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So in the same vein as Bolter Discipline, I propose to add a rule that helps Astartes with their durability issues.

Since sweeping stat changes like +1W are very unlikely to ever happen, my proposal is using the precedence set by Bolter Discipline to use keywords Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes to add a special kind of defensive option to give +1 to Armour save rolls. Just Armour save roll, not Invuls, and a natural 1 would still fail, and probably only against Shooting attacks.
Vehicles would not receive this bonus, just Infantry and Bikes

I haven't figured out just how this should be implemented, but there should be a downside, or action required to "activate" the +1 to Armour save.
The fluff justification for this is something I read a long time ago and haven't found the reference to. Maybe something in an older edition.
Basically, Marines are trained to use their armour in specific ways to "maximize" its effectiveness. Like moving forward with one shoulder out like a shield.

So how can we adjust a special rule just for Astartes to give them +1 armour save rolls?
Remain Stationary? I'd really not like that since Marines should be mobile shock troops
-1 to a Characteristic? Maybe BS/WS in the following turn? Or even Move -2'?

What are your thoughts? If there was a rule giving ALL Astartes +1 to Armour save rolls vs shooting attacks, what should the active downside be?

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Give them +1 to saves against AP0 weaponry.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Give them +1 to saves against AP0 weaponry.

Not bad, although it that is the "condition" I'd up it to be +1 to armour save rolls against AP0 and AP-1.

Keeps Plasmas and other AP2/AP3 weapon killing Marines, but buffs out against small arms fire.
Still not sure that's enough, but it's a good start.

But I'd really like it to be an "active" ability vs one that is dependent on outside forces.
Maybe if the whole unit moves half their M characteristic or less, they may add +1 to armour rolls until their next Movement phase. Makes it feel like the Spartan/Roman turtle/shield formation.
If it's only against Shooting attacks, than it doesn't matter if a unit wants to charge

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With T4 3+save it takes on average 9 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/(2/6*2/6)=9.
With T4 2+save it takes on average 18 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/((2/6)*(1/6))=18.
As a comparison Guard with T3 5+save takes on average 3 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/((3/6)*(4/6))=3.

So at over 12" it will take 4 squads of IG to cause 1 wound on average to T4 3+save. 2 squads if both have FRFSRF to cause 1 wound. In rapid fire range - well double the shots half the shooters needed.

I think that the SM durability problem is against heavy weapons fire, not small arms, which is to plentiful and/or too cheap.

And to quote "Against most small arms the armour reduces he chance of injury by between 50-85%, and it provides some form of protection against all except the most powerful weapons encountered on the battlefields of the 41st millennium." - 2nd Ed; Codex: Angels of Death; Page 8; 5th Paragraph.

Tygre wrote:
With T4 3+save it takes on average 9 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/(2/6*2/6)=9.
With T4 2+save it takes on average 18 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/((2/6)*(1/6))=18.
As a comparison Guard with T3 5+save takes on average 3 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/((3/6)*(4/6))=3.

So at over 12" it will take 4 squads of IG to cause 1 wound on average to T4 3+save. 2 squads if both have FRFSRF to cause 1 wound. In rapid fire range - well double the shots half the shooters needed.

I think that the SM durability problem is against heavy weapons fire, not small arms, which is to plentiful and/or too cheap.

And to quote "Against most small arms the armour reduces he chance of injury by between 50-85%, and it provides some form of protection against all except the most powerful weapons encountered on the battlefields of the 41st millennium." - 2nd Ed; Codex: Angels of Death; Page 8; 5th Paragraph.

Right, so adding +1 to Armour save rolls would help against AP-1, AP-2, etc, probably more than against AP-0

So maybe the "condition" that this rule needs is to never modify the roll to below the Characteristic. i.e, Astartes receive +1 to Armour save roll against all EXCEPT AP-0 weapons?
So unless they are in cover, 3+ Marine still need to roll 3+ at least

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You could always go the Lucius from AdMech route.

Marine durability is fine though outside arguably some of the Primaris units.

 Galef wrote:

Tygre wrote:
With T4 3+save it takes on average 9 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/(2/6*2/6)=9.
With T4 2+save it takes on average 18 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/((2/6)*(1/6))=18.
As a comparison Guard with T3 5+save takes on average 3 lasgun HITS (not shots) to cause a wound - 1/((3/6)*(4/6))=3.

So at over 12" it will take 4 squads of IG to cause 1 wound on average to T4 3+save. 2 squads if both have FRFSRF to cause 1 wound. In rapid fire range - well double the shots half the shooters needed.

I think that the SM durability problem is against heavy weapons fire, not small arms, which is to plentiful and/or too cheap.

And to quote "Against most small arms the armour reduces he chance of injury by between 50-85%, and it provides some form of protection against all except the most powerful weapons encountered on the battlefields of the 41st millennium." - 2nd Ed; Codex: Angels of Death; Page 8; 5th Paragraph.

Right, so adding +1 to Armour save rolls would help against AP-1, AP-2, etc, probably more than against AP-0

So maybe the "condition" that this rule needs is to never modify the roll to below the Characteristic. i.e, Astartes receive +1 to Armour save roll against all EXCEPT AP-0 weapons?
So unless they are in cover, 3+ Marine still need to roll 3+ at least

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So basically reduce all AP by 1 minimum 0.

Comparing against IG, SM, SM with this rule (SM+)

Heavy Bolter: IG 1.8 hits per kill; SM 3 hits per kill; SM+ 4.5 hits per kill
Autocannon: IG 1.44 hits per kill; SM 3 hits per kill; SM+ 4.5 hits per kill
Plasma gun: IG 1.2 hits per kill; SM 1.8 hits per kill; SM+ 2.25 hits per kill
overcharge plasma : IG 1.2 hits per kill; SM 1.44 hits per kill; SM+ 1.8 hits per kill
Meltagun: IG 1.2 hits per kill; SM 1.2 hits per kill; SM+ 1.44 hits per kill
Krak missile: IG 1.2 hits per kill; SM 1.8 hits per kill; SM+ 2.4 hits per kill
Lascannon: IG 1.2 hits per kill; SM 1.44 hits per kill; SM+ 1.8 hits per kill

The Lucius route might be a good alternative; AP-1 becomes AP0.

Does the Lucius rule only make AP-1 counts as AP0, or does it reduce all AP by 1?

I could see Astartes armour granting something like the following:

I think this rule would go far to rebalance the mass of high AP weapons out there without nerfing standard small arms fire. Combining this with the Bolter Discipline rule will make Marine in general fell more like they should. It should split anti-Marine shooting tactics into 2 schools of thought: Just take tons of AP0, or bring even more AP-2/3/4

I also want to make sure this rule ONLY applies to models in Power Armour and above. Besides SCOUTS, are there any other ASTARTES units that aren't in at least Power Armour?
I don't believe Cultist or Spawn have the ASTARTES keyword so they don't need to be called out specifically like Scouts, but am I missing anything else?

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The way to really see the implications of this are to put the marines / termies in the best situation, which is in cover.

Cover giving +1 to saves, and then astartes armour giving -1 to AP, means that for marines:

AP0 = 2+sv
AP1 = 2+sv
AP2 = 3+sv
AP3 = 4+sv
AP4 = 5+sv

Terminators in cover:

AP0 = 2+sv
AP1 = 2+sv
AP2 = 2+sv
AP3 = 3+sv
AP4 = 4+sv
AP5+ = 5+ sv (invuln)

Which isn't necessarily unreasonable, but if a devastator squad is in cover and I need a lascannon to even bring them below their starting save, it will make them a lot tougher.

That said, it would bring high volume anti infantry into the foreground of anti infantry, which makes sense.

Even with these figures, I actually like it.

 some bloke wrote:
The way to really see the implications of this are to put the marines / termies in the best situation, which is in cover.

Cover giving +1 to saves, and then astartes armour giving -1 to AP, means that for marines:

AP0 = 2+sv
AP1 = 2+sv
AP2 = 3+sv
AP3 = 4+sv
AP4 = 5+sv

Terminators in cover:

AP0 = 2+sv
AP1 = 2+sv
AP2 = 2+sv
AP3 = 3+sv
AP4 = 4+sv
AP5+ = 5+ sv (invuln)

Which isn't necessarily unreasonable, but if a devastator squad is in cover and I need a lascannon to even bring them below their starting save, it will make them a lot tougher.

That said, it would bring high volume anti infantry into the foreground of anti infantry, which makes sense.

Even with these figures, I actually like it.

And since so many Marines are only 1W, it think that is fair. No one really uses Devs, so they need a boost. This change would also encourage using melee more, which is always good for the game.

Yep, I think this is the winner:

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Sounds like one more nail in the Necrons coffin.

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
Sounds like one more nail in the Necrons coffin.

Nothing about Necrons is broken that cannot be fixed by dramatic points drops (maybe just a tweak on RPs)
But remember that it is ONLY 8E that has allowed Immortals and Warriors to affect Power Armour at all. In every prior edition since at least 4E, Warriors and Immortals still gave Marines their full 3+ armour save.
So drop 2-3ppm on a few Necron units and call it a day.

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 Galef wrote:
No one really uses Devs. . .

What?!

Yeah Devastators are one of the only okay choices, actually.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
No one really uses Devs. . .

What?!

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Yeah Devastators are one of the only okay choices, actually.

Fair enough. I'm just going by what I've personally seen all edition and the absence of Devs on the table top or in many tourney results I've seen.
I like Devs, but since they are just bolter Marines in terms of durability with notoriously expensive heavy weapon options, I don't see them as competitive options.
Cheaper Plasma cannons as of CA2018 make them interesting though

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Yeah but they get better saturation of those horrendously expensive weapons is the key difference.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yeah but they get better saturation of those horrendously expensive weapons is the key difference.

Lulz. We should just give Marines a 1+ invulnerable save. That way, they never die! And we should give them all 10-shot, S8, -10 AP, d20 damage boltguns. Yeah! With big, baby blue seal eyes for headlights, and whale skin hubcaps, getting 12 parsecs to the gallon while sucking down grox-burgers...

You know what? You really are an...

Hey! Just shut up and sing the song, pal.

“Marines just need to be chee-eeper! That’s all they really need to do!”

We already discussed how making them cheaper kills design workspace and doesn't actually help buy that many more weapons. Like, did you forget this conversation already?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
We already discussed how making them cheaper kills design workspace and doesn't actually help buy that many more weapons. Like, did you forget this conversation already?

I'm pretty sure he doesn't read the threads but comes here with his copy and paste post.


I kinda get where Galef is coming from. While I like my Devs hellblasters aren't that much more expensive depending on loadout for just all around better weapons that are more flexible. That being said they can give up more ppm.

Sidenote: I'm still waiting for intercessors to drop to 15 and hellblasters matching the cost of the model to drop hellblasters to 150 for 5.

Intercessors would be fine at 16 but I'm fine with 17 at the moment.

15 is silly and you should know that.

No, I read it. And, frankly, you’re wrong about killing design space. And you’re wrong, it’s never copy paste!

I have to come up with something new each time. Just like other people come up with new and terrible ideas on how to change Marines that simply wouldn’t work. So... go all in on a bad idea and just make them all Primarchs. That way, this idiocy surrounding how to make Marines destructive enough to somehow justify their cost while they still get killed by Plasmaguns and other powerful weaponry at a rate that makes it impossible to balance them against chaff infantry.

And despite the true, underlying game mechanics problem with MEQ being that issue I’ve just outlined, people still want bolter porn. And now that they’ve got a taste of that, they want PA porn too. It would make more sense for people to quit trying to create rules, and instead just focus on the fiction section where they can have Tacticals plow their way the screaming masses of opposition while gloriously shrugging off lascannons and Plasmaguns and moons falling from the sky while titans step on them and they just dust themselves off.

Wouldn’t that just do it for you better than making rules that aren’t reasonable in any way?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Intercessors would be fine at 16 but I'm fine with 17 at the moment.

15 is silly and you should know that.

Personally, I think 2W 2A Marines with regular Bolters with the current Bolter Discipline rule are about 15ppm. Intercessors with Bolt Rifles would then be appropriate at 17ppm. Basically paying 2ppm for the extra range and AP.
I'd personally be fine with the only difference between regular Marines and Primaris being different wargear options, but since that isn't going to happen, 1W Marines need some kind of (minor) durability buff, the kind of buff that can also help Primaris slightly.

+1 to armour save rolls can be this buff, but needs to require some kind of "activation" or limitation to use.

How does the following sound:
Rather than make AP-1 into AP-0 or something similar, why not give +1 to armour saves rolls outside a certain range? Similar to RG/AL trait?


That gives all Astartes a bit of a bonus against gunline armies and "encourages" enemies to get closer to them to ignore this bonus. And Marines generally like getting closer to maximize short ranged weapons and melee.
This particular change also doesn't hurt Necrons as bad because they too want to get close. And while this combined with the Beta Bolter Rule would seem to encourage gunline Marines, also remember that against other Astartes, they will want to get closer to ignore this +1, so it should indirectly balance out

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I think that having a rule which contradicts the aim of a unit will only make people feel that they are paying more for contradicting bonuses - if the army wants to get close, giving them a rule to make them better further away isn't going to work.

It would be like giving ork stormboys a bonus to saves if they didn't move. it breaks up the units purpose in the game. a unit should synergise with all of its special rules.

I suppose that one method which might make a real difference would be to give +1 to saves if the strength of the attack is less than or equal to the toughness of the model. Then big guns will have their place in killing marines and small arms will struggle. Heavy bolters should be a threat, and lasguns should be an annoyance.

 some bloke wrote:
I think that having a rule which contradicts the aim of a unit will only make people feel that they are paying more for contradicting bonuses - if the army wants to get close, giving them a rule to make them better further away isn't going to work.

It would be like giving ork stormboys a bonus to saves if they didn't move. it breaks up the units purpose in the game. a unit should synergise with all of its special rules.

I suppose that one method which might make a real difference would be to give +1 to saves if the strength of the attack is less than or equal to the toughness of the model. Then big guns will have their place in killing marines and small arms will struggle. Heavy bolters should be a threat, and lasguns should be an annoyance.

I would agree with this if it counted for shooting. Marines are arguably finely durable against small arms, esp whilst in cover but since everything costs so damn little in comparison it makes it all a losing battle. 40k needs to return to higher points cost and this will add so much more design space and granularity to balancing models rules/abilities with points.

Arguably 'good' guns are far too cheap and effective leaving a lot of melee units sucking dust and otherwise 'tanky' units out of a job as they cannot survive/soak up anywhere near as much firepower as in editions past.

See nothing wrong with power armour being a 2+ save and terminator armour 1+...

I don't think the +1 W change is all that unlikely, and it's much more straightforward than the conditional armour/wound boosts.

Should be part of a larger upgrade though - an extra attack and something like -1 AP on bolters to help separate them from the guard. For extra points of course.

I'd even go so far as to put an extra 6" on the bolters so that 'stand and shoot' at range favours the marines, perhaps even letting them rapid fire to full range when stationary.

Otherwise you just end up turning them into deathguard or rubrics.

I think that the best thing that GW can do is double or even triple the points of absolutely everything, and then tweak the points in the directions they need to go. with the level they are working at for infantry, it's too much of a jump. a guardsman, for example, can only be altered by 25% at a time - either going from 4 to 3 or 4 to 5 points. The same can be said for marines - if they move either direction, they get further from their value, and so can be assumed to be as close as possible with the current system.

They can hardly argue that players will be scared of bigger numbers, everyone has a calculator in their pockets nowadays.

The biggest fault is how easily marines die to heavy weapons, which are everywhere because there is no longer a boundary between killing marines and killing tanks. if you can take a big gun or a small gun, take the big one because it can kill anything. Before, if you had small guns, they couldn't hurt tanks, so people only fired lascannons at tanks.

My suggestion is slightly aside from marines, but would cover a lot of faults:

Cumbersome: this weapon is at -1 to hit, unless being fired by a model with the VEHICLE, MONSTER or TITANIC keywords.
Anti-Tank: This weapon is at -1 to hit Infantry, Bikers, Cavalry, and swarms.
Large Target: All weapons are at +1 to hit this model
Titanic Target: all weapons are at +2 to hit this model
Anti-Infantry: reduce the AP of this weapon by 1 when targeting VEHICLE or TITANIC units.

cumbersome goes on missiles, lascannons, and all the big, heavy weapons people lug around. Anti-Tank goes on lascannons and missiles etc.
large target is monsters and vehicles, and titanic is titanic. It's fair to assume that a titan is easier to hit than a gretchin!

Basically, this will funnel weapons which are meant to aim for big targets into firing at big targets, leaving anti-infantry to be, naturally, anti infantry, by virtue of not being anti-tank.

The problem, really, isn't that anti-infantry guns are too good, it's that anti-tank is too good, and too common.

this will result in having:

anti infantry weapons: lasguns, bolters, assault cannons, etc.

anti-tank weapons: lascannons, missile launchers, etc.

anti-everything weapons - plasma, melta etc.

so yes, bring lascannons as they will take down a tank. put them on a tank for a more stable aim. but don't expect to snipe a marine with a giant laser designed to blow holes in things which are very large!

This would go a way to separating giant-walker-wars and infantry battles, whilst keeping them on the same board.

Result for marines - more survivable vs the massed anti-tank stuff, and more flexibility because of the amount of different weapons they can take, and that these are having to fulfil their actual roles.

 Galef wrote:

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
Sounds like one more nail in the Necrons coffin.

Nothing about Necrons is broken that cannot be fixed by dramatic points drops (maybe just a tweak on RPs)
But remember that it is ONLY 8E that has allowed Immortals and Warriors to affect Power Armour at all. In every prior edition since at least 4E, Warriors and Immortals still gave Marines their full 3+ armour save.
So drop 2-3ppm on a few Necron units and call it a day.

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It doesn't matter that it was only 8th ed. That's the edition we are in and in this edition one of the Necrons key features is ap-1 or ap-2 on the vast majority of their infantry weapons. In 7th and earlier, they could glance tanks to death since most had 3hp not 12W and a save on top of that. Now they can't. But that was 7th, we are talking about 8th and Necrons have different strengths and weaknesses because of that edition change. The most prominent strength being better ap on their troops weaponry compared to almost everyone else.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
See nothing wrong with power armour being a 2+ save and terminator armour 1+...

I personally think that would be too strong if it was all the time. There needs to be some kind of condition in which either the Marines gain the bonus, or the opponent can take it away.
I am also thinking in terms that could be applied via Beta rules. That is, nothing that changes the stats on existing datasheets.
Giving all Astartes +1 to armou save rolls if the shots are outside a certain distance (12"?) achieves this. It also has more fluff justification. the farther away the target is, the more time the Astartes unit has to react to the attack (brace themselves*). But if an enemy is too close, this reaction will not matter as the attacks can better target weak points

*Actually, this could be a great name for the rule: "Brace yourselves, Brothers!"

Poly Ranger wrote:

 Galef wrote:

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
Sounds like one more nail in the Necrons coffin.

Nothing about Necrons is broken that cannot be fixed by dramatic points drops (maybe just a tweak on RPs)
But remember that it is ONLY 8E that has allowed Immortals and Warriors to affect Power Armour at all. In every prior edition since at least 4E, Warriors and Immortals still gave Marines their full 3+ armour save.
So drop 2-3ppm on a few Necron units and call it a day.

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It doesn't matter that it was only 8th ed. That's the edition we are in and in this edition one of the Necrons key features is ap-1 or ap-2 on the vast majority of their infantry weapons. In 7th and earlier, they could glance tanks to death since most had 3hp not 12W and a save on top of that. Now they can't. But that was 7th, we are talking about 8th and Necrons have different strengths and weaknesses because of that edition change. The most prominent strength being better ap on their troops weaponry compared to almost everyone else.

While I certainly agree that we should address how the current edition works, we can absolutely use prior editions to inform changes. Part of proposing rules is to make the unit "feel" like it should in both fluff and how the unit has preformed in the past.

But if you want to ignore that and JUST focus on the balance of the "now", that's fine. If you will note, I am only proposing this +1 to armour rolls outside 12".
So not only are Warriors & Immortals still getting better AP than other enemies against Astartes, as their guns are 24" RF and still going to try to get in half that range for the extra shot, they will be able to ignore the +1 roll.
And, only 1 model needs to be within 12" to ignore the bonus on ALL the unit's armour rolls. Just like the RG, AL and Alaitoc traits.

This is actually a great example of why my original proposal was to impose a condition, rather than just give the bonus all the time. To account for situations in which sub-par units would not be affected as greatly.

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GW logic: A parasite riddled malnourished regular human with some Grox Skin strapped to his chest can ignore the armour penetration of a Bolt Rifle but Tactical Dreadnought Armour, designed for walking though plasma reactors WHILE THEY ARE STILL OPERATIONAL can't.

How much would the game break if ADEPTUS ASTARTES and HERETIC ASTARTES got the following rule:
Transhuman Physiology and Really Gud Armour: When making saving throws (excluding invulnerable saving throws) for a model with this rule, add 1 to the result if the weapon being used to make the attack has an Armour Penetration characteristic of -1.