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Martel732 wrote:


Yes, I am. Because marines have to deal with the giant suits and the stealth gak, too. They should totally have their way with firewarriors.

This is right. In epic scale, the marine army is identical to a 40k army. In 40k the marines’ hard counter to a trio of wraithknights is four marines with multi-meltas, or a flying golf cart with a multi-melta. In their original depictions they are underdogs and usually a second away from being crushed.

There’s nothing in the rules about being a better soldier than the enemy. There’s a bs for hitting a target, but nothing about hitting a target and then immediately retraining on another target, there’s nothing about being ready when the enemy breaks cover to shoot, and then shooting them before they get their own shot off.

Marines have high leadership but there’s no way to use this offensively, even though a disciplined unit has better fire at more coordinated targets instead of a undisciplined unit that fires at will.

The more and more I read these threads the more I think the issue isn't marines it's paying twice for being BS3+.
BS3+ is built into the cost of the platforms of all marine units they then over pay for weapons, take 2 or 3 points of of all marine weapons and that improves marines damage output while not making all of xeno troops the next tac marines.

Ice_can wrote:
The more and more I read these threads the more I think the issue isn't marines it's paying twice for being BS3+.
BS3+ is built into the cost of the platforms of all marine units they then over pay for weapons, take 2 or 3 points of of all marine weapons and that improves marines damage output while not making all of xeno troops the next tac marines.

Anything helps. If this is how you view the mathematical problem, I can't deny it. I don't think this helps the dissy cannon situation, but anything helps.

Having only one base attack sucks balls, though, because assault marines inherit that trait.

I'm ok with Tac Marines having 1A, although 2 would make sense
But Assault Marines should have 2 for sure.

Tac marines having one attack ensures that they are per point one of the worst assault units in the game.

For clarity, I wasn't suggesting 55pt Rhinos instantly makes Marines compete with Guardsmen. I was saying 55pt Rhinos would do more to buff Tacs than might be immediately evident. It'd need to be coupled with other things to bring them back to the top of the meta.

I don't believe I was clear on my intention this time, sorry.

Bharring wrote:
For clarity, I wasn't suggesting 55pt Rhinos instantly makes Marines compete with Guardsmen. I was saying 55pt Rhinos would do more to buff Tacs than might be immediately evident. It'd need to be coupled with other things to bring them back to the top of the meta.

I don't believe I was clear on my intention this time, sorry.

Again, the Rhino is not the problem. It's what's in the Rhino.

Martel732 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
The more and more I read these threads the more I think the issue isn't marines it's paying twice for being BS3+.
BS3+ is built into the cost of the platforms of all marine units they then over pay for weapons, take 2 or 3 points of of all marine weapons and that improves marines damage output while not making all of xeno troops the next tac marines.

Anything helps. If this is how you view the mathematical problem, I can't deny it. I don't think this helps the dissy cannon situation, but anything helps.

Having only one base attack sucks balls, though, because assault marines inherit that trait.

I'm not saying that dissy cannons arn't silly Aldari OP BS shenanigans, but you can't balance things against the most OP BS, buff the poor nerf the OP BS and you get a better balance not just the rolling power creep that has defined 40k for years.
I can get behind the 2A it's just the 2W thing is all sorts of balance braking.

You MUST balance vs the OP shenanigans, because that's what people USE IN PRACTICE. They don't use the crappy models. Also, do you want to go through and find all the things too good at killing marines? I don't. Fix the marines.

If no extra wounds, then it must be power armor horde. Because marines die like grots in the current meta.

Martel732 wrote:
You MUST balance vs the OP shenanigans, because that's what people USE IN PRACTICE. They don't use the crappy models.

I must disagree 100%
No you nerf the OP shenanigans.
If you buff around the most OP outliers no-one but marines and dissi spam can compete, so crons need buffed, guard need buffed, Tau need buffed and orks would get a codex that needs buffs basically on arrival. That is a terrible solution.
Minimal adjustments of the top 10% and bottom 10%-20% brings everyone closer. The closer everyone gets more list varieties are viable the less hard spam of dissi cannons etc is normal. So when something is spammed its obviously rip for immediate NERF hammer.

I guess we'll see what GW does.

I don't think I could list 25 nerfs that, together, make 13 ppm marines good. The 13 ppm marines are that gakky.

Also, I think most non-power armor armies are closer to each other than the power armor armies are to that group.

But you don't have to balance your base unit vs. OP Shennanigans. You just need some solution in the entirety of the codex. (or cdex + FW)

Like I posted in the other thread, Two Devastator Squads with Grav Cannons and Cherub alpha at 40 S5 -3AP D3damage (usually). That's about equivalent to the 40 disintegrator shots.

If there are 10 things. 1 beats the other 9 readily.

Do you buff whatever is #7 up to #1's level?

If you do so, you go from roughly 20% of games being auto-win to roughly 35/40% of games being auto-win.

In other words, "fixing" #7 that way ruins many more games for 5 other factions. So, now #7 can stand up to the 10% of factions that beat it readily. But now 80% of it's games, someone else is now in the auto-lose category.

Bharring wrote:
If there are 10 things. 1 beats the other 9 readily.

Do you buff whatever is #7 up to #1's level?

If you do so, you go from roughly 20% of games being auto-win to roughly 35/40% of games being auto-win.

In other words, "fixing" #7 that way ruins many more games for 5 other factions. So, now #7 can stand up to the 10% of factions that beat it readily. But now 80% of it's games, someone else is now in the auto-lose category.

As I just stated, I think the "nerf the game to tac level" involves far too many changes to be viable.

So we should nerf anything that can't stand up to newly-buffed Tacs? Which, if you go for the strongest unit it the game is... every other unit in the game?

Indirectly nerf every single unit in the game other than Tacs and whatever 1 other unit is top dog, just to make one unit be "good" again?

You get the most mileage out of the fewest buffs/nerfs by hitting the outliers. If you hit the 3 strongest and the 3 weakest, the range of capability will be much tighter than if you take 6 units that are currently mid or low tier and buff them to be top tier.

This is why I say make them 10-11 ppm and be done with it. That's what they are worth. Power armor horde for the win. I don't care about the fluff or the background, really.

If they are gonna die like grots, they should be priced closer to grots. Admit they are a conceptual failure and price them accordingly.

11ppm 2A Tacs feels like a stopgap to wait out bad rules until some major revamp. It doesn't feel like we've done anything to make Tacs feel great. But at that point level, they'd be really effective.

Bharring wrote:
11ppm 2A Tacs feels like a stopgap to wait out bad rules until some major revamp. It doesn't feel like we've done anything to make Tacs feel great. But at that point level, they'd be really effective.

Sure, I'd take what I could get. 10 ppm single attack might be even better. Since they gonna die before they can swing anyway. Because 8th ed.

So that puts primaris down another 3 points. To the 15 point base.

So I guess we are okay with 15 point marines with super bolters and 2 wounds. Just not 14 point marines with crap bolters and 2 wounds.

 Xenomancers wrote:
So that puts primaris down another 3 points. To the 15 point base.

So I guess we are okay with 15 point marines with super bolters and 2 wounds. Just not 14 point marines with crap bolters and 2 wounds.

I doubt they are going to agree to that. They will insist that primaris cost an unfeasible amount of points.

I've got 60 jump BA I can't use in 8th. I'm all for power armor HORDE.

Martel732 wrote:
This is why I say make them 10-11 ppm and be done with it. That's what they are worth. Power armor horde for the win. I don't care about the fluff or the background, really.

If they are gonna die like grots, they should be priced closer to grots. Admit they are a conceptual failure and price them accordingly.

So sisters are what 7ppm thats going to be supper fun games for tau & crons.

Your blindly trying to sell that tac marines need to be competitive against the top 5% of all units so everyone else not spamming that latest undercosted GW codex mistake gets rofl stomped by every marine player in any other game. thats not balance. Thats dowsing balance in gasoline and throwing matches at it.

Sisters stay at 9. That have most of the important features of marines.

You think they are top 5% at 10-11 ppm? That's cute. They're still trash, just less trashy.

And with this change, assault marines still suck, terminators still suck, devastators still suck, etc. I've just got a few more bodies to throw into the Xeno slaughter machine.

"Your blindly trying to sell that tac marines need to be competitive against the top 5% of all units"

No, just that balancing them against Xeno troops will always result in failure.

Ya know what is sad? It looks like GW had this thought (2W Marines) early on when developing 8E.
They also seem to have wanted to make some new Marine models.

But rather than push forward and start 8E with regular Marines having the Primaris stat line with some alternate new sculpts available, GW wussed out and created the Primaris line instead.

I'll say this: terminator armor is better than gravis armor.

No insect, not even close.

Not d3 usually
Not 36" range
Not assault
Not on platforms that can fly
Not on platforms with native -1 to hit
Not on platforms with 14" range
Not on platforms with t6

No it's not even close. On the one hand you rail against comparing units in a vacuum and then the next breath you try to do the same thing.

Two dev squads lose much effectiveness with each wound and they are wounded by everything. They have limited range, penalties for moving, limited movement....

You are honestly trolling at this point because there is no way you have played this game and think that two dev squads with grav cannons at 420 points are the answer to ravagers/raiders/fighters with dissi cannons...Hell 3 ravagers vs your squad kill you and there is nothing you can do about it (kites you @ 34" and shoots you until you die, which takes two turns for 3 ravagers who cost less than your useless grav devs...)

Now tell me how you hide them out of LOS and execute the perfect scissors trap to kill them with your tac squads coming out of rhinos that don't die to lances/blasters on the way in because your brilliant force concentration and drop podding sternguard...

Martel732 wrote:
I'll say this: terminator armor is better than gravis armor.

In terms of rules AND sculpts

bananathug wrote:
No insect, not even close.

Not d3 usually
Not 36" range
Not assault
Not on platforms that can fly
Not on platforms with native -1 to hit
Not on platforms with 14" range
Not on platforms with t6

No it's not even close. On the one hand you rail against comparing units in a vacuum and then the next breath you try to do the same thing.

Two dev squads lose much effectiveness with each wound and they are wounded by everything. They have limited range, penalties for moving, limited movement....

You are honestly trolling at this point because there is no way you have played this game and think that two dev squads with grav cannons at 420 points are the answer to ravagers/raiders/fighters with dissi cannons...Hell 3 ravagers vs your squad kill you and there is nothing you can do about it (kites you @ 34" and shoots you until you die, which takes two turns for 3 ravagers who cost less than your useless grav devs...)

Now tell me how you hide them out of LOS and execute the perfect scissors trap to kill them with your tac squads coming out of rhinos that don't die to lances/blasters on the way in because your brilliant force concentration and drop podding sternguard...

Hold up there and slow your roll. Can you point to where I said they were on equivalent units? Did I say that they were the answer to said units? I simply pointed out that marines can fairly easily achieve a similar level of firepower. Load them in Pods and it's very deliverable. Throw in a Chapter Master and you're more than offsetting the -1 moving hit.

If anything this should point out that it's not 40 Disintegrator shots that's the problem, but the distribution of them on squirrely units. So that's a bigger picture than originally portrayed. SM could drive that number to 80 shots without much trouble, though I'm pretty sure that's not the best idea.

(But if you're really curious, the way to hide Devastators out of LOS is Drop Pods. )

Martel732 wrote:
Sisters stay at 9. That have most of the important features of marines.

You think they are top 5% at 10-11 ppm? That's cute. They're still trash, just less trashy.

And with this change, assault marines still suck, terminators still suck, devastators still suck, etc. I've just got a few more bodies to throw into the Xeno slaughter machine.

"Your blindly trying to sell that tac marines need to be competitive against the top 5% of all units"

No, just that balancing them against Xeno troops will always result in failure.

No I said your balancing them against the top outlier units

Drukari
Aldari
Imperial Soup
Chaos Soup


Mono Guard
Tau
Orks
Sisters
Necrons
Knights

Dark Angels
Blood Angles

Vanilla Marines


Grey Knights

Balance tacs against Aeldari and you screw 90% of non marine players.

Everyone in the 2nd teir gets screwed and imperial soup jumps to the OP outlier. Cheers for crowning a new OP mess that's like 7th edition.

nerf group 1 down to group 2
buff group 3/4 up to group 2

You then have a large group of viable Codex's instead of just a group of 1or 2 OP soup lists and a second tier that might be competitive.

What you're supposed to do is buff/nerf according the decent units in your codex. Those would be the units that, while they don't actively hurt your list and they can probably perform, you're likely better off with a better choice.

Right now Vanilla Marines, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels are in a strange spot, as they don't have these units. It's either good or bust. The only real example I can think up would be the some of the Vets but that's about it. Every other codex doesn't suffer this issue because, as Martel did correctly point out, nobody else bases their units around a particular type of model and then price accordingly. CSM sorta does, but then has more differing units like Possessed and Obliterators and the Cult Marines.

 Galef wrote:
Ya know what is sad? It looks like GW had this thought (2W Marines) early on when developing 8E.
They also seem to have wanted to make some new Marine models.

But rather than push forward and start 8E with regular Marines having the Primaris stat line with some alternate new sculpts available, GW wussed out and created the Primaris line instead.

Yup, that's what happened. We lost so much with Primaris... Marines as unique and varied as we've known for ever will never be the same. If the meta shifts towards the Primaris statline, I will just play my painted classic marines as primaris. Sorry GW