Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Marines durability/pt is actually mediocre to poor. Their offense/pt is laughable.

T7 11W 3+sv MBT's feel real durable compaired to nope even eldar who had lower armour values in previous editions have an additional wound tau tanks which were comparable have 2 more wounds. Not feeling so durable.

Ah. I was referring specifically to terminators in my comments.

They pay for being something like twice as durable as Marines wound and save wise, but the right guns drop them almost as easily. So they need to either be cheaper or more durable, in my opinion.

Making them cheaper is probably the better choice imo, since it's the easiest way to adjust things.

Ice_can wrote:
T7 11W 3+sv MBT's feel real durable compaired to nope even eldar who had lower armour values in previous editions have an additional wound tau tanks which were comparable have 2 more wounds. Not feeling so durable.

Maybe if they were priced appropriately and we're affected by Chapter Tactics like the Eldar and Tau tanks are.

Generally, Marines do cost too much for how durable they are. Pretty much the entire game is set up for a T4 1W 3+ model to get the short end of the math stick.

The way AP works means AP 1, which is fairly common on anti infantry guns, increases casualties on armor types as follows:

2+ save by 100% (from 1/6 to 2/6 failed saves)
3+ by 50%
4+ by 33%
5+ by 25%
6+ by 20%

So, the better your armor save, the more effective AP weapons are on you.

Additionally, the way the wound chart has changed, S5 went from wounding T3 on 2s to on 3s, making T3 just as durable as T4 against a lot of anti infantry weapons.

As if that wasnt enough, the guns with high AP almost completely remove Marine's durability, typically wounding on 2s or 3s, and reducing saves to 5+ or worse. This hurts Marines more than most other infantry targets, since each wound is worth so much more.

Finally, Marines are worse against mortal wounds than almost anything else, since they are some of the most expensive single wound models, and 1 mortal wound = 1 dead model.

All of these things make Marines bad compared to almost any infantry unit in the game, and that's just talking about them defensively.

Primaris Marines are pretty much in the same boat, except they are twice as durable against 1D weapons and mortal wounds. Terminators too, though they do get at least a 5++ against guns which is nice, but not reliable. You can make it a 3++ which is decent but then you have to use hammers and it costs a lot...

Most Space marine vehicles are in a similar spot, with the 3+ armor having the same AP issue, and T7 being not amazing since most anti tank guns are S8 or higher so they typically get wounded on 3+, and most anti infantry guns are at least S4 so they wound on 5+. So they might as well be T5 or 6 against most things that shoot at them.

All of these things mean that Marines are not nearly as durable as they seem to be, and less durable per point than most other infantry in the game.

jcd386 wrote:
Generally, Marines do cost too much for how durable they are. Pretty much the entire game is set up for a T4 1W 3+ model to get the short end of the math stick.

The way AP works means AP 1, which is fairly common on anti infantry guns, increases casualties on armor types as follows:

2+ save by 100% (from 1/6 to 2/6 failed saves)
3+ by 50%
4+ by 33%
5+ by 25%
6+ by 20%

So, the better your armor save, the more effective AP weapons are on you.

Additionally, the way the wound chart has changed, S5 went from wounding T3 on 2s to on 3s, making T3 just as durable as T4 against a lot of anti infantry weapons.

As if that wasnt enough, the guns with high AP almost completely remove Marine's durability, typically wounding on 2s or 3s, and reducing saves to 5+ or worse. This hurts Marines more than most other infantry targets, since each wound is worth so much more.

Finally, Marines are worse against mortal wounds than almost anything else, since they are some of the most expensive single wound models, and 1 mortal wound = 1 dead model.

All of these things make Marines bad compared to almost any infantry unit in the game, and that's just talking about them defensively.

Primaris Marines are pretty much in the same boat, except they are twice as durable against 1D weapons and mortal wounds. Terminators too, though they do get at least a 5++ against guns which is nice, but not reliable. You can make it a 3++ which is decent but then you have to use hammers and it costs a lot...

Most Space marine vehicles are in a similar spot, with the 3+ armor having the same AP issue, and T7 being not amazing since most anti tank guns are S8 or higher so they typically get wounded on 3+, and most anti infantry guns are at least S4 so they wound on 5+. So they might as well be T5 or 6 against most things that shoot at them.

All of these things mean that Marines are not nearly as durable as they seem to be, and less durable per point than most other infantry in the game.

Exactly.

I want to make one additional points to the problem of Terminators. That 5++ might looks shining on paper, but in real world it is pretty useless. against the old AP2 weapons (AP-3 in this edition) like lascannons, plasma, powerfist, etc., their "dropped armor save is the same as that 5++, so armor and inv save is no difference.... While there are AP-4 weapons, it is relatively rare and each have fewer shots but usually have D6 damage which seems made them act as AT weapon would be more efficient.

I may agree overall but not about the vehicles. They're pretty durable for their points. The cheapest ones at least, I'm looking at rhinos and razorbacks.

Their flyers have a -1 to hit and very good firepower, it's not that easy to kill them, especially if you have multiple vehicles in the list.

A marine in cover has a 2+ save, he can soak a lot of anti infantry hits (usually S3-4 with no AP) before rolling that one.

I have much problems to avoid getting tabled with drukhari and also ork green tides than with SW. I also play with sisters occasionally and with 6-7 tanks (which are basically the same SM ones in terms of durability) they are quite tough to kill.

I have to say that the 20+ dark reapers thing doesn't exist here (no one owns more than 10) and my meta is full of people that fear hordes more than armored stuff, so many TAC lists have a decent amount of anti tank but not 20+ lascannons or similar. It's easier to kill 60 boyz than 2 rhinos/razorbacks in a single turn here.

Rhinos and razorbacks used to be easier to kill than predators, there isn't a distinction in the 8th edition codex, predators etc die way too easy compaird to their comparible units and rhino's and especially razorbacks outperform them.
Rhino 11,11,10 predators where 13, 11, 11. Why are they the same in 8th edition?

Sisters don't have MBT equivelents, but they also have the ability to shoot out of their tanks marines don't. Also sisters arnt paying the rediculous 13ppm.

Really flyers are durable? Given how many units have fly as a keyword units with +1 to hit flyers should be common.

Flyers are not durable at all. I've quit using Stormravens entirely.

I agree that the vehicles are not in as bad a spot as the infantry, as their wounds let them take some damage, but they still have an overall inefficient stat line they are presumably paying for. The real issue though is that in the current state of the game, vehicles tend to need infantry to protect them from assault, and we pretty much only have 1 normal infantry unit worth taking (scouts).

And yes, Marines in cover are durable against small arms fire (which I define as S4 AP0 and worse). But, once you bring any real gun to bare on them, like heavy bolters, assault cannons, etc, they melt in a way they never have in any previous edition.

And honestly all of these things are fine, except that Marines cost too much more how mediocre they are. My whole point is just that they should cost less, not be more durable. The T4 3+ 1W stat line is just not that great any more.

The fliers seem in a slightly better spot, with the -1 to wound and are harder to assault, but they can't be hovering for this, and sometimes you have to hover to stay in reroll range of Bobby G etc, so even that is situational.

If you look at the good armies, they all have cheap infantry in common, because when it comes to durability in 8th, the most important stat to have is 1W, and when you only have to pay 3 or 4 points for it, it doesn't really matter if you are T3 5 or 6+ save. And this isn't even bringing up things like board control from having 50 1W models on the board.

Predators are embarrassing compared to Russes, but they are functional.

Martel732 wrote:
Predators are embarrassing compared to Russes, but they are functional.

You should compare them to dunecrawlers...

All in all I think Marine stats/profiles are all well and good, but a lot of them need points decreases. I'm not a fan of OP's suggestions as they seem too extreme. Point changes aren't done in a vacuum either, so you can't reduce Tac down to 10ppm (less than scouts? lol) while increasing Guardsmen to 5ppm. It'll just wildly skew the balance.

I don't expect anything but nerfs in the FAQ either way, with buffs coming in CA at the end of the year.

Actually 10 ppm tacs and 5 ppm guardsmen seem about right to me. Based off how utterly dominating IG are in the matchup.

Guardsmen are good for two reasons:

They're cheap and can therefore be used to screen for more important units effectively.
They can be given orders to make them more effective than their base cost would normally allow (due to the influence of another unit).

Increasing their cost to 5ppm adds 10 points per unit or 30 points per battalion which reduces their value as a cheap screening unit. They have a very short effective range and need to be close to a commander to do much of anything valuable (and I'm in favor of increasing the cost of Company Commanders by a lot.)

And the last thing I want is SM to get buffed to the point of absurdity that they're considered to be one of the very top armies. Nothing kills a game more for me than when I can't play with my friends without feeling there's just an innate advantage that I can't control.

10 ppm tacs are still not getting you very far. My Eldar opponent has let me field them at 10ppm. I still got tabled. Because dark reapers.

Martel732 wrote:
10 ppm tacs are still not getting you very far. My Eldar opponent has let me field them at 10ppm. I still got tabled. Because dark reapers.

Don't factor stuff like that in. Don't say "X isn't good because when it fights to Y it still loses" when Y is something that's extremely broken and needs to be nerfed. Dark Reapers counter and destroy a lot of things in the game and they themselves don't have many counters. They're under-costed and over-perform.

Martel732 wrote:
10 ppm tacs are still not getting you very far. My Eldar opponent has let me field them at 10ppm. I still got tabled. Because dark reapers.

I played deathwatch with my eldar - I tabled him in 2 turns. Almost felt bad but I have no idea why he was taking drop pods and 40 power armor bodies. I lost a single war walker and d weapon support platform turn 1 - he lost 30 marines and had his corvus dropped to 2 wounds and he even went first. GG space marines.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
10 ppm tacs are still not getting you very far. My Eldar opponent has let me field them at 10ppm. I still got tabled. Because dark reapers.

I played deathwatch with my eldar - I tabled him in 2 turns. Almost felt bad but I have no idea why he was taking drop pods and 40 power armor bodies. I lost a single war walker and d weapon support platform turn 1 - he lost 30 marines and had his corvus dropped to 2 wounds and he even went first. GG space marines.

Deathwatch is like if you took Space Marines and tied 3 point anchors to each of their feet. They're bad.

 SputnikDX wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
10 ppm tacs are still not getting you very far. My Eldar opponent has let me field them at 10ppm. I still got tabled. Because dark reapers.

I played deathwatch with my eldar - I tabled him in 2 turns. Almost felt bad but I have no idea why he was taking drop pods and 40 power armor bodies. I lost a single war walker and d weapon support platform turn 1 - he lost 30 marines and had his corvus dropped to 2 wounds and he even went first. GG space marines.

Deathwatch is like if you took Space Marines and tied 3 point anchors to each of their feet. They're bad.

Their guns actually appear scary on paper - but like everything in power armor - it might as well be flak armor for the most part. I can't stress enough how marines need a durability increase ether through stats or point reductions. I'd much prefer a stats increase though - Marines are supposed to be powerful and limited - not weak and numerous.

Deathwatch need the point reduction, but I want to see what their codex will bring first before we go and try to fix them ourselves.

Part of the problem I feel is that the venerable boltgun is just so anemic in this edition. I remember the older lore that described them as explosive mini rockets that would rip a man in half. And here they are, almost the worst troop armament. Having them deal mortal wounds on wound rolls of 6+ would have fit the lore of the weapon so much more.

Then perhaps make the marines feel more durable too. But here too is a problem, namely: astartes inflation. By now, the normal marine must suffer from an enormous inferiority complex as he was once THE defender of mankind, then we had Terminators (sure, these were super awesome). But then we got deathwatch, custodes, grey knights, primaris, etc. Those would need buffs too.

Gryphonne wrote:
Part of the problem I feel is that the venerable boltgun is just so anemic in this edition. I remember the older lore that described them as explosive mini rockets that would rip a man in half. And here they are, almost the worst troop armament. Having them deal mortal wounds on wound rolls of 6+ would have fit the lore of the weapon so much more.

Then perhaps make the marines feel more durable too. But here too is a problem, namely: astartes inflation. By now, the normal marine must suffer from an enormous inferiority complex as he was once THE defender of mankind, then we had Terminators (sure, these were super awesome). But then we got deathwatch, custodes, grey knights, primaris, etc. Those would need buffs too.

I really don't think a Boltgun should deal Mortal Wounds. There is enough Mortal Wound spam in the game as it is.

An extra hit on a roll of a 6 would be better in my opinion.

 SputnikDX wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
10 ppm tacs are still not getting you very far. My Eldar opponent has let me field them at 10ppm. I still got tabled. Because dark reapers.

Don't factor stuff like that in. Don't say "X isn't good because when it fights to Y it still loses" when Y is something that's extremely broken and needs to be nerfed. Dark Reapers counter and destroy a lot of things in the game and they themselves don't have many counters. They're under-costed and over-perform.

Do you think 10 ppm marines would let marines beat Flyrants or IG gunline? Not with what flyrants and basilisks currently cost. Base marines do not play like 13 ppm models. When you start giving them gear that does something, it gets crazy FAST.

But what about the other side of the coin? If you buff Marines, what are you going to do about Necron Warriors? Gaunts? Guardians? Kroot? And soforth.

Bharring wrote:
But what about the other side of the coin? If you buff Marines, what are you going to do about Necron Warriors? Gaunts? Guardians? Kroot? And soforth.

Are those units necessarily bad/overcosted like Tac marines are?

I don't even want Tacs to compete points wise against the best units of other armies. I just want them to compete against Scouts lol. As it stands they're just not really good to pick up unless you want a lascannon with Obsec or still think plasma guns are good.

Tacs as-is still compare reasonably to most of the troop options in the rules - they only "suck" compared to the best few troops.

Bharring wrote:
Tacs as-is still compare reasonably to most of the troop options in the rules - they only "suck" compared to the best few troops.

The issue is they don't fit a niche well, which is just a downside to the Space Marines Jack-of-all-Trades mindset. They're too costly to use as a screen, too squishy to be considered tanky, and often too weak to be considered a threat.

Scouts are cheaper and so make for better screens and more mobile and so meaning you can put their S4 AP0 right where it can actually be used. So the easiest thing to fix for Tacs that might not break the game is simply to make them cheaper.

Are you thinking 12 or lower?

Necron Warriors and Dire Avengers are both 12. DAs should probably be the same points as Marines, but shouldn't Necron Warriors be 1ppm cheaper?

Bharring wrote:
Are you thinking 12 or lower?

Necron Warriors and Dire Avengers are both 12. DAs should probably be the same points as Marines, but shouldn't Necron Warriors be 1ppm cheaper?

I don't have the Necron codex on me for Warriors if they've changed from the index, but their cost comes from Ld 10, AP-1 and reanimation protocols. Even with only 4+ they're definitely tougher to deal with than Tacs, while being far more threatening when they get their guns in rapid fire range.

Bharring wrote:
Tacs as-is still compare reasonably to most of the troop options in the rules - they only "suck" compared to the best few troops.

Stop comparing them to just troops. For marines, tacs are troops, fast attack, elite, and heavy support. At least the statline is. Also, marine wargear is costed too high. The other problem.