar, Tzeentch Daemons, and Tau/Necrons)

No Eldar can run and charge.

He's likely meaning "Run and Shoot".

 jreilly89 wrote:


If Space Marines are so broken, how do you explain Wraithknights, Scatter Lasers, and the fact that all Eldar can run and charge? If Space Marines are the cause of all problems, shouldn't they be the most overpowered army? (based on tournament results, they're about even with Eldar, Tzeentch Daemons, and Tau/Necrons)

I think everyone keeps going back to this concept that what I originally posted was some sort of whiny post about how I hate marines and they are over powered.

The Idea this post is trying to get across is that designing the game around the Space Marine core stats and main weapon(bolter) is the reason why the game is broken and lead to power creep.

Space Marines are not broken. I don't hate them. I'd like a marine army one day.
Space Marine tac squads, devastator squads, assault squads, terminators etc... all have a majority of weapons designed, not to kill other marines or MEQ, but to kill GEQ equivalent troops and xenos army vehicles.

Marines per the fluff only number 1000 per chapter with a few outliers. That means that in a galaxy wide conflict, separated by billions of light years, there are maybe only what, loyalist 50,000 marines? Feel free to to correct this rough approximation....

The reality is that they're supposed to be an elite force. They shouldn't have been the focal point of the game. They should have only had small supplementary type codexes and their elite nature would have meant them to be taken as allies to your main imperial force.

The game should have been designed around the general statline that most other armies have, where a normal troop unit was approximately based on a universal average of WS3, BS3, S3, T3, W1, I3, A1, Ld7, Sv5+
This means that effectively every stat is you roll against is 50/50.
Marine extreme prevalence and a statline that means your successful 67% of the time is not a balanced system.

When half the armies in the game are rolling above average and you want the introduction of other armies that CANNOT also be superhumans, you have to make them competitive via other means - means like more powerful weapons, special abilities, increased movement, stonger saves, high volume of fire, longer range, etc....

THIS MEANS THE GAME CAN'T BE BALANCED. Because the moment that half the armies in the game are 1 up'd by the other half, and SALES dip, then you need to boost the other half. THIS CREATES THE SCENARIO WE LIVE IN TODAY.

I would also argue that it created the imbalance towards Shooting. Because half the armies in the game are Marine based, which also because of the fluff are good at close combat, survivability of other armies who are no as proficient in close combat, had their shooting increased.

It also means that those xenos armies who've evolved to become specialist and really good at killing marines, are by default excellent at killing each other.

One major mistake though was giving Eldar, scatter lasers, because of the inherent mobility of the army, they should have thematically, only ever had weapons that maxed out at 24". GW messed up badly there. Wraithknighs are under costed, no one will argue.

@Naaris.
When GW have thrown any thoughts of addressing any game play issues out of the window, and are doubling down on short term sales pitch.
Then even blatantly flawed decisions from a game play P.O.V are going to appear more frequently in GWs publications.

The imbalance between shooting and assault in 40k is down to GW ditching the old fashioned 'to hit modifiers for everything ' for ranged attacks that slowed the game down, and not replacing them with a better option.

Also making shooting and assault only used to inflict physical damage, (a hang over from WHFBs Napoleonic foundation.)
Means they compete directly , with assault being at a massive disadvantage.

To hit at range roll X+

To hit in assault , move to target,then roll on an 'opposed skill chart' to hit.

Where as if shooting and assault had different tactical effects,and were resolved in a similar fashion, it would help no end .

 Traditio wrote:

jreilly89 wrote:Space Marines aren't the standard? Space Marines, the guys the game is built around, everything the fluff was built around, they shouldn't be the standard? What are you talking about?

What I am saying is this:

Yes. The fluff is built around space marines. Yes, the "face" for advertising for 40k are space marines.

In universe, however, space marines are a rarity. They are meant to be exceptional. The player who plays a non-marine army simply has an unreasonable expectation if he wants his basic troops to be as good as space marines. Space marines are elites. They are genetically enhanced superhumans who are supposed to be superior to the normal, common, run-of-the-mill soldier. The basic tactical marine should be as good as an elite FOC selection in any other army. My marine army is basically an entire army of Captains America.

That shouldn't be "average." That should be exceptional.

And If an entire space marine battle-company actually takes the field, that should be an awe-inspiring thing.

Other average stat-line, capabilities, etc. shouldn't be compared to space marines.

They should be compared to guardsmen. They are the very definition of "normal" and "average." A 3 on the statline shouldn't be "bad." It should be perfectly average. A 4 should be understood as exceptional, not merely average.

Thus the reason Tau fire warriors shouldn't have S5 guns and why windriders shouldn't have 3+ armor.

Seriously. They're just guardians on bikes. Why should they have 3+ armor?

And again, a chaos space marine should be positively terrifying (as should a regular space marine). It shouldn't be the laughing stock of the game.

100% agree with this. The rules-reinforced focus on MEQ has made Tyranid Warriors garbage. My Monstrous Creatures are torn apart by mainline infantry. Talk about Space Marines being relegated to the status of 'average', Tyranids aren't even scary any more! And it all stems from the points you make above. It's not about the general favouritism shown to the Space Marines, it's about the game being based around their statlines and armouries. We ended up with modern Necrons because they were designed to scare SM players. Were they designed to scare GEQ and thus a bit closer to Vanilla SM's they'd still be a scary force for a Guard player while posing a real threat to a SM player - as it should be. Tau strength atm is only out-of-whack because of 7th E's heavy emphasis on the shooting phase. Eldar are a different animal completely. They need re-balance but I'd hate to be the one to do it because it's got to be very hard to make the faction true to the fluff without giving them God-tier powers.

Misinterpreted and thusly deleted.

Where in my post, at all, did I say that a Marine should 'drop to a 3 stat-line'? The whole point is that Marines are 4/4 -because- they are exceptional. Building every competitive army's toolkit entirely around can-opening has made T4 units without power armour fairly useless in any semi-competitive scenario. All the more so if those units lack significant mobility.

And I'm being completely serious. Are you? The bolter is not the only item listed in the Wargear section, is it? Chapter relics, power weapons, armours.. these things don't suck. Space Marines have access to wargear that eclipses anything that isn't Tau or Eldar, which many Space Marine players love to point to when anybody says anything about Space Marines having lots of options.

I'm not saying Marines are broken. I'm saying that the Marine-as-baseline has led to some broken things as a result. It's a form of power creep that shouldn't be necessary.

Holy balls I could have sworn you quoted the OP. My bad.

Dantes_Baals wrote:
Holy balls I could have sworn you quoted the OP. My bad.

No worries, one of my armies is a Chapter of Iron Hands successors so I haven't got anything against Space Marines themselves. Just rapid power creep.

Naaris wrote:
Marines per the fluff only number 1000 per chapter with a few outliers. That means that in a galaxy wide conflict, separated by billions of light years, there are maybe only what, loyalist 50,000 marines? Feel free to to correct this rough approximation...

I will, thanks!

The 40k universe and all the planets and armies within are currently limited to the Milky Way galaxy, which the Imperium controls a significant portion of (if memory serves, around half of the Milky Way is Imperial territory). The Milky Way is only about 100,000 lightyears across according to our best estimations in real life.

While the Tyranids come from outside the galaxy, the only parts of them we've seen described in any detail are the parts invading the Milky Way.

Also the general thinking is that there's about 1 Space Marine per Imperial planet, because the Imperium consists of a million planets and there are about 1,000 Chapters usually with 1,000 Marines at most per Chapter. However, the Space Marines tend to be constantly in combat, moving from one war zone to the next, making their participation in the Imperium's wars higher than average. This may also be why Sisters of Battle are a more familiar sight to Imperial citizens than Space Marines, despite the last official numbers on Sororitas placing their numbers below 100,000 (though the numbers given were not a complete list of all Orders of Sororitas, they were describing the largest ones). Space Marines cluster in war zones, whereas Sororitas guard Ecclesiarchy territory and pilgrimage routes, where more Imperial civilians may be traveling.

I think the mistake that keeps being made here is claiming anything served as a reference for balancing. Nothing is balanced.

If people take fighting marines into account when building lists, it's because they've been in every multi army starter set I can remember. Maccragge had vanilla and nids, Black Reach had vanilla and orks, Dark Vengeance CSM and DA, Deathstorm had BA and nids, then there was the SW and orks one. If every time 2 friends pick up a box to start with, one of them is getting an MEQ army, that means there's going to be a sith ton of them out there, and you have to take that into account when building a tac list.

I agree that GW took the Space Marines as the poster boys of 40k,And wanted to promote them .

There is nothing wrong in this if Space Marines kept to being a 'small elite army.'
But GW sales wanted to increase sales of the Space Marines.So they threw ideas of game balance out of the window and totally focused on short term sales.

I have no problem with Space Marine armies being popular.iF THEY HAD STAYED A SMALL ELITE FORCE.

Here is a WWII reference you may understand.

German Tiger tanks are heavily armuored and very well armed, and they look cool to lots of people.

However, the games where they appear they are always kept as a small elite force. (As they were historically.)
Simply to keep the game size and scope focused on the meat and potatoes of the tactics in the game.Average infantry units and average armoured units.

The coping systems other unit have with small elite unit remain the same across lots of war games, 'out maneuver'or 'isolate.'

This is were the ratio of point values argument falls over IMO.
If the elite army gets too numerous on the table , the standard armies get proportionally larger.There is no room to out maneuver or isolate anything! So rather than having natural tactical options.You have to invent special rules , and the game devolves into 'special snowflake storm'.

Great for short term sales, fueling codex creep, not so good for game play.