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Caveat - I only have a vey basic knowledge of T'au and Primaris rules, so not best placed to comment.

That being said, pun intended, something smells fishy!

I don't understand how the Tau tabled you turn 1. Even with charges, that's a ridiculous amount of wounds and probably only perfect rolls could've pulled it off. I don't play Tau, but at the moment, they are definitely not Tier 1, or even Tier 2. At best, they are a solid mid-range army, at worst, well, they're worst. Sure things like Battlesuits are good, but it's just ridiculously lucky for the other player. If you're having trouble with body count, come over to us IG players. We'll swamp you in bodies.

Is this thread for real?

What is he supposed to do with that primaris army?

Yeah he deploys it in cover and.... never leaves? I mean that's his only option.

I'm going to break it down for you guys:

In casual games, and without Guilliman, marines get waxed pretty bad by pretty much everyone. Primaris get it worse than anyone else.

Can someone raise their hand and say they lost a game to primaris marines? Or, a list with mostly 60+% primaris? I have yet to see primaris marines win a game. Every game i've played against them has been an absolute slaughter, they pose no threat whatsoever.

They never should have released Primaris marines. They should have gone with new-wave primarchs, or super-hero level characters, one to augment each faction, with the core "infusion" of troops being just regular marines, made from each primarich geneseed.

As it stands now you have guys that are effectively worse than TAC squads (lol) because they can't take a heavy weapon, and TAC squads are literally a 5 wound heavy weapon. If you make them better than TAC squads, they'll still probably suck, but then people will be crying foul because you're making TAC squads obsolete.

Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.

 Togusa wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Togusa, to be honest as Slayer has said, that Tau player has some very hot dice. Try to play more games with the same lists, and with more terrain for cover and LOS blocking.

Thanks, this was actually an issue. As you can see in the picture above, the table had what I thought was plenty of LoS. It's really unfortunate that shooting through a building doesn't give you minuses to hit or enhance my cover. The new terrain rules aren't very good.

The RUIN rules are terrible. The terrain rule isn't bad (+1 to Sv generally works out a little bit better than the all-or-nothing 4+ of last edition). Ruins, where an infantry unit standing completely on top of but fully in view of the firer are in cover, and a tank completely behind the ruin but with 1/20th of it visible through the window, is not in cover, is just a stupid system.

Luckily, there is a (slightly janky) solution: Rule everything to be a statue.

Statues give any model within 3" cover if they are 25% or more obscured from los of the firer. It's essentially the old rule from 7th, except for the 3" condition making it slightly tougher to claim.

As much as I'd like to go into every game and just ask my opponent "hey, want to use the old 7th ed system for actually claiming terrain" it's generally better accepted if you're using a rule that's in the rulebook anyway, which statues helpfully are. It just makes the game work so much better, and gives you so much more counterplay to gunlines. With statues, any shot that is like "Yeah, if I look from my tank's tread through that models legs and around the ruin I can juuuust see the antenna of your tank" is at the very least going to give you some cover.

 vaklor4 wrote:
Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.

Tau are not garbage.

Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.

Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?

 Marmatag wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.

Tau are not garbage.

Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.

Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?

People don't appear to be surprised that he lost, they appear to be surprised that he lost so badly, so quickly, because it is only just barely possible for the given T'au list to inflict enough wounds to table the given Primarus list.

OP, as others have said, Primaurs marines are not good by themselves. They are a supplement to existing armies, not an army. Quite frankly, you need to buy more models or get used to losing.

In order to beat the Tau list, you need heavy anti-tank weapons that can hide in cover/out of line of sight to stop alpha strikes. You need some way to stay alive vs his fire warriors long enough to close with them. The fire warriors die to bolter fire or when charged by a small child. You need deep strike or transports to keep your guys alive long enough to hit them. All of these are options in the Marine or Guard codexes.

It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.

Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.

You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.

We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.


Just looking at your list, you have a lot of points tied up in that repulsor, and he had a good bit of anti tank. You could have had double the bodies for the cost of that thing.

DraxiusII wrote:
It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.

Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.

You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.

We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.

If I may offer a guess: Your 750pt list included...let's say...zero Redemptors, and probably zero Repulsors?

DraxiusII wrote:
It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.

Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.

You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.

We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.

Yeah but primaris are bad so actually this didn't happen.

Or so the argument goes.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

DraxiusII wrote:
It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.

Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.

You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.

We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.

If I may offer a guess: Your 750pt list included...let's say...zero Redemptors, and probably zero Repulsors?

Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.

 Togusa wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
So you deployed poorly and allowed your entire army to be in range of his entire army on the first turn. Didn't bother trying to find cover, deploy behind LoS blocking terrain, account for him possibly seizing against you, anything?

Also you're telling me that 20 Pulse Rifle shots and 1 SMS did 30 wounds? Curious.

Looking at the photo post you removing your models does nothing other than prove that you have very little cover. This story still feels entirely contrived or you are simply making glaring errors in the way you're playing.

I am still fairly new to playing the game. I'm sure many deployment errors occurred. When the repulsor exploded, it took out most of 1 5 man squad with it. It was pretty easy for the pulse rifles to kill two marines.

Okay, Togusa, please do not post generalizing things and adding to the negativity that pops on this forum when the issue is just that you are new to the game and have to learn much more still. Especially if you're not going to bother explaining that your own poor choices allowed for you to be almost tabled turn one. Your own deployment made it easy on the other player, and you're not giving other examples but I can only imagine how the rest of deployment went then. While I appreciate it may be frustrating, you adding to general internet negativity is not worth a thread, as it appears you're just whining. You should be posting saying "hey, here's what happened, here are photos from each turn, what could I do to avoid this happening again?" and taking advice, not going "I can't believe this happened, Primaris are under-powered!" I get it, being new can suck. I lost almost every game the first year I played and at times it was demoralizing. Then I figured it out and won 3/4 with an army considered to be iffy at best. Take your losses and learn from them. Blame yourself and learn, don't try to blame everything else around you.

DraxiusII wrote:


Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.

I'm building a Primaris army and I kinda have to agree with this. The infantry is fine, but the durability/cost ratio of the vehicles worries me. But then again, I think it is fine to include other marine vehicles in a 'Primaris army', who says they cannot be piloted by Primaris marines?

 Crimson wrote:

DraxiusII wrote:


Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.

I'm building a Primaris army and I kinda have to agree with this. The infantry is fine, but the durability/cost ratio of the vehicles worries me. But then again, I think it is fine to include other marine vehicles in a 'Primaris army', who says they cannot be piloted by Primaris marines?

My thoughts exactly. I actually run vindicators in my list (they're Crimson Fists, so it seemed thematic). They can work as anti tank in a pinch, which is something Primaris need. A Repulsor is too much of a target to be your only anti tank.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

DraxiusII wrote:
It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.

Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.

You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.

We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.

Yeah but primaris are bad so actually this didn't happen.

Or so the argument goes.

Yeah because the game is balanced around 750 point games.

I played a 20 point game and won with Primaris. They're fine.

But in all seriousness i don't play primaris marines.

DraxiusII wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

DraxiusII wrote:


Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.

I'm building a Primaris army and I kinda have to agree with this. The infantry is fine, but the durability/cost ratio of the vehicles worries me. But then again, I think it is fine to include other marine vehicles in a 'Primaris army', who says they cannot be piloted by Primaris marines?

My thoughts exactly. I actually run vindicators in my list (they're Crimson Fists, so it seemed thematic). They can work as anti tank in a pinch, which is something Primaris need. A Repulsor is too much of a target to be your only anti tank.

I agree- honestly, I am not that impressed by the Repulsor's anti-tank loadout anyways, compared to its anti-infantry capabilities.

What do you think of Hellblasters as anti-tank? My superheavies fear them when they're deployed, to the point that they've grown to be up there with Predator Annihilators on my kill list; am I making a mistake?

Guys, I'm myself to blame for being snarky in my first comment, but can we dial down a bit the hostility towards Togusa?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

DraxiusII wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

DraxiusII wrote:


Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.

I'm building a Primaris army and I kinda have to agree with this. The infantry is fine, but the durability/cost ratio of the vehicles worries me. But then again, I think it is fine to include other marine vehicles in a 'Primaris army', who says they cannot be piloted by Primaris marines?

My thoughts exactly. I actually run vindicators in my list (they're Crimson Fists, so it seemed thematic). They can work as anti tank in a pinch, which is something Primaris need. A Repulsor is too much of a target to be your only anti tank.

I agree- honestly, I am not that impressed by the Repulsor's anti-tank loadout anyways, compared to its anti-infantry capabilities.

What do you think of Hellblasters as anti-tank? My superheavies fear them when they're deployed, to the point that they've grown to be up there with Predator Annihilators on my kill list; am I making a mistake?

Hellblasters definitely work as anti tank. I've used them for that purpose, but they're just so good at killing everything I don't like to have one dedicated job for them. Chances are, there will be some some termies, crisis suits, necron destroyers, etc. that you really want to shoot at, and you don't want your hellblasters stuck shooting at the tank because nothing else can. Seriously, just point hellblasters at anything and it turns to ash immediately.

I always target hellblasters first, as does anyone I play against. They just hit too hard to ignore.

Cool, thanks for the tactical input DraxiusII. I'll keep targeting those terrifying motherfethers!

EDIT: And hopefully give them something else to shoot at,

 Marmatag wrote:
Is this thread for real?

What is he supposed to do with that primaris army?

Yeah he deploys it in cover and.... never leaves? I mean that's his only option.

I'm going to break it down for you guys:

In casual games, and without Guilliman, marines get waxed pretty bad by pretty much everyone. Primaris get it worse than anyone else.

Can someone raise their hand and say they lost a game to primaris marines? Or, a list with mostly 60+% primaris? I have yet to see primaris marines win a game. Every game i've played against them has been an absolute slaughter, they pose no threat whatsoever.

They never should have released Primaris marines. They should have gone with new-wave primarchs, or super-hero level characters, one to augment each faction, with the core "infusion" of troops being just regular marines, made from each primarich geneseed.

As it stands now you have guys that are effectively worse than TAC squads (lol) because they can't take a heavy weapon, and TAC squads are literally a 5 wound heavy weapon. If you make them better than TAC squads, they'll still probably suck, but then people will be crying foul because you're making TAC squads obsolete.

I would not run a full army of Primaris Marines. I don't like them, but I think I might be able to see use for them. Sitting in cover, they become impressively difficult to remove. Their CQC potential isn't bad, and their firepower isn't terrible either, though it's not something I'd write home about.


But I don't think Marines are bad. I'm actually pretty excited about getting in a few games with my Space Wolves. I don't like Primaris, but I am pretty happy with everything else. I might consider Hellblasters over Long Fangs, but they don't really strike me as good antitank.

Just a couple of non-snarky observations.

1) That table has very little cover on it, at all.

2) You're playing against a very shooty army (compounded by point one)

3) 40K punishes (and always has) going second, quite heavily. Mitigating this needs to be a priority when you deploy/build army lists. (i.e. taking units which can Deep Strike so they're not on the board, etc.)

4) In that size game you took two rather expensive models (tank/dread) which became the primary target for big guns.

5) Primaris are not a fleshed out army in any sense of the word. They're upsized reinforcements and have serious gaps throughout their army composition if you just want to run them.

6) If your opponent had really good rolling, that'll compound everything.

7) If you're new, and your opponent is seasoned he may simply be beating up on the new guy for fun.

The only real genuine solution to this is to have tables with much more terrain...this, however, is expensive - particularly for local game stores. The game's design is inherently bad for this exact scenario: strong shooting army goes first on a table with almost zero cover.

 Elbows wrote:
Just a couple of non-snarky observations.

1) That table has very little cover on it, at all.

2) You're playing against a very shooty army (compounded by point one)

3) 40K punishes (and always has) going second, quite heavily. Mitigating this needs to be a priority when you deploy/build army lists. (i.e. taking units which can Deep Strike so they're not on the board, etc.)

4) In that size game you took two rather expensive models (tank/dread) which became the primary target for big guns.

5) Primaris are not a fleshed out army in any sense of the word. They're upsized reinforcements and have serious gaps throughout their army composition if you just want to run them.

6) If your opponent had really good rolling, that'll compound everything.

7) If you're new, and your opponent is seasoned he may simply be beating up on the new guy for fun.

The only real genuine solution to this is to have tables with much more terrain...this, however, is expensive - particularly for local game stores. The game's design is inherently bad for this exact scenario: strong shooting army goes first on a table with almost zero cover.

That table has more cover on it than the tables I play on. There's plenty of cover there for him to use. I hesitate to want to know what sort of tables other people play on.


Also, I don't think his list is going to win anyway, considering it appears to have crap for antitank. He's going to be hurting from the Commanders and the Hammerheads badly enough anyway. I think his list requires a fundamental change, as well can holing up inside of ruins with what he has,

It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also - that table has plenty of cover.

 Xenomancers wrote:
It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also - that table has plenty of cover.

I routinely beat Codex: IG with my Index: SoB.

Man, those poor IG getting beaten by an Index army, woe are they who are so cursed with an awful codex!

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I've found Primaris vehicles to be pretty underwhelming in general; 8th tends to reward more cheap vehicles and vehicles that can shrug off heavy anti-tank firepower over a few expensive vehicles that die to a few shots each, and Primaris vehicles suffer heavily from the specialist-trumps-generalist problem.

The winners of the Space Marine motor pool in 8th are the cheaper Rhino-chassis tanks, basic Castaferrum dreads built to a specific task, and anything that has a built-in Invulnerable save.

And on top of the problem of your weaker arsenal you're at a points level where a pure Primaris army has to dump too many points into Troops to get much done, fighting a pretty min-maxxed Tau army running minimum Troops to get a bunch of the best units available to the Tau (Ghostkeels and Hammerheads).

There are decent Primaris models, with decent rules (Intercessors have made me comfortable deploying Marine infantry outside of vehicles again, Hellblasters are wildly destructive and only let down by their lack of good delivery mechanisms, I've seen Aggressors and Inceptors used effectively), but a pure Primaris army isn't really doable, and the most effective Space Marine armies I've seen this edition are built around the Flyers, heavy weapon firebases, or Forge World vehicles that have built-in Invulnerable saves.

That's very unfortunate. Why did they release these great new models, and then not support them with any *decent* and I mean decent, not pay to win rules? I find the older style marines look so ugly compared to these now. That's part of the reason I play them, because of aesthetics. Do keep in mind, that I'm not really upset about losing the game. What upsets me is that I've pretty much now been able to confirm that he who goes first wins, is pretty true in certain situations. I feel like if we moved to alternate activation, this wouldn't be a problem anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

lliu wrote:
I don't understand how the Tau tabled you turn 1. Even with charges, that's a ridiculous amount of wounds and probably only perfect rolls could've pulled it off. I don't play Tau, but at the moment, they are definitely not Tier 1, or even Tier 2. At best, they are a solid mid-range army, at worst, well, they're worst. Sure things like Battlesuits are good, but it's just ridiculously lucky for the other player. If you're having trouble with body count, come over to us IG players. We'll swamp you in bodies.

You do understand that out of all the shooting he did, I only had 9 successful saves. He and I remember two different numbers, but I'm pretty sure I rolled 31 1s. He said he thought it was closer to 40. Statistics on what should happen, don't really mean anything in this game. I've learned that much with games such as this one.

So, not to be hard on Torgusa, but I do feel like that board can be used to illustrate my point about elite vs. horde armies: namely, board space.

To me, it looks like the Marines spread out (based on the Captain and Banner models; correct me if I am wrong) and tried to take the Tau army roughly head-on, and was largely exposed to huge amounts of fire from across the entire Tau player's army.

Part of the good thing about elite armies, in my opinion, and also why they are so much harder to play than horde armies, is that "taking them head on" isn't a viable strategy. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The advantage elite armies have is force concentration - they can win a 1v1, 1v2, or even 1v3 fight model-to-model (And rightly so, as they pay more points per model!), but when subject to the entire firepower of the enemy army, cannot endure.

I wasn't there and can't speak for Togusa, but during deployment, I'd see if I can hide on the far side of the ruins from the Hammerheads, put damn near nothing in the center or left flanks, and then try to focus one-to-one (ish) on the fire-warriors and ghostkeels (or whatever my opponent deploys over there, seeing my deployment). 25 bases and 2 vehicles looks like they ought to be able to concentrate very hard in a tiny area, compared to how spread out the enemy Tau army is.

 Marmatag wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.

Tau are not garbage.

Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.

Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?

Everyone keeps talking about cover, as if marker lights aren't a thing. I didn't get a single cover bonus because it was taken away from me with how stupid marker lights are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Just a couple of non-snarky observations.

1) That table has very little cover on it, at all.

2) You're playing against a very shooty army (compounded by point one)

3) 40K punishes (and always has) going second, quite heavily. Mitigating this needs to be a priority when you deploy/build army lists. (i.e. taking units which can Deep Strike so they're not on the board, etc.)

4) In that size game you took two rather expensive models (tank/dread) which became the primary target for big guns.

5) Primaris are not a fleshed out army in any sense of the word. They're upsized reinforcements and have serious gaps throughout their army composition if you just want to run them.

6) If your opponent had really good rolling, that'll compound everything.

7) If you're new, and your opponent is seasoned he may simply be beating up on the new guy for fun.

The only real genuine solution to this is to have tables with much more terrain...this, however, is expensive - particularly for local game stores. The game's design is inherently bad for this exact scenario: strong shooting army goes first on a table with almost zero cover.

That table has more cover on it than the tables I play on. There's plenty of cover there for him to use. I hesitate to want to know what sort of tables other people play on.


Also, I don't think his list is going to win anyway, considering it appears to have crap for antitank. He's going to be hurting from the Commanders and the Hammerheads badly enough anyway. I think his list requires a fundamental change, as well can holing up inside of ruins with what he has,

I play with what models I have available. That is all I own currently for my Primaries, outside of 20 Reivers I'm currently building.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So, not to be hard on Torgusa, but I do feel like that board can be used to illustrate my point about elite vs. horde armies: namely, board space.

To me, it looks like the Marines spread out (based on the Captain and Banner models; correct me if I am wrong) and tried to take the Tau army roughly head-on, and was largely exposed to huge amounts of fire from across the entire Tau player's army.

Part of the good thing about elite armies, in my opinion, and also why they are so much harder to play than horde armies, is that "taking them head on" isn't a viable strategy. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The advantage elite armies have is force concentration - they can win a 1v1, 1v2, or even 1v3 fight model-to-model (And rightly so, as they pay more points per model!), but when subject to the entire firepower of the enemy army, cannot endure.

I wasn't there and can't speak for Togusa, but during deployment, I'd see if I can hide on the far side of the ruins from the Hammerheads, put damn near nothing in the center or left flanks, and then try to focus one-to-one (ish) on the fire-warriors and ghostkeels (or whatever my opponent deploys over there, seeing my deployment). 25 bases and 2 vehicles looks like they ought to be able to concentrate very hard in a tiny area, compared to how spread out the enemy Tau army is.

This is another problem actually, we had the spearhead deployment, which severely restricts my deployment to 6 in on each table side and 9 inches from the center, you know that weird dawn of war triangle one?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also - that table has plenty of cover.

I routinely beat Codex: IG with my Index: SoB.

Man, those poor IG getting beaten by an Index army, woe are they who are so cursed with an awful codex!

Makes you think, eh? It's almost like the issue isn't the army, but the players. I mean, if you're a marine player who's determined to believe that every other army is OP, you won't try as hard to win, to build good lists, to use smart tactics. You just resign yourself to internet martyrdom. You can only blame your problems on the world for so long before it all becomes the same old song.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Is this thread for real?

What is he supposed to do with that primaris army?

Yeah he deploys it in cover and.... never leaves? I mean that's his only option.

I'm going to break it down for you guys:

In casual games, and without Guilliman, marines get waxed pretty bad by pretty much everyone. Primaris get it worse than anyone else.

Can someone raise their hand and say they lost a game to primaris marines? Or, a list with mostly 60+% primaris? I have yet to see primaris marines win a game. Every game i've played against them has been an absolute slaughter, they pose no threat whatsoever.

They never should have released Primaris marines. They should have gone with new-wave primarchs, or super-hero level characters, one to augment each faction, with the core "infusion" of troops being just regular marines, made from each primarich geneseed.

As it stands now you have guys that are effectively worse than TAC squads (lol) because they can't take a heavy weapon, and TAC squads are literally a 5 wound heavy weapon. If you make them better than TAC squads, they'll still probably suck, but then people will be crying foul because you're making TAC squads obsolete.

I would not run a full army of Primaris Marines. I don't like them, but I think I might be able to see use for them. Sitting in cover, they become impressively difficult to remove. Their CQC potential isn't bad, and their firepower isn't terrible either, though it's not something I'd write home about.


But I don't think Marines are bad. I'm actually pretty excited about getting in a few games with my Space Wolves. I don't like Primaris, but I am pretty happy with everything else. I might consider Hellblasters over Long Fangs, but they don't really strike me as good antitank.

I think that's the thing. I don't like them, some of their units do have uses. Inceptors, with the price decrease, aren't an awful way to drop some dice into a safe spot and shoot things.

Intercessors would be way more useful if only marines had objective secured. Because then you could indeed plant them down and really hold an objective in cover. 2+ against shooting, with 2 wounds a piece, will hold fairly well and force the opponent to commit *something* to remove them.

To be fair, when people say space marines they mean Codex: Space Marines. I would consider Space Wolves to be wholly different. Although I think SW will suffer from the same thing that every assault army is feeling right now: heavy screening units with no way to clear the chaff. And the backline ranged is overpriced without rerolls. Of course this could all change if Leman Russ comes back and has something insane, like 5e outflank.

 Xenomancers wrote:
It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also - that table has plenty of cover.

I'm okay with losing a game. I'm not okay with losing a game, whether it is to rolls or not, due to unbalance. I've heard it argued before that the rules for Primaris have been on purpose made bad so as not to upset marine players thinking that their army will be replaced. Is this true?