Are Space Marines really that bad?

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**bibotot**

So, I am no longer active in playing the tabletop games, but even back in 7th edition I thought the average Space Marines list without any crazy formation was pretty weak compared to most other races. They still manage to win tournaments quite consistently with Captain Smashface, Centurion Deathstar and formations, though. Now that we are 1 year into 8th edition and, looking at tournament results, I hardly see any Space Marine primary list making to the top. If Space Marines are the most played faction, you would think they have more representatives at the top.

So are Space Marines bad right now? Why have they been so garbage in tournaments?

**djones520**

Yes. It's damn near impossible to run a mono-marine army and do well. They're just to damn expensive point wise. Even the shiny new primaris marines. With the abundance of multi-damage weapons out there, it's super easy to just obliterate them.

**Amishprn86**

Depends, are you playing at a local/friend level with 1 codex per side? if so , they are completely fine.

Or are you trying to go to tournaments? If so, they are bad, but they can still win games at tournaments, its not like you get tabled every game.

Dakka thinks everything is bad unless it can get to top 10 at House ruled tournaments.

**Asherian Command**

I have lost every game with space marines at my store. Its not because of luck, its just that everything out paces space marines.

Guardsmen can kill space marines in droves. In Droves.

They need help in all regards to their weaponry.

**RogueApiary**

Asherian Command wrote:
I have lost every game with space marines at my store. Its not because of luck, its just that everything out paces space marines.

Guardsmen can kill space marines in droves. In Droves.

They need help in all regards to their weaponry.

Can we see a typical list of yours and an idea of what your opponents run? I am curious to see what you're running that Guardsmen are killing 'in droves' and that you've managed to lose every game with. Cause even at Socal open, plenty of mono or near mono SM lists were able to get 3-3 or better.

**Elbows**

I think Space Marines are "okay"...barely...in casual play if you avoid some of the real pitfall units (Terminators etc.). However, as with all editions there has been substantial power creep in codices and Marines are on the receiving end of it, having a book finished before the game was even released essentially.

Later codices have benefitted from tens of thousands of games worth of experience across the world, and they simply outdo Space Marines at almost every turn. Their chapter traits (with a few exceptions) are extremely mediocre, and quite bad when compared against other codices - they also are limited in their impact to only a portion of their models. Orks, for instance have some Klan traits which represent the equivalent of 2-3 Chapter Traits, often better worded etc.

I play a mostly non-Chaos CSM Renegade force and suffer through a lot of the same maladies. Still fun and enjoyable in casual games, but I can imagine tournament goers have shelved their armies in many instances.

**Asherian Command**

RogueApiary wrote:
Asherian Command wrote:
I have lost every game with space marines at my store. Its not because of luck, its just that everything out paces space marines.

Guardsmen can kill space marines in droves. In Droves.

They need help in all regards to their weaponry.

Can we see a typical list of yours and an idea of what your opponents run? I am curious to see what you're running that Guardsmen are killing 'in droves' and that you've managed to lose every game with. Cause even at Socal open, plenty of mono or near mono SM lists were able to get 3-3 or better.

I usually try to do a mono marine army:

1 Captain with Stormshield (Shield Eternal) with thunder hammer, jump pack
2 Librarians

2 Intercessor Squads
4 Scout Squads

2 Inceptors (All bolters)
1 bike squad or Assault Squad

1 Aggressor Squad
1 Apothecary or a Venerable Dread
2 sternguard (5 man each) or 2 vanguard units (depending)

2 Devastator squads (4 missle Launchers, 4 heavy bolters)
1 Hellblaster

Is what I usually run.

Most my opponents run either :

Death Guard,
Knights,
Eldar,
Dark Eldar

Depending upon the opponent I switch up the army to include razorbacks or a smash captain or use blood angel rules and take an entire squad of death company.

For Knights I take as many razorbacks as possible with a potential predator squad (replacing bolters and missile launcher).

Inceptors are used for area denial against hordes, while aggressors hold positions, Intercessors are defenders, while sternguard take out the major of MEQ or Plague forces.

Obviously space marines lack ways to adequately deal with Knight titans as grav weaponry is overcosted for what it does.

Terminators are too expensive and die to literally everything for their points cost.

If I am not running a marine mono army (which never wins). I run an imperial soup list with three shield captains on bikes with auric shackles and two squads of intercessors and a smash captain.

**Galas**

Whenever I do a Space Marine list, I end and think "Man, I have so little stuff".

Then I do a Tau List and is like "I have points to put here everything I want and I even have points to spare" (As long as I don't spam crisis suits)

Is worse if you compare them with Dark Eldar or Imperial Guard. Theres hasn't been a game where I have played my Dark Angels and tought "Man, my units surely feel like they are worth the points" I don't have those problems with my tempestus scions, adeptus custodes or Tau. Marines just feel underwhelming. I don't know... I just feel sad playing my Dark Angels.

**Insectum7**

Space Marines are not top tier, but they can still give a good fight in capable hands. I do pretty well with mono-UM power armor swarm type lists, (No Guilliman) and don't feel too far behind super-soup style lists. Like a Ynnari soup is scary, but I still feel my odds are 40/60ish.

**Slayer-Fan123**

They were priced like they'll have Captain and Lt. rerolls the whole time, and then GW had the audacity to make those buffers expensive.

The only way you could really use the Vanilla codex was using Roboute (how many times can you hit a single character with a nerf?) or Raven Guard (who had their Stratagem nerfed because feth Raven Guard for having anything good that's why).

**Iron_Captain**

Yes, they are that bad. Unless your opponents run pure fluff lists you will be struggling (and you against Guard you will be struggling even against pure fluff lists). They can still win games of course, they are not completely useless, it is just that they are facing an uphill battle against almost every other codex.
To solve it, I think that Space Marine units need some solid stat boosts (some units like Terminators need this really desperately) and better Chapter traits.

**Arachnofiend**

Space Marines still place pretty consistently, not usually at the very top but they're not even close to the worst codex this edition. They bring guardsmen along or whatever but everyone at the top end soups so that's not really the SM codex's fault.

**Asherian Command**

Arachnofiend wrote:
Space Marines still place pretty consistently, not usually at the very top but they're not even close to the worst codex this edition. They bring guardsmen along or whatever but everyone at the top end soups so that's not really the SM codex's fault.

Not as pure mono lists, more often as detachments to other imperial soup armies. In a Mono List space marines perform horribly nine times out of ten. If you somehow manage to win a fight with space marines against deathguard you get the bragging award.

**Iron_Captain**

Asherian Command wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Space Marines still place pretty consistently, not usually at the very top but they're not even close to the worst codex this edition. They bring guardsmen along or whatever but everyone at the top end soups so that's not really the SM codex's fault.

Not as pure mono lists, more often as detachments to other imperial soup armies. In a Mono List space marines perform horribly nine times out of ten. If you somehow manage to win a fight with space marines against deathguard you get the bragging award.

But only after you post the battle report!

**NurglesR0T**

A huge part of the problem is that several other factions have the same effective shooting, but cheaper so can bring a higher volume.

8th Ed rewards high rate of fire. When a Kabalite Warrior or Fire Warrrior is half the cost of a space marine, shoots the same and effectively kills the same that's where the issues start to surface. Doesn't matter if the Kabalite is more fragile - fragility doesn't matter when the enemy is dead.

It's bit of a generalisation I know, but helps highlight some of the issues. Marines are priced to be average in both shooting and melee, whereas other factions (again picking on Aeldari here) can be excellent in one or the other and the points put elsewhere.

I put down a Dark Angels army against my friends Tau and always quietly think to myself "Are we playing the same amount of points?"

To add insult to injury, their traits are mostly average and only apply to select models whereas other factions have a combination of 2 sometimes 3 traits that apply army wide.

**Arachnofiend**

Asherian Command wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Space Marines still place pretty consistently, not usually at the very top but they're not even close to the worst codex this edition. They bring guardsmen along or whatever but everyone at the top end soups so that's not really the SM codex's fault.

Not as pure mono lists, more often as detachments to other imperial soup armies. In a Mono List space marines perform horribly nine times out of ten. If you somehow manage to win a fight with space marines against deathguard you get the bragging award.

Did you read my post

**ccs**

Amishprn86 wrote:
Dakka thinks everything is bad unless it can get to top 10 at House ruled tournaments.

I've noticed this.

In addition apparently you should never buy anything/start a new army because either CA or the next FAQ is just around the corner & MIGHT change something.

**Asherian Command**

Arachnofiend wrote:
Asherian Command wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Space Marines still place pretty consistently, not usually at the very top but they're not even close to the worst codex this edition. They bring guardsmen along or whatever but everyone at the top end soups so that's not really the SM codex's fault.

Not as pure mono lists, more often as detachments to other imperial soup armies. In a Mono List space marines perform horribly nine times out of ten. If you somehow manage to win a fight with space marines against deathguard you get the bragging award.

Did you read my post

Yes. I did :B

But we aren't talking about non 'pure' lists. An army stands up by itself or its useless.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:
Amishprn86 wrote:
Dakka thinks everything is bad unless it can get to top 10 at House ruled tournaments.

I've noticed this.

In addition apparently, you should never buy anything/start a new army because either CA or the next FAQ is just around the corner & MIGHT change something.

Anything with competitive scene things will often have something considered 'bad'. Averages and win rates are a thing some communities have such as Magic, Yu-gi-Oh, Hearthstone, Hell even Competitive D&D. They all have optimal strategies, responding to top level play is the mainstay of where designers see issues or track problems with their game's very core systems. Which is where they (the systems) come out in full and are equally abused by high level experienced play.

A Designers job is not to respond to every single inquiry a normal 'casual' player will have. A Pro player will have different experiences with 'core' rules and is very niche, a very small elite group of users. These are invaluable to us, UX designers and System designers. Its why we in the industry often hire 'professional' gamers as testers or people who play our games or as advisors. Sometimes those professionals even become game designers or leads (Day9, Kibler, almost the entirety of Hearthstone staff are professional gamers etc) are all DESIGNERS who came from pro-level gaming and pursued it as a passion. Heck I came off of high-level starcraft play and I am now a UX designer who works with Optimal System Designs and concern myself with the end user. This small market does know their stuff from a players perspective.

As a UX designer, I can say I take 'professional' users far more seriously than someone who seldom plays the game. But if both the professionals and the casual players are both in agreeance over one thing in particular... Then something must be off or something is wrong. If the critique is the same then there needs to be serious consideration taken into those options and investigating root causes. It is not always a surface level detail like "Points costs."

But if a list or race or character is underperforming even in casual games, then something might be wrong with it.

I can't tell the number of times players told us one thing but it turned out to be a fundamental system flaw or something relatively minor (flip a coin). There is a problem in the system as is but I don't know what as I am not one of their systems designers and I am not in the inquiry or have knowledge into their design processes. Give me their design journal or their in-depth design doc and I could try to figure it out but that would take a while.

All I can say as a player that it 'feels' bad to play space marines, and that is something that seems very off as an 18 year veteran of 40k and space marines. I've never played a space marine army and felt bad for playing them as a faction. Or felt like my army was useless in comparison to my Eldar who always outperform them by just sheer weight of fire this edition.

It could be many mitigating or casuation issues, like over-simplification, not enough rules, space marines being given over-costed equipment, nerf hammering, over concerned designers, or a marketing team that wanted to sell new models (that has happened by the way), or heck it could just be my theory of that they tested the Marines in the vacuum without the other codexes and never saw it in user testing phases of testing them against the other new factions. If we go by incremental design, then space marines probably never faced the newer codexes and were the template for the other codexes to follow and thus never faced anything other than themselves from the indexes as 'testing'. (Codex Creep)

We really don't know what happened, only what we as players feel.

**Arachnofiend**

No army in 8th stands on its own, soup is just too damn powerful. Guard and Drukhari get fairly close but that's about it.

Even by your metric Space Marines are fairly mid tier. They're sure as hell not Necron level.

**meleti**

Space Marines work if you're playing Guiliman. Dark Angels have some decent lists, Blood Angels did but got some unfortunate FAQ changes. Non-Guilliman codex SM lists tend to be pretty weak.

**Asherian Command**

Arachnofiend wrote:
No army in 8th stands on its own, soup is just too damn powerful. Guard and Drukhari get fairly close but that's about it.

Even by your metric Space Marines are fairly mid tier. They're sure as hell not Necron level.

Well this is about space marines, is it not?

It would be offtopic to talk about the necrons, no?

Space Marines are bad in their current state and in comparison yes. While I agree Necrons are too no doubt, but we aren't talking about them. I don't think anyone has said they are the worst thing in the game. Just that I've lost every game with them as a monolist.

Once they are in another army as I said they perform better just not by themselves.

**Daedalus81**

They're pretty ok, but they feel off at times.

Assault Marines are a bit of hard sell against Boyz and Genestealers. Landraiders are covered in dust. Most dreadnoughts can't make it to combat (go shooty or go home - and stay in cover). Terminators are readily countered by the current meta. Most other armies have traits affecting all their units and marines are stuck on bikes and infantry.

There are plenty of shining stars, but not enough to feel like a complete army those is supposed to go toe to toe with any other.

I have high hopes for CA to make several broad corrections, but it's possible some won't happen without community intervention. Beyond that the mechanical reality of the system is that marines will likely always need chaff and such to stay viable.

**Sagittarii Orientalis**

Even as "mono-army" consisting only of Adeptus Custodes models, Ultramarines with Roboute Guilliman has potential to compete even at higher levels in tournament.
Reecius' Ultramarine list placing in 15th at NOVA Open 40k Championships event is a testament to their capability.
(https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2018/09/20/reccius-nova-open-tournament-report-part-1-the-list-and-how-it-works/)

The problem is, once you start looking for what non-Ultramarine chapters can offer, it is not hard to see they are rarely worth taking for competitive play.
Even in casual games, I see non-Ultramarine(and most importantly, non-Gulliman) mono-chapter armies showing abysmal performance.
Pure harlequins list punish them hard even after the flip belt nerf. Not to mention thousand sons, death guard, tyranids, craftworlds, drukhari, etc.

The gap of competitiveness between Ultramarines(and again, most importantly, Guilliman) and other Codex: Space Marines chapter is too great that I daresay one should never bother playing non-Ultramarines in both competitive and casual environment.

**ccs**

Asherian Command wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Asherian Command wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Space Marines still place pretty consistently, not usually at the very top but they're not even close to the worst codex this edition. They bring guardsmen along or whatever but everyone at the top end soups so that's not really the SM codex's fault.

Not as pure mono lists, more often as detachments to other imperial soup armies. In a Mono List space marines perform horribly nine times out of ten. If you somehow manage to win a fight with space marines against deathguard you get the bragging award.

Did you read my post

Yes. I did :B

But we aren't talking about non 'pure' lists. An army stands up by itself or its useless.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:
Amishprn86 wrote:
Dakka thinks everything is bad unless it can get to top 10 at House ruled tournaments.

I've noticed this.

In addition apparently, you should never buy anything/start a new army because either CA or the next FAQ is just around the corner & MIGHT change something.

Anything with competitive scene things will often have something considered 'bad'. Averages and win rates are a thing some communities have such as Magic, Yu-gi-Oh, Hearthstone, Hell even Competitive D&D. They all have optimal strategies, responding to top level play is the mainstay of where designers see issues or track problems with their game's very core systems. Which is where they (the systems) come out in full and are equally abused by high level experienced play.

A Designers job is not to respond to every single inquiry a normal 'casual' player will have. A Pro player will have different experiences with 'core' rules and is very niche, a very small elite group of users. These are invaluable to us, UX designers and System designers. Its why we in the industry often hire 'professional' gamers as testers or people who play our games or as advisors. Sometimes those professionals even become game designers or leads (Day9, Kibler, almost the entirety of Hearthstone staff are professional gamers etc) are all DESIGNERS who came from pro-level gaming and pursued it as a passion. Heck I came off of high-level starcraft play and I am now a UX designer who works with Optimal System Designs and concern myself with the end user. This small market does know their stuff from a players perspective.

As a UX designer, I can say I take 'professional' users far more seriously than someone who seldom plays the game. But if both the professionals and the casual players are both in agreeance over one thing in particular... Then something must be off or something is wrong. If the critique is the same then there needs to be serious consideration taken into those options and investigating root causes. It is not always a surface level detail like "Points costs."

But if a list or race or character is underperforming even in casual games, then something might be wrong with it.

I can't tell the number of times players told us one thing but it turned out to be a fundamental system flaw or something relatively minor (flip a coin). There is a problem in the system as is but I don't know what as I am not one of their systems designers and I am not in the inquiry or have knowledge into their design processes. Give me their design journal or their in-depth design doc and I could try to figure it out but that would take a while.

All I can say as a player that it 'feels' bad to play space marines, and that is something that seems very off as an 18 year veteran of 40k and space marines. I've never played a space marine army and felt bad for playing them as a faction. Or felt like my army was useless in comparison to my Eldar who always outperform them by just sheer weight of fire this edition.

It could be many mitigating or casuation issues, like over-simplification, not enough rules, space marines being given over-costed equipment, nerf hammering, over concerned designers, or a marketing team that wanted to sell new models (that has happened by the way), or heck it could just be my theory of that they tested the Marines in the vacuum without the other codexes and never saw it in user testing phases of testing them against the other new factions. If we go by incremental design, then space marines probably never faced the newer codexes and were the template for the other codexes to follow and thus never faced anything other than themselves from the indexes as 'testing'. (Codex Creep)

We really don't know what happened, only what we as players feel.

You missed the humor there.

**BrianDavion**

ccs wrote:
Amishprn86 wrote:
Dakka thinks everything is bad unless it can get to top 10 at House ruled tournaments.

I've noticed this.

In addition apparently you should never buy anything/start a new army because either CA or the next FAQ is just around the corner & MIGHT change something.

Also remember if your IoM unit is 0.0001% less efficant at something then a similer unit from another Imperium codex, your unit is "trash and not worth taking"

**Inquisitor Lord Katherine**

They're not really that bad.

They're not top of the pile grand tournament winning material, as results show, but they're definitely adequate at the local level.

Major weaknesses include not getting their CT's on their tanks and having weaker overall strategems, which is a symptom of being first released codex when the edition's general place of strategems and CT's was maturing, and generally having been somewhat power-creeped.

Other general issues are the fact that their troops have low offensive capability, and a lot of their support options do not have staying power, and the support options with staying power are overcosted or ineffective.

There are some specific units and gimmicks that are good, but that doesn't carry a tournament.

**John Prins**

On the bright side, chances are Space Marines will get a full codex revamp sometime during 8th edition.

**HuskyWarhammer**

SM are strictly middle of the road in power - which is where they should be, imo, as they’re the “centerpiece” model line that GW puts out.

**Karol**

Probablly a matter of perspective and how a given marine codex is writen. For example the SW codex is not a good codex in terms of tournament winning, but it seems to give SW player the option to play an army that feels and plays like a SW army should to a degree they find ok. Same with deathwatch. On the other part of the marine spectrum we have something like deathwing, which fans and player think who the hell knows what about their army, because it is neither good, nor fun to play, nor does it feel like a termintor army should.

Also marines have one of the few books where there are just no good or fun builds in the entire codex. Which does give then a +1 in the who ever is the worse race.

**A.T.**

bibotot wrote:
Now that we are 1 year into 8th edition and, looking at tournament results, I hardly see any Space Marine primary list making to the top.

With the nature of the allies rules, why would someone bring a pure list to the tournament when they could cherry pick a stronger list from three books instead?
Even the DE players bring allies and that book is nothing if not strong.

That having been said the new AP rules have largely made MEQs weaker and chaff stronger without adequate adjustments to statlines, anti-infantry weapons, and points values. The power scale of the game has also been increasing over the years with more things that simply don't meaningfully differentiate between the MEQ and GEQ statlines - any of the various mortal wound dealing effects for instance. Building a list with the two extremes (mass chaff and ultra-power) is simply better than trying to take the middle of the road.