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Once again, I have to point out how badly giving Terminators a rule to reduce wounds or giving them additional wounds scales. A Terminator surviving a Lascannon 1/3 of the time is super silly.

I think that indirectly helping marines by flattening AP (Or increasing the cost) all around helps marines the most. Marines die reasonably to both lasguns and lascannons, it's when other weapons come into play that they die in droves.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Once again, I have to point out how badly giving Terminators a rule to reduce wounds or giving them additional wounds scales. A Terminator surviving a Lascannon 1/3 of the time is super silly.

Why is a termie surviving 1/3 of the time silly? Considering how much they cost they're basically light vehicles already (they're about the same cost as sentinels). Besides, Bullgryns and Custodes have 3 W and they're not considered wonky afaik. Did you playtest 3W termies and come to that conclusion or is it just speculative?

Dandelion wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Once again, I have to point out how badly giving Terminators a rule to reduce wounds or giving them additional wounds scales. A Terminator surviving a Lascannon 1/3 of the time is super silly.

Why is a termie surviving 1/3 of the time silly? Considering how much they cost they're basically light vehicles already (they're about the same cost as sentinels). Besides, Bullgryns and Custodes have 3 W and they're not considered wonky afaik. Did you playtest 3W termies and come to that conclusion or is it just speculative?

That's because Terminators shouldn't be near as tough as Custodes, and Ogryns only have a 5+ to use, with Bullgryns not faring much better without the 2++ shenanigans. Also of course a giant mutant like that would be tougher than a basic Marine. The Terminator armor isn't so durable it's adding two whole wounds. You get one extra and a 2+. It's more than enough if YOU actually did the math on their durability. Which you didn't. 3 wounds scales horribly based on DD3 weapons, DD6 weapons, and the fact you made them 3× as durable to small arms when they were already 2× as durable compared to last edition. Do the darn math on weapons.

Their issue is they don't fight worth a damn.

Why not have a +6 fnp save?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Once again, I have to point out how badly giving Terminators a rule to reduce wounds or giving them additional wounds scales. A Terminator surviving a Lascannon 1/3 of the time is super silly.

Why is a termie surviving 1/3 of the time silly? Considering how much they cost they're basically light vehicles already (they're about the same cost as sentinels). Besides, Bullgryns and Custodes have 3 W and they're not considered wonky afaik. Did you playtest 3W termies and come to that conclusion or is it just speculative?

That's because Terminators shouldn't be near as tough as Custodes, and Ogryns only have a 5+ to use, with Bullgryns not faring much better without the 2++ shenanigans. Also of course a giant mutant like that would be tougher than a basic Marine. The Terminator armor isn't so durable it's adding two whole wounds. You get one extra and a 2+. It's more than enough if YOU actually did the math on their durability. Which you didn't. 3 wounds scales horribly based on DD3 weapons, DD6 weapons, and the fact you made them 3× as durable to small arms when they were already 2× as durable compared to last edition. Do the darn math on weapons.

Their issue is they don't fight worth a damn.

When did I say Termies weren't durable? Their biggest issue is points cost I think and is the most likely thing to change rather than stats. I just don't think 3 W "scales horribly". There's quite a few heavy infantry options that have 3W: Ogryn/Bullgryn, Custode, Crisis Suits, Nid Warriors, Grey Knight Paladins etc... so from a game perspective 3W doesn't really break anything. Having a 1/3 chance of tanking a lascannon just seems like a feature rather than a bug.

Lastly, why can't a termie be as tough as a custode? (genuine question here) By that I mean, are custodes described as significantly tougher than termie marines? I realize that they are certainly tougher than standard marines, but I haven't seen a direct comparison between them and termies so IDK. But even if they had the same number of wounds Custodes are still T5 so are still tougher, have better movement and better WS/BS. Considering the only major difference between a SoB and a marine is T3 vs T4 it doesn't seem too out of wack, as far as internal consistency is concerned.

This whole suggestion ignores that the actual problem with space marines is not their survivability but their inability to match lasguns effectivness because volume of fire has the single greatest impact in 8th.

A spacemarine that takes a few more shots to go down is still a big pile of dead space marines and the IG are still going to be doing all the heavy lifting on getting gak done.

Yes, they do less than the same points in guard or orks. Not only do they do less but doing the same amount wouldn’t be very good because cheap models inherently have more board control than marines do even if they’re just standing there. Just to do equal damage; marines need more ap; more damage; and more shots.

 Galef wrote:
Yeah, Necrons are robots and do not have POWER armour, Astartes do. This could be a feature of Powered armour.

What about Sisters of Battle, would they also have a 2+ armor save?

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
Why not have a +6 fnp save?

Do Iron Hands get a 5+ FNP Then? Then do DG get a 4+ FNP?

 Galef wrote:
While they may currently share similar points costs, Marines and Necrons have never been portrayed as equals. Marines SHOULD be better, but likewise Necrons should be cheaper.
Given Power Armour 2+ and dropping a few ppm on Necrons solves this

-

Haven't Necron weapons been described as more powerful by a wide margin compared to bolters? Basic Necrons warriors shouldn't be less tough then Space Marines, they should be less skilled and slower, but not more fragile.

To me, the big problem of Space Marines is mostly linked to the fact that for an army that is supposed to be immensely tacticaly savant and flexble, their stratagems are fairly lackluster.

Sir Heckington wrote:

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
Why not have a +6 fnp save?

Do Iron Hands get a 5+ FNP Then? Then do DG get a 4+ FNP?

Bingo! Think about scaling!

 Mr Morden wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Galef wrote:
While they may currently share similar points costs, Marines and Necrons have never been portrayed as equals. Marines SHOULD be better, but likewise Necrons should be cheaper.
Given Power Armour 2+ and dropping a few ppm on Necrons solves this

-

Is that ALL power armour - ie Inqusitors, Sisters of Silence, Sisters of Battle, Engineseers?

if not why not?

No, because they don't have the Black Carapace and because they don't need it.

Black Carapace has Nothing to do with protection......Inquisitors (if not others like Ad Mech) have access to tech that mimics the black carpace.

Okay then, because they have the Black Carapace and a bunch of other implants and a geneticly modified biology that the other examples do not. Interfacing with their armour still lets them get more defensive utility from it than, for example, Sisters of Battle.

Which is why they have toughness 4

And, in this hypothetical situation, why they'd have a 2+ armour. It's a game balance decision.

Except 1) it doesn't balance anything because SM durability isn't the issue.

and 2) your trying to justify it with fluff. Fluff doesn't equal crunch so don't use it to try to justify balance. The only thing that justifies balance is balance.

SM durability is absolutely an issue.

Martel732 wrote:
SM durability is absolutely an issue.

Which isn't fixed by marines. A marine is just as durable against a lasgun as he should be, and just as durable against a lascannon as he should be. The prevalence of AP should be lessened, marine's don't need the boost.

Marine's output is the issue that needs to be fixed by marines.

Sir Heckington wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
SM durability is absolutely an issue.

Which isn't fixed by marines. A marine is just as durable against a lasgun as he should be, and just as durable against a lascannon as he should be. The prevalence of AP should be lessened, marine's don't need the boost.

Marine's output is the issue that needs to be fixed by marines.

The output of Marines can be addressed by having more Marines to contribute output. There are only 2 "correct" answers to solve this:

A) Make Marines cheaper so you can field more (this is the most likely outcome through CA)
B) Make Marines more durable so that:
---a) they will be more appealing for people to WANT to take them
---b) there will be more left in later turns to contribute more firepower, thus improving Marines output over the course of the game

While (A) is the more likely outcome, (B) does far more for Marines as a whole, which is why so, so many players advocate for it.

-

Except how much cheaper do you need to make Marines to buy that many more?

Nobody is less than 11 points. For every 10 Marines you still wouldn't be able to buy one more by cutting the cost by 2. Then you're approaching Sisters levels, and obviously we should strive to find a unique way that's easily implemented for Marines.

Personally I don't think the durability is terrible when it comes to being to compared to anything besides Infantry. Where they ALWAYS fall apart is their offense, which has always been a common theme for the army's struggle.

Sir Heckington wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
SM durability is absolutely an issue.

Which isn't fixed by marines. A marine is just as durable against a lasgun as he should be, and just as durable against a lascannon as he should be. The prevalence of AP should be lessened, marine's don't need the boost.

Marine's output is the issue that needs to be fixed by marines.

Not compared to 4 pt lasguns doubled by 30 pt dum dums.

Martel732 wrote:

Sir Heckington wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
SM durability is absolutely an issue.

Which isn't fixed by marines. A marine is just as durable against a lasgun as he should be, and just as durable against a lascannon as he should be. The prevalence of AP should be lessened, marine's don't need the boost.

Marine's output is the issue that needs to be fixed by marines.

Not compared to 4 pt lasguns doubled by 30 pt dum dums.

And everyone already knows Commanders need to go up 5 points or so.

5? People think that's going to fix it?

epronovost wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Yeah, Necrons are robots and do not have POWER armour, Astartes do. This could be a feature of Powered armour.

What about Sisters of Battle, would they also have a 2+ armor save?

They should do along with Ad Mech EnginSeers, Inquisitors, Sisters of Silence......

Martel732 wrote:
5? People think that's going to fix it?

I don't suppose you want to make them 40? Seems a bit much.

In a previous edition, Terminator armor saves were done on two dice. That seemed to work well enough, I would consider that before changing the actual stat.

With regards to Astartes getting a +1 to AP-1 & 0 weapons, that would seem like a reasonable compromise.

Yeah, some AM stuff is extremely undercosted. That's an issue. Making other undercosted units solves nothing.

Marines shouldn't be tougher, something else just needs to be less effective or more expensive. And SM need to gain more versatility, I can't really believe that SM players are willing to play them as AM just keeping the entire army around buffing characters in pure gunlines as the only competitive available style of playing.

Shouldn't they be jack of trades? So first thing SM need is to be way more killy in melee which currently lacks completely.

If marines were cheaper, they wouldn't need the auras as badly.

 Blackie wrote:
Yeah, some AM stuff is extremely undercosted. That's an issue. Making other undercosted units solves nothing.

Marines shouldn't be tougher, something else just needs to be less effective or more expensive. And SM need to gain more versatility, I can't really believe that SM players are willing to play them as AM just keeping the entire army around buffing characters in pure gunlines as the only competitive available style of playing.

Shouldn't they be jack of trades? So first thing SM need is to be way more killy in melee which currently lacks completely.

Back in 7th (where I'm still stuck and where Marines did haave some pricing issues), I implemented the following changes to improve them a little bit and they did a very job without breaking the game too much.

.All Space Marines gained an extra-close combat weapon for an extra attack

.Bolter range was increased to 30 inches (this also included Sisters bolters and the odd and rare Guard bolter)

.Heavy Bolter became Salvo 4/2 (this also included Sisters and Guards Heavy Bolter who were underwhelming choices)

.The Jump Pack of Assault Marines, Raptors and Warp Talon became usable both in the movement and assault phase of the same turn making them a tiny bit more punchy and more reliable in charges

.Storm Bolters became assault 3 (back then they were assault 2 and, if I'm not mistaken, they are now rapid fire 2 which pretty much does the same thing) and kept their range at 24 inches. Of course, this change also applied to Guards and Sisters Storm Bolters.

.Terminator armors provided and extra wound

The idea was to make Space Marines better jacks of all trade than they were. The extra range on bolter gives them a little bit more time to shoot at hordes outside of charge range which is useful against orks and nids, but also quite useful against Eldars which have very good weapons, but of shorter range. The extra attack makes them very punchy in close combat without reaching the level of specialists allowing them to defeat Guards or Taus more easily by increasing the output of every Tactical Marines. In 8th, I would recommand something similar incease the range of all bolters (except the primaris one's) by 6 inches and give an extra attack to all Space Marines. Finally give an extra wound to Terminators.

Well, maybe we don`t need SM troops cheaper, instead of this making the vehicles a little bit cheaper and giving them the Chapter Tactics?

Thinking well I think the -1Ap reduction will do them enought resiliant for survive more. The FNP should not be the solution.

Ice_can wrote:

No, No and No we don't need bolters to go to -1AP then a heavy bolter becomes -2AP an Assualt Cannon needs more AP and it all goes crazy. Bolters aren't realy that great in 8th I'll agree but it realy should be addressed via a special rule for bolters not just piling on AP.

No requirement for a heavy bolter to be -2 - they are a round with more explosive and are strength 5 as a result.

If your going to make Terminators 1+ really why even bother keeping the 5++? Are you really facing enough AP -5 to make the additional points for that 5++ worth while?

In short because they are terminators and are mean to be the epitome of personal armour. If its superfluous great, won't affect pointing much.

The blackcarapace etc is represented by a marine being T4 to other "mortal" power armour wearers being T3 *snip*

The black carapace has no effect at all currently - marines are tougher because of extra heart, harder bones, etc.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Once again, I have to point out how badly giving Terminators a rule to reduce wounds or giving them additional wounds scales. A Terminator surviving a Lascannon 1/3 of the time is super silly.

Why? I would have thought fluff wise they were tougher than a sentinel light walker. Currently a light walker - a bloke with normal armour plate not terminator plate - takes on average over 2 lascannon hits to be destroyed. Indeed you have only a 11% chance of killing a sentinel outright with a lascannon. You have a 46% of killing a terminator outright (wound on 2+, fail 5+ save, roll 2+ on d6 for wounds). Make a terminator 1+ reducing incoming damage by 1 to a minimum of 1 and you have a 28% chance of one shotting it (wound on 2+, fail 4+ save, roll 3+ on d6 for wounds).

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
Why not have a +6 fnp save?

As they are a somewhat annoying solution to poor stats? But yes is an easy fix, though not as powerful as 1+ save and -1 to incoming damage to a minimum of 1.

 Lance845 wrote:
This whole suggestion ignores that the actual problem with space marines is not their survivability but their inability to match lasguns effectivness because volume of fire has the single greatest impact in 8th.

A spacemarine that takes a few more shots to go down is still a big pile of dead space marines and the IG are still going to be doing all the heavy lifting on getting gak done.

Not quite - the longer you endure the more damage you put out. And in the fluff they are a lot tougher than the tabletop.

epronovost wrote:
What about Sisters of Battle, would they also have a 2+ armor save?

Nope, just astartes with all their bio engineering and special armour and armour interfaces.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

Nope, just astartes with all their bio engineering and special armour and armour interfaces.

I would consider this a mistake. The fluff explicitly stated in previous SoB codexes that Sisters armors were offering equal protection to that of Space Marines, but failed to provide them the same level of strength enhancement. Technically, the bio engineering of Space Marines is represented by their Strength and Toughness of 4 (formerly Initiative of 4 or 5 for more heroic Space Marines). A better autosense or magboots can ill explain a higher resistence to heavy fire. In the smae fashion, the Black Carapace is nothing more than a cluster of nerves implanted bellow the skin, it provides no protection, it's just a neural interface for the armor that allows it to be grafted so to speak on their skin. At best, it could explain Marines having a slightly higher movement speed compared to Sisters and explains their higher toughness. Considering that Space Marines aren't much tougher than Orks, it's unlikely that they should gain a toughness of 5. The problem of Space Marines isn't with Space Marines themselves all that much it's with the fact that a weapon out of 5 (or even 3) out there can be an anti-tank weapon or at least something that can destroy light vehicles. Of course, these will slaugther Space Marines these weapons are made to kill things way tougher than Marines in droves. What Space Marines truly need to receive a defense boost is a reduction in cost or of the global firepower available on the board at any given time (usually by making heavy restriction on none troop units). I would prefer option two, but many people love the min-max system. Failling the small boost in offense I proposed earlier seem to be the most reasonnable way to go.