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 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
No, only recently. Vanilla was not good in 5th or 3rd. 4th was iffy.

Vanilla marines were a middle of the road army in 5th. They were not in any way shape or form a bad army in 5th. This is the same revisionist nonsense I see from certain marine players who are hellbent on decrying how terribly they've been treated by GW. Marines have been no worse than 'good' or 'acceptable' from 5th on, and since I haven't played before then I can't comment on prior editions.

No - this is nonsense. They had a single salamanders build with vulkan which was strong early on in the eddition in 5th and it got power crept to death by SW/BA/ then GK. It still at no point could even challenge leaf blower IG and eldar could easily defeat it because they were solidly above it's power level. If you were crimson fists (which I was at the time) you were solidly out of luck and outmatched in literally every game. The one army that I think sucked equally to vanilla space marines was orks in 5th.

Yet again - this is another example of "play this build or you lose" type marine codex. It is a gimmick.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
No, only recently. Vanilla was not good in 5th or 3rd. 4th was iffy.

Vanilla marines were a middle of the road army in 5th. They were not in any way shape or form a bad army in 5th. This is the same revisionist nonsense I see from certain marine players who are hellbent on decrying how terribly they've been treated by GW. Marines have been no worse than 'good' or 'acceptable' from 5th on, and since I haven't played before then I can't comment on prior editions.

No - this is nonsense. They had a single salamanders build with vulkan which was strong early on in the eddition in 5th and it got power crept to death by SW/BA/ then GK. It still at no point could even challenge leaf blower IG and eldar could easily defeat it because they were solidly above it's power level. If you were crimson fists (which I was at the time) you were solidly out of luck and outmatched in literally every game. The one army that I think sucked equally to vanilla space marines was orks in 5th.

Man, if only there were other codices in the game that were worse off or roughly equal to marines.

Its also as if there were more competitive builds than just one in that codex, and that even the Vulkan build had a few variant options to tool around with.

You've demonstrated time and time again to have an incredibly lacking understanding of power comparisons when you claimed 7th marines were a bottom tier army; its really, really hard to take you seriously on any other analysis if something that obvious eludes you.

Once again, not being a top codex doesn't make it a bad codex. Orks, Tau, Necrons (for most of the edition), DE, Sisters, and Nids were all roughly equal or worse off than Vanilla, which oddly enough, amounts to roughly half of the codices at the time.

*Edit* Forgot Chaos. Chaos (marines and daemons) were in rough shape for that edition and generally pretty bad.

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Their record was so poor in my area, it's hard to believe they were truly middle of the road in 5th. Eldar had builds far more fearsome than what vanilla could pump out. Playing against vanilla in 5th was largely a cakewalk.

Your problem is consistently assuming your little, bizarre microcosm is a reflection of the bigger picture. For someone so keen on 'mathematical' analysis of the game, it'd be pretty easy to figure out that 5th Marines had a few strong units, lots of decent units, and could make effective builds in the edition's meta. They placed well at events from my recollection, and were only really overshadowed by other marines.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that because you weren't top tier, you must obviously be bottom tier.

That's just it; I don't think they had any truly good units. They couldn't even exploit pods well.

Martel732 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Their record was so poor in my area, it's hard to believe they were truly middle of the road in 5th. Eldar had builds far more fearsome than what vanilla could pump out. Playing against vanilla in 5th was largely a cakewalk.

Your problem is consistently assuming your little, bizarre microcosm is a reflection of the bigger picture. For someone so keen on 'mathematical' analysis of the game, it'd be pretty easy to figure out that 5th Marines had a few strong units, lots of decent units, and could make effective builds in the edition's meta. They placed well at events from my recollection, and were only really overshadowed by other marines.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that because you weren't top tier, you must obviously be bottom tier.

That's just it; I don't think they had any truly good units. They couldn't even exploit pods well.

Pods were still great for marines. They had hammernators, Vulkan, bikes, rifle dreads, libbies, preds, sternguard, speeders, vindis, and razors. All of those were at least good choices that filled their role effectively.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
No, only recently. Vanilla was not good in 5th or 3rd. 4th was iffy.

Vanilla marines were a middle of the road army in 5th. They were not in any way shape or form a bad army in 5th. This is the same revisionist nonsense I see from certain marine players who are hellbent on decrying how terribly they've been treated by GW. Marines have been no worse than 'good' or 'acceptable' from 5th on, and since I haven't played before then I can't comment on prior editions.

No - this is nonsense. They had a single salamanders build with vulkan which was strong early on in the eddition in 5th and it got power crept to death by SW/BA/ then GK. It still at no point could even challenge leaf blower IG and eldar could easily defeat it because they were solidly above it's power level. If you were crimson fists (which I was at the time) you were solidly out of luck and outmatched in literally every game. The one army that I think sucked equally to vanilla space marines was orks in 5th.

Man, if only there were other codices in the game that were worse off or roughly equal to marines.

Its also as if there were more competitive builds than just one in that codex, and that even the Vulkan build had a few variant options to tool around with.

You've demonstrated time and time again to have an incredibly lacking understanding of power comparisons when you claimed 7th marines were a bottom tier army; its really, really hard to take you seriously on any other analysis if something that obvious eludes you.

Once again, not being a top codex doesn't make it a bad codex. Orks, Tau, Necrons (for most of the edition), DE, Sisters, and Nids were all roughly equal or worse off than Vanilla, which oddly enough, amounts to roughly half of the codices at the time.

*Edit* Forgot Chaos. Chaos (marines and daemons) were in rough shape for that edition and generally pretty bad.

Exactly, Marines were usually nothing special, but they were far from bottom tier especially compared to armies like Orks, CSM, Nids for long stretches

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
No, only recently. Vanilla was not good in 5th or 3rd. 4th was iffy.

Vanilla marines were a middle of the road army in 5th. They were not in any way shape or form a bad army in 5th. This is the same revisionist nonsense I see from certain marine players who are hellbent on decrying how terribly they've been treated by GW. Marines have been no worse than 'good' or 'acceptable' from 5th on, and since I haven't played before then I can't comment on prior editions.

No - this is nonsense. They had a single salamanders build with vulkan which was strong early on in the eddition in 5th and it got power crept to death by SW/BA/ then GK. It still at no point could even challenge leaf blower IG and eldar could easily defeat it because they were solidly above it's power level. If you were crimson fists (which I was at the time) you were solidly out of luck and outmatched in literally every game. The one army that I think sucked equally to vanilla space marines was orks in 5th.

If you were losing to Eldar routinely in 5th with Vanilla marines, it wasnt the fault of the book. Eldar in 5E were nowhere near as capable as that book was. Meanwhile 5E ended up being one of the better editions for Orks with Nob Bikers, Lootas, Painboyz, and functional Boyz mobs (No Retreat aside). I dont think Orks have been as capable since 5E actually.

Aside from Vulkan, White Scars biker/outflanker builds were capable and popular, as were basic Ultramarines armies, while Crimson Fists Cantor led Sternguard builds did pretty well, and the 3++ hammernators were a big scourge of most of that edition. Yes they were overshadowed by other marine books, but they were hardly garbage and absolutely were not worse off than Eldar.

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Their record was so poor in my area, it's hard to believe they were truly middle of the road in 5th. Eldar had builds far more fearsome than what vanilla could pump out. Playing against vanilla in 5th was largely a cakewalk.

Your problem is consistently assuming your little, bizarre microcosm is a reflection of the bigger picture. For someone so keen on 'mathematical' analysis of the game, it'd be pretty easy to figure out that 5th Marines had a few strong units, lots of decent units, and could make effective builds in the edition's meta. They placed well at events from my recollection, and were only really overshadowed by other marines.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that because you weren't top tier, you must obviously be bottom tier.

That's just it; I don't think they had any truly good units. They couldn't even exploit pods well.

Pods were still great for marines. They had hammernators, Vulkan, bikes, rifle dreads, libbies, preds, sternguard, speeders, vindis, and razors. All of those were at least good choices that filled their role effectively.

Do you just suggest podding hamernators?

 Xenomancers wrote:

Do you just suggest podding hamernators?

Did you bother to actually read my post to completion, or just glaze over the period between my thought of "Pods were good" and "also, these things were good"?

Unless of course you seriously think I was also suggesting you pod predators as well.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Do you just suggest podding hamernators?

Did you bother to actually read my post to completion, or just glaze over the period between my thought of "Pods were good" and "also, these things were good"?

Unless of course you seriously think I was also suggesting you pod predators as well.

Oh okay - because that would have been idiotic.

Still. There's nothing on that list that makes you say "uh oh". Not like a plasma russ.

I'm digging out my massive ork collection from the desk drawers in preparation of the new Dex, and it occurs to me exactly what Orks have always lacked... Anti Tank damage. I have over 160 Boyz, 35 Lootaz,20 Komandos, tons of Power Klaw Nobz, trukks and Wagons. No high damage anywhere.

Im already discuraged and I havent even started playing them this edition...
still.
It seems like the same old game of "Not getting tabled=WIN" for orkz will be played, or as I also call it, Shooting Gallery 40k.

If you use a middle of the road army agaisnt the top-tier armies of the moment you will get destroyed every time and will think that middle of the road army is bottom tier.

The 5E era Plamsa Russ that was priced as much as a Land Raider after kit, tossing small blasts onto targets able to use 2" coherency to mitigate casualties and where 4+ cover saves were available for just touching area terrain?

I mean, they were cool on paper, but they didnt appear in many competitive lists.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I'm digging out my massive ork collection from the desk drawers in preparation of the new Dex, and it occurs to me exactly what Orks have always lacked... Anti Tank damage. I have over 160 Boyz, 35 Lootaz,20 Komandos, tons of Power Klaw Nobz, trukks and Wagons. No high damage anywhere.

Thats never really been their thing, just like IG has never had bikers or beastly CC commanders. Thats what Powerklaws and Tank Hammas are for (though some assistance in their use could certainly have been warranted).

Lootas however were absolute murder to light and medium vehicles and tanks up until 8E however. If you werent AV13 or 14, even a depleted unit of Lootas stood a good chance of killing any vehicle they shot at and a full unit was almost guaranteed to.

 Galas wrote:
If you use a middle of the road army agaisnt the top-tier armies of the moment you will get destroyed every time and will think that middle of the road army is bottom tier.

This is my biggest issue with 8th edition it feels very swingy.

First turn vrs going second is massive power shift.
Having a powerful codex or a not top tier codex can have a massive effect on the game.
Having soup or mono faction can totally change the power of armies.

Hopefully CA 2018 can bring in some more balance, but I suspect that 8th edition high alpha strike very swingy game design is here to stay.

It's hard to accept claims that SM are the worst book because there's only one build in it that's top tier when discussing eras where Obsec Spam, White Scar Rhino Rush, Bikers, GravCents, and more were all top-tier lists.

And "Obsec Spam" doesn't just mean "I have ObSec". It was a list where you'd field tons of Tacs and Pods (or possibly Rhinos) with a couple specials or combis, and do enough damage to keep the opponent from being able to kill you.

Also, the mental image of a podding Pred is hillarious.

Breng77 wrote:

Skaorn wrote:


So, if power is the major metric for determining what is "good" then were does internal an external balance come in? If Eldar are a no brainer, easy win, and super forgiving army, then why don't they give SM a run for their money in popularity?

They do among top level players. But they don't have near the fluff support, are harder to paint, and are alien. All 3 of those things work against them competing with Space Marines in overall popularity. A great majority of players (even "competitive" players) pick their army based on aesthetics and background because they get into the game knowing little about how it plays etc. Further most people don't meta chase/jump factions. So the argument that power isn't relevant to what makes a good codex, and using popularity as a metric is flawed. SM books have also always had bad internal balance.

There are some issues I have with your argument:

1) a top level players are playing for reward. Most will usually go with what will give them an advantage in the current meta to get to their reward. Eldar usually end up there because they usually have some OP units that can be spammed. Should the Eldar slip down the rankings of GWs poorly balanced game towards the bottom, many will likely drop them for whatever armies are now at the top. Look at Flyrant spam for example. Nids have often been near the bottom of the power rankings but the 7 flyrants were awesome briefly for 8th, that's gone now and I'm willing to bet that many of those players have moved on too. A dedicated Nid player, particularly one for a few editions, might lhave looked at 7 flyrants as a dubious purchase if GW decided to move back to more limited numbers of HQs that GW used to run with. Those that jumped on this band wagon now can't even use half of them in their army that they are less likely to abandon due to the meta change.

2) subjective stuff is subjective. Any painting is hard for me because my hands shake to much. When I first went into GW in my teens I saw SM and thought "meh, storm troopers with box vehicles with guns glued on. When I see a sci-fi setting I look at two things, what is the technology like and what are the aliens like. I was honestly more drawn to Eldar because they had the coolest vehicles and some of the models, but then there were the cone heads... I only got into 40k when the Tau came out around 10 years later because I liked the models better and had those very important sci-fi elements that originally drew my eye to Eldar originally. I disagree with fluff being what draws people in but something that keeps them hooked instead. I also think you're leaving out that SM, whether at GW stores or elsewhere, are the trainer army, especially if they are young. Back when I first walked into that GW store I even had a rep try to steer me away from Eldar to SM because they were easier to learn. Note: I think that I should reiterate at this point that I have never played Eldar, lest my comments be immediately dismissed.

3) you forget that most players will not stop with one army but branch out to different ones. Boredom and frustration with their current army are often a major factor, especially if most of your other opponents are other loyalist SM. Now, if power is the main reason for an army being "good", then it stands to reason that Eldar would be more popular than an army with a more dubious history over the editions. Usually I see more more Tau than Eldar or any other Xenos and I've generally see more Nid than Eldar players.

4) most people don't don't chase meta and, once drawn into the game are drawn to factions based on the aesthetics and lore, which is largely true. Admittedly I got into chaos because no one played them in my area and there was no pretending to be the hero with them. At best their lore is as appealing to me as when I go down a Wikipedia or YouTube hole regarding lore on DC comics to kill time, a curiousity at best. If you are calling it the major draw that an Eldar player feels is based on aesthetics and lore though and not being powerful, than the general environment here towards Eldar players is unfair. If they like Eldar due to the models and the lore you can't also turn around and say they can't complain when their army doesn't really fit with lore or that many of their favorite models get sidelined because they are not the current handful of useful models. On this thread though we have people saying that players complain that Eldar are OP but Eldar players say their army sucks. Both of these things can be true but Eldar players points are largely ignored because POWER and get crap because of GWs poor rule design. Also, if Fluff and aesthetic are part of making an army good than Eldar aren't that great as they have far less lore than SM and are using a lot of models that are finecast copies of old metal ones from 3rd ed or earlier.

5) I agree that power shouldn't be the metric that a codex is judged to determine if it is good or not. How well it balances with other armies and how well their own units balance with each other. If you have a well balanced game and then add an OP faction to it then your going to damage the game, not make it better. Being OP is a problem. Being underpowered is a problem. Having auto include and worthless units is a problem. Having poor support from the company is a problem

As with most things, the issues are not binary in nature. You might hate Eldar because they are more powerful than your favorite army but Eldar players can also complain about their army has its own issues and shouldn't be dismissed immediately because POWER. The simple fact is that 40k is not a well balanced game and the only people to blame for whose on top right now is GW. Unless you want to blame everyone for supporting GW with our monies for said game, then you be you.

Given that no books have great internal balance (Eldar ranks higher here than many other books as far as having viable their 2 units) or external balance, any argument using those metrics for army power/quality is somewhat irrelevant. As such for such a discussion you can look at 2 things. 1.) consistent above the board performance. 2.) ability to make a variety of powerful lists especially if those lists are thematic.

In both those categories Eldar often rank among the better armies. As to ease of painting. Marines are one of the easiest to make look decent with minimal effort/ability they are lower model count with easy details to pick out. Eldar are one of the more difficult, but not as difficult as some.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I'm digging out my massive ork collection from the desk drawers in preparation of the new Dex, and it occurs to me exactly what Orks have always lacked... Anti Tank damage. I have over 160 Boyz, 35 Lootaz,20 Komandos, tons of Power Klaw Nobz, trukks and Wagons. No high damage anywhere.

Thats never really been their thing, just like IG has never had bikers or beastly CC commanders. Thats what Powerklaws and Tank Hammas are for (though some assistance in their use could certainly have been warranted).

Lootas however were absolute murder to light and medium vehicles and tanks up until 8E however. If you werent AV13 or 14, even a depleted unit of Lootas stood a good chance of killing any vehicle they shot at and a full unit was almost guaranteed to.

Well, Zzap guns in 3rd-4th were nasty. Autohit 4D6 penetration. Youch.

Shockk Attack guns in 2nd were premiere heavy-target killers. Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Tanks. Snotling appearing inside vehicles and attacking crewmen. Or just appearing inside the crewmen...

Breng77 wrote:
Given that no books have great internal balance (Eldar ranks higher here than many other books as far as having viable their 2 units) or external balance, any argument using those metrics for army power/quality is somewhat irrelevant. As such for such a discussion you can look at 2 things. 1.) consistent above the board performance. 2.) ability to make a variety of powerful lists especially if those lists are thematic.

In both those categories Eldar often rank among the better armies. As to ease of painting. Marines are one of the easiest to make look decent with minimal effort/ability they are lower model count with easy details to pick out. Eldar are one of the more difficult, but not as difficult as some.

Actually for the last couple of editions now Craftworlds have had some of the worst internal balance out there, and saying no book has great internal balance is stupid, the current Dark Eldar book is great for internal balance with only a few units that no one would take, mostly from the Court and Beast Packs which weren't exactly most peoples first choices even if they were good.

Ice_can wrote:
Another problem with saying marines were or weren't powerful for a given edition is that it depends alot on what you define as marines.
Does marines mean marines from the generic "Codex Space Marines" or are you including Dark Angles, blood Angles and Space furries under the term Marine?

As if you are then yes one of those books would have been viable in an edition, if your not combining codex into some super combo then marines have walked this path of OMG OP filth as they get an early codex and get left behind and replaced later by a Marine +1 or Space Furries new hotness which to non marine players is still just another OP marine list. While your codex chapter is left in the kiddy pool of competative lists.

I mean, you've got to look at things in context I think.

There was a whole period of the game I played through where literally 100% of competitive marine players regardless of how they were painted declared their basic las-plas and devastator marine armies to be "Space wolves" because then their marines just got a bolt pistol/chainsword and splitfire on their devs for free, no cost.

I'd call that "a competitive marine build" even though you technically had to declare yourself "space wolves". Just like I wouldn't stop someone who says "eldar are competitive" and shout "NO, ALAITOC are competitive! I am a dedicated Biel Tan player and we SUCK, ZERO lists in any competitive event EVER!!!"

When there's a braindead easy "best" army-wide rule you can just claim with the models you own and gain an advantage, you're never going to see a competitive player taking the less powerful option.

By contrast I would not claim that the 5th ed GK meta was a "competitive marine build" because that required an entirely different model range. You couldn't just take your marine army, say "theyre GK now" and have them be better without proxying.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Oh okay - because that would have been idiotic.

Like misunderstanding two simple sentences?

Still. There's nothing on that list that makes you say "uh oh". Not like a plasma russ.

Vaktathi explained it better than I could.

All of those things I listed were at the same general competitive tier level as a plasma russ, or better.

But once again, you also believe marines were terrible in 7th, so it begs the question if you truly understand balance and relative power.

If you say plasma russ was not top tier in 5th - it doesn't make it true.

2 inch coherency is not the norm. Units are normally bumped together in cover - or perfectly lined up after deep strikes - or coming out of transports. Plus models take up space - you run out of it. People just love to act like every model is 2 inches apart - they never were and they never will be.

Basically 5 plasma cannons on a 14 armor tank was exceptionally busted. Oh it cost as much as a land raider? Makes sense. It was better than a land raider.

Finding large listings of 7e tournies and even 6e tournies was easy. Is there a good place to look at large volumes of 5e tournies? It wouldn't be conclusive, but would be suggestive.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Oh okay - because that would have been idiotic.

Like misunderstanding two simple sentences?

Still. There's nothing on that list that makes you say "uh oh". Not like a plasma russ.

Vaktathi explained it better than I could.

All of those things I listed were at the same general competitive tier level as a plasma russ, or better.

But once again, you also believe marines were terrible in 7th, so it begs the question if you truly understand balance and relative power.

I find it hilarious that you think space marines had a single entree in their codex as good as a plasma Russ...or really any Russ variant.

Marines were terrible in 7th. They required 400 free points of razorbacks/rhinos/drop-pods to be competitive. Or as countless upon countless space marine players will tell you. The units have always been bad - they have relied on gimmicks just to be playable.

"Marines were terrible in 7th. They required 400 free points of razorbacks/rhinos/droppods to be competitive."

You keep saying that, but how does that explain all their wins before they got Gladius?

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Oh okay - because that would have been idiotic.

Like misunderstanding two simple sentences?

Still. There's nothing on that list that makes you say "uh oh". Not like a plasma russ.

Vaktathi explained it better than I could.

All of those things I listed were at the same general competitive tier level as a plasma russ, or better.

But once again, you also believe marines were terrible in 7th, so it begs the question if you truly understand balance and relative power.

I find it hilarious that you think space marines had a single entree in their codex as good as a plasma Russ...or really any Russ variant.

Marines were terrible in 7th. They required 400 free points of razorbacks/rhinos/drop-pods to be competitive. Or as countless upon countless space marine players will tell you. The units have always been bad - they have relied on gimmicks just to be playable.

Eldar were even worse though. They needed their gimmicks to prop them up. The real cheese of 7th was the Tyranids.

pm713 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Oh okay - because that would have been idiotic.

Like misunderstanding two simple sentences?

Still. There's nothing on that list that makes you say "uh oh". Not like a plasma russ.

Vaktathi explained it better than I could.

All of those things I listed were at the same general competitive tier level as a plasma russ, or better.

But once again, you also believe marines were terrible in 7th, so it begs the question if you truly understand balance and relative power.

I find it hilarious that you think space marines had a single entree in their codex as good as a plasma Russ...or really any Russ variant.

Marines were terrible in 7th. They required 400 free points of razorbacks/rhinos/drop-pods to be competitive. Or as countless upon countless space marine players will tell you. The units have always been bad - they have relied on gimmicks just to be playable.

Eldar were even worse though. They needed their gimmicks to prop them up. The real cheese of 7th was the Tyranids.

Wave serpents weren't a gimmick - they were out of the box rape machines. 7.0 Eldar was nearly as dominant as 7.5.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
"Marines were terrible in 7th. They required 400 free points of razorbacks/rhinos/droppods to be competitive."

You keep saying that, but how does that explain all their wins before they got Gladius?

You mean super-friends? Cent Star? These are not space marine armies. They are imperial soup.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Marines were terrible in 7th. They required 400 free points of razorbacks/rhinos/drop-pods to be competitive.

I could field my 1500pt mechanised sisters list for 1000pts if I took them as marines - enough to ally in a knight with points to spare.
Model for model, gun for gun. And i'd get game long rerolls and a free upgrade to a dude with a combi-disintegrator on top of that.

So 'terrible' is relative, especially as that was by no means the strongest marine list/gimmick of 7th.

 Xenomancers wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Oh okay - because that would have been idiotic.

Like misunderstanding two simple sentences?

Still. There's nothing on that list that makes you say "uh oh". Not like a plasma russ.

Vaktathi explained it better than I could.

All of those things I listed were at the same general competitive tier level as a plasma russ, or better.

But once again, you also believe marines were terrible in 7th, so it begs the question if you truly understand balance and relative power.

I find it hilarious that you think space marines had a single entree in their codex as good as a plasma Russ...or really any Russ variant.

Marines were terrible in 7th. They required 400 free points of razorbacks/rhinos/drop-pods to be competitive. Or as countless upon countless space marine players will tell you. The units have always been bad - they have relied on gimmicks just to be playable.

Eldar were even worse though. They needed their gimmicks to prop them up. The real cheese of 7th was the Tyranids.

Wave serpents weren't a gimmick - they were out of the box rape machines. 7.0 Eldar was nearly as dominant as 7.5.

Riiiiiight. Adding hundreds of free points that was all objective secured in a load of light tanks isn't a gimmick as well. Gladius was ridiculously OP.

What about the SM armies that were doing so well that were monofaction, and included no Centurions? Were they Soup, CentStar, or Superfriends?

Each of those 3 were variants Marines did well with, but so were Obsec Spam and Biker Spam, for instance.

Could you give a more structured definition of 'gimmick'? Your current use seems to be "anything that makes SM look strong", which is not a very useful term.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One of the big differences between DAVU and Gladius is that, in Gladius, the vehicles were added firepower/presence - the rest of the list did a lot of the work, too. In DAVU, the vehicles were the list. The DAs were there only so you could take Serpents - and would have been replaced with anything cheaper if possible.

A.T. wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Marines were terrible in 7th. They required 400 free points of razorbacks/rhinos/drop-pods to be competitive.

I could field my 1500pt mechanised sisters list for 1000pts if I took them as marines - enough to ally in a knight with points to spare.
Model for model, gun for gun. And i'd get game long rerolls and a free upgrade to a dude with a combi-disintegrator on top of that.

So 'terrible' is relative, especially as that was by no means the strongest marine list/gimmick of 7th.

Gladius? Wasn't the strongest? Wow...I actually agree with you. However - you are looking at it the wrong way. What if the sisters had gladius formation? That would have been way better because you have better units.

Deathstars were still the strongest and absolutely crushed Gladius.