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 Xenomancers wrote:
Lets take a look at these stratagems.

-Eldar have a new one called forewarned 2CP. Allows a unit within 6" of a farseer to get a free turn of shooting against any enemy unit that deep strike that turn. Unlimited range, no negatives to hit.
Think 10 man dark reapers....
-Space marine have auspex scanner 2 CP. Allows a space marine unit to shoot at a unit entering from reserves at -1 to hit if they are within 12 inches. So -1 to hit and extremely short range...the enemy has to willing drop within range of a super unit that still wont be able to hit them with -1 to hit. for the same cost.

uhh what?

-Only raven guard can use the infiltrate just before the beginning of the game stratagem.
-Any Eldar craft-world can use the webway portal.

Then we have Chapter tactics rule which only affects infantry bikers and dreads - Not our tanks...which are actually the only thing that is competitive in our codex. Which is also sad. Every other army? Unlimitted access to their army traits. The only thing the marines have is Guilliman. Is chapter approved going to fix all this?

You didn't have to buy a 100 point psyker, and stay within 6" of them for the first strategem.
For the second, the Raven guard strategem isn't deep strike, it's infiltrate. So they get to move and fire whereas the eldar one side.ply drops them in at the end of the movement phase.

As for the chapter tactics, I don't know why they went the way they did. But I can tell you it would make me very nervous to see every ultramarines vehicle become a pseudo super heavy vehicle that you can never effectively pin down.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Lets take a look at these stratagems.

-Eldar have a new one called forewarned 2CP. Allows a unit within 6" of a farseer to get a free turn of shooting against any enemy unit that deep strike that turn. Unlimited range, no negatives to hit.
Think 10 man dark reapers....
-Space marine have auspex scanner 2 CP. Allows a space marine unit to shoot at a unit entering from reserves at -1 to hit if they are within 12 inches. So -1 to hit and extremely short range...the enemy has to willing drop within range of a super unit that still wont be able to hit them with -1 to hit. for the same cost.

uhh what?

-Only raven guard can use the infiltrate just before the beginning of the game stratagem.
-Any Eldar craft-world can use the webway portal.

Then we have Chapter tactics rule which only affects infantry bikers and dreads - Not our tanks...which are actually the only thing that is competitive in our codex. Which is also sad. Every other army? Unlimitted access to their army traits. The only thing the marines have is Guilliman. Is chapter approved going to fix all this?

You didn't have to buy a 100 point psyker, and stay within 6" of them for the first strategem.
For the second, the Raven guard strategem isn't deep strike, it's infiltrate. So they get to move and fire whereas the eldar one side.ply drops them in at the end of the movement phase.

As for the chapter tactics, I don't know why they went the way they did. But I can tell you it would make me very nervous to see every ultramarines vehicle become a pseudo super heavy vehicle that you can never effectively pin down.

Would any other Chapter Tactic or Legion Tactic really be broken though?

Another data point:

Most recent large tournament (Warzone Atlanta)

9 of 104 entrants using SM (29 CSM) so 4th most popular faction.

Of codex factions CSM (29) -> Eldar (14) -> IG (11) -> SM (9) ->AdMech (3) ->GK (1)

Of those 9 SM armies 7 are using Guilliman and "Almost all the loyalist marines were Ultramarines"

http://fieldoffiregaming.com/factions-will-see-warzone-atlanta/

I would interpret the results of 2 Non-guilliman SM armies as ranking around the bottom of the barrel of codex and non codex armies. Supporting mono-build narrative and general suckyness of the rest of the codex.

Caveats of small sample size (just one tourney) and "but GK are worse" would apply but it would appear that Codex creep is real and SM need some help (cough, more primarchs, cough).

bananathug wrote:
Another data point:

Most recent large tournament (Warzone Atlanta)

9 of 104 entrants using SM (29 CSM) so 4th most popular faction.

Of codex factions CSM (29) -> Eldar (14) -> IG (11) -> SM (9) ->AdMech (3) ->GK (1)

Of those 9 SM armies 7 are using Guilliman and "Almost all the loyalist marines were Ultramarines"

http://fieldoffiregaming.com/factions-will-see-warzone-atlanta/

I would interpret the results of 2 Non-guilliman SM armies as ranking around the bottom of the barrel of codex and non codex armies. Supporting mono-build narrative and general suckyness of the rest of the codex.

Caveats of small sample size (just one tourney) and "but GK are worse" would apply but it would appear that Codex creep is real and SM need some help (cough, more primarchs, cough).

Those are some cool statistics. Wondering which FW units the Marines are making use of. I know I've been loving Lias and my Scorpius.

Just checked out the GK list- It's a GK list only because Draigo is the Warlord. It's, by far, a death guard list. So it really shouldn't count as a true representative of GK.

BTW- what were the final standings? That may be insightful into this issue.

If DG didn't make the list, doesn't that reflect the 3-above 3-below theory, that puts them dead center for Codex armies? Not last? Not even bottom half?

 Marmatag wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I mean I'm not saying melee isn't tough but it is a little disingenuous to phrase it that you lost 50 models to 3 (4 actually, assuming RG buffs on all those models) models. Especially when we are talking about 300 points killed by 850+ points. That is honestly a pretty good ratio for points killing points, but not so ridiculous as to be considered OP. The problem is the ability for these things to alpha strike things off the board turn 1 with little recourse. The problem becomes that you are often not making the same kind of dent on your turn.

Well he's not highlighting the core issue you face with Imperial Guard and Chaos - you will lose a LOT of models trying to get into melee - but that's kind of what cheap infantry does, they die - but once you get there, you still have to fight your way through their cheap screens, while still being shot every turn, by dramatically increased firepower.

Also, Guilliman's points in mortar teams will kill an entire unit of boyz or gants per turn on *average*, from 48" away without line of sight and absolutely no buffs. That's roughly equivalent in damage to 3 razorbacks with Guilliman buffs, or almost 700 points in marines. The mortars are actually slightly better.

Guilliman is literally the distraction carnifex IG players use when trying to talk about imbalance.

Guilliman's points in Mortars appear to kill 23 boyz/turn, which is a little better than a 1/3 points value. This is assuming the ork player is not in cover, does not buff the boyz defenses in any way, and honestly, it's pretty hard to come up with a more perfect scenario for a unit for the mortars to target. You're definitely right that this is *probably* a dead squad of boyz if I don't have a Warboss or am not willing to spend 2cp.

Also, you're comparing exactly one factor - offensive output - and equating it to the total unit value. You're ignoring the fact that the mortars are T3 5+ 2W models while the Razorbacks are T7 3+ tanks, Guilliman is massively durable and also pays for his other abilities - CP generation, resurrection, all his gear, which he is making use of not at all in this scenario.

If my opponent wants to field 32 60mm bases of mortar teams, He's also going to want at least 120 conscripts and 2 commissars to buff their morale to give them the defenses Guilliman+ 3 Assbacks have natively. Because I'm assuming with 11 drops worth of mortar units, the ork player is *probably* getting a +1 on that roll to go first, drop Da Jump, and try to engage as much of his army as possible.

And on the flip side, assuming the Ork player either has another unit of 30 boyz to jump in after losing the first, or he makes his 60-something percent chance at a first turn, what kind of dent can he put in that 120-man screen with a 30 man ork blob? Assuming he charges all 120, takes the 5 overwatch casualties on average, makes the whatever 70+ percent chance to get in (the combined math on that is hard because you have the ability to either take Ere We Go and reroll both charges, or spend a CP to reroll 1 if you get like a 6 and a 1), he's going to dish out 30 casualties, split between two 30-blobs takes out 46 conscripts with morale, or 38 if the guard player is willing to spend 2cp to save 1 of the rolls. Worst case, that's a 63% ROI.

And that's orks, a faction very widely known to be crappy. Tyranids, get a couple Purestrains or regular 'stealers with the reroll charge trait, can do far better. Tyranids now have a 3CP "attack in melee again" stratagem. One unit of 20 stealers using that stratagem goes through 92 conscripts per turn using morale correctly (splitting attacks between two different squads each time).

This is how Alpha Bezerkers and now Genestealer Rush lists go through "unbeatable" guard meta armies. There's only so much screen you can take, and as soon as you get through to that tankline, there's no falling back and still shooting en masse, there's no melee characters in there capable of trying to help hold the line. Guard backing up other armies in a soup list? Different story. But we're finally seeing melee units using the new traits and stratagems able to get the kind of ROI you get with anti-tank alpha strike. That's a good thing.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:


BTW- what were the final standings? That may be insightful into this issue.

Looks like the tournament is this weekend, so we'll have to wait until Sunday to see the results.

21 of the 29 CSM brought FW units - units not in the Codex (and thus not part of the OP's comment).

Further, 19 Primarchs amongst the CSM lists (not sure how many duplicates, but that's at least 10 lists relying on non-Codex models).

6 of 11 AM took FW.

4 of 14 CWE did.

Only 1 in 9 SM lists took FW.

(1 of 5, 0 of 1, and 0 of 0 for the 3 books below SM).

Including FW (and other non-codex options available) makes sense to me, but the OP was clear about this being Codex armies.

Pedantic and not really relevant, because even if we were looking at only-codex-armies-even-using-non-codex-options, it's clear SM isn't the bottom, or even second lowest.

So it certainly doesn't refute the 'SM aren't the worst codex' counterclaim.

I thinnk (based upon what I have read and the summary I recieved) that the main 'problem' with the Marine codex is that it is no longer glaringly overpowered and capable of roflstomping all the other factions into the ground, but is instead now balanced, or at least more in line with the other, once weaker, codexes.
The pervieved weakness comes from Marine armies no longer being able to trample all over equally costed armies of other factions and win without any use of tactics as they could in the past few editions, causing a radical need for a shift in tactics that few Marine players have recognised.

Bharring wrote:
21 of the 29 CSM brought FW units - units not in the Codex (and thus not part of the OP's comment).

Further, 19 Primarchs amongst the CSM lists (not sure how many duplicates, but that's at least 10 lists relying on non-Codex models).

6 of 11 AM took FW.

4 of 14 CWE did.

Only 1 in 9 SM lists took FW.

(1 of 5, 0 of 1, and 0 of 0 for the 3 books below SM).

Including FW (and other non-codex options available) makes sense to me, but the OP was clear about this being Codex armies.

Pedantic and not really relevant, because even if we were looking at only-codex-armies-even-using-non-codex-options, it's clear SM isn't the bottom, or even second lowest.

So it certainly doesn't refute the 'SM aren't the worst codex' counterclaim.

What these numbers do tell you is - 8 of 9 space marine armies with guilliman are probably exactly the same list and have no room for a relic leviathan or some other OP unit from forge world because their list functions based of redundancy. Put something strong out there and it just gets focused down.
AM taking artillery carriage instead of basilisks doesn't make a basilisk balanced.
Malific lords are OP and really do elevate CSM list - there is no argument there. Magnus is OP - we know this.
Shadow Spectres are good - but are actually outclassed by the eldar codex - I predict shadow specter armies to do no better than pure CWE armies.

No reasons to draw conclusions yet though - I listen to forge the narrative podcast and they really pump this tournament up. I think we are going to get some interesting results.

Only 7 of 9 took Gilliman, not 8 of 9.

I agree what it tells us is limited.

(I misposted - it was 3 in 9 took FW. So it's not possible all the Gillimen lists are exactly the same list. Still likely they're broadly similar.)

Bharring wrote:
I'm confused - with everything I had read, I thought people thought AdMech was really bad, as far as codexes are concerned. Sounds like consensus is that it's actually middle of the pack for codexes? Substantially above all the Indexes?

Admech is the quintessential lazy codex. Powerwise middle of the road. Better than an index, only because of stratagems, artifacts and forge world buffs. It is the poster child of missed opportunities and lack of transportation.

As a codex it has potential, but needs help. Saving grace keyword imperium. Giving the whole GW push for a soup meta a little more credibility. Mash in a AM/IG screen and the better part of the codex can shine. But you need some elbow grease to make that happen.

So here's a question for the people that say it's a good codex.

How would you have ranked the 6th edition Tyranids codex? It topped in tournaments and had winnings.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

clownshoes wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I'm confused - with everything I had read, I thought people thought AdMech was really bad, as far as codexes are concerned. Sounds like consensus is that it's actually middle of the pack for codexes? Substantially above all the Indexes?

Admech is the quintessential lazy codex. Powerwise middle of the road. Better than an index, only because of stratagems, artifacts and forge world buffs. It is the poster child of missed opportunities and lack of transportation.

As a codex it has potential, but needs help. Saving grace keyword imperium. Giving the whole GW push for a soup meta a little more credibility. Mash in a AM/IG screen and the better part of the codex can shine. But you need some elbow grease to make that happen.

If I could get ANY transport for my Skitarii I'd be so happy.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
So here's a question for the people that say it's a good codex.

How would you have ranked the 6th edition Tyranids codex? It topped in tournaments and had winnings.

I don't know if this is a fair question to compare to. Nids in 6th ed were a "spoiler" army. Meaning that while they were not one of the top 4 big armies, they had the tools to beat the big 4 and thus skewed tourney results.
I'd hardly consider 8E Marines to be a spoiler army in this way.

Right now Marines are top tier because they have incredibly cost effective choices that are both durable and have decent damage output. Add to that Bobby G and you get some powerful leaf-blowing potential.
I would consider 8E Marines to be more akin to 5E Guard.

-

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
I suppose that's a fair observation that it took 850 points to kill 300, but again, that was turn 1, and I lost fully half my army. And you're damned right I didn't make that kind of dent in my turn.

And turn 2, and turn 3, and every turn after is basically the same story.

I guess the point I was going for is that the melee hordes really fall flat, quickly, when single models are now getting 40+ effective anti-infantry shots a turn. Especially when, as marmatag pointed out, you also have to fight your way through cheap screens which then just fall back uncontested (and often without penalty) just to let you get shot at again.

Despite the loss of blasts and templates, I still have to pick up handfuls of infantry every turn by an increasingly ridiculously small amount of models with a ridiculously large amount of shots.

So you lost other things as well, because if he used 850 points to kill 300 you cannot have lost half your army. Half your offense potentially.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Lets take a look at these stratagems.

-Eldar have a new one called forewarned 2CP. Allows a unit within 6" of a farseer to get a free turn of shooting against any enemy unit that deep strike that turn. Unlimited range, no negatives to hit.
Think 10 man dark reapers....
-Space marine have auspex scanner 2 CP. Allows a space marine unit to shoot at a unit entering from reserves at -1 to hit if they are within 12 inches. So -1 to hit and extremely short range...the enemy has to willing drop within range of a super unit that still wont be able to hit them with -1 to hit. for the same cost.

uhh what?

-Only raven guard can use the infiltrate just before the beginning of the game stratagem.
-Any Eldar craft-world can use the webway portal.

Then we have Chapter tactics rule which only affects infantry bikers and dreads - Not our tanks...which are actually the only thing that is competitive in our codex. Which is also sad. Every other army? Unlimitted access to their army traits. The only thing the marines have is Guilliman. Is chapter approved going to fix all this?

You didn't have to buy a 100 point psyker, and stay within 6" of them for the first strategem.
For the second, the Raven guard strategem isn't deep strike, it's infiltrate. So they get to move and fire whereas the eldar one side.ply drops them in at the end of the movement phase.

As for the chapter tactics, I don't know why they went the way they did. But I can tell you it would make me very nervous to see every ultramarines vehicle become a pseudo super heavy vehicle that you can never effectively pin down.

Ultra marine tanks could drop out of combat and shoot heavy weapons at 5+ to hit? This would be broken IYO? I know how the Ravengard strategem works. Notice how I point out only Ravengaurd can use it be any craftworld can use their version. It's a pretty big deal too because Ravengaurd aren't viable - only ultra marines are viable. Which is only because of Guilliman.

 Galef wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
So here's a question for the people that say it's a good codex.

How would you have ranked the 6th edition Tyranids codex? It topped in tournaments and had winnings.

I don't know if this is a fair question to compare to. Nids in 6th ed were a "spoiler" army. Meaning that while they were not one of the top 4 big armies, they had the tools to beat the big 4 and thus skewed tourney results.
I'd hardly consider 8E Marines to be a spoiler army in this way.

Right now Marines are top tier because they have incredibly cost effective choices that are both durable and have decent damage output. Add to that Bobby G and you get some powerful leaf-blowing potential.
I would consider 8E Marines to be more akin to 5E Guard.

-

Which is, in other words, a few crutch units like Flyrants, Mawlocs, Mucolids, and etcetera. It's absolutely a fair question because:
If the tools exist, they exist, and saying it's not a fair question because it's a counter codex is absolutely false if you're facing only the Codices you counter! I could give a Yugioh example, but likely you don't play so it wouldn't work very well. Not that I've played in quite a few years.
To try that example, for a period of time in 2012 only two decks in Yugioh were doing anything, which was Spellbooks and Elemental Dragons. However, there was a counter deck in the form of Verz who had tools built in to counter what they did. They're already an average deck, but they were the only one of those fringe builds that could deal. This propels them into the top because of the meta, regardless of how you felt about the performance vs other decks (not that it was terrible to begin with, but nothing very special).

The question is if those are overpowered tools, crutches, or both. Mawlocs can be argued as the crutch vs Biker armies and MSU in general, but weren't really overpowered. Flyrants were absolutely both though. Were you to remove one, the toppings go down significantly.
If you remove Rowboat or Assault Cannon Razorbacks or both, can you say with a straight face that Marine toppings would be at the same consistency?

The CWE version is Deep Strike, not Infiltrate. So the CWE version doesn't work that way. The CWE is more like having Droppods, only without placing a Droppod. And paying 1 CP for 1 pod or 3CP for 2 Pods. And no way to get a 3rd.

But CWE can't use it to move then assault. CWE can't use it to get Flamers (*scytheguard*) in range. CWE can't use it for vehicles and Infantry. CWE can't use it on more than 2 units. CWE pays more to DS 2 units than RG pays to Infiltrate 2.

You keep waving away the differences as if anything CWE is everything SM and then some. In this case, the RG one is better. And the RG one in the hands of CWE would be broken. But the CWE one is just a different form of DropPods.

(Also, the UM tank is only hitting on 5+ if you count not being within 12" of the unit you just moved away from when shooting at it. You could always stay within 12"...)

CWE get free drop pods? Lovely.

"Free" as in paying CP. And not placing the model. Doesn't hold space on the table. No shooting.

Much like how RG and AL get "free" drop pods.

Yeah, I'm aware of RG and AL.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I could give a Yugioh example, but likely you don't play so it wouldn't work very well. Not that I've played in quite a few years.
To try that example, for a period of time in 2012 only two decks in Yugioh were doing anything, which was Spellbooks and Elemental Dragons. However, there was a counter deck in the form of Verz who had tools built in to counter what they did. They're already an average deck, but they were the only one of those fringe builds that could deal. This propels them into the top because of the meta, regardless of how you felt about the performance vs other decks (not that it was terrible to begin with, but nothing very special).

Point of fact is that I actually did play Yugioh, though it was a good bit before 2012. I get your point though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If you remove Rowboat or Assault Cannon Razorbacks or both, can you say with a straight face that Marine toppings would be at the same consistency?

Of course not. Competitively most factions ALWAYS rely on the same 2-3 specific units to consistently place in tourneys. In 7th Eldar relied on Scatterbikes, WKs and Spiders. If you took those away, Eldar would have instantly dropped below top tier, despite being considered to have "all good units" otherwise.
If you drop Bobby G and AC RBs, Marine tourney results would suffer, but would still be far from the "worst" faction.

-

 Galef wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I could give a Yugioh example, but likely you don't play so it wouldn't work very well. Not that I've played in quite a few years.
To try that example, for a period of time in 2012 only two decks in Yugioh were doing anything, which was Spellbooks and Elemental Dragons. However, there was a counter deck in the form of Verz who had tools built in to counter what they did. They're already an average deck, but they were the only one of those fringe builds that could deal. This propels them into the top because of the meta, regardless of how you felt about the performance vs other decks (not that it was terrible to begin with, but nothing very special).

Point of fact is that I actually did play Yugioh, though it was a good bit before 2012. I get your point though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If you remove Rowboat or Assault Cannon Razorbacks or both, can you say with a straight face that Marine toppings would be at the same consistency?

Of course not. Competitively most factions ALWAYS rely on the same 2-3 specific units to consistently place in tourneys. In 7th Eldar relied on Scatterbikes, WKs and Spiders. If you took those away, Eldar would have instantly dropped below top tier, despite being considered to have "all good units" otherwise.
If you drop Bobby G and AC RBs, Marine tourney results would suffer, but would still be far from the "worst" faction.

-

However, the point is how many of the units are crutches. If you removed just one of the units you listed for 7th edition Eldar, the other two units can still do the lifting. One crutch unit does not a good codex make.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also about what era/meta of Yugioh did you stop? Just curious haha

That is a tremendously shifting goalpost. Currently its 1 crutch irellavant, 3 OP. What about 2? Who decides?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Also, [1] Gilly [2] StormRaven [3] AssaultCannon RazorBacks)

I'm still wondering what the next top codex in terms of unit count is. The marine codex can survive a lot of "meta shifts" due to the sheer amount of options it has. Imo, it always has a solution. Maybe not a top tier solution, but enough to get by on and keep it well above "worst".

 master of ordinance wrote:
I thinnk (based upon what I have read and the summary I recieved) that the main 'problem' with the Marine codex is that it is no longer glaringly overpowered and capable of roflstomping all the other factions into the ground, but is instead now balanced, or at least more in line with the other, once weaker, codexes.
The pervieved weakness comes from Marine armies no longer being able to trample all over equally costed armies of other factions and win without any use of tactics as they could in the past few editions, causing a radical need for a shift in tactics that few Marine players have recognised.

And my codex?

 Quickjager wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I thinnk (based upon what I have read and the summary I recieved) that the main 'problem' with the Marine codex is that it is no longer glaringly overpowered and capable of roflstomping all the other factions into the ground, but is instead now balanced, or at least more in line with the other, once weaker, codexes.
The pervieved weakness comes from Marine armies no longer being able to trample all over equally costed armies of other factions and win without any use of tactics as they could in the past few editions, causing a radical need for a shift in tactics that few Marine players have recognised.

And my codex?

Is wierd and specialized. Imo it's more of an ajunct army than a stand-alone faction. It's in the realm of Deathwatch and Harlequins. My expectations for it to be highly competetive as a solo run army are low.

 Quickjager wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I thinnk (based upon what I have read and the summary I recieved) that the main 'problem' with the Marine codex is that it is no longer glaringly overpowered and capable of roflstomping all the other factions into the ground, but is instead now balanced, or at least more in line with the other, once weaker, codexes.
The pervieved weakness comes from Marine armies no longer being able to trample all over equally costed armies of other factions and win without any use of tactics as they could in the past few editions, causing a radical need for a shift in tactics that few Marine players have recognised.

And my codex?

GK? I cant speak too much for them at the moment as I have not seen them in 8th. However my 6h/7th memories of them involve being tabled on turn 2, so.....

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

It's very simple, every other army that is not marines gets to apply their army traits to their whole army.

I get that it's a pet peeve for you, and you don't agree with the decision, but that doesn't make it wrong, or even a bad decision. It just makes it something you would have done differently.

I personally think Landraiders, that would be -1 to hit, because of chapter tactics, would have been a disaster.