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 Arachnofiend wrote:
As I've said before, never has there been a Necron player who whined about how bad Necrons were in 7th because we relied on the Decurion to work.

The big difference between Decurion and Gladius is massive. Decurion gave you at least some list building freedom. Gladius forced you to take lots of crap units to get more crap units. At the end of the day though 2250 points of space marine trash is better than the best 1850 space marine list you could possible make taking the best choices.

Decurion made Necrons play like Necrons wanted them to play. They had some required choices but had a lot of freedom with what they could include. People got genuinely excited about playing necrons.

You mean Marine players don't want to field Tacs, Devs, and ASM? Really?

I get your central point, but it's quite limited. There was plenty in the Decurion Necrons didn't want to field. And the CWE lists are only more what CWE want to play than SM lists were what SM wanted to play when you're an SM player and not a CWE player.

Bharring wrote:
You mean Marine players don't want to field Tacs, Devs, and ASM? Really?

I get your central point, but it's quite limited. There was plenty in the Decurion Necrons didn't want to field. And the CWE lists are only more what CWE want to play than SM lists were what SM wanted to play when you're an SM player and not a CWE player.

Exactly. Plus, Gladius actually allowed for a good amount of freedom. Really, the only truly mandatory unit were 6 units of tac marines. Every other 'slot' had at least two options (FA had something like 5 options), then you could pick from well over a dozen aux and command formations to fill out the rest.

Contrast to Eldar formation, where you had 3 core choices, but each core choice option was strictly dictated exactly what had to be taken.

 Blacksails wrote:

Bharring wrote:
You mean Marine players don't want to field Tacs, Devs, and ASM? Really?

I get your central point, but it's quite limited. There was plenty in the Decurion Necrons didn't want to field. And the CWE lists are only more what CWE want to play than SM lists were what SM wanted to play when you're an SM player and not a CWE player.

Exactly. Plus, Gladius actually allowed for a good amount of freedom. Really, the only truly mandatory unit were 6 units of tac marines. Every other 'slot' had at least two options (FA had something like 5 options), then you could pick from well over a dozen aux and command formations to fill out the rest.

Contrast to Eldar formation, where you had 3 core choices, but each core choice option was strictly dictated exactly what had to be taken.

Hey man, maybe 1000pts of my army was completely dictated, but I got SIX free power swords and melta guns out of the deal. SIX! What army can compete with that, thats like 100 free points of stuff!


oh.

Right.

 Vaktathi wrote:
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.

Lootas were absolute murder in 7th were they?

A unit of 5 Lootas (A Depleted squad) can dish out 10 shots on average, for 3.33 hit and against AV 11 that is 1/6th chance to Glance and a 1/3rd chance to Pen. They didn't have AP2 or 1 so no + to explode which means ZERO chance to kill it outright, So when you say they were murder what you mean is that they were capable of inflicting 1 HP of damage a turn with 5 of them. They also didn't benefit from Mob Rule and died or ran away when shot. So no, they didn't "absolute murder" anything. And that is against AV11, against AV 12 it went down to 1/6th chance to Glance and 1/6th chance to pen.

Conversely a unit of 15 Lootas was capable of putting out 30 shots on average, 10 hits and 5 glances/pens on an AV 11 vehicle, unless they had any number of bonuses like cover night fighting, or invuln saves. Against an AV12 vehicle that went down to 2.5 on average

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
As I've said before, never has there been a Necron player who whined about how bad Necrons were in 7th because we relied on the Decurion to work.

The big difference between Decurion and Gladius is massive. Decurion gave you at least some list building freedom. Gladius forced you to take lots of crap units to get more crap units. At the end of the day though 2250 points of space marine trash is better than the best 1850 space marine list you could possible make taking the best choices.

Decurion made Necrons play like Necrons wanted them to play. They had some required choices but had a lot of freedom with what they could include. People got genuinely excited about playing necrons.

Wasn't the Gladius the one where if I bought an assault cannon razorback, I got a free combat squad with a las cannon or plasma?
So if I'm going to be taking lots of razorbacks, what's wrong with free units?

And yes, I know the book actually said it was the other way around, but the posts costs are very similar between the two.

Xenomancer is giving me a headache.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
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.

Lootas were absolute murder in 7th were they?

A unit of 5 Lootas (A Depleted squad) can dish out 10 shots on average, for 3.33 hit and against AV 11 that is 1/6th chance to Glance and a 1/3rd chance to Pen. They didn't have AP2 or 1 so no + to explode which means ZERO chance to kill it outright, So when you say they were murder what you mean is that they were capable of inflicting 1 HP of damage a turn with 5 of them.

Lets put that in some context. While they give up the 1/9 chance on any successful hit to explode that a Lascannon enjoys vs AV11, that depleted 5man unit is exceeding a trio of BS3 Lascannons for HP damage output by almost a third (1.66 HP's for the Lootas, 1.25 HP's for the Lascannons, and you sure weren't getting a trio of those for 75pts even for Guard), and odds are you'll kill the target through HP loss by the time you'd land an Explodes result with the Lascannons most of the time either way. Compared to an IG Heavy Weapons squad with autocannons for the same cost as 5 Lootas, the guardsmen are easier to kill and break, and are only averaging only 3 hits a turn vs the Lootas 3.33, and are more vulnerable to S6+ weaponry (a single S6+ hit forces an Ld7 break test), while 75pts gets you naked 5 Chaos Havocs wondering who looted their autocannons, a naked Predator Destructor, a "we forgot how to shoot at the ground" Hydra, a couple of Autocannon sentinels (not quite two armored ones), half a Russ Exterminator, Two thirds of a Rifleman Dread? Maybe two MP crisis suits or a single scatterlaserspamming War Walker?

Yeah the lack of Mob Rule sucked, but when they got to do their thing they were great long range fire support.

Conversely a unit of 15 Lootas was capable of putting out 30 shots on average, 10 hits and 5 glances/pens on an AV 11 vehicle, unless they had any number of bonuses like cover night fighting, or invuln saves. Against an AV12 vehicle that went down to 2.5 on average

Against AV12 that should average to 3.33 (30 shots, 10 hits, 1.66 glances, 1.66 pens, 3.33 total HP's), either way though we can average to 3. This means that, barring cover saves (which affects everything), on average such a unit would kill any light or medium 3HP vehicle (80%+ of vehicles in the game) in a single round of fire at up to 48". Relative to most other autocannon-esque platforms that's a pretty good damage output for the points invested, and, with snapshots, had more mitigation to the accuracy loss than other armies when moving.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Wasn't the Gladius the one where if I bought an assault cannon razorback, I got a free combat squad with a las cannon or plasma?

Gladius was free rhinos/razorbacks(including infernums in theory)/drop pods, obsec for everything, and three extra turns of doctrine rerolls.

IIRC for a little under 1000 points you got 57 infantry and 11 vehicles including the optional Centos(if ultramarines) and Imperial Marine. Special weapons and grav cannons were extra.

I'm not game to take the bait that is getting into an argument about it with some of the more vocal people on here, but I just want to say that I've seen way too many threads in my lifetime of people pretending Gladius wasn't a top tier formation. Why is it always one group of players so insistent on this fact...

Because some people like to pretend they're victims.

 ShredderShards wrote:
I'm not game to take the bait that is getting into an argument about it with some of the more vocal people on here, but I just want to say that I've seen way too many threads in my lifetime of people pretending Gladius wasn't a top tier formation. Why is it always one group of players so insistent on this fact...

You have to understand the canon of the Dakka Expanded Universe a little bit. When you read things by certain posters, you have to understand the perspective of the alternate reality that those posters exist in. You might read a post and say "wait, that has no bearing on objective reality" but remember this is the INTERNET, and everyone exists in their own reality (which you can't possibly disregard as unrealistic because You Dont Know Them)

Allow me to familiarize you with a few of the groups:

The Casual Police State Resistance: These players exist in a twisted universe where all tactical thought and competitive list-building has been banned with an irrevocable penalty of exile. Dakka is the only place where these poor individuals can exist in anonymity free of their oppressive overlords The Enforced Casual Gaming Group. If they were ever to display any hint of competitive acumen to this BeernPretzelstapo, they would be irrevocably exiled and unable to ever again play 40k (in fact, this may have already happened to some posters). Their only recourse is to attempt to spread the gospel of Why Powergaming Is Perfectly Good and Should Be Encouraged online, hoping one day to change the course of history.

The Eternal Victims of the Ninth Circle of Powergaming Hell: The mirror universe, if you will, of the Casual Police State, the Victims exist in an anarchic society where they have seen the utter collapse of any and all unspoken rules of conduct for gaming. They, alone in their world, adore and adhere to the fluff of their army, lovingly painting their collection which they slowly accumulate by saving up spare pennies scrounged from the couch cushions and found in the laundry. Once every decade when they can afford a GW kit, they assemble and permanently glue it based solely on the appearance and aesthetic of the model, knowing it would be dishonorable to think any impure thoughts about tactical use or in-game power while creating a work of art. Sadly, their gaming group does not share this sentiment. They ruthlessly exploit every rules loophole and broken unit combo solely for the joy of crushing the fluff and dreams of the Victim.

The Virtuous Paragon: Surrounded by a cackling legion of negative jackals who complain and jeer endlessly at every effort by GW to improve the game, the Virtuous Paragon must resort to vigiliante-style positivity online. He has seen his playerbase cut down from thousands of joyful, jovial lovers of the Great Games Workshop Hobby down to a mere handful of unjustifiably negative and bitter complainers. He is the last of his kind. He must warn those who may seek to create a community elsewhere, and he must take to the internet to do Battle with those who would ceaselessly kvetch and moan about every single problem with the game.

The Persecuted Faction Die-Hard: Similar to the Victim, but distinct in that this poster has chosen just one single faction to dedicate his life and existence to, and his evil gaming group have taken to exploiting every Unfair and Cruel counter that may exist within the game to destroy them. If they play a Marine faction, every game is against 500 plasma guns and army-wide AP-4. If they play orks, impenetrable gunlines bristling with high-rate of fire anti infantry weapons tear apart their army in two turns. All theoretical opponents possess all possible countermeasures to any suggested tactic that might be proposed or any change in strategy that could be conceived. it doesn't matter what some tournament players have managed, THEIRS is the worst faction in the game, and any that disagree are clearly and terribly wrong.

Definitely one of the better posts I've read in recent memory.

the_scotsman wrote:

 ShredderShards wrote:
I'm not game to take the bait that is getting into an argument about it with some of the more vocal people on here, but I just want to say that I've seen way too many threads in my lifetime of people pretending Gladius wasn't a top tier formation. Why is it always one group of players so insistent on this fact...

You have to understand the canon of the Dakka Expanded Universe a little bit. When you read things by certain posters, you have to understand the perspective of the alternate reality that those posters exist in. You might read a post and say "wait, that has no bearing on objective reality" but remember this is the INTERNET, and everyone exists in their own reality (which you can't possibly disregard as unrealistic because You Dont Know Them)

Allow me to familiarize you with a few of the groups:

The Casual Police State Resistance: These players exist in a twisted universe where all tactical thought and competitive list-building has been banned with an irrevocable penalty of exile. Dakka is the only place where these poor individuals can exist in anonymity free of their oppressive overlords The Enforced Casual Gaming Group. If they were ever to display any hint of competitive acumen to this BeernPretzelstapo, they would be irrevocably exiled and unable to ever again play 40k (in fact, this may have already happened to some posters). Their only recourse is to attempt to spread the gospel of Why Powergaming Is Perfectly Good and Should Be Encouraged online, hoping one day to change the course of history.

The Eternal Victims of the Ninth Circle of Powergaming Hell: The mirror universe, if you will, of the Casual Police State, the Victims exist in an anarchic society where they have seen the utter collapse of any and all unspoken rules of conduct for gaming. They, alone in their world, adore and adhere to the fluff of their army, lovingly painting their collection which they slowly accumulate by saving up spare pennies scrounged from the couch cushions and found in the laundry. Once every decade when they can afford a GW kit, they assemble and permanently glue it based solely on the appearance and aesthetic of the model, knowing it would be dishonorable to think any impure thoughts about tactical use or in-game power while creating a work of art. Sadly, their gaming group does not share this sentiment. They ruthlessly exploit every rules loophole and broken unit combo solely for the joy of crushing the fluff and dreams of the Victim.

The Virtuous Paragon: Surrounded by a cackling legion of negative jackals who complain and jeer endlessly at every effort by GW to improve the game, the Virtuous Paragon must resort to vigiliante-style positivity online. He has seen his playerbase cut down from thousands of joyful, jovial lovers of the Great Games Workshop Hobby down to a mere handful of unjustifiably negative and bitter complainers. He is the last of his kind. He must warn those who may seek to create a community elsewhere, and he must take to the internet to do Battle with those who would ceaselessly kvetch and moan about every single problem with the game.

The Persecuted Faction Die-Hard: Similar to the Victim, but distinct in that this poster has chosen just one single faction to dedicate his life and existence to, and his evil gaming group have taken to exploiting every Unfair and Cruel counter that may exist within the game to destroy them. If they play a Marine faction, every game is against 500 plasma guns and army-wide AP-4. If they play orks, impenetrable gunlines bristling with high-rate of fire anti infantry weapons tear apart their army in two turns. All theoretical opponents possess all possible countermeasures to any suggested tactic that might be proposed or any change in strategy that could be conceived. it doesn't matter what some tournament players have managed, THEIRS is the worst faction in the game, and any that disagree are clearly and terribly wrong.

This is all spot on, exalted.

Bharring wrote:
You mean Marine players don't want to field Tacs, Devs, and ASM? Really?

I get your central point, but it's quite limited. There was plenty in the Decurion Necrons didn't want to field. And the CWE lists are only more what CWE want to play than SM lists were what SM wanted to play when you're an SM player and not a CWE player.

LOL marine players did want to take min trash units to get a trash vehical for free. You ofc are missing the point entirely. Gladius played like imperial guard - it was a strong formation but to max it out you were forced to do this. Plus even then - with all these free points - YOU WERE STILL OUTGUNNED by Eldar. You were helpless against deathstars (because you can't even fit a librarian in this formation if you are trying to get the most out of it). The only thing this formation was good at was sitting on objectives - which seems to be the only thing people think marines should be good at - standing in cover and dying. It's pathetic.

Hey, I resemble those.

Scotsmen left out an important group.

Perpetual marine haters - They literally seek out posts about marines to undermine how bad they suck. Probably because they feel their army is historically worse off than marines. When In fact - marines have been near the bottom in terms of power in every edition relying on gimmicks to stay relevant with horrendously over-costed units in a game that is designed to make their units irrelevant. Typically they play orks or imperial guard almost exclusively.

This is exactly why you are one of my favourite posters on Dakkadakka, exalted!.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Bharring wrote:
You mean Marine players don't want to field Tacs, Devs, and ASM? Really?

I get your central point, but it's quite limited. There was plenty in the Decurion Necrons didn't want to field. And the CWE lists are only more what CWE want to play than SM lists were what SM wanted to play when you're an SM player and not a CWE player.

LOL marine players did want to take min trash units to get a trash vehical for free. You ofc are missing the point entirely. Gladius played like imperial guard - it was a strong formation but to max it out you were forced to do this. Plus even then - with all these free points - YOU WERE STILL OUTGUNNED by Eldar. You were helpless against deathstars (because you can't even fit a librarian in this formation if you are trying to get the most out of it). The only thing this formation was good at was sitting on objectives - which seems to be the only thing people think marines should be good at - standing in cover and dying. It's pathetic.

The fact that it was beaten by what was (arguably) the most OP thing in the game doesn't make it less OP itself.

For example if Eldar can take a weapon that costs 3 points and has infinite range and deals 3d6 mortal wounds to every unit in sight that's OP. But if Marines had a version of that weapon that deals 2d6 mortal wounds within 120" costing 10pts that would be less OP and beaten outright by the Eldar version. But it's still OP.

pm713 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Bharring wrote:
You mean Marine players don't want to field Tacs, Devs, and ASM? Really?

I get your central point, but it's quite limited. There was plenty in the Decurion Necrons didn't want to field. And the CWE lists are only more what CWE want to play than SM lists were what SM wanted to play when you're an SM player and not a CWE player.

LOL marine players did want to take min trash units to get a trash vehical for free. You ofc are missing the point entirely. Gladius played like imperial guard - it was a strong formation but to max it out you were forced to do this. Plus even then - with all these free points - YOU WERE STILL OUTGUNNED by Eldar. You were helpless against deathstars (because you can't even fit a librarian in this formation if you are trying to get the most out of it). The only thing this formation was good at was sitting on objectives - which seems to be the only thing people think marines should be good at - standing in cover and dying. It's pathetic.

The fact that it was beaten by what was (arguably) the most OP thing in the game doesn't make it less OP itself.

For example if Eldar can take a weapon that costs 3 points and has infinite range and deals 3d6 mortal wounds to every unit in sight that's OP. But if Marines had a version of that weapon that deals 2d6 mortal wounds within 120" costing 10pts that would be less OP and beaten outright by the Eldar version. But it's still OP.

But thats the thing here. It doesn't matter how OP its your own stuff. If isn't literally the MOST Op thing out there, is garbage..

pm713 wrote:

The fact that it was beaten by what was (arguably) the most OP thing in the game doesn't make it less OP itself.

That is litterly what it means. There is place only for one dude at the top.

Karol wrote:

pm713 wrote:

The fact that it was beaten by what was (arguably) the most OP thing in the game doesn't make it less OP itself.

That is litterly what it means. There is place only for one dude at the top.

It's really not. Being OP isn't something only one army build can be.

Karol wrote:

pm713 wrote:

The fact that it was beaten by what was (arguably) the most OP thing in the game doesn't make it less OP itself.

That is litterly what it means. There is place only for one dude at the top.

Over-Powered only means it is over the average and what is acceptable in a balanced context. It has no relation with being the MOST powerfull option.

 Galas wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Bharring wrote:
You mean Marine players don't want to field Tacs, Devs, and ASM? Really?

I get your central point, but it's quite limited. There was plenty in the Decurion Necrons didn't want to field. And the CWE lists are only more what CWE want to play than SM lists were what SM wanted to play when you're an SM player and not a CWE player.

LOL marine players did want to take min trash units to get a trash vehical for free. You ofc are missing the point entirely. Gladius played like imperial guard - it was a strong formation but to max it out you were forced to do this. Plus even then - with all these free points - YOU WERE STILL OUTGUNNED by Eldar. You were helpless against deathstars (because you can't even fit a librarian in this formation if you are trying to get the most out of it). The only thing this formation was good at was sitting on objectives - which seems to be the only thing people think marines should be good at - standing in cover and dying. It's pathetic.

The fact that it was beaten by what was (arguably) the most OP thing in the game doesn't make it less OP itself.

For example if Eldar can take a weapon that costs 3 points and has infinite range and deals 3d6 mortal wounds to every unit in sight that's OP. But if Marines had a version of that weapon that deals 2d6 mortal wounds within 120" costing 10pts that would be less OP and beaten outright by the Eldar version. But it's still OP.

But that's the thing here. It doesn't matter how OP its your own stuff. If isn't literally the MOST Op thing out there, is garbage..

Imbalance is garbage. It's most obvious when you have the exact same rule but it's better and has bonuses in the other army.

Like currently with eldar compared to marines. For 2CP Forewarned has unlimited range and full BS (you just need to be standing 6" near a farseer. It can be any unit (including a superheavy tank). Auspex scan 2 CP. 12" range - infantry only - you shoot at -1 BS.

uhhhh????

How about DE flayed skull (Fly units (this can essentially be your who army) gain ignore cover/ reroll 1's including for inside transport / +3 movement stat)
Imperial fists - ignore cover / rerolls against fortifications (fortifications? WTF) infantry biker dread only (yeah your vehicals can't access this because reasons)

I could go on and on and on about this from edition to edition.

Scotsman.
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Always a pleasure to read your posts.

Galas,
The standing definition of "trash" is "anything worse than what I want to play. The standing definition of "OP" is "anything better than what I want to play".

Xeno,
I think you're missing the point I was trying to make. You might not want to play [gladius | skyhammer | bikespam | gravspam | obsecspam | centstar | scoutspam | superfriends]. Fair enough.

The argument that the OP SM options don't allow for what an SM player might want to play isn't something I disagreed with. It's your insistence that all those options mean you can't play what you want coupled with [ davu | scatterbikes | spiderspam | wk | seercouncil ] somehow magically being exactly what CWE players want to play.

How, pray tell, do you support that assertion?

It bothers me to no end, having been both a CWE and SM player in that era.

I never said gladius wasn't good. I just said superfriends was better and that gladius is just another gimick. Essentially a bandaid fix for some of the most trash units in the game.

You've also said that we should discount SM OP gak because it's gimmicky and not what SM players want to play, whereas CWE OP gak is what CWE players want to play.

I thought my post was very clear on that being the subject of my post, not whether Gladius was OP.

This basically gets back to the difference between the impossibility of perfect balance and the achieveable goal of maximum competitive diversity. A competitive environment is going to consist of models that are above the average power level. That's more or less the reward for understanding how the game works. If something is sufficiently powerful enough to reduce the competitive variety to basically itself and maybe some niche counters; that's OP. If something is just the powerful option that adds to an environment of similarly powerful options... that's pretty much how competitive environments exist.

This message brought to you by the C.P.S.R.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Scotsmen left out an important group.

Perpetual marine haters - They literally seek out posts about marines to undermine how bad they suck. Probably because they feel their army is historically worse off than marines. When In fact - marines have been near the bottom in terms of power in every edition relying on gimmicks to stay relevant with horrendously over-costed units in a game that is designed to make their units irrelevant. Typically they play orks or imperial guard almost exclusively.

That's right. How dare they fail to take into account the DEU canon that the poster hails from that informs the nature of their reality and determines the location of the goalposts of a given discussion.

Pro tip: if you're looking to construct an ad hominem line of attack on me specifically, it's not a smart idea to try and figure out "my army". As people from most of the tactics threads have learned, I've been in this hobby for 15+ years, and I play or have played nearly everything. Including marines. I just base my observations on relative faction power on a basis of reality that seems to be shared by a larger number of people.

Also, it may be possible to determine (maybe by looking at titles of posts) whether you are in fact being followed around by a posse of people aiming to attack Space Marine threads, or whether threads might become Space Marine threads when you enter them. Hypothetically of course.

That is a very reasonable and thoughtful way to discriminate between "good" and "OP"/"broken". I'm not sure that it's what I would use (example of a problem - if there exists 1 OP army + its current counter-lists, and an army comes out that is that army +1, it adds options to the environment, but I'd still call it OP not good).

By that metric, or by what i consider a reasonable good-faith approximation of it, I'd say CWE is the book that is most commonly OP, but not all that commonly good. And SM is the book that is most commonly good, but not as commonly OP as CWE. Does that sound right to you, Lunar?

All hes doing is comparing SM to Eldar, the arguable best army in the game for many editions. Just because they arnt as good as them doesnt make them "always" bad (which is what this thread is about btw, not who is bad this edition)