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My main problem I have with the proposed change is that it begins to step on the toes of the Rubric marine abilities.

Marines need a new edition as 8th rules do not favour them or anyone that isn't really horde.
If we wanted marines to feel as they're by and large supposed to feel by their fan base, you'd 've looking at them having +1 A and W from primaries, the AP reduction of Rubrics and the DR of the deathguard.

Personally though, I'd be fine with someone just using the FW customer beta rules and using their normal marines with the explanations for them to feel like marines.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Jesus Christ. Pure SM just finished in the top 8 of LVO without beta bolters. Why do you want to add another buff before you've seen the reaction of the meta from the first and when SM are performing well?

What happens when you remove Bobby G?

What happens to an Ork list when you remove Lootas? What happens to a TS list without Ahriman?

Every faction has its more competitive options. That said SM can, as it happens, function without Bobby G in the list.

So do you concede 6th Edition Tyranids being good because they had access to Flyrants?

Nope, I simply ignored the statement because it is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Bobby G makes other units perform better; he is a force multiplier. Not a single model beatstick. I’ll reiterate for those who missed it last time though - SM currently have multiple competitive builds that aren’t reliant on Bobby G and they do better mono than other factions that can only go mono. Before the buff that is bolter rules.

Given the eagerness to make SM better, I’m sure there’ll be a similar eagerness to support other factions that aren’t performing well? Weird that I get such a push back when I suggest buffs to my underperforming army.

Orks have a 47% win rate according to 40kstats, Space Marines have a 41% win rate, rising only to a 42% win rate when their soup potential gets taken into account. You get a pushback because you have a martyr complex that just doesn't pan out in the end. The only loyalist Marine Codices that manages a better win rate than Orks is Blood Angels souped (and we all know that's because of Slamguinius) and Deathwatch. Orks even do better than Chaos Space Marines (which is probably because people ally in TSons instead, but still). As far as I can see there's one list listed as "Adeptus Astartes" in the Top 100 of the LVO, compared to 4 Ork lists. You're staring yourself blind on the Top 8 results ignoring the fact that Nick Navati lost by a very slim margin.

Lol at those misrepresented stats. Also I don't think you know what 'martyr' means.

SM win rate at LVO - 46%.
Ork win rate at LVO - 47%.

Top SM list placement at LVO - in top 8, 6th I believe?
Top Ork list placement at LVO - 16th.

Ork vs SM win rate - 30 odd percent.
SM vs Orks win rate - 60 odd perecent.

You're stats are false, which is why your conclusions are wrong. Blood Angels are actually one of the worst performing primary factions. Of course they do much better in soup armies.

What are the competetive builds that don't rely on Guilliman?

I can't be bothered to look them up and tell you but if you had access to the stats you'd realise that there are multiple sub factions in the Adeptus Astarte's codex that had a greater win percentage than Ultramarines. Reece also runs a list without Girlyman and he does very well.

Stop leaning on the tried and tested excuses. I know Black Templar's are awful and only get worse when played in a fluffy way as they're supposed to. My fluffy army is the same. Sometimes thems the breaks. You should ask GW to fix your sub faction, rather than 'fixing' SM who are performing much, much better than dakka would have you believe.

Stop staring yourself blind at LVO, it's one data point (and even within that data point Orks are still ahead in win rate). It's pretty rich to complain about misrepresentation when you draw very far-reaching conclusions from one event where Orks missed out on being in the top 8 due to a loss by the tiniest of margins. You're also ignoring the 4-to-1 advantage in platings in the top 100.

Also, if you're going to claim that there's multiple non-Guilliman builds doing well I damn well expect you to be able to provide them when I ask. I can't read your mind; it's entirely possible that you're right, but I have no idea what lists you're referring to and you won't tell me even when I ask.

 Galef wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Jesus Christ. Pure SM just finished in the top 8 of LVO without beta bolters. Why do you want to add another buff before you've seen the reaction of the meta from the first and when SM are performing well?

What happens when you remove Bobby G?

What happens to an Ork list when you remove Lootas? What happens to a TS list without Ahriman?

Every faction has its more competitive options. That said SM can, as it happens, function without Bobby G in the list.

Sometimes a rules proposal isn't meant to fix a competitive issue, but rather an issue with how an army "feels" vs its fluff. To me, 15ppm Marines with 2W/2A would be ideal. A Marine isn't supposed to die as fast as a Guardsmen to D1 weapons, but they often do.
Making them harder to kill would solve the issue of them playing like expandable grunts, when they should be playing like linebreaking shock troops.

Their competitive issue would need to be address with both a durability boost and, more importantly, an offense boost (which the Bolter Discipline rule is a step int he right direction)

-

I'd love if my Custodes got to feel as OP as they are in the fluff. 1+ armour saves and 2+ Inv and 2+ FNP?! Yes please! 6 attacks each, 5 wounds each?! Yes please!

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Jesus Christ. Pure SM just finished in the top 8 of LVO without beta bolters. Why do you want to add another buff before you've seen the reaction of the meta from the first and when SM are performing well?

What happens when you remove Bobby G?

What happens to an Ork list when you remove Lootas? What happens to a TS list without Ahriman?

Every faction has its more competitive options. That said SM can, as it happens, function without Bobby G in the list.

So do you concede 6th Edition Tyranids being good because they had access to Flyrants?

Nope, I simply ignored the statement because it is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Bobby G makes other units perform better; he is a force multiplier. Not a single model beatstick. I’ll reiterate for those who missed it last time though - SM currently have multiple competitive builds that aren’t reliant on Bobby G and they do better mono than other factions that can only go mono. Before the buff that is bolter rules.

Given the eagerness to make SM better, I’m sure there’ll be a similar eagerness to support other factions that aren’t performing well? Weird that I get such a push back when I suggest buffs to my underperforming army.

Orks have a 47% win rate according to 40kstats, Space Marines have a 41% win rate, rising only to a 42% win rate when their soup potential gets taken into account. You get a pushback because you have a martyr complex that just doesn't pan out in the end. The only loyalist Marine Codices that manages a better win rate than Orks is Blood Angels souped (and we all know that's because of Slamguinius) and Deathwatch. Orks even do better than Chaos Space Marines (which is probably because people ally in TSons instead, but still). As far as I can see there's one list listed as "Adeptus Astartes" in the Top 100 of the LVO, compared to 4 Ork lists. You're staring yourself blind on the Top 8 results ignoring the fact that Nick Navati lost by a very slim margin.

Lol at those misrepresented stats. Also I don't think you know what 'martyr' means.

SM win rate at LVO - 46%.
Ork win rate at LVO - 47%.

Top SM list placement at LVO - in top 8, 6th I believe?
Top Ork list placement at LVO - 16th.

Ork vs SM win rate - 30 odd percent.
SM vs Orks win rate - 60 odd perecent.

You're stats are false, which is why your conclusions are wrong. Blood Angels are actually one of the worst performing primary factions. Of course they do much better in soup armies.

What are the competetive builds that don't rely on Guilliman?

I can't be bothered to look them up and tell you but if you had access to the stats you'd realise that there are multiple sub factions in the Adeptus Astarte's codex that had a greater win percentage than Ultramarines. Reece also runs a list without Girlyman and he does very well.

Stop leaning on the tried and tested excuses. I know Black Templar's are awful and only get worse when played in a fluffy way as they're supposed to. My fluffy army is the same. Sometimes thems the breaks. You should ask GW to fix your sub faction, rather than 'fixing' SM who are performing much, much better than dakka would have you believe.

Which says a lot because what was the total number of Ork armies present to the Space Marine armies?

I've always felt that Space Marines lacked any sort of surgical strike this edition. With the changes to the drop pod, deepstrike, disembarking, and movement stats it feels a lot more difficult for marines to get what they need where they need it, which is really what their fluff comes down to. Marines should have trouble standing toe-to-toe with a guardsmen gunline, but they need to have the tools to outmaneuver them, which they currently don't.

2 attacks base in CC wouldn't hurt either. maybe allow bolter discipline to use the bolt pistol in the fight phase and/or shooting phase

Just had a thought: how about counting each enemy model killed in melee as two for the purposes of morale? Space Marines are supposed to be shock troops, after all, striking hard and decisively, using the ensuing confusion to their advantage.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Just had a thought: how about counting each enemy model killed in melee as two for the purposes of morale? Space Marines are supposed to be shock troops, after all, striking hard and decisively, using the ensuing confusion to their advantage.

That would be interesting, but it would quickly get out of hand with leadership-vulnerable units and doesn't really do much to help against resistant units.
I have advocated in the past for some universal changes to Morale that would help Space Marines, though:
If a unit is within 1" of enemy models, they add 1 to Leadership checks.
If a unit is within 1" of more enemy models than are in the unit, they add 1 to Leadership checks.
If a unit lost more wounds than it inflicted in the Fight phase, they add 1 to Leadership checks.
Change "And They Shall Know No Fear" so that models can never take penalties to their Leadership checks.

Rerolls on Leadership is, 9 times out of 10, an exceedingly useless ability because Space Marines almost never take Leadership to begin with. Since MSU is king, and our squads have Ld8, taking leadership without being wiped requires an extremely specific amount of damage and we can only fail 1/3rd or 1/6th of the time depending on how those numbers work out. Leadership modifiers are not common enough to change that formula significantly, and even the ones that exist are rarely cost effective when they result in a marginal increase in the odds that one Marine might be lost.
By adding these penalties to Leadership, we buff melee options somewhat, make Leadership come into play a lot more often, and give Space Marines a unique resistance so that they're the only faction not taking a hit. It also provides a benefit to taking large squads, since outnumbering your opponent gives an extra buff both offensively and defensively.
Stack this with my proposed +1 Attack buff across the board for extra results.
(CSM Astartes could get either the same resistance, or an ability so they count for two models in CQC. Monsters and Vehicles could count for multiple models.)

Waaaghpower wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Just had a thought: how about counting each enemy model killed in melee as two for the purposes of morale? Space Marines are supposed to be shock troops, after all, striking hard and decisively, using the ensuing confusion to their advantage.

That would be interesting, but it would quickly get out of hand with leadership-vulnerable units and doesn't really do much to help against resistant units.

The leadership-vulnerability is a feature, not a bug. If a bunch of, say, Cultists watch their mates get pasted by Marines right next to them odds are they'd run, or at least lose their ability to coherently fight back. They're undisciplined rabble.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Just had a thought: how about counting each enemy model killed in melee as two for the purposes of morale? Space Marines are supposed to be shock troops, after all, striking hard and decisively, using the ensuing confusion to their advantage.

That would be interesting, but it would quickly get out of hand with leadership-vulnerable units and doesn't really do much to help against resistant units.

The leadership-vulnerability is a feature, not a bug. If a bunch of, say, Cultists watch their mates get pasted by Marines right next to them odds are they'd run, or at least lose their ability to coherently fight back. They're undisciplined rabble.

A lot of times, Cultists are going to be one of those leadership-resistant units. (If they're taken with the right faction, at least.)

GW has basically never handled morale right. It either entirely crippled certain armies or it never affected anyone.

Last edition, I can count maybe on one hand how many times I used the Fear USR.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Just had a thought: how about counting each enemy model killed in melee as two for the purposes of morale? Space Marines are supposed to be shock troops, after all, striking hard and decisively, using the ensuing confusion to their advantage.

That would be interesting, but it would quickly get out of hand with leadership-vulnerable units and doesn't really do much to help against resistant units.

The leadership-vulnerability is a feature, not a bug. If a bunch of, say, Cultists watch their mates get pasted by Marines right next to them odds are they'd run, or at least lose their ability to coherently fight back. They're undisciplined rabble.

A lot of times, Cultists are going to be one of those leadership-resistant units. (If they're taken with the right faction, at least.)

In which case the opponent is investing in something (most commonly Abaddon) to stop them from running away. They're probably more afraid of him than the Loyalists.

 CadianGateTroll wrote:
I propose a +6 fnp roll if the enemy weapon is str 4 or less. Maybe str 3 or less to specifically represent resilience to small arms fire. Str 4 would mean that marine armor is good at blocking bolters which they are not. Bolters were made to kill marines or so they say in the fluff...

What if, instead of a normal FNP, it was FW Graia style “when ever you remove a model from the table, roll a d6, on a 6+ it stays.” This could replace know no fear since it also benefits moral. It would even stack with the iron hands 6+ fnp and be could given to chaos marines without much fuss.

Marines ignoring -1/-2 AP would be crazy and I couldn't hate it more. Their durability against small arms is better, they can benefit from cover against it for a very tasty +2!

The bigger issue here is model point costs reducing far too much in my opinion and Marines having the offensive capability of a particularly heavy grot.

Give Marine bolters the new Beta Bolter rule, but also exploding hits on 6 inside rapid fire range (half range and under) to represent better short range accuracy and fire discipline.

This will encourage marines to get closer without strengthening a very unmarine like (except you Imperial Fists, you're cool!) Castling play style which spits in the face of heavy shock and awe infantry.

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
Marines ignoring -1/-2 AP would be crazy and I couldn't hate it more. Their durability against small arms is better, they can benefit from cover against it for a very tasty +2!

The bigger issue here is model point costs reducing far too much in my opinion and Marines having the offensive capability of a particularly heavy grot.

Give Marine bolters the new Beta Bolter rule, but also exploding hits on 6 inside rapid fire range (half range and under) to represent better short range accuracy and fire discipline.

This will encourage marines to get closer without strengthening a very unmarine like (except you Imperial Fists, you're cool!) Castling play style which spits in the face of heavy shock and awe infantry.

It isn't like they ignored AP-2 equivalents last edition either. I'm all for a Chapter Tactic that operates like the AdMech Lucius, but as a generic rule it's not tackling the issue of lost offense, which is the primary issue.

One suggestion that I've seen before that I like is to give power armor reroll saves of 1. It makes them nigh-invulnerable to small arms fire, as it should be, but high AP weaponry remains effective against them. And then maybe increase their point costs if they are too OP with that. I'd rather have higher costed Marines that are hard to shift than hordes of marines running around dying like guardsmen.

abyrn wrote:
One suggestion that I've seen before that I like is to give power armor reroll saves of 1. It makes them nigh-invulnerable to small arms fire, as it should be, but high AP weaponry remains effective against them. And then maybe increase their point costs if they are too OP with that. I'd rather have higher costed Marines that are hard to shift than hordes of marines running around dying like guardsmen.

It takes 18 lasgun shots to kill a marine. That seems fine to me, a single squad of guardsmen will have trouble killing 2. Maybe the problem is things like FRFSRF, marine's durability is in a fine place, it's their damage that needs buffed as is.

 Sir Heckington wrote:

abyrn wrote:
One suggestion that I've seen before that I like is to give power armor reroll saves of 1. It makes them nigh-invulnerable to small arms fire, as it should be, but high AP weaponry remains effective against them. And then maybe increase their point costs if they are too OP with that. I'd rather have higher costed Marines that are hard to shift than hordes of marines running around dying like guardsmen.

It takes 18 lasgun shots to kill a marine. That seems fine to me, a single squad of guardsmen will have trouble killing 2. Maybe the problem is things like FRFSRF, marine's durability is in a fine place, it's their damage that needs buffed as is.

Bingo. The only thing PA Marines lost durability to was old school AP4 weapons.

Hell, people are still in denial that Terminators increased in durability to more weapons than they lost it to.

Anyone arguing that MEQ are durable enough for their points must play a different game. I don't disagree that the above change is probably not the right fix but T4 3+ used to be fairly durable back when I started the game. This edition (and the last several for that matter) it's a joke, though I put that more on high strength low ap weapons costing to little and being handed out like candy.

That along with the AP change that has a lot more weapons that knock a number or two off the dice roll and you get a mess.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Anyone arguing that MEQ are durable enough for their points must play a different game. I don't disagree that the above change is probably not the right fix but T4 3+ used to be fairly durable back when I started the game. This edition (and the last several for that matter) it's a joke, though I put that more on high strength low ap weapons costing to little and being handed out like candy.

That along with the AP change that has a lot more weapons that knock a number or two off the dice roll and you get a mess.

It just flat out doesn't matter how durable they were back when you started. The WHOLE game is more lethal in 8th. Nobody is as tough as they were when you started. But are marines tough enough by comparison to everyone else THIS edition? Yes. Yes they are.

 Lance845 wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Anyone arguing that MEQ are durable enough for their points must play a different game. I don't disagree that the above change is probably not the right fix but T4 3+ used to be fairly durable back when I started the game. This edition (and the last several for that matter) it's a joke, though I put that more on high strength low ap weapons costing to little and being handed out like candy.

That along with the AP change that has a lot more weapons that knock a number or two off the dice roll and you get a mess.

It just flat out doesn't matter how durable they were back when you started. The WHOLE game is more lethal in 8th. Nobody is as tough as they were when you started. But are marines tough enough by comparison to everyone else THIS edition? Yes. Yes they are.

Exactly. The issue is lost offense where even Orks get a 6+ against Bolters. The AP mechanic made Marines significantly more durable. However, it affected other units more, most of which got cheaper too.

I agree that 8th is more lethal and that isn't inherently a bad thing. The problem in my view is it pushes any medium or heavy infantry or medium vehicles to just not to be worth their points in many cases. Your paying for stats that in even a semi competitive game just don't matter as a practical matter.

It should be difficult to kill a marine and it should be even harder to tag a terminator with a wound. Instead it's basically a joke. That inherently makes cheap chaff more durable in practice due to each model essentially paying for the only stat that matters, 1W.

I either want the cheapest thing that will take up space on the table top or I want the hardest of the hard.

There is no real middle ground. Especially with cheap infantry as you noted getting much more durability verse the one thing that should be use to clear them out, massed small arms fire.

They definitely need more offense. As it stands, since they don’t kill anything, they have to suck up the full enemy damage output all game long, while other, better armies (read: almost all of them) actually get to remove or cripple threats early on before they do too much or even any damage.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I agree that 8th is more lethal and that isn't inherently a bad thing. The problem in my view is it pushes any medium or heavy infantry or medium vehicles to just not to be worth their points in many cases. Your paying for stats that in even a semi competitive game just don't matter as a practical matter.

It should be difficult to kill a marine and it should be even harder to tag a terminator with a wound. Instead it's basically a joke. That inherently makes cheap chaff more durable in practice due to each model essentially paying for the only stat that matters, 1W.

I either want the cheapest thing that will take up space on the table top or I want the hardest of the hard.

There is no real middle ground. Especially with cheap infantry as you noted getting much more durability verse the one thing that should be use to clear them out, massed small arms fire.

They are not more durable to massed small arms fire then marines. Marines are MORE durable to massed small arms fire. They take more shots per model to bring down. Te issue is marines cannot put out enough shots to fight back against the hordes of cheap infantry. Again, if 5 Marines were able to kill equally to 10 guardsmen point for point then as the game went on the marines per model durability would have more opportunity to come into play because the guardsmen would be dieing faster. But they arn't. Because marines can't kill for gak.

Compared to the older AP system, the only difference is that Guard get a save now, meaning marines killed 50% more guard under AP.

The other major difference is the loss of templates. Flamers murdered Guard by the dozen in prior editions.

The Captain+Lt aura buffs get you pretty far on the bolter front, and beta bolters greatly inprove results for long range firefights.

Imo the right move now is to buff Flamers.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Compared to the older AP system, the only difference is that Guard get a save now, meaning marines killed 50% more guard under AP.

The other major difference is the loss of templates. Flamers murdered Guard by the dozen in prior editions.

The Captain+Lt aura buffs get you pretty far on the bolter front, and beta bolters greatly inprove results for long range firefights.

Imo the right move now is to buff Flamers.

The issue with the HQ argument is that the Marines can't be under the aura all the time, and they're priced like that. Units need to function on their own, and then the buffers accordingly afterwards.

You're right the Flamer needs a buff though.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Compared to the older AP system, the only difference is that Guard get a save now, meaning marines killed 50% more guard under AP.

The other major difference is the loss of templates. Flamers murdered Guard by the dozen in prior editions.

The Captain+Lt aura buffs get you pretty far on the bolter front, and beta bolters greatly inprove results for long range firefights.

Imo the right move now is to buff Flamers.

Marines get a save vs Battlecannons, Earthshakers, Hotshots and everything else that was AP 3, the only weapons that are better at killing MEQ now are the AP4 weapons.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Compared to the older AP system, the only difference is that Guard get a save now, meaning marines killed 50% more guard under AP.

The other major difference is the loss of templates. Flamers murdered Guard by the dozen in prior editions.

The Captain+Lt aura buffs get you pretty far on the bolter front, and beta bolters greatly inprove results for long range firefights.

Imo the right move now is to buff Flamers.

Orks get their t-shirt saves.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Compared to the older AP system, the only difference is that Guard get a save now, meaning marines killed 50% more guard under AP.

The other major difference is the loss of templates. Flamers murdered Guard by the dozen in prior editions.

The Captain+Lt aura buffs get you pretty far on the bolter front, and beta bolters greatly inprove results for long range firefights.

Imo the right move now is to buff Flamers.

The issue with the HQ argument is that the Marines can't be under the aura all the time, and they're priced like that. Units need to function on their own, and then the buffers accordingly afterwards.

I would prefer that, but aura HQs is what we got at the moment. Beta bolters did nice things for the marines vs. guard at the same time. Marines now deal MORE damage to guard beyond 12" than they did under AP in the prior few editions. That's without auras, too.

 Bobthehero wrote:

Marines get a save vs Battlecannons, Earthshakers, Hotshots and everything else that was AP 3, the only weapons that are better at killing MEQ now are the AP4 weapons.

I wasn't referencing any MEQ defensive comparison, because I think it's fine as it currently stands. Better offense remains my preference.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Orks get their t-shirt saves.

I'm not sure what you are intending to say by this. Orks now get a save in situations where they wouldn't in prior editions, true. But they also aren't getting their unmodifiable cover saves at the same time. Plus, like with the Guardsmen above, with beta bolters Marines are dealing more damage to them at a distance over prior editions.


Overall I would have preferred an extra shot at close range on top of beta bolters, and no move penalty, but beta bolters as is has helped.

I really want re-roll saves of 1. Maybe that's just because I roll an inordinate amount of 1s but I feel this would go a long way to improve marine durability, smooth out variance (getting marine saves closer to "average") without adding too much book-keeping (ignoring -1 ap) or stepping on the design space of other armies (2+ saves for power armor).

I'd also love it if the re-roll hits of 1 was a built in trait and captains got actually interesting aura abilities (fearless, re-roll charges, +1 movement, +1 attack in melee, other flavorful things). Would allow marines to not have to castle up and actually go out and do things rather than trying to squeeze as many as you can into a character aura so you're not "wasting" it. Would help smooth out the variance from elite armies not rolling enough dice and allow marines to play in a interesting way (instead of being worse IG gunline castle).

Those two plus the new bolter drill would go a long way. Then they'd just have to look at the primaris (hellblasters, inceptors and aggressors all need changes to keep up with what's going on, could probably be handled in a campaign book with some new "primaris" detachments). DA and SW get their primarchs BA fall to the thirst and chaos viola marines are good to go.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Compared to the older AP system, the only difference is that Guard get a save now, meaning marines killed 50% more guard under AP.

The other major difference is the loss of templates. Flamers murdered Guard by the dozen in prior editions.

The Captain+Lt aura buffs get you pretty far on the bolter front, and beta bolters greatly inprove results for long range firefights.

Imo the right move now is to buff Flamers.

The issue with the HQ argument is that the Marines can't be under the aura all the time, and they're priced like that. Units need to function on their own, and then the buffers accordingly afterwards.

I would prefer that, but aura HQs is what we got at the moment. Beta bolters did nice things for the marines vs. guard at the same time. Marines now deal MORE damage to guard beyond 12" than they did under AP in the prior few editions. That's without auras, too.

 Bobthehero wrote:

Marines get a save vs Battlecannons, Earthshakers, Hotshots and everything else that was AP 3, the only weapons that are better at killing MEQ now are the AP4 weapons.

I wasn't referencing any MEQ defensive comparison, because I think it's fine as it currently stands. Better offense remains my preference.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Orks get their t-shirt saves.

I'm not sure what you are intending to say by this. Orks now get a save in situations where they wouldn't in prior editions, true. But they also aren't getting their unmodifiable cover saves at the same time. Plus, like with the Guardsmen above, with beta bolters Marines are dealing more damage to them at a distance over prior editions.


Overall I would have preferred an extra shot at close range on top of beta bolters, and no move penalty, but beta bolters as is has helped.

That's under the pretense of not having moved. I would accept the statement for Terminators, Centurions, and Bikers, but everything else has gone downhill (though I suppose you can make the argument that Sternguard are mostly the same vs thag particular target).