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 Brother Payne wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Marines are fine regardless of what all the detractors here have to say. They are best played as a fire base with characters to sort out melee into their line. They need allies to beat top tier lists.

Totally agree. I don't think we've seen the end of Guilliman gunlines, and allies almost alway make imperium armies better. I definitely think RG are viable too though, I'm not sure why you don't

Points added to Guilliman means fewer models carrying the guns can be included in the list. So the enemy is easier to destroy your firebase leaving Guilliman no one to buff. Especially considering how fragile marines are for their overcosted points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Simply put, I won't mind Guilliman points being raised to 450pts which is around same level of Magnus, if the "Battle Brother" marines (Tac, Assault and Dev) drops down to 10ppm - 11ppm and Centurion devastators drop down 50ppm level. But as for now just keeping rise the points of Guilliman and not improving the units already common known to be way too overcosted is simply plain nerf.

 Brother Payne wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Marines are fine regardless of what all the detractors here have to say. They are best played as a fire base with characters to sort out melee into their line. They need allies to beat top tier lists.

Totally agree. I don't think we've seen the end of Guilliman gunlines, and allies almost alway make imperium armies better. I definitely think RG are viable too though, I'm not sure why you don't

Clearly GW does not share my opinion given they've made allies more and more permissible (or, at least it sells way more models to allow allies), but I always thought each army should be able to stand on its own with strengths and weaknesses, and hypothetically compete at the top. Certain factions being able to ally in as desired to shore up weaknesses seems like it kills the point of even having separate armies. Once I've allied in 500pts of BA captains or Shield Captains on bikes, maybe 500pts of the other for good measure, 300pts of AM bodies for CP, oh, and maybe an assassin or two, I wouldn't really feel like my list is "vanilla marine" even if 600-900pts are Raven Guard.

If you say you need 50% of your army to not be your chosen faction to compete, then I'd say no, that army book is not top tier competitive. It's just a source of some units that can be pulled to form a competitive soup list.

All this doesn't really matter to me, since I don't play big tourneys. I can run pure marine and avoid buying a bunch of flavor of the month allies. But, on principle I'd still like to be able to say that my faction is strong enough it could win top level events with 75%-100% actual vanilla marine codex units.

 Brother Payne wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Marines are fine regardless of what all the detractors here have to say. They are best played as a fire base with characters to sort out melee into their line. They need allies to beat top tier lists.

Totally agree. I don't think we've seen the end of Guilliman gunlines, and allies almost alway make imperium armies better. I definitely think RG are viable too though, I'm not sure why you don't

That would be a fine plan if it weren't for the following issues
1 Standing in a huddle means your not achieving objectives, and will loose out on VP count, meaning you need to table your opponents.
2 It assumes that marine shooting can go up against shooting heavy lists and out shoot them, Eldar, Tau and AM can all out shoot marines.
3 Tabling an opponent with marine gunlines isn't a reliable strategy.
4 Ravenguard is the best way to play marines now as it does a great job of improving the survivability of marines.
5 if your taking less than half your points in marines your not playing a marine list your playing an imperial list. (Imperial lists are competitive but they gain little from marines, scouts being the one unique unit.

I’ve never been much of a fan of RG. I think Azrael does more for a shooting army for less than half the price, while also using up an HQ slot rather than being a LoW.

I think it’s also fine not to have either. My approach is to spend the minimum possible on HQs, leaving as much as possible for guns. My primaris captain with the fist of vengeance only costs 106 points and adding a lieutenant makes it 180 out of my 2k spent on HQs. Deploying them in a repulsor with a few aggressors or intercessors gives me a really low drop count but a strong counter-punch.

I do find that my army works in the tournament meta. I typically win more games than I lose. On Thursday I beat a really nasty alaitoc/Ynnari list and I manage fine against hordes - because repulsors are phenomenal against them.

Marines are not top tier. They are extremely difficult to play in the current meta. The most painful thing is the lack of stratagems, especially compared with BA, DA and now DW. It’s going to be seriously hard to justify keeping my army as crimson fists when the DW are so obviously better. At least it’s fairly easy to paint black and silver.

Yeah DA is a lot better than RG for sure. The strat to add one DMG alone is better than anything they’ve got.

I don't think marines make effective gunlines due to low model count, and at this point, the weapons they have access to.

Mandragola wrote:
I’ve never been much of a fan of RG. I think Azrael does more for a shooting army for less than half the price, while also using up an HQ slot rather than being a LoW.

I think it’s also fine not to have either. My approach is to spend the minimum possible on HQs, leaving as much as possible for guns. My primaris captain with the fist of vengeance only costs 106 points and adding a lieutenant makes it 180 out of my 2k spent on HQs. Deploying them in a repulsor with a few aggressors or intercessors gives me a really low drop count but a strong counter-punch.

I do find that my army works in the tournament meta. I typically win more games than I lose. On Thursday I beat a really nasty alaitoc/Ynnari list and I manage fine against hordes - because repulsors are phenomenal against them.

Marines are not top tier. They are extremely difficult to play in the current meta. The most painful thing is the lack of stratagems, especially compared with BA, DA and now DW. It’s going to be seriously hard to justify keeping my army as crimson fists when the DW are so obviously better. At least it’s fairly easy to paint black and silver.

I'd love to hear some of your tips for using Codex marines against Alaitoc. Eldar and Guard have been some of my toughest matches for my pure Raven Guard. Maybe you could elaborate on your list and some of the tactics you used?

smbarne wrote:

Mandragola wrote:
I’ve never been much of a fan of RG. I think Azrael does more for a shooting army for less than half the price, while also using up an HQ slot rather than being a LoW.

I think it’s also fine not to have either. My approach is to spend the minimum possible on HQs, leaving as much as possible for guns. My primaris captain with the fist of vengeance only costs 106 points and adding a lieutenant makes it 180 out of my 2k spent on HQs. Deploying them in a repulsor with a few aggressors or intercessors gives me a really low drop count but a strong counter-punch.

I do find that my army works in the tournament meta. I typically win more games than I lose. On Thursday I beat a really nasty alaitoc/Ynnari list and I manage fine against hordes - because repulsors are phenomenal against them.

Marines are not top tier. They are extremely difficult to play in the current meta. The most painful thing is the lack of stratagems, especially compared with BA, DA and now DW. It’s going to be seriously hard to justify keeping my army as crimson fists when the DW are so obviously better. At least it’s fairly easy to paint black and silver.

I'd love to hear some of your tips for using Codex marines against Alaitoc. Eldar and Guard have been some of my toughest matches for my pure Raven Guard. Maybe you could elaborate on your list and some of the tactics you used?

I had a couple of repulsors, one full of hellblasters and the other with 4 aggressors, my lieutenant and captain. A dual stormcannon leviathan, 2x5 intercessors, 5 scouts and 3 scout bikers. He had Yvraine, farseer and bonesinger riding in wave serpent with 9 reapers, a biel tan warlock, 9 saim hann shining spears, 3x5 alaitoc rangers, 20 deep striking guardians and 2 hemlocks. Scary stuff.

I went first, I advanced a bit and killed a couple of ranger squads but not much else, as the spears and wave serpent were behind LoS blocking terrain. His first turn involved unleashing a ton of psychic powers (all of which went off) and stratagems at me, chucking his shining spears across the board and granting them a 3++ against shooting and 5+++. Shooting took 10 wounds off a repulsor and assault by the spears killed it, though the hellblasters were able to disembark without getting locked as some intercessors were nearer. My leviathan weathered the hemlocks' fire and only took 2 wounds (which was pretty lucky though not hugely significant). My scouts died but my bikers survived an assault by Yvraine and the wave serpent. He used a soulburst on the spears to attack again, killing some intercessors and putting 4 wounds on my captain - though he killed a couple of them in return.

My turn 2 was pretty decisive. The shining spears are terrifying on the charge but far less dangerous if you charge them, which I did. He'd consolidated into my captain and I fell back so I could shoot at them, but actually I think that was a mistake. They were incredibly hard to shoot, so I'd have been better firing at other stuff. Still, 6 of the 9 were dead by the end of the turn, as were 6 reapers and 1.5 hemlocks. I'd done a sneaky 3 wounds to Yvraine when my scout bikes fell back.

That actually meant that most of my opponent's scary stuff was seriously dimininshed. I still had an undamaged repulsor, 8/10 hellblasters and the leviathan. He brought in his 20 guardians and he killed my aggressors and some intercessors that were on an objective, and he charged the wave serpent at my leviathan to stop it from firing. My opponent had to leave at that point, but said that the way the game looked it was a question of whether or not he'd be tabled - not who would win.

To be honest I think the dice helped me at a couple of times. And my opponent made a mistake by not using a stratagem on his reapers to hide again after firing - which would have kept them alive for longer. But if he'd done that I would have just killed the other hemlock instead - there was no shortage of things to fire at.

Next time I play against Alaitoc I'll be a bit more ready. In particular I'll spread out more at the start to make it harder for spears to consolidate into me. I'll also not waste so much shooting at shining spears and focus on killing them in cc with my captain and aggressors. I might also just hide my repulsors at the start until the reapers come out.

The army burns through CPs fast (the one downside of having a ton of great stratagems!) and relies on a few tough units - particularly the spears. But the spears aren't that tough on the defensive in combat, so once you can get power fists (and the fist of vengeance, if available) swinging at them things will go well. Beating them is about weathering the initial crazy nova and then hitting them back hard.

I too hear the call of DW as a Primaris player! Great rules, great scheme and great looking flyer.

 grouchoben wrote:
I too hear the call of DW as a Primaris player! Great rules, great scheme and great looking flyer.

Honestly I think the primaris deathwatch rules have been written with no thought whatsoever to how they'll affect other marine armies, or indeed the deathwatch veterans themselves.

From what I can tell, intercessors are going to cost about the same as deathwatch veterans - perhaps give or take a point or two. That means they'll totally outclass the existing deathwatch veterans, making the army of anyone who currently plays deathwatch redundant overnight. At least tactical marines are cheaper than intercessors in a vanilla codex, so there's a potential case for taking them.

And meanwhile they do the same thing for everyone else's intercessors, because we'd all obviously pay 1 point to give our guys bolt rifles that actually did stuff. It radically alters the character of the army to have troops you might use to kill things rather than just to screen, so this supposedly highly elite force is likely to actually get taken to provide some really solid troops for soup armies.

It's annoying, and incredibly lazy as rules writing goes. They've pasted SIA onto intercessors, given primaris kill teams basically the same special rules as non-primaris ones, copied some stratagems from other books and called the job a good 'un.

Watching the warhammer tv video with the head designer of the codex struggling to remember his own rules was just embarrassing. I'd really hate to have to repaint my army because of the rubbish job he's done.

That isn't to say that the marine codex doesn't need work. It isn't a strong book at all. But the contrast between watching the guys at FFG talking to team covenant about the changes to x-wing 2.0 and the guys at GW talking to themselves could hardly be more stark.

Deathwatch certainly looks a better writen codex than vanilla marines but I'm fairly sure the more detailed reviews I have seen talking about points costed a DW intercessor at 23/25 points each as they have to pay a point for their rifle and point for their pistol (question was open as to if the pistol is optional plus special issue ammo has a points cost aswell. Supposedly to help out the guys without apecial issue ammo paying the special issue tax for just being death watch.

anyone else having ludicrous sucess with gman, twin raptors and a levi dread with twin stomrcannons? the army is disgustingly good

'the contrast between watching the guys at FFG talking to team covenant about the changes to x-wing 2.0 and the guys at GW talking to themselves could hardly be more stark.'

Ouch. Very good point. I havent seen that interview, and I'm not sure I now want to. Agreed on the gearshift up to DW being bery problematic for both codex players and oldguard DW'ers.

Mandragola wrote:

From what I can tell, intercessors are going to cost about the same as deathwatch veterans - perhaps give or take a point or two. That means they'll totally outclass the existing deathwatch veterans, making the army of anyone who currently plays deathwatch redundant overnight. At least tactical marines are cheaper than intercessors in a vanilla codex, so there's a potential case for taking them.

DW vets will still have their unique weapon and transport options. With the weapons getting cheaper, some of the non-boltgun options might become more worthwhile.

 Flavius Infernus wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

From what I can tell, intercessors are going to cost about the same as deathwatch veterans - perhaps give or take a point or two. That means they'll totally outclass the existing deathwatch veterans, making the army of anyone who currently plays deathwatch redundant overnight. At least tactical marines are cheaper than intercessors in a vanilla codex, so there's a potential case for taking them.

DW vets will still have their unique weapon and transport options. With the weapons getting cheaper, some of the non-boltgun options might become more worthwhile.

Having listened to the FTN review it seems that DW vets come to 18 points (16 + 1 for boltgun and +1 for pistol). Intercessors are 20 (18 +1 for rifle and 1 for pistol) - or a point or two more for the fancier rifle variants that nobody takes.

It's true that veterans come with loads of weapon options, but I don't think any of them are competitive. I certainly can't remember ever seeing DW vets at a tournament so far in 8th. I just see this as an opportunity to spam even more points on T4 1W guys, which is almost never a good idea. You can take some frag cannons, but then you need a way to get the guys across the field and that's going to cost you even more. There's just no reason to do this when you can sub in some allies to handle tanks - or have hellblasters shoot stuff for you.

One interesting thing they said was that you take the majority toughness for the unit. My thinking is to therefore take a squad of 5 intercessors, 4 aggressors and an inceptor. You count as T5 but you take wounds on intercessors. You can advance without a penalty to hit and fall back and shoot - which is a massive help for aggressors. You probably want auto bolt rifles on your intercessors here I think, to take advantage of your movement, but normal bolt rifles would be fine.

Now this is a 298 point unit, which is a lot. I'm not sure it's a good deal. But you have 20 wounds, 8 attacks with power fists (and 13 normal S4 attacks) and a silly amount of dakka. I think it might be a unit worth considering.

The watch master might end up being your only non-primaris model. I'm not sure what second HQ to take as apparently there aren't lieutenants - and I doubt I'd have taken one anyway. It would be cool if you could have an inquisitor without breaking your detachment, but you can't so never mind! A librarian is the obvious choice I suppose, especially since it's actually worth casting veil of time on a unit of 10 Primaris guys.

I'm massively tempted to put some deathwatch primaris together. I've got the guys from dark imperium hanging around unused and 5 proper ones still on sprues - so that's my battalion. I wouldn't repaint my Crimson Fists but some of the spare guys who I don't need in my current army could find a home in the deathwatch.

I can see frag cannons as useful to protect your long range fire base because they are really good.

Something said earlier has been nagging me about marines. It was that we are a generalist elite force which pays for stuff we don't use. I think that's actually pretty accurate and trying a find a way to leverage that is key to our success. I am not talking about soup or salad lists, but just trying to make the most general advanced force you can so no matter who you come up against you have a chance.

Example : against elder they will out maneuver us but we hit harder and better in cc so we need to find a way to leverage that.

Example 2 : against thousand sons they hit us harder at range but we can be much faster so we need to find a way to leverage that.


I think a single batallion is the way to do this. It gives us the command points to do the work, the troops to cover the board and mitigate enemy speed a bit, the hq to help enhance our units, the elites to really pack a punch, and the fast attack to push the advantage when it appears.

So with this in mind what army would be taken? Raven guard seem a good flat option, so do salamanders and iron hands.

I am thinking

Hq- captains and leutinants. Take them bare and use their auras to full effect.
Elites - dreadnaughts of all types, sternguard bare or maybe with storm bolters, these are both good options. Sternguard give range, and dreads give massive firepower / support.
Troops - scouts or small 5 man tactical with a single heavy weapon or a special weapon / combi weapon. Depends on the trait which is better, salamanders for example love 5 man w/ laz cannon teams.
Fast attack - some call this a tax bracket but we have some good options here. I am thinking of trying 3 attack bikes with multimeltas with salamanders trait, each one gets a reroll on its hit on the melta drastically increasing their effectiveness. Other options are land speeders or bikers.
Heavy support - this is an important area. I am going to try 3 dev squads, 2 of them with 2 missile launchers and a heavy bolter + cherub for mortal wound goodness, and a 3rd team with plasma cannons. However the argument for 3 predators with autocannon laz sides is solid.

Thoughts? Is there just no way to make a flat marine army that is designed to capitalize on an enemy's weakness or Is the best option to try and make an offensive army to get your opponent to play your game and not try to play theirs?

 Primark G wrote:
I can see frag cannons as useful to protect your long range fire base because they are really good.

With the point decrease I'd say they're competitive. Only 2 damage seems a little silly on the krak rounds but S9 AP-3 at 12" and S7 AP-2 at 24" are both great profiles on an assault weapon.

How effective are Hellblasters vs tanks? I am always skeptical about overcharging with Hellblasters when I do ever play them since they're such an expensive unit that every model straight up lost is savage, but everyone seems to consider them wonderful tank killers. Is this true?

Not really. Let's start with the fact that Alaitoc tanks exist. Also, only 5 shots out at 15"-30" isn't that good. And the max range of 30" also isn't that good.

Mandragola wrote:

One interesting thing they said was that you take the majority toughness for the unit. My thinking is to therefore take a squad of 5 intercessors, 4 aggressors and an inceptor. You count as T5 but you take wounds on intercessors. You can advance without a penalty to hit and fall back and shoot - which is a massive help for aggressors. You probably want auto bolt rifles on your intercessors here I think, to take advantage of your movement, but normal bolt rifles would be fine.

Now this is a 298 point unit, which is a lot. I'm not sure it's a good deal. But you have 20 wounds, 8 attacks with power fists (and 13 normal S4 attacks) and a silly amount of dakka. I think it might be a unit worth considering.

That was the unit block I was thinking about too. Since my paint scheme is already primarily black, I'm gonna break down and buy the DW codex and compare what my units look like with RG vs with DW shoulderpads.

Though the thing I'm still wondering about for DW, maybe I missed this in the preview, is, won't your primaris squad still suffer the same flaw nonRG vanilla ones have? You have 18" range and no way to start up the table. Except, unlike vanilla, you can't even put them in a Repulsor as you can't fit 10 guys with half gravis.

bort wrote:

Mandragola wrote:

One interesting thing they said was that you take the majority toughness for the unit. My thinking is to therefore take a squad of 5 intercessors, 4 aggressors and an inceptor. You count as T5 but you take wounds on intercessors. You can advance without a penalty to hit and fall back and shoot - which is a massive help for aggressors. You probably want auto bolt rifles on your intercessors here I think, to take advantage of your movement, but normal bolt rifles would be fine.

Now this is a 298 point unit, which is a lot. I'm not sure it's a good deal. But you have 20 wounds, 8 attacks with power fists (and 13 normal S4 attacks) and a silly amount of dakka. I think it might be a unit worth considering.

That was the unit block I was thinking about too. Since my paint scheme is already primarily black, I'm gonna break down and buy the DW codex and compare what my units look like with RG vs with DW shoulderpads.

Though the thing I'm still wondering about for DW, maybe I missed this in the preview, is, won't your primaris squad still suffer the same flaw nonRG vanilla ones have? You have 18" range and no way to start up the table. Except, unlike vanilla, you can't even put them in a Repulsor as you can't fit 10 guys with half gravis.

DW gets the Repulsor. There is also a Stratagem that lets you put an infantry or dreadnought unit into reserves to deep strike. So that exact Aggressor/Inceptor/Intercessor squad can just appear 9" from someone's face.

Also regular Bolt Rifles for DW will have 36" range at AP-2 and 24" range at AP-3. Freaking scary.

Oh, can DW take redemptors?

Ahh, did not know they had a generic deepstrike strat.

I knew they had the Repulsor, but that's 10 models with gravis counting as 2, so it's hard to get any form of mixed unit in there. Plus, with SIA infantry, seems a waste of points to have a nonSIA unit that also does many low power shots. If you don't like the vanilla one, DW seems an even worse place for it.

To be fair, I'm a BIG repulsor hater, but as lascannon become less viable in the meta, they do become a bit more palatable. Lances still suck, but repulsor is $$ vs S6/7 fire. If it lives long enough to fire multiple times, it's a decent value.

bort wrote:
Ahh, did not know they had a generic deepstrike strat.

I knew they had the Repulsor, but that's 10 models with gravis counting as 2, so it's hard to get any form of mixed unit in there. Plus, with SIA infantry, seems a waste of points to have a nonSIA unit that also does many low power shots. If you don't like the vanilla one, DW seems an even worse place for it.

SIA is paid for by weapon, not by model. DW models are priced the same as their SM equivalent (Veterans are 16 points for DW and SM, for example.) The thing that changes is that Boltguns and Bolt Pistols aren't free, and allegedly cost 1ppm each. So you're not wasting points if you decide to not take SIA weaponry.

Intercessors/Hellblasters/Reivers and generic Primaris Captains seem like good things to put into a Repulsor honestly. Though I'd still probably rock the classic Land Raider with regular goons with a Terminator or two for Fearless and 3++.

Mandragola wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
I too hear the call of DW as a Primaris player! Great rules, great scheme and great looking flyer.

Honestly I think the primaris deathwatch rules have been written with no thought whatsoever to how they'll affect other marine armies, or indeed the deathwatch veterans themselves.

From what I can tell, intercessors are going to cost about the same as deathwatch veterans - perhaps give or take a point or two. That means they'll totally outclass the existing deathwatch veterans, making the army of anyone who currently plays deathwatch redundant overnight. At least tactical marines are cheaper than intercessors in a vanilla codex, so there's a potential case for taking them.

And meanwhile they do the same thing for everyone else's intercessors, because we'd all obviously pay 1 point to give our guys bolt rifles that actually did stuff. It radically alters the character of the army to have troops you might use to kill things rather than just to screen, so this supposedly highly elite force is likely to actually get taken to provide some really solid troops for soup armies.

It's annoying, and incredibly lazy as rules writing goes. They've pasted SIA onto intercessors, given primaris kill teams basically the same special rules as non-primaris ones, copied some stratagems from other books and called the job a good 'un.

Watching the warhammer tv video with the head designer of the codex struggling to remember his own rules was just embarrassing. I'd really hate to have to repaint my army because of the rubbish job he's done.

That isn't to say that the marine codex doesn't need work. It isn't a strong book at all. But the contrast between watching the guys at FFG talking to team covenant about the changes to x-wing 2.0 and the guys at GW talking to themselves could hardly be more stark.

Not even close.

Veterans still outclass Primaris in versatility given the massive number of weapons they can be kitted out with. They can take melee weapons giving you a potent melee threat. They can take amazing heavy weapons that are super versatile. They can take SIA equipped Storm Bolters which makes them cause more damage than Primaris Intercessors for the same point cost. They can ride in cheap, capable transports. They're better at a lot of things over Primaris - except being durable.

Primaris are the units you use to hold the board until the glasscannon Veterans can strike, and you have way more options for how they strike than you do with Primaris.

But I see now that this is yet another dakkadakka thread where if the army doesn't end on top tables every tournament, it's trash and should never be played.

Lemondish wrote:
Not even close.

Veterans still outclass Primaris in versatility given the massive number of weapons they can be kitted out with. They can take melee weapons giving you a potent melee threat. They can take amazing heavy weapons that are super versatile. They can take SIA equipped Storm Bolters which makes them cause more damage than Primaris Intercessors for the same point cost. They can ride in cheap, capable transports. They're better at a lot of things over Primaris - except being durable.

Primaris are the units you use to hold the board until the glasscannon Veterans can strike, and you have way more options for how they strike than you do with Primaris.

But I see now that this is yet another dakkadakka thread where if the army doesn't end on top tables every tournament, it's trash and should never be played.

I think stock, point for point, Primaris win out. But you're right in versatility. Primaris don't get anything in melee except power fists and CCWs from Reivers. They don't get jack for invuln and they can't get 2+ armor. It all will boil down to if special and heavy weapons are cost effective. I know Frag Cannons went down to 25ppm and shotguns went to 3ppm, but we'll have to see what else has changed. As of now people are already throwing out gripes before we even fully have the codex.

I think the veterans are totally outclassed by Primaris marines. The only two things veterans have going for them are transports and the frag cannon. However they will die like flies outside their transports which are not all that amazing of units bar the razorback which itself is meh when it is moving around and not getting full re-rolls and the corvus which is pricey.

Primaris have superior standard shooting by a mile and make up for the lack of the assault cannon with cheaper hellblasters.

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
I think the veterans are totally outclassed by Primaris marines. The only two things veterans have going for them are transports and the frag cannon. However they will die like flies outside their transports which are not all that amazing of units bar the razorback which itself is meh when it is moving around and not getting full re-rolls and the corvus which is pricey.

Primaris have superior standard shooting by a mile and make up for the lack of the assault cannon with cheaper hellblasters.

I think it all depends on what you want to accomplish. There's just too many ways to kit out Veterans to toss them out completely. I also think people are also sleeping on the Stalker Pattern Boltgun change. Supposedly 4ppm: Heavy 2 36" S4 AP-1, exclusive to Veterans. Spit out some Hellfire shells with reroll 1s to wound and the xenos will fall in droves.

There's also combi-plasmas, to give you the power of Hellblasters and Intercessors in the same exact package. Get up close with Vengeance rounds and pop your +1 to wound stratagem on a squad of 10 and you're dealing on average 10 wounds to Terminators, without overcharging. This math is assuming no captains either.

 SputnikDX wrote:

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
I think the veterans are totally outclassed by Primaris marines. The only two things veterans have going for them are transports and the frag cannon. However they will die like flies outside their transports which are not all that amazing of units bar the razorback which itself is meh when it is moving around and not getting full re-rolls and the corvus which is pricey.

Primaris have superior standard shooting by a mile and make up for the lack of the assault cannon with cheaper hellblasters.

I think it all depends. People are also sleeping on the Stalker Pattern Boltgun change. Supposedly 4ppm: Heavy 2 36" S4 AP-1, exclusive to Veterans. Spit out some Hellfire shells with reroll 1s to wound and the xenos will fall in droves.

So its a bolt rifle with +6 inch range and the heavy penalty while costing 3 more points. Yeah I am not seeing the reason for taking it.

Edit: I mean it does always get two shots which ill admit is good, but at 15-18 so does the bolt rifle while being on a twice as durable model not limited to not moving.

2nd Edit to talk to your edit (I laughed when I saw we both edited our posts)
Combi plasma drive the point value of that marine through the roof and then he gets to hit on 4s with both weapons and kill himself on 1s and 2s if over charging (Which you need to do to take out termies). All combi plasma do is make veterans even worse investments due to how easily they would die and take your your 33ish point model or w/e.