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 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I agree they are passable against foes who don't optimize. I was still kind of hung up on the incredible number of false choices in the marine codex.

That happens when you have 86 choices, but only 6 different FOC types (HQ, Elites, Lords of War, Fast Attack, Troops, Heavy Support. I'm going to ignore fortifications).

There will always be a "best in slot" for what you want to do. That means if you have 86 choices, but you have only 6 different "roles" to fill, then like ~80 of the choices are going to be subpar for whatever task your asking it to perform. The key, of course, would be to give something a role that IT and ONLY IT can perform, like how Predators are more durable Devastators, but Devastators have Chapter Tactics. That's a real choice.

But in order to improve Tactical Marines, you can't go "why doesn't that rule/thingy/whatever work on other marines!" because the answer is "Vanguard/Sternguard/Scouts will ALWAYS be better until you make tacts do something they can't."

Here's the thing though: there's only 3 Troop choices for Marines out of those several unit entries. It's a troop choice that tries to do several things and that's WHY it fails. It needs to made to do one thing.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I agree they are passable against foes who don't optimize. I was still kind of hung up on the incredible number of false choices in the marine codex.

That happens when you have 86 choices, but only 6 different FOC types (HQ, Elites, Lords of War, Fast Attack, Troops, Heavy Support. I'm going to ignore fortifications).

There will always be a "best in slot" for what you want to do. That means if you have 86 choices, but you have only 6 different "roles" to fill, then like ~80 of the choices are going to be subpar for whatever task your asking it to perform. The key, of course, would be to give something a role that IT and ONLY IT can perform, like how Predators are more durable Devastators, but Devastators have Chapter Tactics. That's a real choice.

But in order to improve Tactical Marines, you can't go "why doesn't that rule/thingy/whatever work on other marines!" because the answer is "Vanguard/Sternguard/Scouts will ALWAYS be better until you make tacts do something they can't."

Here's the thing though: there's only 3 Troop choices for Marines out of those several unit entries. It's a troop choice that tries to do several things and that's WHY it fails. It needs to made to do one thing.

You did forget soup.

Later, I mention Guard and Sisters as potential "troops choices for Marines" in recognition of the fact that a Marine player can bring Guilliman and 4 Fire Raptors, and then a battalion of guard/sisters/whathaveyou. Plus, as Martel pointed out, Marines do do a thing that scouts don't do: durability. Tacts are more durable than scouts while being a damn sight cheaper than Intercessors.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The troops you listed haven't even gotten a codex yet. Is that not telling anything to you?

It tells me the data may change when their codexes come in the future.

And what does that data usually say about new Codices and their treatment towards units?

The grenade launcher just isn't enough oomph or I'd take nothing but intercessors over tacs.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The troops you listed haven't even gotten a codex yet. Is that not telling anything to you?

It tells me the data may change when their codexes come in the future.

And what does that data usually say about new Codices and their treatment towards units?

Depends on the unit. Some stayed the same (astrotelepaths in Imperial Guard), some got worse (command squads in Imperial Guard) and some were improved (Leman Russ tanks).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I agree they are passable against foes who don't optimize. I was still kind of hung up on the incredible number of false choices in the marine codex.

That happens when you have 86 choices, but only 6 different FOC types (HQ, Elites, Lords of War, Fast Attack, Troops, Heavy Support. I'm going to ignore fortifications).

There will always be a "best in slot" for what you want to do. That means if you have 86 choices, but you have only 6 different "roles" to fill, then like ~80 of the choices are going to be subpar for whatever task your asking it to perform. The key, of course, would be to give something a role that IT and ONLY IT can perform, like how Predators are more durable Devastators, but Devastators have Chapter Tactics. That's a real choice.

But in order to improve Tactical Marines, you can't go "why doesn't that rule/thingy/whatever work on other marines!" because the answer is "Vanguard/Sternguard/Scouts will ALWAYS be better until you make tacts do something they can't."

Here's the thing though: there's only 3 Troop choices for Marines out of those several unit entries. It's a troop choice that tries to do several things and that's WHY it fails. It needs to made to do one thing.

You did forget soup.

Later, I mention Guard and Sisters as potential "troops choices for Marines" in recognition of the fact that a Marine player can bring Guilliman and 4 Fire Raptors, and then a battalion of guard/sisters/whathaveyou. Plus, as Martel pointed out, Marines do do a thing that scouts don't do: durability. Tacts are more durable than scouts while being a damn sight cheaper than Intercessors.

Okay, we are not talking about soup. If we wanna do that, I can just say you shouldn't complain about Ogryns or anything because you can take a different melee unit from a different codex. Why would you even bother bringing this up? What's the point? What should Codices without allies do? What would you tell a Tau player if it ended up Fire Warriors got a point more expensive instead of cheaper? Too bad?

Also Tactical Marines are really not much more durable for the price. That's why it's not talked about. If you want durability, Intercessors do that better for only 5 points more, and are honestly only weak to certain D2 weapons, whereas Tactical Marines aren't really helping themselves for just 5 points less.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
The grenade launcher just isn't enough oomph or I'd take nothing but intercessors over tacs.

Except you can get Lascannons on a better platform.

Not for my purposes, but in general, sure. All the marine troops are bad. We're just picking our version of bad when we build a list.

"nd are honestly only weak to certain D2 weapons, "

But that's like 80% of the fire I actually take from IG.

What do you mean? I was talking about the options available to a Marine player. I have no response for the Tau player other than "sorry, bud, I didn't write it." My point is that Marines have too many options, and that includes the option to soup.

And Tactical Marines are more durable. They may not gain more durability per point or something like that...
... but you're right, Intercessors are more durable. So we're back to the problem of having to slash options to give the tactical marines a role.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What do you mean? I was talking about the options available to a Marine player. I have no response for the Tau player other than "sorry, bud, I didn't write it." My point is that Marines have too many options, and that includes the option to soup.

And Tactical Marines are more durable. They may not gain more durability per point or something like that...
... but you're right, Intercessors are more durable. So we're back to the problem of having to slash options to give the tactical marines a role.

So why is it you tell the Tau player that but not a Marine player? As someone using Chaos Marines too, I shouldn't have to be told "Just take Daemon troops", because you're purposely missing the point.

And the role for Tactical Marines is weapon specialization (because options, which some of you clamor to) for a troop choice, to the "mobility specialist" word you used to Scouts, and durability to Intercessors. However, they aren't doing that or any other role well. So we need to make sure they can actually do that thing.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What do you mean? I was talking about the options available to a Marine player. I have no response for the Tau player other than "sorry, bud, I didn't write it." My point is that Marines have too many options, and that includes the option to soup.

And Tactical Marines are more durable. They may not gain more durability per point or something like that...
... but you're right, Intercessors are more durable. So we're back to the problem of having to slash options to give the tactical marines a role.

So why is it you tell the Tau player that but not a Marine player? As someone using Chaos Marines too, I shouldn't have to be told "Just take Daemon troops", because you're purposely missing the point.

And the role for Tactical Marines is weapon specialization (because options, which some of you clamor to) for a troop choice, to the "mobility specialist" word you used to Scouts, and durability to Intercessors. However, they aren't doing that or any other role well. So we need to make sure they can actually do that thing.

What do you mean "not a Marine player?" I do sometimes shrug and say "them's the breaks." I say that to myself sometimes when bad things happen too. I don't understand why that would simultaneously prevent me from asking how to improve Tacts. I agree with you that 2-plasma+Combi-plasma might fix tactical squads, is that what you had in mind?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What do you mean? I was talking about the options available to a Marine player. I have no response for the Tau player other than "sorry, bud, I didn't write it." My point is that Marines have too many options, and that includes the option to soup.

And Tactical Marines are more durable. They may not gain more durability per point or something like that...
... but you're right, Intercessors are more durable. So we're back to the problem of having to slash options to give the tactical marines a role.

So why is it you tell the Tau player that but not a Marine player? As someone using Chaos Marines too, I shouldn't have to be told "Just take Daemon troops", because you're purposely missing the point.

And the role for Tactical Marines is weapon specialization (because options, which some of you clamor to) for a troop choice, to the "mobility specialist" word you used to Scouts, and durability to Intercessors. However, they aren't doing that or any other role well. So we need to make sure they can actually do that thing.

Tacs deal more damage than the other choices, that's their corner of the triangle. They do more damage with Plasma, Combi-Plasma, Grav Cannon than they would 2xPlasma, Combi-Plasma at that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait so are grey hunters better or worse than tactical marines?

I'm getting conflicting messages from the MEQ side.

Only Blackie is saying Grey Hunters are worse in this thread, and I'll bet money that Insectum will chime in and say that neither is bad but just different (which is super incorrect though). Even with the major hit they took in 7th, they ended up still being better than the Tactical Marine.

I would. And I would be super correct.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
3) Tacts are worse than Grey Hunters (Citation: Almighty Walrus)
4) Tacts are better than Grey Hunters (Citation: Blackie)

you can synthesize these points. Tacs are better because a heavy weapon is important to have objective campers that generate CP. This is true. Tacs are worse because their heavy is not powerful powerful enough compared to double/triple plasma guns. This can also be true. When you put them together, you buff single heavy tactical squads, so that you can have an objective camper that has a powerful enough weapon to obviously compete with double plasma grey hunters.

Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Guardsmen are the gold standard. But marines are also inferior in practice to fire warriors, sisters, skitarri, cultists, gaunts, and I'm sure I"m missing something. In 8th you need cheap real estate control to screw over deep strikers and the like. It's mostly because anything specialized to shoot is going to be better than a unit that tries to shoot and punch. Because punching is for chumps.

Right, so Marines are inferior to some Troops (skitarii, sisters, guard, gaunts, etc) and superior to others (Kroot, necron warriors, kabalites, etc.). That's fairly middling, I'd say. Someone's gotta be top dog, someone else, middle, someone else bottom, because when you're on DakkaDakka, there is no casual play, there is only relative power or GET OUT.

There is an aspect that you can't just compare all of these things 1:1. For Dark Eldar, raiders and venoms are a huge part of the army, both aesthetically and the way that the unit and the army works. For marines there is no analog, the rhino and razor don't do anything aesthetically and the don't profoundly change the unit's mobility like a raider does. There are also a huge diversity of units in DE, and kabalites are just their to support them: haemonculus constructs, incubi etc. This is unlike the marines where some form of MEq, and this is a MEq thread, should be doing the heavy lifting in every list.

Martel732 wrote:I don't need six scout squads, though. I need more lascannons.

Okay. Let's assume i'm wrong. What's the counter proposal to price drop again?

My hypothesis is that the marine is just a failed concept in a game about specialization.

Yeah the game is about specialization, which is bad for units which aren't supposed to be specialized. So the game rules are bad.

fraser1191 wrote:I'd like to chime in and say that assault squads are basically useless. Personally I love these models so I've been trying to use them with different loadouts just to field them.

I more or less wanted them to tie up units or harassment, so with jump packs they are 80 pts. Which most people want them for.

Anyway having flamers is questionable now, 3 plasma pistols? Makes them a little better at shooting but then they are 101 pts.
For 100 pts I can get reivers with chutes and double the wounds.

If I really want a deep strike heavy hitter I'll take inceptors with plasma for 177 pts which can be anywhere from 3-15 more shots than the assault squad.

Statements saying there are too many choices holds water. Which is why I think that units should have unique rules to seperate marines A from marines B.

Devastators get a signum for free, why don't assault marines have a special rule that deals with their task?

And this is gets closer to the OP question, because assault marines use their MEq statline, don't have plasmaguns or lascannons to confuse/dilute the issue of the MEq statline, and they are still pretty bad. So either the MEq statline has to change, meaning the answer to the OP is no, the statline can't be saved, or the rules of the game have to change to value the current MEq statline better.

pelicaniforce wrote:
So either the MEq statline has to change, meaning the answer to the OP is no, the statline can't be saved, or the rules of the game have to change to value the current MEq statline better.

Or reduce points. It's not horde army if you take a couple extra squads. Companies are meant to field 6 squads in the fluff anyway.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
So either the MEq statline has to change, meaning the answer to the OP is no, the statline can't be saved, or the rules of the game have to change to value the current MEq statline better.

Or reduce points. It's not horde army if you take a couple extra squads. Companies are meant to field 6 squads in the fluff anyway.

Companies are meant to conduct global campaigns. Most companies conduct sector wide campaigns because the first and 6th-10th companies are split up all the time. No 10x10 for my games, thanks.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoiler:

pelicaniforce wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Tactical Marines are well established in the Codex Astartes as using 1 special and 1 heavy in a ten man squad. Why should they not on tabletop? By what standards do you declare something to be "outdated" rather than "in need of balance adjustments"?

a) yes there are deviators but also those who follow it. Both needs to be valid
b) doesn't mean current option needs to be removed

You can fix the game rules rather than have to change fluff. There's no reason to change existing fluff to remove part of fluff that has always been WHEN YOU CAN SIMPLY FIX THE RULES!

Heavy / special is what works for marines in the fluff, and the rules can be changed to make it work and make it powerful on the table.

we know chaos marines had the option to be heavy/special or double special and have always taken the double special option. Having the option for double special doesn't fix heavy/special, it just eliminates it, it doesn't fix the problem for the vast majority of squads out there that are heavy/special.

The game has to support infantry fire teams by: 1) under specific in-game circumstances, an upgrade weapon carried by infantry should count every successful to wound roll as two successful wounds, causing two saves and potentially twice as much damage if they both fail. 2) That ability is dependent on the amount of wounds that small arms like the bolter can do, so the more bolters you have and the more accurate they are from bs3+, bs2+, or re-rolls, the better chance you have of making the heavy weapon cause double saves.

Then you run into the issue of how much can you buff that single weapon. I know some people wanted a Relentless equivalent before in previous editions, but now we have that for the most part, and it still doesn't work.

The Bolter Marines are mostly just meat shields for a squad doing the weapon saturation better.

I didn't play much of the 5th edition codex though.

I haven't even had time to rant about the basic Chaos Marine, where I have several issues about their design as well. That's partly a fluff stand point for me as well, but I'll only go into that if you want me to. It's hard to get all this out on my phone after all.

Then I haven't gotten into how Bolt weapons are bad.

At most, I think you can do 1 Special/Heavy at minimum dudes, the opposite one available at 7, and then one of your choice at 10. However being able to pick any of those weapons at those numbers would obviously be a lot better.

Here's what I'm saying: Having more bolters in your unit should buff your main weapons. Having more bolters should give a better buff. If you have three bolters and one heavy weapon, you should have a weaker buff than if you have eight bolters and one heavy weapon.

The buff is the main weapon gets better armor penetration, more wounds, more damage per wound, limited sniping ability. You get that buff only when you have lots of weak guns in the squad.

I'm also really excited about chaos marines.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Here's an idea I just had: how about we give Tacticals (and potentially Crusader Squads) a rule that stops people Deep Striking within 12" from them? Call it "Auspex-guided Distruption" or something and explain its lack on the other types of MEQ units by the fact that it's the Tactical Marines (or Crusader Squads) that are supposed to protect the immediate perimeter while the more specialised units deal with their stuff. In essence, give Marines a way to picket their more expensive stuff from Deep Strikes without making it a horde and without being Scouts. You'd be able to choose between Scouts deploying forward to deny the enemy deployment options or Tactical Squads that can hang with your main army better.

Yeah, like this is good, except everyone can get it and marines are better at it because of their stats.

So some thoughts:

You can take five man tactical squads with a combi-plasma (Sergeant) and a lascannon or missile launcher. This unit costs 105 points. That seems pretty good to me. Three to four of those squads with a Captain or Chapter Master (and Lt. if you want to invest the points) can do some real damage and stick around for awhile.

Scouts are a solid troop choice and have a diverse range of options. For me they are mostly a speed bump but they can do other things well.

I have found Objective Secured (scoring) is not such a big deal now or at least in my area. So you just need three compulsory troops for a battalion and SM have always lent themselves well to min-maxing... that’s really all you need. If you can’t bring yourself to field tactical Marines the Intercessors are awesome in my opinion (I know this is all about old Marines but maybe it’s a good idea not to completely ignore Primaris).

There are some competitive snow flake lists that don’t use Primaris such as BA and DA. Even if SM are not one of the top three competitive armies that’s hardly a bad thing - for example you won’t get the hate like some armies do... not every codex can be top three. There’s always soup too (at least for now) if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s not like SM are bottom of the barrel. Sure no more free transports or super Devastors in drop pods but really isn’t that a good thing for the game? I’m okay with GW not making Primaris totally over the top to be honest and for me they are a lot of fun to play.

pelicaniforce wrote:

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
So either the MEq statline has to change, meaning the answer to the OP is no, the statline can't be saved, or the rules of the game have to change to value the current MEq statline better.

Or reduce points. It's not horde army if you take a couple extra squads. Companies are meant to field 6 squads in the fluff anyway.

Companies are meant to conduct global campaigns. Most companies conduct sector wide campaigns because the first and 6th-10th companies are split up all the time. No 10x10 for my games, thanks.

Being realistic the space marine company has about the same tactical ability and responsibility as a real life company of soldiers. The whole 'one company gets assigned to take a planet' thing just doesn't work with GW's numbers.
But even with GW numbers, companies are often fielded in full, so I don't see your point.

pelicaniforce wrote:
And this is gets closer to the OP question, because assault marines use their MEq statline, don't have plasmaguns or lascannons to confuse/dilute the issue of the MEq statline, and they are still pretty bad. So either the MEq statline has to change, meaning the answer to the OP is no, the statline can't be saved, or the rules of the game have to change to value the current MEq statline better.

I've always thought that the Primaris statline represents marines quite well. 2 Wounds, 2 Attacks, 30" boltgun with -1AP. Make this standard across the board for marines at 15-16pts p/m

 NurglesR0T wrote:


I've always thought that the Primaris statline represents marines quite well. 2 Wounds, 2 Attacks, 30" boltgun with -1AP. Make this standard across the board for marines at 15-16pts p/m

it's what they've shoulda been all along

pelicaniforce wrote:

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
So either the MEq statline has to change, meaning the answer to the OP is no, the statline can't be saved, or the rules of the game have to change to value the current MEq statline better.

Or reduce points. It's not horde army if you take a couple extra squads. Companies are meant to field 6 squads in the fluff anyway.

Companies are meant to conduct global campaigns. Most companies conduct sector wide campaigns because the first and 6th-10th companies are split up all the time. No 10x10 for my games, thanks.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoiler:

pelicaniforce wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:

Tactical Marines are well established in the Codex Astartes as using 1 special and 1 heavy in a ten man squad. Why should they not on tabletop? By what standards do you declare something to be "outdated" rather than "in need of balance adjustments"?

a) yes there are deviators but also those who follow it. Both needs to be valid
b) doesn't mean current option needs to be removed

You can fix the game rules rather than have to change fluff. There's no reason to change existing fluff to remove part of fluff that has always been WHEN YOU CAN SIMPLY FIX THE RULES!

Heavy / special is what works for marines in the fluff, and the rules can be changed to make it work and make it powerful on the table.

we know chaos marines had the option to be heavy/special or double special and have always taken the double special option. Having the option for double special doesn't fix heavy/special, it just eliminates it, it doesn't fix the problem for the vast majority of squads out there that are heavy/special.

The game has to support infantry fire teams by: 1) under specific in-game circumstances, an upgrade weapon carried by infantry should count every successful to wound roll as two successful wounds, causing two saves and potentially twice as much damage if they both fail. 2) That ability is dependent on the amount of wounds that small arms like the bolter can do, so the more bolters you have and the more accurate they are from bs3+, bs2+, or re-rolls, the better chance you have of making the heavy weapon cause double saves.

Then you run into the issue of how much can you buff that single weapon. I know some people wanted a Relentless equivalent before in previous editions, but now we have that for the most part, and it still doesn't work.

The Bolter Marines are mostly just meat shields for a squad doing the weapon saturation better.

I didn't play much of the 5th edition codex though.

I haven't even had time to rant about the basic Chaos Marine, where I have several issues about their design as well. That's partly a fluff stand point for me as well, but I'll only go into that if you want me to. It's hard to get all this out on my phone after all.

Then I haven't gotten into how Bolt weapons are bad.

At most, I think you can do 1 Special/Heavy at minimum dudes, the opposite one available at 7, and then one of your choice at 10. However being able to pick any of those weapons at those numbers would obviously be a lot better.

Here's what I'm saying: Having more bolters in your unit should buff your main weapons. Having more bolters should give a better buff. If you have three bolters and one heavy weapon, you should have a weaker buff than if you have eight bolters and one heavy weapon.

The buff is the main weapon gets better armor penetration, more wounds, more damage per wound, limited sniping ability. You get that buff only when you have lots of weak guns in the squad.

I'm also really excited about chaos marines.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Here's an idea I just had: how about we give Tacticals (and potentially Crusader Squads) a rule that stops people Deep Striking within 12" from them? Call it "Auspex-guided Distruption" or something and explain its lack on the other types of MEQ units by the fact that it's the Tactical Marines (or Crusader Squads) that are supposed to protect the immediate perimeter while the more specialised units deal with their stuff. In essence, give Marines a way to picket their more expensive stuff from Deep Strikes without making it a horde and without being Scouts. You'd be able to choose between Scouts deploying forward to deny the enemy deployment options or Tactical Squads that can hang with your main army better.

Yeah, like this is good, except everyone can get it and marines are better at it because of their stats.

But we run into the issue of consistency. How DO more Bolter bodies make those single Heavy Weapons better than ones in a Devastator squad. More importantly...why? Why not just allow a little amount of specialization like I suggested? Having a Lascannon do slightly better isn't as great as having two Lascannons instead. Am I going to want a Tactical Squad with that many points put into them for a single Heavy Weapon, or just use a Devastator squad with just enough bodies for the Lascannons and get my Signum bonus? Seems pretty frickin clear to me.

Chaos Marines have a whole slew of other issues. On top of it being even harder than regular Marines to keep in check for morale (where at least the loyalist Scum variant gives you incentive), they compete with Cultists as a troop choice. Not only do the Chaos Marines perform weapon saturation at a much worse rate than Chosen, they do even less to be specialized in a codex where things are basically ONLY specialized. I mean, at least you used to be able to be a poor Grey Hunter and buy a CCW with your Bolter and keep things up close and personal, and now they even lost that! On top of that, the entry itself makes the relationship between how Renegades should work in fluff and crunch completely awkward and lazy.
My solution to the basic Chaos Marine? Actually get rid of the entry itself, and make Chosen the Troops. Renegades should be represented by the Vanilla codex as they're too modern to somehow just pick up Autocannons for whatever reason.

Would 10pt marines help?

In HH they are 10pts and feel "right" they lack ATSKNF, but I would happily give up that very situational rule.

 NurglesR0T wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
And this is gets closer to the OP question, because assault marines use their MEq statline, don't have plasmaguns or lascannons to confuse/dilute the issue of the MEq statline, and they are still pretty bad. So either the MEq statline has to change, meaning the answer to the OP is no, the statline can't be saved, or the rules of the game have to change to value the current MEq statline better.

I've always thought that the Primaris statline represents marines quite well. 2 Wounds, 2 Attacks, 30" boltgun with -1AP. Make this standard across the board for marines at 15-16pts p/m

But that's "storybook marine", not "marines are roughly equivalent to Eldar Aspect Warrior marine". Imo the rough equivalency of Aspect Warriors to Marines is important, and is an oooold relationship.

But if we're talking about narratives and the "feel" of marines. Remember it currently takes 10 Guardsmen at close range to average a single marine kill. 20 if that marine is in cover. That's plenty of room to accommodate Black Library narratives.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What do you mean? I was talking about the options available to a Marine player. I have no response for the Tau player other than "sorry, bud, I didn't write it." My point is that Marines have too many options, and that includes the option to soup.

And Tactical Marines are more durable. They may not gain more durability per point or something like that...
... but you're right, Intercessors are more durable. So we're back to the problem of having to slash options to give the tactical marines a role.

So why is it you tell the Tau player that but not a Marine player? As someone using Chaos Marines too, I shouldn't have to be told "Just take Daemon troops", because you're purposely missing the point.

And the role for Tactical Marines is weapon specialization (because options, which some of you clamor to) for a troop choice, to the "mobility specialist" word you used to Scouts, and durability to Intercessors. However, they aren't doing that or any other role well. So we need to make sure they can actually do that thing.

Tacs deal more damage than the other choices, that's their corner of the triangle. They do more damage with Plasma, Combi-Plasma, Grav Cannon than they would 2xPlasma, Combi-Plasma at that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait so are grey hunters better or worse than tactical marines?

I'm getting conflicting messages from the MEQ side.

Only Blackie is saying Grey Hunters are worse in this thread, and I'll bet money that Insectum will chime in and say that neither is bad but just different (which is super incorrect though). Even with the major hit they took in 7th, they ended up still being better than the Tactical Marine.

I would. And I would be super correct.

Not for the points. A Plasma Cannon is a whopping 8 points more than a Plasma Gun (essentially another Plasma Gun itself), suffers on the move, and on top of that DOES have random shots on only a D3. This is then made worse once everyone is in Rapid Fire range and you're still varying. Otherwise if you're just planning to camp with a Plasma Cannon...Devastators will make it BS2+...

Thats nice, the example I provided was the Grav Cannon. I'm not much keen on giving Tacs the Plasma Cannon either. Though the Plasma Cannon remains a nice choice for Devs.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Only Blackie is saying Grey Hunters are worse in this thread....

Yeah, I think I'm the only one on this thread that plays SW and actually have a clue about how grey hunters perform But I basically agree with Instectum7 about the comparison between grey hunters and tacs.

And SW players are tipycally not as whiners as SM ones

I also hate relying on tournaments data but if we talk about competitive game how many lists that ended up in high positions in tournaments had tacs and how many had grey hunters?

 Insectum7 wrote:
But if we're talking about narratives and the "feel" of marines. Remember it currently takes 10 Guardsmen at close range to average a single marine kill. 20 if that marine is in cover. That's plenty of room to accommodate Black Library narratives.

But the SM is going to kill one guardsman a turn if he's lucky, which is a big disconnect from the narrative.
Tacs just aren't killy or cheap in a game about being killy and/or cheap.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
But if we're talking about narratives and the "feel" of marines. Remember it currently takes 10 Guardsmen at close range to average a single marine kill. 20 if that marine is in cover. That's plenty of room to accommodate Black Library narratives.

But the SM is going to kill one guardsman a turn if he's lucky, which is a big disconnect from the narrative.
Tacs just aren't killy or cheap in a game about being killy and/or cheap.

This is true, though I think the problem has to do with compressed stats. Making Guardsmen T2 would double the capability of Str. 4 and 5 weapons against them... but on the other hand, they'd have to be EVEN CHEAPER and therefore EVEN BETTER against anything not str 3,4, or 5. There's just no room to adjust units down where the guardsmen live.

Except points costs, perhaps, though I still think that 5 is the upper limit, but 4 is a bit too good.

I think 6pt guardsmen would work too.

Martel732 wrote:
I think 6pt guardsmen would work too.

So 1ppm (to 7) would buy you +1 BS, +1 save, a 6+ invulnerable save, +6" of range, AP-1 on a 6+ to wound with shooting weapons, Forge World dogmas, and Canticles of the Omnissiah?

Yeah, not buying it. All that is worth more than 1 pt.

 Formosa wrote:
Would 10pt marines help?

In HH they are 10pts and feel "right" they lack ATSKNF, but I would happily give up that very situational rule.

I think 10 is too low. That puts them lower than a scout, which...feels off.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think 6pt guardsmen would work too.

So 1ppm (to 7) would buy you +1 BS, +1 save, a 6+ invulnerable save, +6" of range, AP-1 on a 6+ to wound with shooting weapons, Forge World dogmas, and Canticles of the Omnissiah?

Yeah, not buying it. All that is worth more than 1 pt.

Lackluster infantry could be the guard's "weakness". That's why it works. It could balance their god-mode vehicles/artillery. I know ig is not used to balance, but most lists have a thing called a weakness. For marines, its basically everything atm, so i think ig would be fine with a single weakness.