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They are NOT above average CC units. They only get one swing. That's always been their big downfall. Lack of offense/pt in every phase of the game, but ESPECIALLY CC.

Generalist = failure in 40K. Always has, likely, always will. The army with 10 specialist shooters and 10 specialist CC units will have the shooters shoot and the CC units CC. How do the 20 generalists fare? Poorly, when they also cost more, which they usually do because "marines".

Martel732 wrote:
They are NOT above average CC units. They only get one swing. That's always been their big downfall. Lack of offense/pt in every phase of the game, but ESPECIALLY CC.

Generalist = failure in 40K. Always has, likely, always will. The army with 10 specialist shooters and 10 specialist CC units will have the shooters shoot and the CC units CC. How do the 20 generalists fare? Poorly, when they also cost more, which they usually do because "marines".

That's not been my experience at all. While building my AM list I used Tac Marines (+ a squad of bolter owned scouts) I inherited to fill the missing points. They were good infantry shredders in shooting and could hold a line like nobody's business. Add in a couple of their half dozen support model options and they can become a serious threat to anything short of Tau Lord Of War Battlesuits. I've had waves of cultists break against them in close combat. Had then engage and emerge victorious from conscript squads.

Heck, they are the same WS and Strength as Orks, but with a massively better armor save. All this not counting hte seargent/chainsword you get for free with 3 attacks. Add in the fact that most of the support models have 2-3 attacks for a heroic intervention and they are a pretty good choice. Don't blame them because you also get a CC dedicated marine unit that happens to be better than even that.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So guardsmen should be 5 points relative to Marines, by your math, but your math ignores close combat...

...and that's okay?

Why should close combat be ignored?

And don't say "because it's not the focus of the units in question" - I agree it's not IG's focus, but for tactical marines, well, they don't have a focus. CC is as much their focus as shooting.

I think guardsmen should be 5 pts, but for reasons other than this particular disagreement. Tac marine CC might as well not exist, so I'd call them a shooting focused unit.

I'd disagree. BS3 S4 means Tac Marines are above average CC units. Add the 3+ armor save and they can tie up and chew through gaunts and guardsmen alike with horrifying effectiness. Forcing Tac Marines away from their generalist role and using them as a pure shooting unit is foolish.

...They have one attack each? A squad of five will kill like, one guardsman. That's not exactly "horrifying effectiveness".

They're all dead by turn 3 from Wyvern fire anyway. So the CC doesn't matter. Generalists have no hope against undercosted shooting. You can take that to the bank.

Your idea of "holding the line" is so quaint when my opponent is lobbing 20+ manticore shots at me every turn on top of the wyverns.

Well, let me try it another way...

Guardsman puts 0.5 * 0.33 * 0.33 Marines in the bin each attack. So let's say, for simplicity sake, 50 Guardsmen are all within 13 to 23 inches of a Marine Unit. They will take 50 attacks in the first *simultaneous* volley, and do an average of 2.7 Dead marines, rounded to 3.

Marines do 0.67 * 0.67 * 0.67 Guardsmen in the bin with each attack. So let's say, for simplicity sake, 20 Marines are all within 13 to 23 inches of a Guardsmen unit. They will take 20 attacks in the first *simultaneous* volley, and do an average of 6 Dead Guardsmen.

We'll now carry on, doing average damage to each other. T X = Turns of shooting. G Y = Number of Guardsmen remaining. M Z = Marines remaining.

T1 - G 44 - M 17
T2 - G 39 - M 15
T3 - G 34 - M 13
T4 - G 30 - M 11
T5 - G 27 - M 9
T6 - G 24 - M 8
T7 - G 22 - M 7
T8 - G 20 - M 6
T9 - G 18 - M 5
T10 - G16 - M 4
T11 - G14 - M 3
T12 - G13 - M 3
T13 - G12 - M 2
T14 - G11 - M 2
T15 - G10 - M 1
T16 - G10 - M 1
T17 - G 9 - M 0

So I was a little off. Someone else can run the numbers at 45 Guardsmen vs 20 Marines, and that should pan out about equal. If that's close, and again, I was rounding until the end where I was applying half-numbers, then that gives you an estimate of the value of a Guardsman vs Marine in a static shooting match. 20/45 = 44%, just as I predicted. And then I factored a Close Combat favour to the Marines, which puts them at about 40 %, which would be 20 Marines to 50 Guardsmen, presuming the Marines were capable of advancing so that even the last few dudes could get into close combat.

It's pretty much self-evident. You just have to recognize the numbers and how they interact.

Presuming a Marine is still 16 pts, haven't checked in a long while, then a Guardsman should be 7 points. Which I think is a bit much, I think they're 5, 6 tops, but that's a metric if we simply compare damage stats in a vacuum.

Troops in 8th exist to fill space and soak up shots. The cheaper the model, the better they fill these roles. These output numbers mean nothing because you are getting shot by mega weapons from 48' away that ignore LoS.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Well, let me try it another way...

Guardsman puts 0.5 * 0.33 * 0.33 Marines in the bin each attack. So let's say, for simplicity sake, 50 Guardsmen are all within 13 to 23 inches of a Marine Unit. They will take 50 attacks in the first *simultaneous* volley, and do an average of 2.7 Dead marines, rounded to 3.

Marines do 0.67 * 0.67 * 0.67 Guardsmen in the bin with each attack. So let's say, for simplicity sake, 20 Marines are all within 13 to 23 inches of a Guardsmen unit. They will take 20 attacks in the first *simultaneous* volley, and do an average of 6 Dead Guardsmen.

We'll now carry on, doing average damage to each other. T X = Turns of shooting. G Y = Number of Guardsmen remaining. M Z = Marines remaining.

T1 - G 44 - M 17
T2 - G 39 - M 15
T3 - G 34 - M 13
T4 - G 30 - M 11
T5 - G 27 - M 9
T6 - G 24 - M 8
T7 - G 22 - M 7
T8 - G 20 - M 6
T9 - G 18 - M 5
T10 - G16 - M 4
T11 - G14 - M 3
T12 - G13 - M 3
T13 - G12 - M 2
T14 - G11 - M 2
T15 - G10 - M 1
T16 - G10 - M 1
T17 - G 9 - M 0

So I was a little off. Someone else can run the numbers at 45 Guardsmen vs 20 Marines, and that should pan out about equal. If that's close, and again, I was rounding until the end where I was applying half-numbers, then that gives you an estimate of the value of a Guardsman vs Marine in a static shooting match. 20/45 = 44%, just as I predicted. And then I factored a Close Combat favour to the Marines, which puts them at about 40 %, which would be 20 Marines to 50 Guardsmen, presuming the Marines were capable of advancing so that even the last few dudes could get into close combat.

It's pretty much self-evident. You just have to recognize the numbers and how they interact.

Presuming a Marine is still 16 pts, haven't checked in a long while, then a Guardsman should be 7 points. Which I think is a bit much, I think they're 5, 6 tops, but that's a metric if we simply compare damage stats in a vacuum.

Marines are 13 points. Weapons also matter, unfortunately there is no gun weak enough to be efficient to shoot at GEQ over anything else. The closest you can come is a lasgun, which sets up a problem look when the best counter to GEQ is GEQ. That said I'm not sure it's as simple as guard should be more expensive and marines cheaper it's more that I think the game is lacking any real sort of light anti infantry weapons.

greatbigtree wrote:My comparison is accurate.

Infantry squad gets 3 hits, where SM gets 4. Infantry squad in even numbers is 3/4 as accurate. 6 Guardsmen shoot, 3 hit. 6 Marines shoot, 4 hit. Guardsmen are 3/4 as effective at hitting a target.

Of those hits, 2/6 wound, compared to 3/6 wound. Guardsmen are 2/3 damage on successful hits. A single guardsman has 0.75 * 0.67 the offensive output as a Marine. Roughly 50% offensive output. My bad.

In terms of being hit, a Guardsman is typically wounded 4 times out of 6, a Marine is wounded 3 times out of 6. Therefore, a Guardsman is 3/4 as Tough as a Marine. Marines save 4/6, while G saves 2/6. Therefore the save is 2/4 as good. 0.75 * 0.5 = 38% as valuable when defending.

0.5 + 0.38 /2 = 0.44 the average offensive / defensive capabilities of a Guardsman vs a Marine. Again, this disregards CC potential, but realistically, 0.41 is a completely reasonable comparison of combined offensive / defensive capability.

Simple evaluation of relative effect. Again, I admit that this does not reflect the benefit of board control, etc, but if we took 50 Guardsmen and 20 Marines, and had them simultaneously shoot each other and resolve casualties in a vacuum [assuming each model takes an equal number of attacks] you'd find that each group wins 50 to 55 % of the time. Less than a 5% difference, between them. Likely a 55% win rate for the Guardsmen.

Try it out! Someone out there can build a program that can compare 2"X" Marines vs 5"X" Guardsmen. Keep the ratios the same, and it works out. Resolve attacks simultaneously.

Responding to me? I didn't include quotes where i probably should have. Okay, my response (ignoring points). An infantry squad vs a tactical squad, 10 men on both sides. Rough calculations.
Guard do 5 hits, Marines do 8. (62% difference)
Guard do 1.5 wounds (rounding up to 2, but you can round either way here), marines do 6 (33%).
Guard do 1 wound (rounding down, just out of interest), (20%)
Guard save 2, Marines save 2 (0% difference)
Total difference: 32%
Total difference: (rounding down): 27%

So assuming my math is correct, and ignoring point values, the differences add up to about to 32-27%. But for the sake of argument, lets say that marines perform 25% better than guardsmen. That puts guardsmen at ~9 points in value, which imo is worse.

I find the whole thing fascinating. Please correct me if my math is wrong, but on performance it seems that guardsmen are severely undercosted compared to marines. This goes some way to explaining the performance values on the tabletop.

Unit1126PLL wrote:So guardsmen should be 5 points relative to Marines, by your math, but your math ignores close combat...

...and that's okay?

Why should close combat be ignored?

And don't say "because it's not the focus of the units in question" - I agree it's not IG's focus, but for tactical marines, well, they don't have a focus. CC is as much their focus as shooting.

The thing is, to get your points back, marines have to be shooting and meleeing every turn. And that's assuming the 33% value difference. As for focus, yeah tactical marines don't really have a focus, but their weapon options are specced for shooting. Not having a focus isn't a good thing, it means they perform underpar at every phase of the game for their pricing.

 greatbigtree wrote:

Presuming a Marine is still 16 pts, haven't checked in a long while, then a Guardsman should be 7 points. Which I think is a bit much, I think they're 5, 6 tops, but that's a metric if we simply compare damage stats in a vacuum.

I'm pretty sure marines are currently 13 points.

Did my numbers not work? I have a program to simulate outcomes of combat. I'm willing to punch numbers in for you.

 greatbigtree wrote:
My comparison is accurate.

Infantry squad gets 3 hits, where SM gets 4. Infantry squad in even numbers is 3/4 as accurate. 6 Guardsmen shoot, 3 hit. 6 Marines shoot, 4 hit. Guardsmen are 3/4 as effective at hitting a target.

Of those hits, 2/6 wound, compared to 3/6 wound.

and thiiiiiis is where it starts to gain context. Ok, so we're assuming both are shooting at a T4 target. That's an important distinction. It means we're isolating this to a specific kind of target, and looking at the unit as a broader whole or in direct comparison to each other.

Guardsmen are 2/3 damage on successful hits. A single guardsman has 0.75 * 0.67 the offensive output as a Marine. Roughly 50% offensive output. My bad.


In terms of being hit, a Guardsman is typically wounded 4 times out of 6, a Marine is wounded 3 times out of 6. Therefore, a Guardsman is 3/4 as Tough as a Marine. Marines save 4/6, while G saves 2/6. Therefore the save is 2/4 as good. 0.75 * 0.5 = 38% as valuable when defending.

This is specifically only against S4 AP0 fire. Ok.

0.5 + 0.38 /2 = 0.44 the average offensive / defensive capabilities of a Guardsman vs a Marine. Again, this disregards CC potential, but realistically, 0.41 is a completely reasonable comparison of combined offensive / defensive capability.

Against specifically T4 targets and S4 attacks back at them, sure.

However, it does not capture their relative differences to each other. Youve measured the shooting effectiveness of Guardsmen against Space Marines and Space Marines against Space Marines, but not Guardsmen against Guardsmen or, most critically, Space Marines against Guardsmen.

Simple evaluation of relative effect. Again, I admit that this does not reflect the benefit of board control, etc, but if we took 50 Guardsmen and 20 Marines, and had them simultaneously shoot each other and resolve casualties in a vacuum [assuming each model takes an equal number of attacks] you'd find that each group wins 50 to 55 % of the time. Less than a 5% difference, between them. Likely a 55% win rate for the Guardsmen.

It may very well be true, but thats a bit different than the way it was couched and explored above. It's also a very specific situation and matchup, and, as noted, board control and the ability to get 50 dudes in range and LoS vs just 20, stuff like that also matters. Compare them on even numbers, say 10 Guardsmen to 10 Space Marines, and the Guardsmen will kill 1.11 Marines while the Marines will kill 5.93 Guardsmen (though, to be fair, is down notably from the 8.88 theyd have killed in 2E-7E since they reintroduced ASM's that dont negate guard armor).

The armor thing is actually probably the biggest point. Guardsmen dont have to be hiding behind every terrain piece possible to get a save of some sort now, they get a save against most weapons now even in the open, whereas before they did not, even going back to 2E (where they had a 6+ and even Lasguns had a -1 ASM). That's probably the biggest thing in favor of bumping them back up to 5pts.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Well in real life - tanks 1 shot each other and it's a game to acquire the target first. That's who wins the duel. I'm okay with fantasy tanks having fantasy guns. But the elite army should have more advanced weapons.

It would have been a lot cooler if marine preds got the shoot twice with the turret rule and the LR guns were just made crudely stronger (like they add +1 to wound rolls with their turret weapon because their shells are so big) or something like that.

Why would that be cool?

The LRBT is the big, slow, crude tank, whose crews are doctrinally trained to use them in grinding advances [heh] and to follow the orders of a superior officer.

The Predator is a fast, speedy, medium tank whose crews are probably riflemen first, tankers second, and who are trained to use them in lightning strike warfare and not grinding attrition warfare.

The Leman Russ is like the KV-2, and the Predator is like the Panzer IV.

The Panzer IV is a better tank than the KV-2. I'm sorry you don't see that.

I'm not even talking about the drivers or the gunners of these tanks. I'm talking about their systems. A predator has better technology inside of it - it's turrets should move faster and be able to be used on the move more effectively with computer controlled aiming systems. while a lemon is basically using analog technology. I'm talking totally from a fluff perspective here. Marines stuff is supposed to be move advanced. It would be cool to see the rules reflect this by producing a marine unit that is functionally better than it's AM counterparts but costs appropriately more.

That would be the Land Raider, which moves at full speed without reduced fire effectiveness, has better armor and more wounds. If you've ever played Epic, you think of the Land Raider as the marine MBT, not the predator.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Well, let me try it another way...

Guardsman puts 0.5 * 0.33 * 0.33 Marines in the bin each attack. So let's say, for simplicity sake, 50 Guardsmen are all within 13 to 23 inches of a Marine Unit. They will take 50 attacks in the first *simultaneous* volley, and do an average of 2.7 Dead marines, rounded to 3.

Marines do 0.67 * 0.67 * 0.67 Guardsmen in the bin with each attack. So let's say, for simplicity sake, 20 Marines are all within 13 to 23 inches of a Guardsmen unit. They will take 20 attacks in the first *simultaneous* volley, and do an average of 6 Dead Guardsmen.

We'll now carry on, doing average damage to each other. T X = Turns of shooting. G Y = Number of Guardsmen remaining. M Z = Marines remaining.

T1 - G 44 - M 17
T2 - G 39 - M 15
T3 - G 34 - M 13
T4 - G 30 - M 11
T5 - G 27 - M 9
T6 - G 24 - M 8
T7 - G 22 - M 7
T8 - G 20 - M 6
T9 - G 18 - M 5
T10 - G16 - M 4
T11 - G14 - M 3
T12 - G13 - M 3
T13 - G12 - M 2
T14 - G11 - M 2
T15 - G10 - M 1
T16 - G10 - M 1
T17 - G 9 - M 0

So I was a little off. Someone else can run the numbers at 45 Guardsmen vs 20 Marines, and that should pan out about equal. If that's close, and again, I was rounding until the end where I was applying half-numbers, then that gives you an estimate of the value of a Guardsman vs Marine in a static shooting match. 20/45 = 44%, just as I predicted. And then I factored a Close Combat favour to the Marines, which puts them at about 40 %, which would be 20 Marines to 50 Guardsmen, presuming the Marines were capable of advancing so that even the last few dudes could get into close combat.

It's pretty much self-evident. You just have to recognize the numbers and how they interact.

Presuming a Marine is still 16 pts, haven't checked in a long while, then a Guardsman should be 7 points. Which I think is a bit much, I think they're 5, 6 tops, but that's a metric if we simply compare damage stats in a vacuum.

Major flaw here, is the complete ignoring of the concentration of force.

Namely, that the engagement won't possibly start with all guards in range.
The "initial" engagement will be 10 VS 10 or so. The marines won't have to fight the entire bulk of guards at once, but take it down in smaller bites.
And that's were you ignore moral, where the guards would take far more additional casualties.


Your analysis is only correct in a world without range/space limits, and without the moral phase.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Nobody cares if a Conscript is 50% less durable than before because there is 4 for every Marine.

Actually, because of T3 vs T4, against most anti-infantry weaponry a conscript is weaker 50% durable (because they also have a 16% higher chance to get wounded by most anti-infantry weapons than marines do. This, along with their vastly inferior firepower, makes them not actually really that unbalanced on raw math. Vs marines, each conscript's lasgun shot has a 33% chance to hit, each hit has a 33% chance to wound, each wound has a 33% chance to go through armor, resulting in a 3.7% chance to kill a marine per conscript. Four of these conscripts have a roughly 30% chance to kill one marine in a rapid fire volley. Compared to each marine's boltgun having a 66% chance to hit, 66% chance to wound, and 66% chance to go through armor; this means each marine shot has a 30% chance to kill a conscript, or 60% chance per rapid fire volley per astartes. This calculation goes DRASTICALLY in the marine's favor when cover is taken in to account; a marine in cover takes a less than 2% chance per lasgun shot to die, while a conscript in cover still takes a 22% chance to die from bolter fire in the unlikely scenario that the entire conscript squad has managed to get in to cover and thus is given the bonus. Those four conscripts have less than 15% chance to kill one marine per volley, while the marine still has nearly a 50% chance to kill a conscript. And this is purely bolter vs lasgun; add in other weapons, and the marines' strength grows even greater, where the best the conscript can hope for is a few more shots.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Well in real life - tanks 1 shot each other and it's a game to acquire the target first. That's who wins the duel. I'm okay with fantasy tanks having fantasy guns. But the elite army should have more advanced weapons.

It would have been a lot cooler if marine preds got the shoot twice with the turret rule and the LR guns were just made crudely stronger (like they add +1 to wound rolls with their turret weapon because their shells are so big) or something like that.

Why would that be cool?

The LRBT is the big, slow, crude tank, whose crews are doctrinally trained to use them in grinding advances [heh] and to follow the orders of a superior officer.

The Predator is a fast, speedy, medium tank whose crews are probably riflemen first, tankers second, and who are trained to use them in lightning strike warfare and not grinding attrition warfare.

The Leman Russ is like the KV-2, and the Predator is like the Panzer IV.

The Panzer IV is a better tank than the KV-2. I'm sorry you don't see that.

I'm not even talking about the drivers or the gunners of these tanks. I'm talking about their systems. A predator has better technology inside of it - it's turrets should move faster and be able to be used on the move more effectively with computer controlled aiming systems. while a lemon is basically using analog technology. I'm talking totally from a fluff perspective here. Marines stuff is supposed to be move advanced. It would be cool to see the rules reflect this by producing a marine unit that is functionally better than it's AM counterparts but costs appropriately more.

That would be the Land Raider, which moves at full speed without reduced fire effectiveness, has better armor and more wounds. If you've ever played Epic, you think of the Land Raider as the marine MBT, not the predator.

Oh, so marines functionally don't have a MBT. Got it. Because its still unfieldable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Nobody cares if a Conscript is 50% less durable than before because there is 4 for every Marine.

Actually, because of T3 vs T4, against most anti-infantry weaponry a conscript is weaker 50% durable (because they also have a 16% higher chance to get wounded by most anti-infantry weapons than marines do. This, along with their vastly inferior firepower, makes them not actually really that unbalanced on raw math. Vs marines, each conscript's lasgun shot has a 33% chance to hit, each hit has a 33% chance to wound, each wound has a 33% chance to go through armor, resulting in a 3.7% chance to kill a marine per conscript. Four of these conscripts have a roughly 30% chance to kill one marine in a rapid fire volley. Compared to each marine's boltgun having a 66% chance to hit, 66% chance to wound, and 66% chance to go through armor; this means each marine shot has a 30% chance to kill a conscript, or 60% chance per rapid fire volley per astartes. This calculation goes DRASTICALLY in the marine's favor when cover is taken in to account; a marine in cover takes a less than 2% chance per lasgun shot to die, while a conscript in cover still takes a 22% chance to die from bolter fire in the unlikely scenario that the entire conscript squad has managed to get in to cover and thus is given the bonus. Those four conscripts have less than 15% chance to kill one marine per volley, while the marine still has nearly a 50% chance to kill a conscript. And this is purely bolter vs lasgun; add in other weapons, and the marines' strength grows even greater, where the best the conscript can hope for is a few more shots.

You neglect the value of just existing in 8th. Forget killing power. Conscripts and models that cheap don't need to actually accomplish anything in the current meta. Maybe something changes that. We'll see.

Tygre wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Just use 10 man squads and accept that a unit made of 4 point models is easy to remove. They are actually far more effective than a 4 point model should be already.

It occurred to me why that is. It's all based around a d6, and their stats are basically marines -1 (3 instead of 4). Which is a 16.5% reduction in quality when competing with a marine (1/6 = ~16.5%). But their price is >66% less than a marine. So they're paying drastically less than a marine for a 16.5% reduction in performance in any given stat.

But 4 down to 3 is a 25% reduction. And Guard don't have power armour.

They also don't have +1 Toughness. Or +1 WS. Or +1 LD. Or a Bolter, bolt pistol, krak grenades, ATSKNF, sarge equipment list. . . .

But none of that matters of course if you ask the people who think marines are trash.

 argonak wrote:

Tygre wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Just use 10 man squads and accept that a unit made of 4 point models is easy to remove. They are actually far more effective than a 4 point model should be already.

It occurred to me why that is. It's all based around a d6, and their stats are basically marines -1 (3 instead of 4). Which is a 16.5% reduction in quality when competing with a marine (1/6 = ~16.5%). But their price is >66% less than a marine. So they're paying drastically less than a marine for a 16.5% reduction in performance in any given stat.

But 4 down to 3 is a 25% reduction. And Guard don't have power armour.

They also don't have +1 Toughness. Or +1 WS. Or +1 LD. Or a Bolter, bolt pistol, krak grenades, ATSKNF, sarge equipment list. . . .

But none of that matters of course if you ask the people who think marines are trash.

"The daunted few"

 argonak wrote:

Tygre wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Just use 10 man squads and accept that a unit made of 4 point models is easy to remove. They are actually far more effective than a 4 point model should be already.

It occurred to me why that is. It's all based around a d6, and their stats are basically marines -1 (3 instead of 4). Which is a 16.5% reduction in quality when competing with a marine (1/6 = ~16.5%). But their price is >66% less than a marine. So they're paying drastically less than a marine for a 16.5% reduction in performance in any given stat.

But 4 down to 3 is a 25% reduction. And Guard don't have power armour.

They also don't have +1 Toughness. Or +1 WS. Or +1 LD. Or a Bolter, bolt pistol, krak grenades, ATSKNF, sarge equipment list. . . .

But none of that matters of course if you ask the people who think marines are trash.

It kind of doesn't the way games play out.

First off, I have not in any way represented my argument as anything other than numbers of models pounding each other in a vacuum, with no recourse to manoeuver or range. Nor does it account for Morale... a big factor in the initial salvo.

Second, I'm now going to run the simulation, outside of ANY POSSIBLE GAMING SCENARIO. In particular, the scenario involves simultaneous shooting.

This takes BS4+, S3, T3, Sv5+ "Guardsmen" models, and pits them against BS3+, S4, T4, Sv3+ Marine Models. Attacks resolve simultaneously.

45 Guardsmen models, at 5 points each are 225 points [I've proposed that Guardsmen models should be 5 points]. They shall receive no other bonuses, as this comparison is in a vacuum.

20 Marine models, at 13 points each are 260 points. They shall receive no other bonuses, as this comparison is in a vacuum.

As before, each Guardsman, with a single attack, generates 0.0556 Marine Casualties [models removed] per attack.

A Marine, with a single attack, generates 0.2963 Guardsmen casualties per attack. For the sake of reference, an individual Marine is 5.33 times more likely to create a Guardsman casualty in a single attack, compared to a Guardsman generating a Marine casualty... but there are a lot more Guardsmen.

As before, T=Turns of Attack, G=Guardsmen remaining, and M=Marines remaining, rounding to nearest numbers.

T0 - G45 - M20
T1 - G39 - M17
T2 - G34 - M15
T3 - G30 - M13
T4 - G26 - M11
T5 - G23 - M10
T6 - G20 - M09
T7 - G17 - M08
T8 - G15 - M07
T9 - G13 - M06
T10 - G11 - M05
T11 - G10 - M04
T12 - G09 - M03
T13 - G08 - M03
T14 - G07 - M02
T15 - G06 - M02
T16 - G05 - M01
T17 -----------------> 5 Guardsmen have a 25% chance to wound a Marine, vs the Marine's 30% chance to wound a Guardsman. 10 Guardsmen have a roughly 50/50 chance to kill a Marine. 2 Marines have a 50/50 chance to kill a Guardsman.

I will anecdotally note that the Marines had more "rounding" against them, and will also note that the extra wounds have a greater impact, especially early, on the Marines' damage output.

So, again, ballparking here, the raw stats for the Guardsmen vs Tactical Marine are that 20 Tacticals are roughly equal to... 42? Guardsmen? If so, a Guardsman should be worth about 20 / 42 * 13 = 6 points... give or take. I could see paying 6 points for a Guardsman model. They aren't that big a chunk of most armies, I'd suggest [excluding conscript spam]. At 1500 points, I've been playing about 40 or so Infantry Models and 30 Conscripts. If each model was bumped by 2 points, that would be 140 fewer points, or one less Manticore.

Which seems fair, to be honest. I would have thought 5 points was right, prior to this exercise and if I were to just go by straight gut feeling, I would say 5 is still right... but a solid argument is made that 6 is more accurate and I would be happy to play as such. This exercise favours the Guardsmen, as they do not take additional casualties from Morale. Having lost 6 models in the initial salvo, they should hypothetically have probably lost models due to morale. If even 2 more models were lost [rolling a 4] compared to the Marines' 1/6 chance to lose an additional casualty on the first volley only... Well, let's just say that if we were to factor morale, I believe that 5 points would be the sweet spot.


42 Guardsmen at 6 points each is 252 points, 20 Marines at 13 points each are 260. Points wise, we'd be less than one Marine's worth of points difference. Ignoring morale.

So, did anyone else notice that Tyranids are getting better Commissars than the Astra Militarum? Synapse is basically the old Summary Execution rule, except 12" range and its an automatic pass instead of "you only ever lose one model". Oh, and almost all the synapse creatures in the army are actually useful on their own as monstrous creatures, psychic support, cold-blooded assault beasts, ranged support platforms, etc.

The units being buffed are far inferior and the synapse bugs can be targeted and killed.

There are a number of units and models with rules that allow them to target the Commissar. Even relatively mundane sniper type units can easily kill a Commissar in a turn of shooting. It will take considerably more effort to bring down some of the larger synapse creatures available to the Tyranids.

Also, there are a handful of synapse creatures that are not monstrous creatures and therefore can successfully hide behind a swarm.

chaos0xomega wrote:
So, did anyone else notice that Tyranids are getting better Commissars than the Astra Militarum? Synapse is basically the old Summary Execution rule, except 12" range and its an automatic pass instead of "you only ever lose one model". Oh, and almost all the synapse creatures in the army are actually useful on their own as monstrous creatures, psychic support, cold-blooded assault beasts, ranged support platforms, etc.

I'm not so worried about synapse, especially if they are tatgetable. I personally think they overshot on how they changed the commissars, especially since we have so few codices out but hopefully they retune them with chapter approved, but we'll just have to see.

chaos0xomega wrote:
There are a number of units and models with rules that allow them to target the Commissar. Even relatively mundane sniper type units can easily kill a Commissar in a turn of shooting. It will take considerably more effort to bring down some of the larger synapse creatures available to the Tyranids.

Also, there are a handful of synapse creatures that are not monstrous creatures and therefore can successfully hide behind a swarm.

Tyranids had synpase before, they just buffed the range. I'm more worried about how Instinctive Behavior is going to be a non-factor.

chaos0xomega wrote:
So, did anyone else notice that Tyranids are getting better Commissars than the Astra Militarum? Synapse is basically the old Summary Execution rule, except 12" range and its an automatic pass instead of "you only ever lose one model". Oh, and almost all the synapse creatures in the army are actually useful on their own as monstrous creatures, psychic support, cold-blooded assault beasts, ranged support platforms, etc.

Of course they are, IG gets a lot more gun choices, and bigger gun choices than Tyranids. Different armies, man.

Eldar armies with the Iyanden trait also have army-wide summary execution. Really, having gone through a bunch of the codexes and indexes, nothing about the old Summary Execution rule really seems out of line with anything you would find in any other army. I could see the argument being made that perhaps Commissars should have cost more points, but given their fragility and otherwise total uselessness in any sort of application other than their morale bubble, it feels like you were getting what you paid for. If the issue really was that Commissars were breaking conscript blobs, then it seems the issue needed to be addressed with the conscripts, not the commissars.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Orders are just free BS AM gets for no freaking reason...

in much the same way Space Marines get ATSKNF and the ability to Deep Strike almost anything that isn't a tank, or that Eldar get Battle Focus, etc. Every army gets a unique mechanic of some sort, for Space Marines it's ATSKNF and wide availability of Deep Striking, for IG it's Orders.

One can argue the relative power of these abilities, especially over different editions, but there *is* a reason they're there.

I think you meant the privelage to pay 100 points to Deep Strike anything. Which really isn't anything special anymore because too many people whined about anything not in regular Power Armor being able to use Drop Pods.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Nobody cares if a Conscript is 50% less durable than before because there is 4 for every Marine.

Actually, because of T3 vs T4, against most anti-infantry weaponry a conscript is weaker 50% durable (because they also have a 16% higher chance to get wounded by most anti-infantry weapons than marines do. This, along with their vastly inferior firepower, makes them not actually really that unbalanced on raw math. Vs marines, each conscript's lasgun shot has a 33% chance to hit, each hit has a 33% chance to wound, each wound has a 33% chance to go through armor, resulting in a 3.7% chance to kill a marine per conscript. Four of these conscripts have a roughly 30% chance to kill one marine in a rapid fire volley. Compared to each marine's boltgun having a 66% chance to hit, 66% chance to wound, and 66% chance to go through armor; this means each marine shot has a 30% chance to kill a conscript, or 60% chance per rapid fire volley per astartes. This calculation goes DRASTICALLY in the marine's favor when cover is taken in to account; a marine in cover takes a less than 2% chance per lasgun shot to die, while a conscript in cover still takes a 22% chance to die from bolter fire in the unlikely scenario that the entire conscript squad has managed to get in to cover and thus is given the bonus. Those four conscripts have less than 15% chance to kill one marine per volley, while the marine still has nearly a 50% chance to kill a conscript. And this is purely bolter vs lasgun; add in other weapons, and the marines' strength grows even greater, where the best the conscript can hope for is a few more shots.

Coolio. Let's actually look at that math in practice which you didn't do apparently.

1 Marine firing at 4 Conscripts, non Rapid Fire, is killing .3 a turn, slightly rounding up for simplicity. 4 Conscripts in the same situation are killing .15
After 4 rounds, the Marine now killing 1.2 and the Conscripts killed .6
3 more rounds and the Marine killed 2.1 and the Conscripts killed the Marine itself.
Rapid Fire speeds up the process a bit, so I don't need to present the math on it. It literally just doubles the speed.

So let's look at the cover scenario. The Marine kills .22 Conscripts in cover, and the Conscripts kill .075
So after 5 rounds of shooting, the Marine killed 1.1 Conscripts and the Conscripts .375
After 5 more rounds, we now get 2.2 dead Conscripts and .66 dead Marines. After 8 more rounds or so we have 4 dead Conscripts and .9 dead Marines. So the Marine lives apparently, but not by much. Your "drastic" measurement actually isn't drastic whatsoever like you claimed, and is swingy to the point I almost won't say it's much more durable.

Also, other weapons don't exactly add favor because you add Conscripts for every weapon. A Marine with a Flamer kills 1.6 Conscripts and is 20 points. 7 Conscripts at that range (21 points, so 1 over in fairness) kill .55, and then with just knocking off two Conscripts because a decimal would be annoying (so I put it in your favor mind you), the Conscripts win with 1 alive on the super lenient rounding I did for ya. In cover, they receive a mutual kill with each other. Keep in mind that the flamer is the best weapon here. A Plasma Gun Marine kills .56 Conscripts and the Conscripts .33 Marines. At that point when the Marine kills two the Conscripts will have killed him. In cover, it's another mutual kill.

So we can also look at the Heavy Bolter as well. That's 1.1 Conscripts dead and .3 Marines dead. Eventually 5.5 Conscripts die when the Marine dies. In cover, it's. 9 dead for each .15 Conscript dead. This eventually leads to one of the single scenarios a Tactical Marine comes out ahead.

So I don't honestly know how you're really defending the Conscripts or Tactical Marines as unit entries at this point.

I heard there were about 30 Tactical Marines in a winning tournament list recently. Huh.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Orders are just free BS AM gets for no freaking reason...

in much the same way Space Marines get ATSKNF and the ability to Deep Strike almost anything that isn't a tank, or that Eldar get Battle Focus, etc. Every army gets a unique mechanic of some sort, for Space Marines it's ATSKNF and wide availability of Deep Striking, for IG it's Orders.

One can argue the relative power of these abilities, especially over different editions, but there *is* a reason they're there.

I think you meant the privelage to pay 100 points to Deep Strike anything. Which really isn't anything special anymore because too many people whined about anything not in regular Power Armor being able to use Drop Pods.

I noted that one could argue the relative power of the abilities (and one will note most transports went through the roof, a Chimera that was once 55-65pts are now rolling around at 90-110pts), but there were reasons behind the inclusions of certain mechanics.

Power armor only units would have been fine for a 20 pt ride. 90? Now they are door stops.

Tactical marines are actually much better than they look in melee, as long as you MSU them and take that free chainsword on the Sergeant.

If you take two 5 man squads instead of 1 10 man squad, you get two sergeants with two chainswords (and can take two combi-weapons, though that's on the shooting side of things).

This means your 10 space marines now have a total of 14 attacks. But wait, there's more, the other 8 who aren't sergeants still have their bolt pistols, adding another 4 effective attacks (because in a total round everyone gets two fight phases but one shooting phase).

So now your 10 space marines have 18 effective attacks, or basically 1.8 attacks per marine. But as long as you kill the sergeant last, each squad will only lose 1/6 of their strength per casualty because the sergeant accounts for the remaining 1/3 single-handedly.

Also, fun fact: from an offensive output standpoint, you don't care very much if your opponent falls back. You lose 1 melee attack, but gain 1 shooting attack because now you can double-tap the bolter in the shooting phase, so it evens out. Except for the sergeant, who loses 3 melee attacks and gains 2 shooting attacks (because he went from having no pistol to using his bolter).

A difference of just 1 attack across the entire squad isn't much, so whether your opponent stays or falls back you pretty much kill them equally well.

Just make sure to run your tacs MSU, to maximize the number of sergeants you have.