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 sennacherib wrote:
Look.
You have the largest faction in the game. Imperial soup includes 300+ unique entries covering the gamut of possible buffs, special rules and wargear. This gives your faction the greatest tactical flexibility.

Let’s assume you REFUSE to play imperial soup and then GW buffs space marines just for you becuase your argument is so poignant. Mono faction SM need a buff to be better. Ok.

Then everyone else who Utilises imperial soup gets a massive buff. Hmmmm.

For what its worth, I've long been a proponent of dramatically overhauling allies. I'd much prefer the game go back to mono-faction as the norm, with some minor sub factions being granted limited ability to ally with specified factions.

Imperial soup wouldn't matter if units were costed correctly to being with. It matters a lot right now because IG are better at 8th than other Imperials.

 Blacksails wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:
Look.
You have the largest faction in the game. Imperial soup includes 300+ unique entries covering the gamut of possible buffs, special rules and wargear. This gives your faction the greatest tactical flexibility.

Let’s assume you REFUSE to play imperial soup and then GW buffs space marines just for you becuase your argument is so poignant. Mono faction SM need a buff to be better. Ok.

Then everyone else who Utilises imperial soup gets a massive buff. Hmmmm.

For what its worth, I've long been a proponent of dramatically overhauling allies. I'd much prefer the game go back to mono-faction as the norm, with some minor sub factions being granted limited ability to ally with specified factions.

I’m with you to some extent. Nids And Orks get no allies. Half of the codex out there are imperials. I do like being able to ally daemons into my army in death Guard and CSM though. Still, if you rolled all of chaos into one dex it would still provide less options than just the SM codex.

Bu I digress. We have Daemon princes and those are better than guilliman.

Nids get allies! They get GSC and AM IIRC.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Nids get allies! They get GSC and AM IIRC.

GSC is a non-trivial ally.

 Blacksails wrote:
Quick reminder about Xenomancers perception of balance; XM actually, genuinely believes and has stated the 7th edition Marine codex was the single worst codex in the edition.

Xeno also just doubled down by stating they've had terrible codices since 3rd, which as every sane and rational person knows, is patently false.

Keep this in mind when debating about 'balance'. Literally one of the strongest codices in 7th is considered the worst by this poster.

It was certainly the worst written. That had nothing to do with its performance though.

Martel732 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Nids get allies! They get GSC and AM IIRC.

GSC is a non-trivial ally.

Forgot about them. Those are an amazing ally. I guess orks should be able to ally with space marines so thethat can sit at the bottom of the pile together.

 Blacksails wrote:
For what its worth, I've long been a proponent of dramatically overhauling allies. I'd much prefer the game go back to mono-faction as the norm, with some minor sub factions being granted limited ability to ally with specified factions.

It was certainly easier to find a balance with mono-factions. Unfortunately, due to the cynical exigencies of modern capitalist systems, this will not happen, allies sells models and books. To be completely honest I'd rather they continue the slow grind of tackling the balancing complexities of the allies system anyways, I think it makes the game more interesting.

Black Templars (as an example) don't have their own codex because quite frankly, the model catalog doesn't support it currently, they don't have a Baal Predator or a Dark Angel Fortress, etc. They use all the same models as pretty much every other SM Chapter.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Quick reminder about Xenomancers perception of balance; XM actually, genuinely believes and has stated the 7th edition Marine codex was the single worst codex in the edition.

Xeno also just doubled down by stating they've had terrible codices since 3rd, which as every sane and rational person knows, is patently false.

Keep this in mind when debating about 'balance'. Literally one of the strongest codices in 7th is considered the worst by this poster.

It was certainly the worst written. That had nothing to do with its performance though.

He actually said that spade marines have been”hands down one of the worst in every edition.” Just saying.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
For what its worth, I've long been a proponent of dramatically overhauling allies. I'd much prefer the game go back to mono-faction as the norm, with some minor sub factions being granted limited ability to ally with specified factions.

It was certainly easier to find a balance with mono-factions. Unfortunately, due to the cynical exigencies of modern capitalist systems, this will not happen, allies sells models and books. To be completely honest I'd rather they continue the slow grind of tackling the balancing complexities of the allies system anyways, I think it makes the game more interesting.

Oh I agree. Cat's out of the bag and all that. Shame really.

I also agree that some amount of allies makes the game more interesting. Some of the Imperial agents (assassins, inquisitors) are cool, fun additions to IG and Marine armies. I'd just like for them to be a lot more restrictive than the current system of nearly free form list creation from half a dozen books (for Chaos and Imperium).

I don't think restriction is necessary. Proper costing is. Access to more units in a GW game just increases your odds of finding an undercosted one. Get rid of undercosted units and this no longer matters.

 sennacherib wrote:
Look.
You have the largest faction in the game. Imperial soup includes 300+ unique entries covering the gamut of possible buffs, special rules and wargear. This gives your faction the greatest tactical flexibility.

Let’s assume you REFUSE to play imperial soup and then GW buffs space marines just for you becuase your argument is so poignant. Mono faction SM need a buff to be better. Ok.

Then everyone else who Utilises imperial soup gets a massive buff. Hmmmm.

Almost everyone would argue that Soup shouldn't exist like it does.

I agree.

 sennacherib wrote:
Focusing on 8th ed in a vacu,e and ignoring your previous statements then.

General consensus has it that grey knight, adeptus mechanicus And death Guard are all worse than space marines.

I think, even if Death Guard are worse than marines because Guilliman, they have a better internal balance than Space Marines. So personally for me Death Guard is a better codex. From a pure competitive point of view where one measures Codex based in if they have a OP build that win tournaments or not, yeah they are worse.

I think the space marine isnt the worst codex, even mono build they do fine with Boby and razorbacks. I think Admech and GK have less utility and pale in comparison to SM.

Bobby G and razors are about to get the hammer, though. Almost every unit in that first tourney winning list is getting price bumped.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Almost everyone would argue that Soup shouldn't exist like it does.

I think soup is fine and interesting and fun, the problem is that GW keeps piling on to the Imperium soup and to a lesser extent Chaos soup. Most of the people I play with/against like soup lists, so I'm not sure how entirely accurate this statement is, might be more anecdotal than you think.

Eldar and Tyranids started getting some soup the past few editions and will now have a pretty decent soup list once all their codices are out.
Tau, Orks, Necrons, have no real soup these days. Orks used to have looted vehicles, which gave them an easy soup option that didn't require new books and models, that would be fairly easy to reintroduce.
Custom vehicle rules in Chapter Approved may actually address the lack of soup for some armies, but that's a wait and see possibility and has just as much chance of taking already powerful soup lists and just making them better.

Yeah, is obvious that Space Marines isn't the worst one. So probably we would be better having this conversation in a thread without a click-bait title

I’ve been enjoying playing my DG. In the last 7 games I have won 3 and lost 4.

Wins vs tau 2x but tau had about 12% more points to help balance them.
Win vs space wolves 1x but sw had 12% more points to balance them.
Lost to DG
Lost to eldar 2x
Lost to ..... Space marines. The worst codex of them all.

Custom vehicle rules will likely not be legal for matched play.

I mean what do Space Marines have?

-anti-psychic (librarians+BT)
-Guilliman parking lot
-Ravenguard strats
-Scout bikers
-StormRavens
-FW Lias Issadon
-Leviathan Dread

What does Admech have:
-Caul
-Dakkastellans
-ravenguard-ish strats

What does GK have?
-GMDK
-Draigo(?)
-Stormravens
-Smite (anti-psychic)
-am I missing anything?

Stormravens are getting the hammer.

 sennacherib wrote:
I’ve been enjoying playing my DG. In the last 7 games I have won 3 and lost 4.

Wins vs tau 2x but tau had about 12% more points to help balance them.
Win vs space wolves 1x but sw had 12% more points to balance them.
Lost to DG
Lost to eldar 2x
Lost to ..... Space marines. The worst codex of them all.

7...praise be to Nurgle...ahem im not a traitor


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Stormravens are getting the hammer.

I know...but they still do really well, on top of that other things are getting buffs and aggressors are looking good. Can SM compare to GK or Admech....i dont think they can

We'll see. Power armor melee being absolutely crippled takes away one of the aspects of marines that is supposed to balance them out against shootier factions. That's why I think marines just get worse and worse as Xeno codices drop. Xenomancers isn't correct right now, but by the end of 8th I suspect he'll be close. It will just be a giant shooting gallery of power armor victims.

including 2 armies in your total army should deactivate your army traits just like they currently would do if you included different armies in a detachment. With the exception of things like an assassin that are literally designed to fit into an imperial force as an ally. Or in the case of ynnari because that is what they are designed to do or any similar case.

Martel732 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I prefer to think of every incarnation of marines in these terms: "How do they overcome the tactical marine THIS edition?"

Tactical marines are NOT cost effective. Some posters disagree, but I think this is largely a empirically true statement due to minimizing of this unit over the editions.

Consequently, I see marines as a whole built on a very shaky foundation. Sometimes, GW gives marines bling to stabilize the house like 7th. Other times, like 5th, marines don't get much to help with the problem of being a marine and things don't go so well.

What I'll say about the current marine dex is that I think it will be eclipsed by every xeno codex because no xeno codex is burdened by the tactical marine problem.

How, you don't even have to take them.

Just to make clear the tone of my statement. "Elaborate" Because I think I know what youre talking about.

The problems of the tac marine trickle down to many marine units. Paying for stats they can't use. Paying for gear they can't use. In previous editions, common, cheap weapons that ignored the toughness, common weapons that ignored their armor, etc. The game has ALWAYS rewarded specialists, EXCEPT in cases like 5th ed GK, who were massively undercosted.

Again, BA have done a maginificent job of showing how good the basis of marines truly is: not good.BA have been SM without the required bling for two editions, have been the list that Xeno is describing.

So, I understand that sentiment. Especially in the light of swapping to the Tyranids codex and looking at their cheap, specialized units. And it's terrifying when I think about "How would my marines deal with X" or whatever. (To which my first answer is usually "Muddle through with moar marines." or some such.)

My own sentiment about marines in particular uses the modification: "Paying for stats they don't use." Not can't, but don't. Not that a Tac marine can't use his WS 3+, just that they are often not using it. Usually when I see Tacticals on the table, and I mentioned this maybe in another thread, they're just hanging back and camping an objective throwing pot-shots. And I argue that's just not the way to get the most out of your models. I like to ram them up close (certainly depending on the opponent), and imo that's how to make them the most effective.

With the move to 8th edition we lost our AP 5 bolters against chaff units, which meant that in earlier editions our basic guys could gun down guardsmen in the open with ease. Buuuut. With 8th we gained the ability to assault after Rapid-Firing, and we gained the ability to move and shoot with Heavy Weapons with a limited downside and assault after firing those as well. (Plus we gained unlimited Combi-weapon use). Also, more dependent on list, we gained more re-rolls. I'm not talking G-man either, Captains/Generic Chapter Master and Lieutenant are available to everyone using the main Codex.

My belief is that the style of playing marines has changed a bit, and requires more aggression from most units than before. I know this can sound like a 'Get Gud', but try to think about this approach from the more abstracted standpoint of: "How do I use all my stats to their fullest?"

And maybe they're pointed correctly, and maybe they aren't. It's not under my control, and I'm happy to work with them as is for a while. The important bit is really the question above.


Edit: Regarding 'trickle down'. That's one of the reasons I don't like assault specialists, they often can't do anything in the shooting phase. For my marines I prefer units that can act in both phases, even if their assault strength isn't so hot. Just having the option to do something in the assault phase is better than not being able to do anything in the shooting phase, imo. Though my opinion differs on that when it comes to other armies.

You can be aggressive, but you hit chaff units, and end up trading 100 pts for 40 pts. Rinse and repeat for the chaff army until all marines are dead.

I have BA. I've tried to do as you describe, but I just run out of bodies way too fast. So now I just cower and shoot back. Doesn't usually work, but sometimes I can squeeze out maelstrom points at least.

Marines just lose the game of Screenhammer 40K. Because they have no screens.

They suffer from being generic. Good at everything, great at nothing.

Martel732 wrote:
We'll see. Power armor melee being absolutely crippled takes away one of the aspects of marines that is supposed to balance them out against shootier factions. That's why I think marines just get worse and worse as Xeno codices drop. Xenomancers isn't correct right now, but by the end of 8th I suspect he'll be close. It will just be a giant shooting gallery of power armor victims.

Of course you are correct - though space wolves are probably going to get the ability to automatically assault first turn with wolfen or thunderwolves and they will be the best marine faction by far. No surprise there when it actually happens - it's expected.

That won't matter. They'll be assaulting guardsmen or termagants (banelings now, I hear). 40K did NOT need banelings with no micro.

" That's one of the reasons I don't like assault specialists, they often can't do anything in the shooting phase. For my marines I prefer units that can act in both phases, even if their assault strength isn't so hot. Just having the option to do something in the assault phase is better than not being able to do anything in the shooting phase, imo. Though my opinion differs on that when it comes to other armies."

I'm inclined to agree, which sucks for BA.