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"-Eldar lists that focus on one particular form of aspect warrior "
He was talking about fluffy lists. More than 3 of any one Aspect isn't fluffy - even with the matching Phoenix Lord, that's a lot of one Aspect in one place.

Tyel wrote:
But at the same time I consider that downside to be one worth paying. Spam is really bad for the game.

I fail to see how skew lists or themed lists are bad for the game. Either your army composition takes them into account and can counter them, or it can't and it's a bad army composition. This is 8th edition, anything can wound anything, so you don't even have the argument that some of your units are rendered useless by total skews.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

w1zard wrote:

 Galef wrote:
It's not a perfect fix and some units sneak past it (DPs, IG tank squads, etc) but it patches a huge amount of others.

That is good. Do you know how unbelievably stupid it would be if you couldn't play an IG armored company? Rule of three actually hurts army diversity in a way because it forces everyone to be a combined arms detachment. I get that it stops overpowered units from being spammed but it also stops people from running interesting themed lists like bikers, or an IG veteran list.

Rule of three is a lazy band-aid.

Bold of you to assume that a list themed around playing the same unit over and over until you have 2000 points is interesting...

Bold of you to assume an army of one-of-each unit even looks good on the table.

I tend to lean towards two of each unit, unless its something big or special looking.
That's the sweet spot for me.

Even "fluffy" lists rarely have more than 3 of a given unit.
For example, Saim-Hann Eldar lists have never been "All Windriders, all the time"
Sure, 7E brought out the Scatterbike spam, but that WASN'T a fluffy list.
A truly fluffy Saim-Hann list should have a MIX of Skyrunner HQs, some Windriders, some Shining Spears and some Vypers and even some Grav-tanks. This kind of list is very much possible with the Rule of 3.

IG Tank company is possible with Ro3 even without tank squads, because IG have like a dozen DIFFERENT tank datasheets. Just because someone wants to field the SAME tank more than 3x and can't, doesn't mean Ro3 prevents other players from having an all tank IG list using proper diversity

-

Like you literally forget that you would only have 3 squads of Windriders, which isn't something Hann would lack on. Then you have people that were doing Deathwing and Ravenwing (as bad as the former is), the Necron Bone Kingdom, etc.

"Bold of you to assume an army of one-of-each unit even looks good on the table."
Depends on the army.
An Aspect Host of mostly just one Aspect? Ugly. Stupid. Unfluffy. Unfun to play or play against. And terrible now, fortunately.
An Aspect Host of one of each Aspect? Beautiful. Brilliant. Fluffy. Fun to play or play against.

Silver Tide? Beautiful. Just one Warrior, Immortal, Scarab, etc squad? Not as beautiful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"Like you literally forget that you would only have 3 squads of Windriders, which isn't something Hann would lack on."
That was the central premise to his post. Wouldn't 3 Windriders, 2 Spears, an Autarch and Farseer on bike, 2 Guardian squads in Serpents, a DA squad in a Falcon, three Vyper squads, and a Fire Prism? That'd be a perfectly fluffy Sam-Hann list.

"Then you have people that were doing Deathwing and Ravenwing (as bad as the former is), the Necron Bone Kingdom, etc."
I agree that there are fluffy lists it would hurt. Just look upthread. Just cleaning up the findings a bit.

w1zard wrote:

Kdash wrote:
It does not limit army diversity though – not by much.

So far, the only counter to my “what fluffy armies are restricted by the rule of 3”, has been that you can no longer run a full 9th Company of Ultramarines (pre-Primaris) at 2000 points (though, that said I still think you could depending on which Dreadnoughts you chose).

The only reason that 90% of all competitive Imperium lists look the same, is because competitive players play the units that are competitive.

If every single unit was balanced against every other unit, then, you will get more diversity in the “combined arms” forces, but, that’s just not going to fully happen.

Just because people don’t play some units, or that some other units/combinations are way more common is simply just down to their rules and points and has nothing to do with the rule of 3.

2000 points is a fair amount of points, but, even with using the rule of 3 you can still make all kinds of specialised lists before you have to worry about getting that 4th unit.

There are plenty of themed lists that get hurt and are more difficult or impossible to play by the rule of three.

Just off the top of my head:
-Nidzilla
-Ork Meganobs
-Ork Bikers
-IG Veterans
-SM Bikers
-IG Aircav
-IG Tempestus
-IG Heavy Weapons Battallion
-Eldar lists that focus on one particular form of aspect warrior
-Tau Battlesuits
-SM Terminators

etc...

Just to pop in my two pence,

Nidzilla is absolutely fine with rule of 3, only Hive Tyrants were hit bud.

Carnifexs - Old One eye and 3 squads of 3 normal, 3 squads of 3 thornback and 3 squads of 3 scream killers, no way limiting.
3 trygon, 3 trygon primes so snakes are covered if you want a tide of burrowing angry reverse drop pods
And every other MC, you shouldn't ever need to run more than 3. I guess you could run 3 Maelceptors if you have a crippling fear of victory though?

 Galef wrote:
Even "fluffy" lists rarely have more than 3 of a given unit.
For example, Saim-Hann Eldar lists have never been "All Windriders, all the time"
Sure, 7E brought out the Scatterbike spam, but that WASN'T a fluffy list.
A truly fluffy Saim-Hann list should have a MIX of Skyrunner HQs, some Windriders, some Shining Spears and some Vypers and even some Grav-tanks. This kind of list is very much possible with the Rule of 3.

IG Tank company is possible with Ro3 even without tank squads, because IG have like a dozen DIFFERENT tank datasheets. Just because someone wants to field the SAME tank more than 3x and can't, doesn't mean Ro3 prevents other players from having an all tank IG list using proper diversity

-

^^^ This. I don't know why people insist that a "fluffy" or "themed" army would spam the same thing over and over. Even something like an Aspect warhost would be just fine with three max units of whatever Aspect shrine you wanted to concentrate on, backed up by a small number of other Aspects and Guardians. These fluffy armies are rarely just one unit taken as many times as possible within the points limit and there are plenty of ways to still play a themed army without required 8 units of Windriders, for example. The other example of the UM 9th Company is adequately represented by 3 full units of Devastators, 3 Dreadnoughts, 3 Predators, some Whirlwinds and a handful of characters, maybe backed up by some attached Sternguard.

I still don't actually like the Ro3, but mainly for how lazy it is and how it fails to address the core problems of the system, but removing fluffy armies from the game is not one of the disadvantages of the rule.

With the variety of units GW have given lately, even super-themed lists have options. DW and RW have far more than just Terminators and Bikes now.
DW has Characters, Termies and DW Knights. And with Combat Squads, 3x 10 Termies + 3x 10 DW Knights + HQs is already more that 2K pts
RW have Bikes, multiple Speeder types and Black Knight Bikes. So again, plenty of options.

Ro3 does NOT prevent fluffy lists, it ENCOURAGES them and ensure they are diverse.
Most of those options being "meh" to "horrible" is irrelevant.

Ro3 isn't lazy, it's just the first step of several. Points adjustments, plus Ro3 is a great approach.

-

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
Carnifexs - Old One eye and 3 squads of 3 normal, 3 squads of 3 thornback and 3 squads of 3 scream killers, no way limiting.
3 trygon, 3 trygon primes so snakes are covered if you want a tide of burrowing angry reverse drop pods
And every other MC, you shouldn't ever need to run more than 3. I guess you could run 3 Maelceptors if you have a crippling fear of victory though?

What if I wanted to run more than three biovores? Or more than three Zoanthropes? There are many different flavors of nidzilla not just carnifex spam. Which is why I specified it just makes some lists harder to play rather than impossible.

 Galef wrote:
Ro3 does NOT prevent fluffy lists, it ENCOURAGES them and ensure they are diverse.
Most of those options being "meh" to "horrible" is irrelevant.

So rule of three encourages me to run my guard aircav list by limiting me to three valkyries? lol ok

I had originally intended to mention T'au battlesuits - such as Farsight Enclave, but, while Rule of One on the Commander already hurts it real bad, consider the following:
-3x Crisis Suits
-3x Bodyguard suits
-3x Stealth Suits
-3x Broadsides
-3x Ghostkeel
-Riptide Variants
I think you could hit 2k with that. A Commander and 6 Suit squads base (3 regular 3 bodyguard), plus other suit types to fit. At their prices, and Crisis squads being min 3 now, being limited to 6 Crisis Squads isn't as big a deal.

I think things like Armored Company and Deathwing/Raven wing should be limited to formations now they are coming back. Specific Formation rules that let you violate the rule of three is very specific instances.

Rule of Three is one of the better rules in the game.

Bharring wrote:
I had originally intended to mention T'au battlesuits - such as Farsight Enclave, but, while Rule of One on the Commander already hurts it real bad, consider the following:
-3x Crisis Suits
-3x Bodyguard suits
-3x Stealth Suits
-3x Broadsides
-3x Ghostkeel
-Riptide Variants
I think you could hit 2k with that. A Commander and 6 Suit squads base (3 regular 3 bodyguard), plus other suit types to fit. At their prices, and Crisis squads being min 3 now, being limited to 6 Crisis Squads isn't as big a deal.

But that is an extremely narrow and limited list, rule of three really hurts flexibility and customization on that.

I think most people would rather not face lists with more than 4 Zoanthrope units. Not because they're particularly good or bad, but because they're particularly samey.

Same with Nidzilla. I think most people would rather Nidzilla be 3 units of one particular Nid, then more units of *another* MC. Some variety.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"But that is an extremely narrow and limited list, rule of three really hurts flexibility and customization on that."
It's not substantially more narrow than a list with 7+ Crisis Suit units.

w1zard wrote:

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
Carnifexs - Old One eye and 3 squads of 3 normal, 3 squads of 3 thornback and 3 squads of 3 scream killers, no way limiting.
3 trygon, 3 trygon primes so snakes are covered if you want a tide of burrowing angry reverse drop pods
And every other MC, you shouldn't ever need to run more than 3. I guess you could run 3 Maelceptors if you have a crippling fear of victory though?

What if I wanted to run more than three biovores? Or more than three Zoanthropes? There are many different flavors of nidzilla not just carnifex spam. Which is why I specified it just makes some lists harder to play rather than impossible.

 Galef wrote:
Ro3 does NOT prevent fluffy lists, it ENCOURAGES them and ensure they are diverse.
Most of those options being "meh" to "horrible" is irrelevant.

So rule of three encourages me to run my guard aircav list by limiting me to three valkyries? lol ok

1) Biovores also come in squads of 3 so it's 9 maximum which is a hell of a lot of them! Same for Zoanthropes.

also you CAN, narrative or open play! I do a lot of it at my local club all the time. New legends arise, certain squads of players get bonuses or penalties and it really frees up 40k to be the perfect beer and pretzels game it was always meant to be before a whole competitive spin crept and trickled down to plague casual games. If you've accepted to only play matched then also accept Rule of 3 is here to stay and build around it, if you want the truly cool stuff, agree it in a narrative/open game and you'll be amazed how much more fun it can be,

Also I started in 4th ed with the old FOC, so I don't see it much difference now then it was back then. Except I can always take an extra hq as opposed to 1-2 which is nice. Otherwise troops were 3-6 and every non hq was 0-3.

w1zard wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Ro3 does NOT prevent fluffy lists, it ENCOURAGES them and ensure they are diverse.
Most of those options being "meh" to "horrible" is irrelevant.

So rule of three encourages me to run my guard aircav list by limiting me to three valkyries? lol ok

As per my post about Harliquins, some "themes" are not meant to be full-on military forces. IG "air-cav" is apparently one of them, ergo being limited to only 3 Valks and 3 Vendettas IS fluffy. I mean, that's still SIX flyers for an army that ISN'T known for flyers. They aren't Aeldari after all. And don't IG have more Flyers via FW?

I'm starting to get the impression that you just want to spam, not take actual fluffy lists.

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:

also you CAN, narrative or open play! I do a lot of it at my local club all the time. New legends arise, certain squads of players get bonuses or penalties and it really frees up 40k to be the perfect beer and pretzels game it was always meant to be before a whole competitive spin crept and trickled down to plague casual games. If you've accepted to only play matched then also accept Rule of 3 is here to stay and build around it, if you want the truly cool stuff, agree it in a narrative/open game and you'll be amazed how much more fun it can be,

Also I started in 4th ed with the old FOC, so I don't see it much difference now then it was back then. Except I can always take an extra hq as opposed to 1-2 which is nice. Otherwise troops were 3-6 and every non hq was 0-3.

^^^So much this. Back when you could ONLY take max 3 of anything ever, there weren't nearly as many unit options as now. So the Ro3 now isn't even as restrictive as it was back when we started

-

Bharring wrote:
I had originally intended to mention T'au battlesuits - such as Farsight Enclave, but, while Rule of One on the Commander already hurts it real bad, consider the following:
-3x Crisis Suits
-3x Bodyguard suits
-3x Stealth Suits
-3x Broadsides
-3x Ghostkeel
-Riptide Variants
I think you could hit 2k with that. A Commander and 6 Suit squads base (3 regular 3 bodyguard), plus other suit types to fit. At their prices, and Crisis squads being min 3 now, being limited to 6 Crisis Squads isn't as big a deal.

Pretty sure you blast past 2000 points.
3 Riptides and 3 Ghostkeels is nearly 1500 points on their own.

====
On the above everything can hurt everything. Technically yes, but practically no. Take 500 points of Marines. Shoot a knight for 5 turns. Let me know if you degrade it.

Bharring wrote:
"Bold of you to assume an army of one-of-each unit even looks good on the table."
Depends on the army.
An Aspect Host of mostly just one Aspect? Ugly. Stupid. Unfluffy. Unfun to play or play against. And terrible now, fortunately.
An Aspect Host of one of each Aspect? Beautiful. Brilliant. Fluffy. Fun to play or play against.

Silver Tide? Beautiful. Just one Warrior, Immortal, Scarab, etc squad? Not as beautiful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"Like you literally forget that you would only have 3 squads of Windriders, which isn't something Hann would lack on."
That was the central premise to his post. Wouldn't 3 Windriders, 2 Spears, an Autarch and Farseer on bike, 2 Guardian squads in Serpents, a DA squad in a Falcon, three Vyper squads, and a Fire Prism? That'd be a perfectly fluffy Sam-Hann list.

"Then you have people that were doing Deathwing and Ravenwing (as bad as the former is), the Necron Bone Kingdom, etc."
I agree that there are fluffy lists it would hurt. Just look upthread. Just cleaning up the findings a bit.

Sorry but one-of-each Aspect looks like garbage on a table and I have no clue why you would defend that.

Tyel wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I had originally intended to mention T'au battlesuits - such as Farsight Enclave, but, while Rule of One on the Commander already hurts it real bad, consider the following:
-3x Crisis Suits
-3x Bodyguard suits
-3x Stealth Suits
-3x Broadsides
-3x Ghostkeel
-Riptide Variants
I think you could hit 2k with that. A Commander and 6 Suit squads base (3 regular 3 bodyguard), plus other suit types to fit. At their prices, and Crisis squads being min 3 now, being limited to 6 Crisis Squads isn't as big a deal.

Pretty sure you blast past 2000 points.
3 Riptides and 3 Ghostkeels is nearly 1500 points on their own.

====
On the above everything can hurt everything. Technically yes, but practically no. Take 500 points of Marines. Shoot a knight for 5 turns. Let me know if you degrade it.

To be fair though 500 points of marines without 200 points of charictors buffing can shoot at anything and barely degrade it so thats not an issue of shooting at knights but more that marine shooting is .
But yeah balance is all over the shop, hopefully CA 2018 improves the situation but if it doesn't atleast rule of 3 does limit how badly undercosted units can be abused.

Tyel,
The point was you can mix 'n match from that list. I think just the 6 Crisis Suit units (Honor Guard are just slightly uppriced Suits) plus Commander, once kitted, puts you around 2k on it's own. So you can do that (although it's certainly not effective). What really hampers you is the "Only 1 Commander" thing (or are you allowed to have a normal Commander and a Coldstar or special characater?). But that's not Rule of 3.

Slayer,
You may think one-of-each Aspect looks like garbage on the table. I think it looks epic. We've seen similar things before: you like the look of your army with sufficient lack of detail and interchanageability to run the same models as different units. I like my units to have individual character. You like an army to be cohesive by having everyone be the same. I like an army to be cohesive in how they work together to cover all the basis. We just aren't going to agree on this point.

Galef wrote:

w1zard wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Ro3 does NOT prevent fluffy lists, it ENCOURAGES them and ensure they are diverse.
Most of those options being "meh" to "horrible" is irrelevant.

So rule of three encourages me to run my guard aircav list by limiting me to three valkyries? lol ok

As per my post about Harliquins, some "themes" are not meant to be full-on military forces. IG "air-cav" is apparently one of them, ergo being limited to only 3 Valks and 3 Vendettas IS fluffy. I mean, that's still SIX flyers for an army that ISN'T known for flyers. They aren't Aeldari after all. And don't IG have more Flyers via FW?

I'm starting to get the impression that you just want to spam, not take actual fluffy lists.

Umm.... Elysian Drop Troops are literally Imperial Guard Air Cavalry.

Galef wrote:With the variety of units GW have given lately, even super-themed lists have options. DW and RW have far more than just Terminators and Bikes now.
DW has Characters, Termies and DW Knights. And with Combat Squads, 3x 10 Termies + 3x 10 DW Knights + HQs is already more that 2K pts
RW have Bikes, multiple Speeder types and Black Knight Bikes. So again, plenty of options.

Ro3 does NOT prevent fluffy lists, it ENCOURAGES them and ensure they are diverse.
Most of those options being "meh" to "horrible" is irrelevant.

Ro3 isn't lazy, it's just the first step of several. Points adjustments, plus Ro3 is a great approach.

-

Diverse armies are kind of the opposite of fluffy armies.

Tanks, artillery, and other supporting equipment would not operate singleton at the scale of 40k.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Diverse armies are kind of the opposite of fluffy armies.

The diverse Saim-Hann jetbike army in my previous post disagrees, just as 1 example.
Fluff =/= spam 1 unit. Fluffy typically means taking multiple units of similar type. By diverse, I mean, not the same exact unit over and over

-

IG has fluffy reasons why they wouldn't work together synergistically. Other factions, not so much. In fact, Biel Tan fluff is distinctly anti-spam: a thousand cuts from a thousand different blades. Marine fluff is also less pro-spam: it might encourage you to spam Battle Brothers, but the fluff encourages different loadouts, even within one squad.

Fortunately, IG has some help fluffwise: it has more than on Artillery entry, so where an Eldar list can only take 3 artillery platforms, IG can take far more. It has more Leman Russ entries than most armies have battle tank entires - so you can do an Armored Company, but it can't just be as many of 1 tank as 2k points gets you.

This isn't perfect: a single IG entry can be used 3 times, and their Marine or Eldar equivelent can be used 3 times. But if the Marine or Eldar equivelent is twice as good for twice the cost, they effectively get to bring twice as much of that choice.

That scaling across points is one of the weaknesses of Rule of 3. If a 50-point unit and a 500-point unit are equally OP (per point), Rule of 3 keeps that 50-point unit from impacting the game all that much, whereas it doesn't impact that 500-point unit so much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Diverse fluffy armies:
-Eldar Swordwind (Aspect Hosts or otherwise)
-Fluffy Alaitoc armies ("all of the above" style)
-Guardian Warhosts (you don't need 3+ WW, Vypers, or batteries)
-Sam-Hainn Warhosts
-Spirit Hosts
-Battle Companies (6 Tac squads, but those are troops with varying loadouts - 3 Dev, 3 Assault, again varying loadouts)

*cries in Necron*

w1zard wrote:

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
Carnifexs - Old One eye and 3 squads of 3 normal, 3 squads of 3 thornback and 3 squads of 3 scream killers, no way limiting.
3 trygon, 3 trygon primes so snakes are covered if you want a tide of burrowing angry reverse drop pods
And every other MC, you shouldn't ever need to run more than 3. I guess you could run 3 Maelceptors if you have a crippling fear of victory though?

What if I wanted to run more than three biovores? Or more than three Zoanthropes? There are many different flavors of nidzilla not just carnifex spam. Which is why I specified it just makes some lists harder to play rather than impossible.

Biovores max 9 in rule of 3. Zoanthropes max at 18.

Bharring wrote:
Tyel,
The point was you can mix 'n match from that list. I think just the 6 Crisis Suit units (Honor Guard are just slightly uppriced Suits) plus Commander, once kitted, puts you around 2k on it's own. So you can do that (although it's certainly not effective). What really hampers you is the "Only 1 Commander" thing (or are you allowed to have a normal Commander and a Coldstar or special characater?). But that's not Rule of 3.

Slayer,
You may think one-of-each Aspect looks like garbage on the table. I think it looks epic. We've seen similar things before: you like the look of your army with sufficient lack of detail and interchanageability to run the same models as different units. I like my units to have individual character. You like an army to be cohesive by having everyone be the same. I like an army to be cohesive in how they work together to cover all the basis. We just aren't going to agree on this point.

Marine models are mostly interchangeable, but saying it's because I like a lack of detail is borderline silly. I like cohesive. One-of-everything is NOT cohesive. It never was. It LOOKS stupid and plays stupid because of a lack in redundancy. It's diversity for the sake of diversity.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
"Bold of you to assume an army of one-of-each unit even looks good on the table."
Depends on the army.
An Aspect Host of mostly just one Aspect? Ugly. Stupid. Unfluffy. Unfun to play or play against. And terrible now, fortunately.
An Aspect Host of one of each Aspect? Beautiful. Brilliant. Fluffy. Fun to play or play against.

Silver Tide? Beautiful. Just one Warrior, Immortal, Scarab, etc squad? Not as beautiful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"Like you literally forget that you would only have 3 squads of Windriders, which isn't something Hann would lack on."
That was the central premise to his post. Wouldn't 3 Windriders, 2 Spears, an Autarch and Farseer on bike, 2 Guardian squads in Serpents, a DA squad in a Falcon, three Vyper squads, and a Fire Prism? That'd be a perfectly fluffy Sam-Hann list.

"Then you have people that were doing Deathwing and Ravenwing (as bad as the former is), the Necron Bone Kingdom, etc."
I agree that there are fluffy lists it would hurt. Just look upthread. Just cleaning up the findings a bit.

Sorry but one-of-each Aspect looks like garbage on a table and I have no clue why you would defend that.

A: That's your opinion.
B: Paint them better.
C: It's how GW tended to originally field them in Battle Reports, since that's what they had at the studio.

Bharring wrote:
Tyel,
The point was you can mix 'n match from that list. I think just the 6 Crisis Suit units (Honor Guard are just slightly uppriced Suits) plus Commander, once kitted, puts you around 2k on it's own. So you can do that (although it's certainly not effective). What really hampers you is the "Only 1 Commander" thing (or are you allowed to have a normal Commander and a Coldstar or special characater?). But that's not Rule of 3.

Slayer,
You may think one-of-each Aspect looks like garbage on the table. I think it looks epic. We've seen similar things before: you like the look of your army with sufficient lack of detail and interchanageability to run the same models as different units. I like my units to have individual character. You like an army to be cohesive by having everyone be the same. I like an army to be cohesive in how they work together to cover all the basis. We just aren't going to agree on this point.

The comannder is locked at 1 commander per detachment including named charictors with the commander keyword it's a totally BS rule that shouldn't still exsist but GW doesn't care so it still does.

"One-of-everything is NOT cohesive. It never was."
Which is more cohesive: a football team with a QB, RB, and 6 linemen, or a football team with 8 QBs?

I know almost nothing about football, but the team with 8 QB won't be cohesive at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"It LOOKS stupid"
Purely subjective. I think it looks stupid to not do it.

" and plays stupid because of a lack in redundancy."
Fire Dragons, Spears, Spectres, and Reapers provide a little redundancy to each other. Dire Avengers, Hawks, and Scorps provide a little redundancy to each other. Scorps, Banshees, Spears, and Autarchs provide a little redunancy to eachother. It only lacks redundancy if you can't figure out the relative strengths of the units vs their second-favorite-targets and such.

Similarly, a Tac squad with PG/HB, anotehr with MG/LC, and another with GG/GC provide redundancy. The diversity helps fill in eachothers' gaps. Currently, not all those are viable, but if each choice were viable, there's no reason why having everoyne kit the same would necessarily be better.

"It's diversity for the sake of diversity."
Well, diversity for the sake of diverse options for both players is *certainly* a big upside. But is certainly not the only reason.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and:
"Marine models are mostly interchangeable"
A standard Bolter Marine can be a Dev, Tac, Sternie, or Vet depending on paint scheme (although paint scheme should differentiate them - if not, it's not WYSIWYG). But an ASM and VV are only interchangeable with chainsword/bolt pistol. Other loadouts aren't. And that's assming they're underpainted.

Marine kits are almost all interchangeable. But any model that has character is not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Note that a modern combat unit *is* "diverse" in this manner:
-Within a squad, not everyone carries the same weapon. Usually one "heavy", and most have basic line weapons.
-Within an engagement, a squad is better supported by a vehicle or air support or artillery or just about anything *other* than another identical squad. Two squads are still better than one, but give less capability.