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 ClockworkZion wrote:
Primaris are successful in certain armies: namely Dark Angels (Hellblasters) and Ultramarines armies with Guilliman (since Fire Base Guilliman still works reasonably well). Reavers can work for Blood Angels, but most people look for other options who have wider melee options.

Literally anything is good with Roboute. Rerolling everything kinda makes your damage output good when you got the aura like he does.

Reivers still need at minimum a point of AP on their Combat Blades. That alone would make them slightly more attractive.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Primaris are successful in certain armies: namely Dark Angels (Hellblasters) and Ultramarines armies with Guilliman (since Fire Base Guilliman still works reasonably well). Reavers can work for Blood Angels, but most people look for other options who have wider melee options.

Literally anything is good with Roboute. Rerolling everything kinda makes your damage output good when you got the aura like he does.

Reivers still need at minimum a point of AP on their Combat Blades. That alone would make them slightly more attractive.

Roboute is too expensive for what he provides.

If you go second, you're toast. If you go first, you'll potentially do ok. It's not the recipe for sustained success.

Every unit is magnified in offensive firepower but also magnified in relative cost when slain... as you have 25% less army when he's in there.

“Aggressors are good” and “SM are a low-mid tier army” are mutually compatible beliefs. You need more than a great horde clearing unit to sustain a competitive faction, of course.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Primaris are successful in certain armies: namely Dark Angels (Hellblasters) and Ultramarines armies with Guilliman (since Fire Base Guilliman still works reasonably well). Reavers can work for Blood Angels, but most people look for other options who have wider melee options.

Literally anything is good with Roboute. Rerolling everything kinda makes your damage output good when you got the aura like he does.

Reivers still need at minimum a point of AP on their Combat Blades. That alone would make them slightly more attractive.

I agree with the ap on the combat blade, but how do you feel about the carbine?

Personally I think it's too similar to the assault bolt rifle(because it's the same profile). Do you think rivers having Ap on their carbines would be too much? Ap - 1 or assault 3 no ap just to make it different.

 fraser1191 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Primaris are successful in certain armies: namely Dark Angels (Hellblasters) and Ultramarines armies with Guilliman (since Fire Base Guilliman still works reasonably well). Reavers can work for Blood Angels, but most people look for other options who have wider melee options.

Literally anything is good with Roboute. Rerolling everything kinda makes your damage output good when you got the aura like he does.

Reivers still need at minimum a point of AP on their Combat Blades. That alone would make them slightly more attractive.

I agree with the ap on the combat blade, but how do you feel about the carbine?

Personally I think it's too similar to the assault bolt rifle(because it's the same profile). Do you think rivers having Ap on their carbines would be too much? Ap - 1 or assault 3 no ap just to make it different.

I would think Assault 3 would suffice. Does that need a point increase by 1 or nah?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Primaris are successful in certain armies: namely Dark Angels (Hellblasters) and Ultramarines armies with Guilliman (since Fire Base Guilliman still works reasonably well). Reavers can work for Blood Angels, but most people look for other options who have wider melee options.

Literally anything is good with Roboute. Rerolling everything kinda makes your damage output good when you got the aura like he does.

Reivers still need at minimum a point of AP on their Combat Blades. That alone would make them slightly more attractive.

Roboute is too expensive for what he provides.

If you go second, you're toast. If you go first, you'll potentially do ok. It's not the recipe for sustained success.

Every unit is magnified in offensive firepower but also magnified in relative cost when slain... as you have 25% less army when he's in there.

He REALLY isn't. He's finally at the appropriate price if anything.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Primaris are successful in certain armies: namely Dark Angels (Hellblasters) and Ultramarines armies with Guilliman (since Fire Base Guilliman still works reasonably well). Reavers can work for Blood Angels, but most people look for other options who have wider melee options.

Literally anything is good with Roboute. Rerolling everything kinda makes your damage output good when you got the aura like he does.

Reivers still need at minimum a point of AP on their Combat Blades. That alone would make them slightly more attractive.

Roboute is too expensive for what he provides.

If you go second, you're toast. If you go first, you'll potentially do ok. It's not the recipe for sustained success.

Every unit is magnified in offensive firepower but also magnified in relative cost when slain... as you have 25% less army when he's in there.

He REALLY isn't. He's finally at the appropriate price if anything.

The issue is does Bobby G alone at 400 points perform like a 400point model? Not really or atleast not a competitive one.
Does Bobby G surrounded by appropriate weapons for the respective targets perform like a 400 point model? Close but casual games only.
Does Bobby G surrounded by 1.5k of models abusing the aura buffs make him work 400 points? Yes, however you can bet any list not built to maximise abuse of Bobby G's aura is gonna suck.

So he's only worth his points if you build an entire 2k list to exploit one build.

OK so what you describe is a well costed model then? Balance revolves around how a model plays when used well, not when used poorly. As it stands he's a 400 point model who makes an entire build work, one that sees success at the highest levels of the game. He is not overcosted at all, he just might not be right for every single thing you may want to do with the codex as a whole.

 SHUPPET wrote:
OK so what you describe is a well costed model then? Balance revolves around how a model plays when used well, not when used poorly. As it stands he's a 400 point model who makes an entire build work, one that sees success at the highest levels of the game. He is not overcosted at all, he just might not be right for every single thing you may want to do with the codex as a whole.

The answer is incredibly simple don't use shonky aura buffs that can't be priced appropriately as it throws the points costing of the rest of the codex to heck in a handbasket. If they had stopped and thought about how to balance the codex with and without Bobby G for more than a nano second or maybe playtested the first codex of the most playtested edition. It's really poor game design when you reward players more for making bad match up choices.

This, assault cannon razorbacks were nerfed because of this build, and a lot of armies (like Grey Knights) paid the price, despite never really utilizing these to even remotely close to the same effect.

Yeah, as long as G-Man exist space marines will never be able to be properly fixed because if you make space marines without Bobby G balanced and competitive, with Gorillaman they become ultra bonkers.

You can just keep making Bobby G more expensive, which is what they’ve done. At some point he won’t be much stronger than just taking more guns.

phydaux wrote:
So is the consensus that only Space Marines & Grey Knights are the only "bad" codexes, and GM learned from their mistakes via feedback and all subsequent Codexes have been decent?

The Space Marine Codex was the start of all releases and ever since then its been power creep, except for grey knights..

Space Marines nearly 85% of their list is unplayable.

The SM book is always going to have some useless units because, being SM, they have like six units for each tiny little role.

Ice_can wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
OK so what you describe is a well costed model then? Balance revolves around how a model plays when used well, not when used poorly. As it stands he's a 400 point model who makes an entire build work, one that sees success at the highest levels of the game. He is not overcosted at all, he just might not be right for every single thing you may want to do with the codex as a whole.

The answer is incredibly simple don't use shonky aura buffs that can't be priced appropriately as it throws the points costing of the rest of the codex to heck in a handbasket. If they had stopped and thought about how to balance the codex with and without Bobby G for more than a nano second or maybe playtested the first codex of the most playtested edition. It's really poor game design when you reward players more for making bad match up choices.

Lol nope, that's not the answer because nothing you mentioned in this rant ever came into question at any point so far

The answer is "yes he's a strong unit"

 SHUPPET wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
OK so what you describe is a well costed model then? Balance revolves around how a model plays when used well, not when used poorly. As it stands he's a 400 point model who makes an entire build work, one that sees success at the highest levels of the game. He is not overcosted at all, he just might not be right for every single thing you may want to do with the codex as a whole.

The answer is incredibly simple don't use shonky aura buffs that can't be priced appropriately as it throws the points costing of the rest of the codex to heck in a handbasket. If they had stopped and thought about how to balance the codex with and without Bobby G for more than a nano second or maybe playtested the first codex of the most playtested edition. It's really poor game design when you reward players more for making bad match up choices.

Lol nope, that's not the answer because nothing you mentioned in this rant ever came into question at any point so far

The answer is "yes he's a strong unit"

Does Bobby G play like a 400 point model in a 1.5K point game no he doesn't. Does he play like a 400 point model at 3K or more No he doesn't. So the point stands at no points level will the aura buff be balanced as it's worth is too dependent on the rest of the list being built to exploit it. Also the ability to abuse the buff by building a castle and never moving also comes into how effective the army is and hence how much it's worth as it's not worth any points if you have to move out of it to hold objectives. So it's worth is also mission dependent.

Ice_can wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
OK so what you describe is a well costed model then? Balance revolves around how a model plays when used well, not when used poorly. As it stands he's a 400 point model who makes an entire build work, one that sees success at the highest levels of the game. He is not overcosted at all, he just might not be right for every single thing you may want to do with the codex as a whole.

The answer is incredibly simple don't use shonky aura buffs that can't be priced appropriately as it throws the points costing of the rest of the codex to heck in a handbasket. If they had stopped and thought about how to balance the codex with and without Bobby G for more than a nano second or maybe playtested the first codex of the most playtested edition. It's really poor game design when you reward players more for making bad match up choices.

Lol nope, that's not the answer because nothing you mentioned in this rant ever came into question at any point so far

The answer is "yes he's a strong unit"

Does Bobby G play like a 400 point model in a 1.5K point game no he doesn't. Does he play like a 400 point model at 3K or more No he doesn't. So the point stands at no points level will the aura buff be balanced as it's worth is too dependent on the rest of the list being built to exploit it. Also the ability to abuse the biff by building a castle and never moving also comes into how effective the army is and hence how much it's worth as it's not worth any points if you have to move out of it to hold objectives.

Maybe your point does stand. But at no stage did anyone bar yourself mention, disagree, or comment on that point.

This is entirely you injecting something unrelated to the discussion so you can bitch about game design.

What was in question was the claim that in competitive play, Roboute is too expensive for what he provides. The answer to that is quite simply, nah. He ain't. Maybe that's wrong and I'm all ears as to why, but talking about how well he is designed, or pointing at different game modes nobody plays, doesn't invalidate his gameplay strength in the one everyone does. So framing as that it's some sort of counter or even response to what I said is a fallacy.

I think his poor design is a part of the equation, though. His aura is too much of a force multiplier that it can only be "balanced" at it's highest level of synergy with units the SM can access.

He's really only worth 400 points if you pile a bunch of high rate of fire low-med Str shooting units around him, ideally ones that move and still fire without the normal penalties. Fire raptors and repulsers, namely.

You also pretty much have to go first in order to not lose any of these units and suffer a significant reduction of firepower, since he is taking up 400 points of the list. The low model count helps this though.

So sure, if you can meet all of those very specific criteria, he might be worth his points, but if you don't, he certainly isn't. That seems like a pretty big asterisk to put after the "yes he's worth 400 points."

His current cost feels like a bandaid until they can put in some time to rewrite his rules to something that isn't as difficult to balance in a more quantifiable way.

Realistically nothing scales quite as well as players tend to believe. Durability is something that changes drastically as point levels change and the ability for an expensive model to be taken off the board before it activates is very much a factor of how much stuff gets to attack it in one turn. It's worth noting that Guilliman's personal impact on the game can be a lot higher at lower point levels.

That said, he's a very problematic model, not necessarily because space marines are clearly designed around him, but because space marines are universally designed around him, but he's restricted to one specific flavor of something that comes in many, many flavors. I don't think that's a secret to anyone; just something that will get repeated until they get around to fixing it.

 Asherian Command wrote:

phydaux wrote:
So is the consensus that only Space Marines & Grey Knights are the only "bad" codexes, and GM learned from their mistakes via feedback and all subsequent Codexes have been decent?

The Space Marine Codex was the start of all releases and ever since then its been power creep, except for grey knights..

Space Marines nearly 85% of their list is unplayable.

Your bubble of visibility is very opaque. Necrons are worse than GK and came out much later.

valdier wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

phydaux wrote:
So is the consensus that only Space Marines & Grey Knights are the only "bad" codexes, and GM learned from their mistakes via feedback and all subsequent Codexes have been decent?

The Space Marine Codex was the start of all releases and ever since then its been power creep, except for grey knights..

Space Marines nearly 85% of their list is unplayable.

Your bubble of visibility is very opaque. Necrons are worse than GK and came out much later.

Necrons are 100% not worse than GK. They are vastly superior to GK.

 LunarSol wrote:
Realistically nothing scales quite as well as players tend to believe. Durability is something that changes drastically as point levels change and the ability for an expensive model to be taken off the board before it activates is very much a factor of how much stuff gets to attack it in one turn. It's worth noting that Guilliman's personal impact on the game can be a lot higher at lower point levels.

That said, he's a very problematic model, not necessarily because space marines are clearly designed around him, but because space marines are universally designed around him, but he's restricted to one specific flavor of something that comes in many, many flavors. I don't think that's a secret to anyone; just something that will get repeated until they get around to fixing it.

I think it is a problem brought forth by d6 being the dice to roll out come in w40k. if someone has +2inv or +3 with re-rolls on top of to hit mods, they become more or less invunerable. On the other hand something like a +4 or +5 sv, doesn't really matter unless someone plays games with 400-500 models.

Based on a fairly large ATC it would appear that marines are pretty much the trash tier...

http://fieldoffiregaming.com/best-armies-of-atc-2018/

One person ran Grey Knights and found success. I wonder if it was 3 Imperial Knights and a Grey Knights warlord with tiny detachment lol

jcd386 wrote:I think his poor design is a part of the equation, though. His aura is too much of a force multiplier that it can only be "balanced" at it's highest level of synergy with units the SM can access.

He's really only worth 400 points if you pile a bunch of high rate of fire low-med Str shooting units around him, ideally ones that move and still fire without the normal penalties. Fire raptors and repulsers, namely.

You also pretty much have to go first in order to not lose any of these units and suffer a significant reduction of firepower, since he is taking up 400 points of the list. The low model count helps this though.

So sure, if you can meet all of those very specific criteria, he might be worth his points, but if you don't, he certainly isn't. That seems like a pretty big asterisk to put after the "yes he's worth 400 points."

His current cost feels like a bandaid until they can put in some time to rewrite his rules to something that isn't as difficult to balance in a more quantifiable way.

OK so you're arguing that he doesn't scale well at other points values? OK you may or may not be right I don't know I haven't played much at those values. If you're saying he's overpriced at competitive level 40k though you're just playingng badly. There's a reason he's so consistently taken over 400 points of more guns and that's what he does for an army.

bananathug wrote:Based on a fairly large ATC it would appear that marines are pretty much the trash tier...

http://fieldoffiregaming.com/best-armies-of-atc-2018/

That's an absurd measure of anything for multiple reasons and if you used it to argue anything else you'd be laughed at. If I need to break it down why we don't measure an army by its performance at ATC as an average, I can, but I really hope I don't really have to.

You know, the argument that the 2200 point GT is a completely different meta that favors an expensive force multiplier like Guilliman is valid

But to then turn around and say that the ATC, which is a completely different meta where you can cherrypick your matchups and therefore favors skew lists even more, is a solid indicator of what is and isn't good in normal 40k isn't valid at all

 SHUPPET wrote:

jcd386 wrote:I think his poor design is a part of the equation, though. His aura is too much of a force multiplier that it can only be "balanced" at it's highest level of synergy with units the SM can access.

He's really only worth 400 points if you pile a bunch of high rate of fire low-med Str shooting units around him, ideally ones that move and still fire without the normal penalties. Fire raptors and repulsers, namely.

You also pretty much have to go first in order to not lose any of these units and suffer a significant reduction of firepower, since he is taking up 400 points of the list. The low model count helps this though.

So sure, if you can meet all of those very specific criteria, he might be worth his points, but if you don't, he certainly isn't. That seems like a pretty big asterisk to put after the "yes he's worth 400 points."

His current cost feels like a bandaid until they can put in some time to rewrite his rules to something that isn't as difficult to balance in a more quantifiable way.

OK so you're arguing that he doesn't scale well at other points values? OK you may or may not be right I don't know I haven't played much at those values. If you're saying he's overpriced at competitive level 40k though you're just playingng badly. There's a reason he's so consistently taken over 400 points of more guns and that's what he does for an army.

bananathug wrote:Based on a fairly large ATC it would appear that marines are pretty much the trash tier...

http://fieldoffiregaming.com/best-armies-of-atc-2018/

That's an absurd measure of anything for multiple reasons and if you used it to argue anything else you'd be laughed at. If I need to break it down why we don't measure an army by its performance at ATC as an average, I can, but I really hope I don't really have to.

I'm arguing that having one hella broken character that increases the damage output of your models by up to 244% if they stand near him is very hard to balance, because his value has everything to do with the units around him. So either you are using the exact combo of units that makes him worth 400 points, or you aren't, and he isn't worth that. This doesn't help SM in general, it just helps one gimmicky list that uses a badly designed unit. (That being said, congrats to the guy who won with it. I can be happy for him and still want GW to fix Marines).

jcd386 wrote:

I'm arguing that having one hella broken character that increases the damage output of your models by up to 244% if they stand near him is very hard to balance, because his value has everything to do with the units around him. So either you are using the exact combo of units that makes him worth 400 points, or you aren't, and he isn't worth that. This doesn't help SM in general, it just helps one gimmicky list that uses a badly designed unit. (That being said, congrats to the guy who won with it. I can be happy for him and still want GW to fix Marines).

Agreed. Auras within *unlimited targets* that effect *pretty much everything* are problematic and near impossible to balance. There can be no correct `flat` point cost for the boat man, as he's either costed for the unit floor (he's not buffing anything) or the unit cap (he's buffing his extended family).

The ONLY way he can be balanced is if he costs a % of the points limit (something like, costs 200 + 20% of the points limit).

jcd386 wrote:

I'm arguing that having one hella broken character that increases the damage output of your models by up to 244% if they stand near him is very hard to balance, because his value has everything to do with the units around him. So either you are using the exact combo of units that makes him worth 400 points, or you aren't, and he isn't worth that. This doesn't help SM in general, it just helps one gimmicky list that uses a badly designed unit. (That being said, congrats to the guy who won with it. I can be happy for him and still want GW to fix Marines).

Ok, but at 2000 points you can most definitely fit enough units to make that worthwhile. And of course a unit restricted to one Chapter doesn't help SM in general. I didn't say that it helps the entire dex. I didn't even said it helped anyone. I just said Roboute is not overpriced in competitive games.

I'm unsure how saying "b-b-b-buh it's bad design tho!" counters anything I put forth. I didn't say it was good design. I didn't say every unit in SM is fine and every Chapter is playable. I didn't say any of the gak you guys are crying about.

I literally just said ROBOUTE GUILLIMAN is a well costed model COMPETITIVELY. In ITC he most definitely isn't too costly if used well. Point at his bad design all you want, I never even disagreed with that at all, and specifically clarified I'm not weighing in on that, because it doesn't have anything to do with what I said. If anything your arguments are supporting my point, he has to cost that much because of the value it can give out in a 2000 pts list by your own admission. Stop framing them as though it's an answer to my question or as though I said something I haven't.

The issue really isn't his buffs. The issue is that everything in the codex is priced like you're taking Ultramarines with Roboute in a 2000 point game, except you're playing above the original point limit.

Kinda like how Gladius functioned...

 Marmatag wrote:
One person ran Grey Knights and found success. I wonder if it was 3 Imperial Knights and a Grey Knights warlord with tiny detachment lol

The big list pack appears to contain two GK lists so i'm not sure which they are scoring.
One had a pair of grand master baby carriers, strikes, and a purgation squad supported by smashcaptains and deathwatch (David Ozawa)
The other was Voldus and Draigo with strikes, terminators, and a dreadknight supported by a small ultramarines detachment of assault cannon razorbacks (Dustin Housley)


One of the sororitas lists is 3 knights and a small unit of sisters though. The other four being dominion spam with celestine and allies (smashcaptain/shield captain/assassins/admech)