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spartiatis wrote:
Congrats to Lawrence for the win!
Its nice to see the Ultras in the spotlight after many years!

I would be more interested to see how he played the list, the stormraven and Tigurius in particular.
Does anyone have a link to a battle report or something similar?

Its pretty straightforward in eternal war missions.
Keep the army together for maximal (shooty) damage output thanks to Bobby G.
In the late game, go for the objectives if there are any.
This kind of army would struggle in maelstrom missions. But these missions are much more random. Drawing a few cards in the false moments and the game could be gone.

The base missions in the CRB are like that, too random and/or skewed towards the army with the ability to table the opponent. That's a great strength of the new ITC rules, there's progressive scoring with a multitude of objectives that are very unlikely to be maxed out and tabling does not count as a complete victory. Main drawback is the bookkeeping but it's not too bad.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Well, watching the game, Magnus (and Ahriman) charge in behind the LoS-blocking crates and start to wreck the first few Razorbacks. They get unlucky with the Tzeentch player failing to deny Tigurius' Null Zone, even with command points, but had he managed that, the game could've easily gone the other way.

Was it a risky move? Sure. But the Tzeentch player probably knew he couldn't win a war of attrition and made the decision to go for it. It didn't work, obviously, but I don't think the strategy was particularly stupid. Gotta take those risks in a tournament and hope the dice gods go along with you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it might be worth noting that the finals table Warhammer TV showed for game 5 (apparently there were several top tables with undefeated people at the final stage) was won by an all Primaris Raven Guard army with Aggressors and Contemptors (against another Guilliman army). One of the runner-ups to Lawrence (Must be second or third, since he also won all 5 games and was at a top table round 5) was a footslogging all-Primaris army.

6 players were undefeated going into the final round. The game showed on stream was indeed an All Primaris/Dreadnought Ravenguard army that ended up taking 2nd.
He was greatly aided by the scenario being Relic tho and getting first turn. He deployed on the Relic using Ravenguard Strategem and ran away with the relic on turn 1, taking it behind blocking terrain and plugging the only route to it with Intercessors and Aggressors.

He even gave his opponent a better chance at winning by charging Gman when he could have simply blocked him off instead.

Ordana wrote:

6 players were undefeated going into the final round. The game showed on stream was indeed an All Primaris/Dreadnought Ravenguard army that ended up taking 2nd.
He was greatly aided by the scenario being Relic tho and getting first turn. He deployed on the Relic using Ravenguard Strategem and ran away with the relic on turn 1, taking it behind blocking terrain and plugging the only route to it with Intercessors and Aggressors.

He even gave his opponent a better chance at winning by charging Gman when he could have simply blocked him off instead.

Sure.

By the Twitch-Stream, at least one of those Relic missions (Against Lawrence?) had Celestine grab it, die and resurrect with the Relic in some far, far away corner. The mission is notoriously wonky.

But he also won all 4 previous games. Hard to do this in tournaments these days without going up against a Morty-Magnus Bro-List or Guilliman at least a 1 or 2 times.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sossen wrote:
The base missions in the CRB are like that, too random and/or skewed towards the army with the ability to table the opponent. That's a great strength of the new ITC rules, there's progressive scoring with a multitude of objectives that are very unlikely to be maxed out and tabling does not count as a complete victory. Main drawback is the bookkeeping but it's not too bad.

Seems it would be easier to houserule some game rules than houserule the game's missions. Kinda hilarious how ITC is always so super-sensitive about tweaking the game a bit here and there or putting a few too-good-units on the blacklist, but than basically construct a whole new game around the quirks in the rules.

That said, I like that tabling your opponent isn't a win-condition in Shadespire and you could still lose by points. I wonder if they adopt that for 40K some day.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Well, watching the game, Magnus (and Ahriman) charge in behind the LoS-blocking crates and start to wreck the first few Razorbacks. They get unlucky with the Tzeentch player failing to deny Tigurius' Null Zone, even with command points, but had he managed that, the game could've easily gone the other way.

Was it a risky move? Sure. But the Tzeentch player probably knew he couldn't win a war of attrition and made the decision to go for it. It didn't work, obviously, but I don't think the strategy was particularly stupid. Gotta take those risks in a tournament and hope the dice gods go along with you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it might be worth noting that the finals table Warhammer TV showed for game 5 (apparently there were several top tables with undefeated people at the final stage) was won by an all Primaris Raven Guard army with Aggressors and Contemptors (against another Guilliman army). One of the runner-ups to Lawrence (Must be second or third, since he also won all 5 games and was at a top table round 5) was a footslogging all-Primaris army.

Any chance anyone is able to find that exact army list, the RG one? I am really curious as I have been running a Primaris RG army as of late (waiting for my BA codex) and have had quite a bit of success.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Well, watching the game, Magnus (and Ahriman) charge in behind the LoS-blocking crates and start to wreck the first few Razorbacks. They get unlucky with the Tzeentch player failing to deny Tigurius' Null Zone, even with command points, but had he managed that, the game could've easily gone the other way.

Was it a risky move? Sure. But the Tzeentch player probably knew he couldn't win a war of attrition and made the decision to go for it. It didn't work, obviously, but I don't think the strategy was particularly stupid. Gotta take those risks in a tournament and hope the dice gods go along with you.

So... His last game just got really lucky, then. Because even with rerolls from Tigurius, Null Zone should only go off half the time, and Magnus with a +2 and a Command Point should be able to deny that reasonably often. It's not exactly a one-in-a-million case, but something like a 25-30% chance of actually working.
(Without knowing the exact rolls I of course can't say for sure, but I have to imagine that halving Magnus's defense against Lascannons and Guilliman was the turning point for the game - Some quick math says that losing the Invuln is the difference between 5 Lascannon wounds + 6 Guilliman wounds and 10 Lascannon wounds plus 15 Guilliman wounds.)

 MadMaverick76 wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Well, watching the game, Magnus (and Ahriman) charge in behind the LoS-blocking crates and start to wreck the first few Razorbacks. They get unlucky with the Tzeentch player failing to deny Tigurius' Null Zone, even with command points, but had he managed that, the game could've easily gone the other way.

Was it a risky move? Sure. But the Tzeentch player probably knew he couldn't win a war of attrition and made the decision to go for it. It didn't work, obviously, but I don't think the strategy was particularly stupid. Gotta take those risks in a tournament and hope the dice gods go along with you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it might be worth noting that the finals table Warhammer TV showed for game 5 (apparently there were several top tables with undefeated people at the final stage) was won by an all Primaris Raven Guard army with Aggressors and Contemptors (against another Guilliman army). One of the runner-ups to Lawrence (Must be second or third, since he also won all 5 games and was at a top table round 5) was a footslogging all-Primaris army.

Any chance anyone is able to find that exact army list, the RG one? I am really curious as I have been running a Primaris RG army as of late (waiting for my BA codex) and have had quite a bit of success.

Can’t give the exactly details but it was –

Primaris Captain + Primarch Librarian
3 (I think) units of 5 Intercessors
1 unit of 5 bolter Aggressors
2 Contemptor Dreads (1 CC weapon)
1 Contemptor Mortis Dread
1 Mortis Dread
1 Stormtalon with Lascannons.
1 unit of Hellblasters (at least)

Can’t remember anything else off the top of my head for now, but I can always check later.

Number 1 list has 6 units of TAC marines? And there a lot of players that keep saying that TAC marines are garbage. Not mediocre or average, but pure garbage.

If they were pure garbage they wouldn't fit a 1st place tournament list in such high numbers. 6 squads are really a lot, tipycally you don't even spam 6 squads of decent units but only the real good ones.

The majority of troops in this edition may worth something only with the specific buffs that make them work and a list that is built around them.

TAC marines are certainly not great but with some specific buffs and appropriate lists they can be pretty solid. Also conscripts are totally ineffective if they aren't supported by commissars and a strong AM or imperium soup list. Or ork boyz which become a threat and a decent troop only in huge numbers, with tons of buffing characters and an entire list that lacks vehicles and multiwounds models (maybe only cheap artillery) in order to nullify all the opponent's anti tank.

TAC marines are not different than the majority of other troops choices, they're not great but combined with other effective units, and SM have several powerful options, they surely find a room even in super competitive lists. No garbage units can be part of those cheesy lists.

 Blackie wrote:
Number 1 list has 6 units of TAC marines? And there a lot of players that keep saying that TAC marines are garbage. Not mediocre or average, but pure garbage.

If they were pure garbage they wouldn't fit a 1st place tournament list in such high numbers. 6 squads are really a lot, tipycally you don't even spam 6 squads of decent units but only the real good ones.

The majority of troops in this edition may worth something only with the specific buffs that make them work and a list that is built around them.

TAC marines are certainly not great but with some specific buffs and appropriate lists they can be pretty solid. Also conscripts are totally ineffective if they aren't supported by commissars and a strong AM or imperium soup list. Or ork boyz which become a threat and a decent troop only in huge numbers, with tons of buffing characters and an entire list that lacks vehicles and multiwounds models (maybe only cheap artillery) in order to nullify all the opponent's anti tank.

TAC marines are not different than the majority of other troops choices, they're not great but combined with other effective units, and SM have several powerful options, they surely find a room even in super competitive lists. No garbage units can be part of those cheesy lists.

I think we've been over this. The Tac Marines are just there so you can take Razorbacks.

The problem aren't the Tac Marines. The problem is that Razorbacks with Assault Cannons are undercosted EVEN at the cost of 180 or 190 points per model you pay with the Tac Squad to unlock them. Also, Guilliman.

And mind you, this is a tournament setting, where you only see the Top 5% of lists in 40K overall? It's a highly biased sample unrepresentative of the game as a whole.To be balanced, a Codex/list should probably be balanced against 70+% of hypothetical lists in 40K. Somebody go playtest Guilliman Razorspam against something like a fluffly, footslogging Bloodletter-battalion and adjust points until the Bloodletters win 50% of games out of .. dunno a hundred or so.


Referencing tournaments as evidence for or against balance is nonsensical. It's like saying obesity is not a problem in the United States (or elsewhere), cause we looked at a 100 people attending the Olympics and found no evidence that it might be a problem.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Number 1 list has 6 units of TAC marines? And there a lot of players that keep saying that TAC marines are garbage. Not mediocre or average, but pure garbage.

If they were pure garbage they wouldn't fit a 1st place tournament list in such high numbers. 6 squads are really a lot, tipycally you don't even spam 6 squads of decent units but only the real good ones.

The majority of troops in this edition may worth something only with the specific buffs that make them work and a list that is built around them.

TAC marines are certainly not great but with some specific buffs and appropriate lists they can be pretty solid. Also conscripts are totally ineffective if they aren't supported by commissars and a strong AM or imperium soup list. Or ork boyz which become a threat and a decent troop only in huge numbers, with tons of buffing characters and an entire list that lacks vehicles and multiwounds models (maybe only cheap artillery) in order to nullify all the opponent's anti tank.

TAC marines are not different than the majority of other troops choices, they're not great but combined with other effective units, and SM have several powerful options, they surely find a room even in super competitive lists. No garbage units can be part of those cheesy lists.

I think we've been over this. The Tac Marines are just there so you can take Razorbacks.

The problem aren't the Tac Marines. The problem is that Razorbacks with Assault Cannons are undercosted EVEN at the cost of 180 or 190 points per model you pay with the Tac Squad to unlock them. Also, Guilliman.

And mind you, this is a tournament setting, where you only see the Top 5% of lists in 40K overall? It's a highly biased sample unrepresentative of the game as a whole.To be balanced, a Codex/list should probably be balanced against 70+% of hypothetical lists in 40K. Somebody go playtest Guilliman Razorspam against something like a fluffly, footslogging Bloodletter-battalion and adjust points until the Bloodletters win 50% of games out of .. dunno a hundred or so.


Referencing tournaments as evidence for or against balance is nonsensical. It's like saying obesity is not a problem in the United States (or elsewhere), cause we looked at a 100 people attending the Olympics and found no evidence that it might be a problem.

First off, there were only 5 units of tac marines not 6 - dunno where the 6 has come from.

Also, he didn't need that many tac units to get the razorbacks he had - he only needed 3 tac squads. So, taking 5 was a conscious decision that had no impact on being able to take razorbacks.

Unfortunately tournaments need to be referenced in order to assess balance, just as you need to take into account casual play. Tournaments push the limits on list creation and efficiency to the max and is where all the "broken combos" are found and then net listed into casual play. By finding them and adjusting them, it usually has a positive impact on casual play. Unfortunately, casual play is a lot harder to balance on its own. This is simply because people bring what they want - which unless you have a massive list of restrictions for each player to follow will result in a list imbalance 90% of the time. Likewise, if you just try to balance casual play while ignoring competitive you'll never fix the actual broken things, only flirt from one problem to another based on the salty crying of the community over and over again.

When the game is balanced you'll see a wide range of armies and list types winning events. When you are at that stage, casual play becomes a lot more balanced as people are provided with options and casual play mistakes aren't as game breaking.

Holy gak, the number of people totally unwilling to change their opinions when they are basically slapped in the face with evidence to the contrary is amazing.

The board is full of threads/posts about how bad tactical squads and Primaris marines are and then two players go on to play armies heavy with both and place 1st/2nd in a 6 round tournament of highly competitive players, not some random LFGS in the middle of no where.

First the Tactical Marines were not just there to take the Razorbacks, read the thread that was addressed very early on, he could have taken those Razorbacks without all of the Tactical Marines.

Second, something for everyone to consider. This new edition of 40K may break the mold everyone has gotten used to in 40K by changing the meta from a taking the best individual units to building the best over all army. It's something that many people cannot seem to wrap their brains around. Yes 13pts for a Tactical Marine seems like *way* to much for what they do but what if their points cost just happens to include how well they can be made to synergize with the rest of a Space Marine army and not just what MathHammer says they can deal out and take damage wise?

This same logic can be applied to the Imperial Guard, a lot of people are freaking out about how cheap most everything seems in the Guard codex and how they are the dominate army, etc, etc, etc. But we're not seeing the tournament wins form pure IG armies to back that rhetoric up. (Yet, we may see it more in the future, who knows?) What if the reason that the individual units seem so cheap for their MathHammer output is that the IG units lack some of the synergy that other armies that seem to pay more for less have?

To be blunt to everyone that *knows* Tactical Marines and Primaris Marines are terrible have gob smackingly obvious evidence to the contrary, perhaps you should consider revising your views to at least potentially match reality.

ERJAK wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want "movie marines" I want to not have to cower my marines in cover in order to survive a reasonable amount of time, while hordes of chaff do whatever they like because losses mean nothing to them because they are immune to psychology.

Play Ad Mech and use the rules for Kastellan Robots as Space Marines then paint them blue with Ultramarines transfers on their shoulders.

When Arkaine gets sarcastic, his opponent has lost the debate. This is the Dakka equivalent of tabling.

What is the problem with a unit firing from cover?

I get the fact that everyone has a playstyle and would prefer it if their army played a different way. But that's what tactics are, you adapt them to the situation to achieve a goal. If that means putting your troops in cover, do so, but bring big guns to ensure they remain a threat.

Shooting at things from a distance and forcing them to come to you doesn't have to be a bad thing. Most armies can do a lot of damage to hordes over the course of a few rounds. The trick is making sure the nastier parts of that horde army die before they get to you.

From what I've seen of this particular poster, the issue is that he doesn't actually want to have to play a game, he wants to throw marines on the table and pose dramatically as they destroy all their opponents, 'cause that's the floof tho!'

FAAC players man, gimme a WAAC any day.

Not at all. I'm just very concerned that every BA specific unit is going to be useless if this is THE way to play marines.

Kdash wrote:


First off, there were only 5 units of tac marines not 6 - dunno where the 6 has come from.

Also, he didn't need that many tac units to get the razorbacks he had - he only needed 3 tac squads. So, taking 5 was a conscious decision that had no impact on being able to take razorbacks.

That's a good point. I feel like he's missing a ton of points. Anyone else in a position to more thoroughly do the math and make sure I'm not missing something?

 koooaei wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want "movie marines" I want to not have to cower my marines in cover in order to survive a reasonable amount of time, while hordes of chaff do whatever they like because losses mean nothing to them because they are immune to psychology.

I'd like to point out that a marine in the open is only ~8% less durable than an ork boy vs a razorback point-for-point. And he is ~14% more durable than an ork in cover point-for-point. ~28% more durable than an ork out of cover cause realistically orks don't get cover in 8-th until they're in such low numbers it no longer matters.

So, marines "cower" not because they lack durability compared to hordes. They do so because they become MORE durable than hordes if they do so. And they have easy access to cover.

This misconception of easy-to-kill marines must go away to not cloud the judgement.

Another thing about devastators being superior. Of course, they kill more. But in return, a single lazcannon devastator costs almost 3 times more than a tactical. Means he's almost 3 times less durable.

That's vs assault cannons. Try plasma.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want "movie marines" I want to not have to cower my marines in cover in order to survive a reasonable amount of time, while hordes of chaff do whatever they like because losses mean nothing to them because they are immune to psychology.

Play Ad Mech and use the rules for Kastellan Robots as Space Marines then paint them blue with Ultramarines transfers on their shoulders.

When Arkaine gets sarcastic, his opponent has lost the debate. This is the Dakka equivalent of tabling.

What is the problem with a unit firing from cover?

I get the fact that everyone has a playstyle and would prefer it if their army played a different way. But that's what tactics are, you adapt them to the situation to achieve a goal. If that means putting your troops in cover, do so, but bring big guns to ensure they remain a threat.

Shooting at things from a distance and forcing them to come to you doesn't have to be a bad thing. Most armies can do a lot of damage to hordes over the course of a few rounds. The trick is making sure the nastier parts of that horde army die before they get to you.

The problem is that BA shouldn't be in cover most of the time. Well, unless you are gonna play them as gimped UMs.

Kdash wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Number 1 list has 6 units of TAC marines? And there a lot of players that keep saying that TAC marines are garbage. Not mediocre or average, but pure garbage.

If they were pure garbage they wouldn't fit a 1st place tournament list in such high numbers. 6 squads are really a lot, tipycally you don't even spam 6 squads of decent units but only the real good ones.

The majority of troops in this edition may worth something only with the specific buffs that make them work and a list that is built around them.

TAC marines are certainly not great but with some specific buffs and appropriate lists they can be pretty solid. Also conscripts are totally ineffective if they aren't supported by commissars and a strong AM or imperium soup list. Or ork boyz which become a threat and a decent troop only in huge numbers, with tons of buffing characters and an entire list that lacks vehicles and multiwounds models (maybe only cheap artillery) in order to nullify all the opponent's anti tank.

TAC marines are not different than the majority of other troops choices, they're not great but combined with other effective units, and SM have several powerful options, they surely find a room even in super competitive lists. No garbage units can be part of those cheesy lists.

I think we've been over this. The Tac Marines are just there so you can take Razorbacks.

The problem aren't the Tac Marines. The problem is that Razorbacks with Assault Cannons are undercosted EVEN at the cost of 180 or 190 points per model you pay with the Tac Squad to unlock them. Also, Guilliman.

And mind you, this is a tournament setting, where you only see the Top 5% of lists in 40K overall? It's a highly biased sample unrepresentative of the game as a whole.To be balanced, a Codex/list should probably be balanced against 70+% of hypothetical lists in 40K. Somebody go playtest Guilliman Razorspam against something like a fluffly, footslogging Bloodletter-battalion and adjust points until the Bloodletters win 50% of games out of .. dunno a hundred or so.


Referencing tournaments as evidence for or against balance is nonsensical. It's like saying obesity is not a problem in the United States (or elsewhere), cause we looked at a 100 people attending the Olympics and found no evidence that it might be a problem.

First off, there were only 5 units of tac marines not 6 - dunno where the 6 has come from.

Also, he didn't need that many tac units to get the razorbacks he had - he only needed 3 tac squads. So, taking 5 was a conscious decision that had no impact on being able to take razorbacks.

I've seen Lawrence use the list before, there are 6 Tac units.

One thing people havn't been talking about is how he tends to use them, as a screening unit to absorb smite and block charges. Whilst it can be argued they aren't the best for that job, he doesn't need large infantry blobs for it, in fact smaller squads are probably better as they'll attract less atention, and they do have a Lascannon and ObSec so they can have further uses.

No,they're not better at it. But they don't have to be with that much dakka on the back side.

They're what pass for cheap garbage in a marine list. They also happen to have lascannons. But their primary job is to be garbage.

 daedalus wrote:

Kdash wrote:


First off, there were only 5 units of tac marines not 6 - dunno where the 6 has come from.

Also, he didn't need that many tac units to get the razorbacks he had - he only needed 3 tac squads. So, taking 5 was a conscious decision that had no impact on being able to take razorbacks.

That's a good point. I feel like he's missing a ton of points. Anyone else in a position to more thoroughly do the math and make sure I'm not missing something?

I'm with you - getting roughly 1905 with the list on the Warhammer Community site... So, i guess there probably was 6 tac units as that'd bring us up to 1995.

 Blackie wrote:
Number 1 list has 6 units of TAC marines? And there a lot of players that keep saying that TAC marines are garbage. Not mediocre or average, but pure garbage.

If they were pure garbage they wouldn't fit a 1st place tournament list in such high numbers. 6 squads are really a lot, tipycally you don't even spam 6 squads of decent units but only the real good ones.

The majority of troops in this edition may worth something only with the specific buffs that make them work and a list that is built around them.

TAC marines are certainly not great but with some specific buffs and appropriate lists they can be pretty solid. Also conscripts are totally ineffective if they aren't supported by commissars and a strong AM or imperium soup list. Or ork boyz which become a threat and a decent troop only in huge numbers, with tons of buffing characters and an entire list that lacks vehicles and multiwounds models (maybe only cheap artillery) in order to nullify all the opponent's anti tank.

TAC marines are not different than the majority of other troops choices, they're not great but combined with other effective units, and SM have several powerful options, they surely find a room even in super competitive lists. No garbage units can be part of those cheesy lists.

Still garbage, and that's exactly how they were used. As expendable garbage; they were the stand-ins for conscripts.

Kdash wrote:
First off, there were only 5 units of tac marines not 6 - dunno where the 6 has come from..

The article on Warhammer Community originally said 6 and has now been corrected to 5.

 Imateria wrote:

First off, there were only 5 units of tac marines not 6 - dunno where the 6 has come from.

Also, he didn't need that many tac units to get the razorbacks he had - he only needed 3 tac squads. So, taking 5 was a conscious decision that had no impact on being able to take razorbacks.

I've seen Lawrence use the list before, there are 6 Tac units.

One thing people havn't been talking about is how he tends to use them, as a screening unit to absorb smite and block charges. Whilst it can be argued they aren't the best for that job, he doesn't need large infantry blobs for it, in fact smaller squads are probably better as they'll attract less atention, and they do have a Lascannon and ObSec so they can have further uses.

Martel732 wrote:


The problem is that BA shouldn't be in cover most of the time. Well, unless you are gonna play them as gimped UMs.

Some units should be actually. TAC marines, scouts or devastators are mostly shooty units, they're not suppose to charge something with great effects. BA have sanguinary guard, assault marines, death company and terminators as infantry squads that never stay in cover shooting towards the enemy. All this units may need some fixes (they actually do) but I don't see BA armies hiding in cover all the time, if a few min squads that are not supposed to be choppy units do so it shouldn't be a problem IMHO.

Martel732 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want "movie marines" I want to not have to cower my marines in cover in order to survive a reasonable amount of time, while hordes of chaff do whatever they like because losses mean nothing to them because they are immune to psychology.

Play Ad Mech and use the rules for Kastellan Robots as Space Marines then paint them blue with Ultramarines transfers on their shoulders.

When Arkaine gets sarcastic, his opponent has lost the debate. This is the Dakka equivalent of tabling.

What is the problem with a unit firing from cover?

I get the fact that everyone has a playstyle and would prefer it if their army played a different way. But that's what tactics are, you adapt them to the situation to achieve a goal. If that means putting your troops in cover, do so, but bring big guns to ensure they remain a threat.

Shooting at things from a distance and forcing them to come to you doesn't have to be a bad thing. Most armies can do a lot of damage to hordes over the course of a few rounds. The trick is making sure the nastier parts of that horde army die before they get to you.

From what I've seen of this particular poster, the issue is that he doesn't actually want to have to play a game, he wants to throw marines on the table and pose dramatically as they destroy all their opponents, 'cause that's the floof tho!'

FAAC players man, gimme a WAAC any day.

Not at all. I'm just very concerned that every BA specific unit is going to be useless if this is THE way to play marines.

The army only plays this way because it has Gman.

And BA is always a 'lesser' Marine faction because shooting > combat in pretty much every edition of the 40k

 daedalus wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:

All I can say, again, is wow. So where is this poll that proves what has otherwise been proven to be total bs?

There was one where people were reporting their wins / losses. I just went through about 6 pages of threads trying to find it, and I'm sad to say that I can't recall what it was called. I'm not actually sure if that's the one he's referencing or not, because I'm not a mind reader, but it's the only thing vaguely fitting that description.

From what I recall, SoB actually had the highest win rate in the upper 90%, and then was IG. Most of the imperial armies followed, with... I think Eldar probably being the higher of the Xenos. It was all based upon people who had posted to the thread saying something along the lines of "Militarium vs Space Marines, Militarium win", and that was counted, with up to, like, 10-15 games being posted at once sometimes.

I'm not saying people lied, but it would be literally impossible to tell if they did. I would be saying that you'd have to be a little crazy to rely on that thread for anything other than "for entertainment purposes only". It's certainly not what I'd call "data".

Not to mention that, even if they were telling the truth, you're depending on people who are operating entirely within the scope of their local meta. By those standards, I had about a 22/3/5 w/l/d in 7th with IG simply because of what my local scene looks like. I was tabling 14 year olds at "tournaments" with freaking power blobs, ffs. That was my local scene until I stopped.
That data is interesting, but to get a chip on your shoulder about it, even if people were entirely honest, well, I got nothin...

Yeah that's the one - I looked for it also and couldnt find it. This is whats called a survey in statistics. It's suppposed to give you a rough sense of things. With something like a 5% margin of error. It's purpose is to identify statistical trends.


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 koooaei wrote:
I've had it easier vs devastator gunlines than vs tactical marine spam playing orks. Devastators kill more but score less. They are also much more fragile for points.

Tactical marines are identical to devestators. Devs can just take more heavies. They don't have to take 4 and it's much more common to take 2. In a competitive list. It's even better with just 1 heavy weapon because for free you get a signum which makes it bs 2+ and a 5 point upgrade lets you shoot it twice (one time use) with cherub. There is 0 reason to take tactical squads in marine lists. Even less reason to take them when you have guilliman spotting you the command points from a battalion.

A well-done scientific survey that carefully handles bias and distribution of respondants, while carefully curating the questions and possible answers, will have "margins of error" a little south of 5%.

Stuff like that thread are the reason Gallup exists (read up on it - interesting story). Their margins of error are double digits. Charged discussions on subcomunity sites where an invested user randomly posts a hasty poll are unlikely to be accurate.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Yeah that's the one - I looked for it also and couldnt find it. This is whats called a survey in statistics. It's suppposed to give you a rough sense of things. With something like a 5% margin of error. It's purpose is to identify statistical trends.

That wasn't what a statistician in good faith would call a survey, and it certainly didn't have a 5% margin of error.

Yes, there was statistics being applied to the data. The statistics themselves might have had a 5% margin of error (I don't recall what the statistics even applied were). The problem was the data itself.

There's a fairly common saying, "Garbage in, garbage out" that typifies that thread. Not that I'm trying to insult the people participating in it (myself included) but it was unreliable and unverifiable. And again, even if they were telling the truth, it's not a solid indicator of army strength. I could show up in my local meta and make just about any army look good, not even because I'm good at the game, but because most of them were that bad.

Kdash wrote:
One thing people havn't been talking about is how he tends to use them, as a screening unit to absorb smite and block charges. Whilst it can be argued they aren't the best for that job, he doesn't need large infantry blobs for it, in fact smaller squads are probably better as they'll attract less atention, and they do have a Lascannon and ObSec so they can have further uses.

Tacticals are garbage. For 13 points you only get about twice the durability of awesome units like Dire Avengers - which are dirt cheap at 17ppm!

Guardians are obviously the better screen squad, as they're only 9 ppm. So you can have more squads for fewer points! Only 90 points for a min Guardian squad, whereas Marines have to pay a whopping 65 points! How unfair is that? And for those 90 points, those 10 guardians take almost as much firepower to remove as those 5 Tacs! But the real kicker is Guardians can take one of those OP heavys like a Brightlance! S8 36" range anti-tank doomieness! So you have a moderately survivable 10-man unit that can throw a big shot down-range - take a couple of those, and how can Marine plaryers compete!

/sarcasm

I was a little surprised that he didn't take a dev squad or two for slightly higher lascannon presence. But I don't think you're seeing the benefits of the Tac squads:
- Wiping out a unit only takes out 1 Lascannon at best
- The first 4 wounds per squad take out only boltguns. The big gun isn't killed until you've done 5 wounds. And if the opponent is forced to divide his firepower between units, it gets much, much worse.
- He can use any Tac squad as a screen or pawn at any time. It's only 1 lascannon. And so he can stop a charge, tie up a unit, whatever.
- Tacs can't beat dedicated melee units. But the faster chaff can't take out even a min Tac squad. So the enemy has to invest in shifting or removing the unit. A unit that doesn't cost the SM player much to field.
- Tacs are reasonably resilient for 13ppm. Not Necron-level, but much more than most. So he spends enough points to make them actually a threat, and they have the durability to actually remove them.
- He needs 3 Tacs (or Scouts) anyways. If he brings 3 Tacs or Scouts plus 1/2 Dev squads, the Dev squad dies first. So if you fit 1 more Lascannon in each of 2 replaced tac squads (imagine you find points somewhere), those die first. So you get 1 to 3 more Lascannon shots. But you lose versatility, Obsec, and must tip your hand (where do you deploy the Devs vs Tacs?)

If you think replacing some Tacs with Preds is a great idea, you don't know what they're trying. Devs make some sense - and is what I would have done - but I think I see why he used Tacs (and I think he was right).

As for Tacs being garbage, compared to what? They do their job well. They can outperform most troops at what said troops do well. Those they can't, they usually outperform at everything else. So the best troops in the game might be marginally better.

Since 6th, Tacs have been simply better than most troops, but there were better (broken) options in other armies. Since then:
-Ablative wounds have become guarentees - meaning having 90% of your firepower being one guy has gone from a usually-big-advange to an always-huge-advantage. And nobody does that as well as Tacs.
-Cover has shifted the ideal from lots of poor armor saves to fewer models with good saves. Marines are some of the highest model-count 3+ save armies. SoB might have more bodies, but that's it. CWE can get 3+ saves, but not on troops, and for much more points than a Tac Marine. And 3+ hits 2+ in cover.
-The big stuff now costs big points. So the small stuff matters more. Tacs are one of the best "small stuff". And can be kitted to take on anything.
-Plasma went from overcharging at s7 Gets Hot and safe at s6 which only Xenos had, to Xenos plasma staying the same, Imp plasma getting safe at s7, and now a new Gets Hot profile

Tacs aren't bad. Get over it. They aren't 7e Scatter Bikes. But the vast majority of troops are worse. If you listed all troops from best to worst, Tacs would be near the top.

Yes, in a game where you need cheap disposable units to take up space, the Eldar suffer. Don't worry, your magical glitter unicorn codex is on the way!

Tac marines are good on a model to model basis, but only if you discount their cost of 13 ppm. No, I don't think replacing them with predators is a good idea because he needs the disposable space fillers.

Guardsmen massively outperform tacs at the only job that matters: filling space and soaking wounds.

"And can be kitted to take on anything. "

At TREMENDOUS cost relative to the cost of the actual marines. Once you start equipping tac marines, they develop the Eldar problem. As and Eldar player, I thought you'd recognize that.

"If you listed all troops from best to worst, Tacs would be near the top."

Only if you ignored costs. Tac pay more to do the same thing: take up space.

"As for Tacs being garbage, compared to what?"

Cheaper sources of wounds. Which is all we care about, really. The lascannons help, but jack up the price tremendously.

"Cover has shifted the ideal from lots of poor armor saves to fewer models with good saves. Marines are some of the highest model-count 3+ save armies. SoB might have more bodies, but that's it.

This is your most relevant point. And requires marines to forego movement.

So, if they aren't Conscripts, they're bad troops?

Doesn't the same apply to any troops that are:
-Marines
-Not Marines, but also not Conscripts
?

As has been pointed out in this thread, the Tacs in the winning list did a *lot* more than just "take up space".

On a per-cost basis, Marines are still better than most of the other troops in the game. As stated, for specific purposes, there are troops that outperform them in that role. The role you're looking at is "cheap conscript" - of course conscripts are better. The role the list was looking at was more than "cheap conscript", though. And Conscripts couldn't have done everything Marines did for that player.

 D6Damager wrote:

Kdash wrote:
One thing people havn't been talking about is how he tends to use them, as a screening unit to absorb smite and block charges. Whilst it can be argued they aren't the best for that job, he doesn't need large infantry blobs for it, in fact smaller squads are probably better as they'll attract less atention, and they do have a Lascannon and ObSec so they can have further uses.

I think most people undervalue objective secured as well.