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Marines are marines though, GW are trying to balance so I don't think we'll be crap for long. GW will either change the points or come up with something stupid like formations again.

 mew28 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If marines are mid-tier, who is worse?

Yeah...that is a tough one.

Necrons seem pretty bad. Tau are pretty bad. And that's about it for real factions. with out getting into the different colors of power armor.

Tau are upper-middle tier.

Tier A
Knight Soup
Custodes Soup
Eldar Soup

Tier B
Chaos Soup (includes Death Guard, Thousand Sons, etc)
Tau
Imperial Guard (Soup, and Mono)

Tier C
Admech & Knights
Space Marines
Tyranids

Tier D
Necrons
Orks

 Marmatag wrote:

Spoiler:

 mew28 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If marines are mid-tier, who is worse?

Yeah...that is a tough one.

Necrons seem pretty bad. Tau are pretty bad. And that's about it for real factions. with out getting into the different colors of power armor.

Tau are upper-middle tier.

Tier A
Knight Soup
Custodes Soup
Eldar Soup

Tier B
Chaos Soup (includes Death Guard, Thousand Sons, etc)
Tau
Imperial Guard (Soup, and Mono)

Tier C
Admech & Knights
Space Marines
Tyranids

Tier D
Necrons
Orks

Did orks not win a ton of tourneys spamming boyz?

 mew28 wrote:

Did orks not win a ton of tourneys spamming boyz?

iirc that was before the days of DEldar, and done by slow playing (The dude had the lowest amount of points killed by FAR)

 Marmatag wrote:

 mew28 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If marines are mid-tier, who is worse?

Yeah...that is a tough one.

Necrons seem pretty bad. Tau are pretty bad. And that's about it for real factions. with out getting into the different colors of power armor.

Tau are upper-middle tier.

Tier A
Knight Soup
Custodes Soup
Eldar Soup

Tier B
Chaos Soup (includes Death Guard, Thousand Sons, etc)
Tau
Imperial Guard (Soup, and Mono)

Tier C
Admech & Knights
Space Marines
Tyranids

Tier D
Necrons
Orks

Pure knights is still top teir dude. You can easily get 12 starting CP. More than enough to keep a knight at full invo - and resurrect dead knights Or power up a Castellan. CP in general are overrated in this sense. If you build a list to use certain stratagems on certain turns. You simply do not need more than this. Knights are OP on their own.

Knight Soup was meant to include pure knights. I don't even know why I put "soup" on there. If you can soup it's a given at this point.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoiler:

 Marmatag wrote:

 mew28 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If marines are mid-tier, who is worse?

Yeah...that is a tough one.

Necrons seem pretty bad. Tau are pretty bad. And that's about it for real factions. with out getting into the different colors of power armor.

Tau are upper-middle tier.

Tier A
Knight Soup
Custodes Soup
Eldar Soup

Tier B
Chaos Soup (includes Death Guard, Thousand Sons, etc)
Tau
Imperial Guard (Soup, and Mono)

Tier C
Admech & Knights
Space Marines
Tyranids

Tier D
Necrons
Orks

Pure knights is still top teir dude. You can easily get 12 starting CP. More than enough to keep a knight at full invo - and resurrect dead knights Or power up a Castellan. CP in general are overrated in this sense. If you build a list to use certain stratagems on certain turns. You simply do not need more than this. Knights are OP on their own.

How do you get 12 CP with pure knights best I can do is 6 since even the cheapest knight that makes CP the gallant is 350 points min. I mean I know my knight list has 11 but it has around 350 points of space marines to fill out a battalion.

assault marines are 13 points without jetpack? and you want them to be 5-6 points around guardsmen and Orcs points?
No offence but I personal find that a bit stupid, dropping a model with 3+ ws/bs, with 4S/T, 7 LD and a 3+ sv to around a model with 4+ws/bs, 3S/T, 6LD and 5+ sv points level sounds unbalanced.

 mew28 wrote:
How do you get 12 CP with pure knights best I can do is 6 since even the cheapest knight that makes CP the gallant is 350 points min. I mean I know my knight list has 11 but it has around 350 points of space marines to fill out a battalion.

Gallants and helverins presumably. 4 gallant, 2 helverin. 3 gallant into 1 det(6CP), rest into other(3CP). 1764 pts. Not that it would be particularly effective list though...So claiming they get that "easily" is misleading.

tneva82 wrote:

 mew28 wrote:
How do you get 12 CP with pure knights best I can do is 6 since even the cheapest knight that makes CP the gallant is 350 points min. I mean I know my knight list has 11 but it has around 350 points of space marines to fill out a battalion.

Gallants and helverins presumably. 4 gallant, 2 helverin. 3 gallant into 1 det(6CP), rest into other(3CP). 1764 pts. Not that it would be particularly effective list though...So claiming they get that "easily" is misleading.

You can pretty much fit two gallants, two armigers, and two other knights at 2k without carapace weapons on all of them.

jcd386 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 mew28 wrote:
How do you get 12 CP with pure knights best I can do is 6 since even the cheapest knight that makes CP the gallant is 350 points min. I mean I know my knight list has 11 but it has around 350 points of space marines to fill out a battalion.

Gallants and helverins presumably. 4 gallant, 2 helverin. 3 gallant into 1 det(6CP), rest into other(3CP). 1764 pts. Not that it would be particularly effective list though...So claiming they get that "easily" is misleading.

You can pretty much fit two gallants, two armigers, and two other knights at 2k without carapace weapons on all of them.

Yeah so I wouldn't say that easy. 2 gallants when generally 1 is max that really benefits. Also dominus knights are pretty darn hard to fit. 3 gallant, castellan with 4 shieldbreakers(suboptimal), helverin and armiger juuuust about fits but 3 gallants...Bleh. Suboptimal castellan, bleh.

Yeah you can do it but "easily" is not a word I would choose for it.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Get it through your head. SPACE MARINES CAN NOT BEAT IMPERIAL GUARD. THEY CAN'T DO IT MAN.

Lore-appropriate. Marines just don't have the numbers man. The marines are a scalpel and the Imperial Guard are an anvil. Ever tried to hit an anvil with a scalpel? Scalpel will break over the anvil EVERY. GODDAMN. TIME.

 mew28 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoiler:

 Marmatag wrote:

 mew28 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If marines are mid-tier, who is worse?

Yeah...that is a tough one.

Necrons seem pretty bad. Tau are pretty bad. And that's about it for real factions. with out getting into the different colors of power armor.

Tau are upper-middle tier.

Tier A
Knight Soup
Custodes Soup
Eldar Soup

Tier B
Chaos Soup (includes Death Guard, Thousand Sons, etc)
Tau
Imperial Guard (Soup, and Mono)

Tier C
Admech & Knights
Space Marines
Tyranids

Tier D
Necrons
Orks

Pure knights is still top teir dude. You can easily get 12 starting CP. More than enough to keep a knight at full invo - and resurrect dead knights Or power up a Castellan. CP in general are overrated in this sense. If you build a list to use certain stratagems on certain turns. You simply do not need more than this. Knights are OP on their own.

How do you get 12 CP with pure knights best I can do is 6 since even the cheapest knight that makes CP the gallant is 350 points min. I mean I know my knight list has 11 but it has around 350 points of space marines to fill out a battalion.

2 armigers and a galant
2 gallants and castellan

It's not the best list but its 12 CP.

Personally I have no issue with running 4 knights with just 9 CP
That is a castellan 2 crusaders and a galant all with carapace weapons. I prefer to run with Guilliman though because of the reroll 1's aura.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 mew28 wrote:
How do you get 12 CP with pure knights best I can do is 6 since even the cheapest knight that makes CP the gallant is 350 points min. I mean I know my knight list has 11 but it has around 350 points of space marines to fill out a battalion.

Gallants and helverins presumably. 4 gallant, 2 helverin. 3 gallant into 1 det(6CP), rest into other(3CP). 1764 pts. Not that it would be particularly effective list though...So claiming they get that "easily" is misleading.

Gallants are probably the best unit in the IK codex (outside of Castellan) - so just spamming gallants can be really effective. They hit WAAAY under their point cost. Just won a 20 man 750 tornament with a gallant with relic missile launchers and 2 helverines. Gallant never died - he killed a crusader/ a warglaive and a helverine / a nurgle prince and put wounds on mortarian / and about 20 poor blood angels. In 3 games...the damage output is insane.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Get it through your head. SPACE MARINES CAN NOT BEAT IMPERIAL GUARD. THEY CAN'T DO IT MAN.

Lore-appropriate. Marines just don't have the numbers man. The marines are a scalpel and the Imperial Guard are an anvil. Ever tried to hit an anvil with a scalpel? Scalpel will break over the anvil EVERY. GODDAMN. TIME.

I'm not sure what lore you have been reading. Space marines don't really lose - except to other marines.

More realistically though. Marines are a precision force that deploy with the element of surprise and shock and awe. Their use would be limited to destroying key enemy units or installations - though they probably would die in the process.

There would never be a situation where an army of marines would line up revolutionary war style and battle it out with 1000 times their number. You are right - there would be no point.

To state the obvious, assault marines are not a dedicated assault unit that is meant to beat up genestealers and so on. It is a "close quickly" unit meant to neutralize enemy ranged infantry like Guardsmen and Fire Warriors. .

They may or may not be overcosted, but that is the basis on which they should be judged. (and you can't mathhammer it either. Oh no!)

Too many targets that can't even be tied up this way, though.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I'm not sure what lore you have been reading.

The official lore!

 Xenomancers wrote:
Space marines don't really lose - except to other marines.

I concede that marines are their own worst enemy. Like Chapter Master George snooze, half his chapter turns to Chaos, they exterminate themselves. Sad.

Alcibiades wrote:
To state the obvious, assault marines are not a dedicated assault unit that is meant to beat up genestealers and so on. It is a "close quickly" unit meant to neutralize enemy ranged infantry like Guardsmen and Fire Warriors. .

They may or may not be overcosted, but that is the basis on which they should be judged. (and you can't mathhammer it either. Oh no!)

But they just don't work. They don't actually do any of those things with their current rules.

Without jump packs, they are worse than tactical Marines in almost every way (worse weapon options, not troops, about equivalent damage).

With jump packs, they can either drop in and have their flamers be out of range and hope to make 9" charge to tie something up, or charge them across the board for two turns to flamer and charge something. Neither of those options are very useful. When they do get into combat, 11 attacks doesn't really do anything meaningful (kills 3 guardsmen), and unless you can tripoint lock the unit you assaulted, they likely just fall back and kill you.

GW needs to look at units like assault Marines and give them special rules that let them actually complete their role, like a way to keep units in combat with them (like witches do), increased likelihood of making the initial charge (like demons have) or... anything.

jcd386 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
To state the obvious, assault marines are not a dedicated assault unit that is meant to beat up genestealers and so on. It is a "close quickly" unit meant to neutralize enemy ranged infantry like Guardsmen and Fire Warriors. .

They may or may not be overcosted, but that is the basis on which they should be judged. (and you can't mathhammer it either. Oh no!)

But they just don't work. They don't actually do any of those things with their current rules.

Without jump packs, they are worse than tactical Marines in almost every way (worse weapon options, not troops, about equivalent damage).

With jump packs, they can either drop in and have their flamers be out of range and hope to make 9" charge to tie something up, or charge them across the board for two turns to flamer and charge something. Neither of those options are very useful. When they do get into combat, 11 attacks doesn't really do anything meaningful (kills 3 guardsmen), and unless you can tripoint lock the unit you assaulted, they likely just fall back and kill you.

GW needs to look at units like assault Marines and give them special rules that let them actually complete their role, like a way to keep units in combat with them (like witches do), increased likelihood of making the initial charge (like demons have) or... anything.

So. Would a universal rule change that disenfranchises people from ALWAYS retreating when charged basically fix the assault marines? Or would they remain just ass marines.

Something like:
Sweeping Advance - Cowardice inspires fresh fervour in the emperor's finest. Whenever an enemy unit falls back from < Assault Marines >, you may immediately strike again with this unit as if it were the fight phase. For every model killed this way, reduce their fall back distance by 1"; if no distance remains the fall back can no longer be made.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
To state the obvious, assault marines are not a dedicated assault unit that is meant to beat up genestealers and so on. It is a "close quickly" unit meant to neutralize enemy ranged infantry like Guardsmen and Fire Warriors. .

They may or may not be overcosted, but that is the basis on which they should be judged. (and you can't mathhammer it either. Oh no!)

But they just don't work. They don't actually do any of those things with their current rules.

Without jump packs, they are worse than tactical Marines in almost every way (worse weapon options, not troops, about equivalent damage).

With jump packs, they can either drop in and have their flamers be out of range and hope to make 9" charge to tie something up, or charge them across the board for two turns to flamer and charge something. Neither of those options are very useful. When they do get into combat, 11 attacks doesn't really do anything meaningful (kills 3 guardsmen), and unless you can tripoint lock the unit you assaulted, they likely just fall back and kill you.

GW needs to look at units like assault Marines and give them special rules that let them actually complete their role, like a way to keep units in combat with them (like witches do), increased likelihood of making the initial charge (like demons have) or... anything.

So. Would a universal rule change that disenfranchises people from ALWAYS retreating when charged basically fix the assault marines? Or would they remain just ass marines.

Something like:
Sweeping Advance - Cowardice inspires fresh fervour in the emperor's finest. Whenever an enemy unit falls back from < Assault Marines >, you may immediately strike again with this unit as if it were the fight phase. For every unit killed this way, reduce their fall back distance by 1"; and if no distance remains the fall back can no longer be made.

I think something like that would give them a purpose that would seperate them from other units, which is what they really need in addition to the general buffs the marine faction in general needs. Without things like that you would still never see them unless they actually were about 8 points a model.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
To state the obvious, assault marines are not a dedicated assault unit that is meant to beat up genestealers and so on. It is a "close quickly" unit meant to neutralize enemy ranged infantry like Guardsmen and Fire Warriors. .

They may or may not be overcosted, but that is the basis on which they should be judged. (and you can't mathhammer it either. Oh no!)

But they just don't work. They don't actually do any of those things with their current rules.

Without jump packs, they are worse than tactical Marines in almost every way (worse weapon options, not troops, about equivalent damage).

With jump packs, they can either drop in and have their flamers be out of range and hope to make 9" charge to tie something up, or charge them across the board for two turns to flamer and charge something. Neither of those options are very useful. When they do get into combat, 11 attacks doesn't really do anything meaningful (kills 3 guardsmen), and unless you can tripoint lock the unit you assaulted, they likely just fall back and kill you.

GW needs to look at units like assault Marines and give them special rules that let them actually complete their role, like a way to keep units in combat with them (like witches do), increased likelihood of making the initial charge (like demons have) or... anything.

So. Would a universal rule change that disenfranchises people from ALWAYS retreating when charged basically fix the assault marines? Or would they remain just ass marines.

Something like:
Sweeping Advance - Cowardice inspires fresh fervour in the emperor's finest. Whenever an enemy unit falls back from < Assault Marines >, you may immediately strike again with this unit as if it were the fight phase. For every unit killed this way, reduce their fall back distance by 1"; and if no distance remains the fall back can no longer be made.

That's a neat idea, altough I'm guessing you meant "For every model killed . . ." But yeah, I like that.

And Assault Marines don't exactly kill a lot of stuff that would fall back, so it's still a useless ability.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And Assault Marines don't exactly kill a lot of stuff that would fall back, so it's still a useless ability.

What about Guardsmen, Fire warriors, Gretchin, Guardians and the various Scouts?

Other than that, what do think the ass marines should be able to kill in a single charge? Where's the cry for value end?

 Eonfuzz wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And Assault Marines don't exactly kill a lot of stuff that would fall back, so it's still a useless ability.

What about Guardsmen, Fire warriors, Gretchin, Guardians and the various Scouts?

Other than that, what do think the ass marines should be able to kill in a single charge? Where's the cry for value end?

To clarify, I think all Marines need something like the following:

1. Either an extra base attack, or at least an extra attack the turn they charge.
2. To either reduce all AP that effects their armor save by 1, or at least treat AP1 as AP0 if it would make their save worse than a 3+ ( but it would still remove a cover save bonus).
3. Bolters and chainswords get AP1

Those changes would give Marines decent damage, and increase their durability against the weapons that currently butcher them. I see changes of this sort as the only alternative to 10 point marine hordes other than simply not seeing Marines at all like we have now.

But even after the basic Marine statline is fixed the assault squad will continue to be a terrible unit because it doesn't serve a role or provide utility that isn't easily provided by other units.

So I think they would also need a special rule that makes them worth taking over other options in the book. Some example abilities could be:

Blazing charge: They can charge after they advance.
Staggering impact: the turn they charge, one enemy unit they are fighting must fight last.
Rout the enemy: when an enemy unit attempts to fall back from an assault squad, roll off and add compare movement characteristics. If the assault squad wins, the unit may immediately fight again without any pile in or consolidate moves allowed.

Eviscerator changes: change it to have 2 profiles:
Grind: Sx2 AP3 D3 -- -1 to hit, successful hits against vehicles count as two hits.
Swipe: S+2 AP2 1 -- make 2 hit rolls for each attack made with this weapon

And so on. They have to good at SOMETHING or they'll never see play.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And Assault Marines don't exactly kill a lot of stuff that would fall back, so it's still a useless ability.

What about Guardsmen, Fire warriors, Gretchin, Guardians and the various Scouts?

Other than that, what do think the ass marines should be able to kill in a single charge? Where's the cry for value end?

Well. Guardsmen fall back 6". You would need to kill 5 to keep them in h2h assuming you started b2b. If you kill 5 you likely killed 5 or more before so squad dead.

That fallback slowing a) wouldn't have big effect likely b) is unneccessary complex for GW(seeing how much simpler stuff was removed in 8th...) c) pretty illogical. why would guys be killed slow down rest? More like reverse...RAN AWAY!

Of course SM are mid-tier. There are two ways to rank tiers:

By major faction:
Tier A:
Imperium
Eldar

Tier B:
Chaos

Tier C:
Necrons
Tau
Nids
Orkz

Or by book:
Tier A:
Craftworld
DE
IG
Custodes
IK

Tier B:
DG
SM (Vanilla)
CSM

Tier C:
AdMech
GK
Necrons
Orkz

In either tiering structure, SM sure seem mid-tier.


JCD,
I agree with your points on balancing. You hit the top units and buff the bottom units. There should be a target, preferably about the middle of the road, that you should be balancing towards. You don't balance towards the 'current top', because that causes power creep. I think you and I agree on how balance should be approached.

I'm fine with also adjusting things around the 30th or 70th percentile as well - as long as they're obviously not near the ideal. Best to hit the top and bottom, as you get the biggest impact/results from that. But you can hit more than just those.

As for what I'm currently thinking for balancing Marines:
-Battle Brothers get +1A base
-Battle Brothers go down to 10ppm, but the Boltgun now costs 1ppm (note - this actually makes specials/heavies 1ppm cheaper, and also makes Chainsword/pistol 1ppm cheaper as well).
-General durability changes I suggested here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/761963.page#10118792
(cliffnotes - nerf most AP in the game, and nerf Plas back to 7th ed stats, basically)
-CTs affect Vehicles (note - I'd rather rework the CTs, but this is more in line with lightest-touch).

Avoiding giving more AP to Marines, because the super prevelance of AP is part of what's killing them.

So your contention is that Admech, Orks, Necrons, and GK are all inferior to marines, and that marines are roughly equivalent to DG (I disagree) and CSM (strongly disagree).

I'd put SM in tier C, as they are closer to the first four than DG and CSM.

Martel732 wrote:
So your contention is that Admech, Orks, Necrons, and GK are all inferior to marines, and that marines are roughly equivalent to DG (I disagree) and CSM (strongly disagree).

I'd put SM in tier C, as they are closer to the first four than DG and CSM.

Orks definitely need moved up a rank to be about equal power, but SM do top out against AdMech/Necrons/GK pretty easily.

Maybe they need their own tier, because I think DG and CSM are significantly better than loyalists. I guess that would be low-mid tier, with only a handful of books below them. Almost where they were in 2nd. Funny that. The last edition with armor save mods.

Marines aren't dead last, because in 2nd I was paying 30 ppm to have a 3+ chopped down to a 5+ by the basic Eldar weapon or by sonic blasters.

The problem with "marine" changes is all the +1 chapters and even those filthy heritics go from okayish to eldar

My first step would be to move ASM to troops and reduce their price to tacs +2 (whatever tacs end up as).

I agree that the only route to balance is through strats. And those strats have to be magnificent to make up for the overpriced under powered units.

Similar to how GK should have access to all imperium psychic powers give Vanilla Marines access to all imperium strats. (Maybe limit to just astartes strats, I'm probably being greedy wanting guard and custode strats)

Start throwing all that around and marines start working. The +1 chapters now actually have to give up flexibility for specialization instead of just being marines +1.

This can only happen after the guard CP battery is fixed but this would give vanilla marines a niche, reflect the tactical expertise of the army, encourage lots of tacs for cp and make marines competitive.

bananathug wrote:
The problem with "marine" changes is all the +1 chapters and even those filthy heritics go from okayish to eldar

My first step would be to move ASM to troops and reduce their price to tacs +2 (whatever tacs end up as).

I agree that the only route to balance is through strats. And those strats have to be magnificent to make up for the overpriced under powered units.

Similar to how GK should have access to all imperium psychic powers give Vanilla Marines access to all imperium strats. (Maybe limit to just astartes strats, I'm probably being greedy wanting guard and custode strats)

Start throwing all that around and marines start working. The +1 chapters now actually have to give up flexibility for specialization instead of just being marines +1.

This can only happen after the guard CP battery is fixed but this would give vanilla marines a niche, reflect the tactical expertise of the army, encourage lots of tacs for cp and make marines competitive.

Part of what you suggest is consolidating the Angel codices into the Vanilla codex for all intents and purposes. Personally I agree to do that and think it would go a long way to help fix various issues.