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Headlss wrote:

Cynista wrote:
Stick with Tyranids. They are potentially in the top 5 mono factions and are one of the best internally balanced codexes. They also have probably the best combat unit in the game, Genestealers

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

I think GW attitude is try to make SM's upper middle tier and always make Eldar top tear and they don't care about the rest.

Hard to come to any other conclusion really. It's definitely not some cosmic accident that Eldar are always OP.

.

Its how they are designed. Since they are fast and fragile they will be either wrecking shop or crumpling. Space Marines are tough so their design balance is a lot more forgiving.

That would be true if Marines weren't made out of paper.

The Newman wrote:

Headlss wrote:

Cynista wrote:
Stick with Tyranids. They are potentially in the top 5 mono factions and are one of the best internally balanced codexes. They also have probably the best combat unit in the game, Genestealers

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

I think GW attitude is try to make SM's upper middle tier and always make Eldar top tear and they don't care about the rest.

Hard to come to any other conclusion really. It's definitely not some cosmic accident that Eldar are always OP.

.

Its how they are designed. Since they are fast and fragile they will be either wrecking shop or crumpling. Space Marines are tough so their design balance is a lot more forgiving.

That would be true if Marines weren't made out of paper.

They didn't used to be. I don't think the designers really understood how the new ap system was going to affect power armor troops.

Headlss wrote:

The Newman wrote:

Headlss wrote:

Cynista wrote:
Stick with Tyranids. They are potentially in the top 5 mono factions and are one of the best internally balanced codexes. They also have probably the best combat unit in the game, Genestealers

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

I think GW attitude is try to make SM's upper middle tier and always make Eldar top tear and they don't care about the rest.

Hard to come to any other conclusion really. It's definitely not some cosmic accident that Eldar are always OP.

.

Its how they are designed. Since they are fast and fragile they will be either wrecking shop or crumpling. Space Marines are tough so their design balance is a lot more forgiving.

That would be true if Marines weren't made out of paper.

They didn't used to be. I don't think the designers really understood how the new ap system was going to affect power armor troops.

Their design is clearly not to be made of paper. And they're about twice as durable as what they're being compared to here.

Their design is tough, but the rules just don't leverage that.

Yes, they have always been paper for their points going back to at least 5th ed. They were good in 3rd until the Xenos all got codices.

Only if you define "paper" as "despite being more durable, they can't compete for other reasons". Which is a rather strange definition of "paper".

Bharring wrote:
Only if you define "paper" as "despite being more durable, they can't compete for other reasons". Which is a rather strange definition of "paper".

Are they more resilient per point or less than most infantry?

Bharring wrote:
Only if you define "paper" as "despite being more durable, they can't compete for other reasons". Which is a rather strange definition of "paper".

Durability per point. Not absolute durability.

Bharring wrote:
Only if you define "paper" as "despite being more durable, they can't compete for other reasons". Which is a rather strange definition of "paper".

Actually I define paper as "very seldom survives being attacked". Most other infantry is made of napkins. Sure Marines are about twice as tough, but they pay three times as much for the privilege and in practical terms that extra toughness doesn't matter very much.

Ice_can wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Only if you define "paper" as "despite being more durable, they can't compete for other reasons". Which is a rather strange definition of "paper".

Are they more resilient per point or less than most infantry?

Depends on what you term "most infantry".

More durable per point than:
-Scouts
-Rangers
-Guardian Defenders
-Storm Guardians
-Dire Avengers
-Necron Warriors
-Ork Boyz
-PAGK

Less durable per point than:
*Guardsmen*
Kabalites
Fire Warriors

"Most Infantry" is taken to mean "Guardsmen" in most discussions - so it would be true. But I take exception to that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Only if you define "paper" as "despite being more durable, they can't compete for other reasons". Which is a rather strange definition of "paper".

Durability per point. Not absolute durability.

1) They are, compared to many troops in the game. Probably compared to most.

2) From a theme/design perspective, "points" don't exist yet; being "durable" is about individual models surviving more firepower. From theme/design perspective, a Guardsman is paper, but an IG regement is rock-solid.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Newman wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Only if you define "paper" as "despite being more durable, they can't compete for other reasons". Which is a rather strange definition of "paper".

Actually I define paper as "very seldom survives being attacked". Most other infantry is made of napkins. Sure Marines are about twice as tough, but they pay three times as much for the privilege and in practical terms that extra toughness doesn't matter very much.

Most infantry don't pay 1/3 the price of Marines. In fact, the list of infantry that pays 4ppm (the only ones wher eMarines pay three times as much) or less is very short.

In a game where anything short of a Castellan dies Turn 1, there shouldn't be "basic soldiers" that *can* survive most attacks.

For better or for worse, guardsmen are the standard by which infantry is judged. Also, old marines frequently have equipment that makes them EXTREMELY fragile per point, since none of that equipment is defensive.

Bharring wrote:

The Newman wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Only if you define "paper" as "despite being more durable, they can't compete for other reasons". Which is a rather strange definition of "paper".

Actually I define paper as "very seldom survives being attacked". Most other infantry is made of napkins. Sure Marines are about twice as tough, but they pay three times as much for the privilege and in practical terms that extra toughness doesn't matter very much.

Most infantry don't pay 1/3 the price of Marines. In fact, the list of infantry that pays 4ppm (the only ones wher eMarines pay three times as much) or less is very short.

In a game where anything short of a Castellan dies Turn 1, there shouldn't be "basic soldiers" that *can* survive most attacks.

Three times the points or twice the points or "substantially more" isn't really relevant to "a sheet of paper and a napkin are equally useless against a bullet". And you made basically the same point. The game shouldn't exist in a state where nothing softer than a Castillian can reliably survive being targetted turn one. That's not a counter-argument, that's the problem.

As represented on the tabletop, marines would never be fielded, much less be the poster boy for the entire franchise. They are pointless when IG can easily field 20+ plasma weapons each game.

Why are Marines the only infantry judged by "Compared to a Guardsman"?

In this case, you're arguing that Marines are always bad because they're paper per-point compared to 4ppm Guardsmen; a little more than twice as durable for a little more than triple the cost.

The faction being contrasted with Marines is CWE. Their basic infantry is *exactly* as durable as Guardsmen, for exactly *TWICE* the points.

The (Marines:Guardsmen):(Guardians:Guardsmen) still exists. Even with Guardsmen as the touchstone, Marines are more durable per point.

CWE infantry sucks. But good CWE lists just don't rely on them to any extent. Marines are hard to not include in a marine codex. It really helps to get chapter tactics on vehicles. Just sayin.

Also, marines are way less durable once AP starts coming in. So, combine equipped marines with AP, and they can easily be losing points 5 times faster than IG. And faster than CWE infantry.

Guardians don't suck. They just aren't built for durability.

That is not really true. Guardians can take a shield platform that has a 3+ save - if you put it in cover - you have a 2+ save. Granted you just have 2 wounds with it - the whole unit gets a substantial durability buff from ap-0 weapons. Plus you can always choose to put high AP weapons on an ablative wound if the platform is undamaged.

Plus the unit can get a 4++ for 1 CP. You can even protect them to get a 3++ and a 1+in cover. Marines don't have access to any of this crap. DA do and DW do I guess...but they are just marines plus 1.


There are things marines are more durable against but so many more weapons kill marines at a higher point efficiency than cheaper infantry. Plus almost every weapon that is good at killing infantry - kills marines better.

When you combine all this stuff....
Lack of durability from stratagems and psychic powers
Lack of inun saves
Lack of defensive options for gear

And overall lack of mobility

You get one of the least durable armies in the whole game. One that pays a substantial premium on all it's infantry for defense.

The problem isn't lack of invul saves on Marines. The problem is too many other units have them.

And I play Dark elfs (in spaaace). Why the feth does a grotesque have an Invulnerable save?

(Conversely I like it on Wytches, and I like the shadow field.)

Grotesques are basically DE custodes for fewer points.

 Xenomancers wrote:
That is not really true. Guardians can take a shield platform that has a 3+ save - if you put it in cover - you have a 2+ save. Granted you just have 2 wounds with it - the whole unit gets a substantial durability buff from ap-0 weapons. Plus you can always choose to put high AP weapons on an ablative wound if the platform is undamaged.

And Marines can take Marines that have a 3+ save - if you put it in cover - you have a 2+ save. Granted you just have 100% of your wounds with it....

Plus the unit can get a 4++ for 1 CP. You can even protect them to get a 3++ and a 1+in cover. Marines don't have access to any of this crap. DA do and DW do I guess...but they are just marines plus 1.

So Guardians can use a strat for a 4++, but Marines only have an aura that only gives a 4++?

More seriously, no argument that you can buffstack a single CWE unit to be more durable than the average Marine unit, but you can only do that to one unit. Overall, the Eldar units are still less durable than Marine units.

After all, Storm Shields?

There are things marines are more durable against but so many more weapons kill marines at a higher point efficiency than cheaper infantry. Plus almost every weapon that is good at killing infantry - kills marines better.

So Lasguns are bad? Heavy Bolters? Bullgryns? The Talons you've been complaining about? Most wounds inflicted in most games do not have S8+ or AP-4.

When you combine all this stuff....
Lack of durability from stratagems and psychic powers
Lack of inun saves
Lack of defensive options for gear

Storm Shields? And what Invuln gear do Guardians have again?

And overall lack of mobility

So not being mobile makes you paper? More seriously, that has nothing to do with the topic.

You get one of the least durable armies in the whole game. One that pays a substantial premium on all it's infantry for defense.

Non sequitor.

First, you claim Guardians are more durable than Marines because they can take a 2W model with a 3++, making them more durable than a whole unit of T4 3+.
You argue that one of the dozens of units on the board in a CWE list can have a 3++ by combining strats and powers, therefore the entire army is more durable. As if you must attack the one target. And as if those buffs were free/automatic.
Then you argue that most weapons kill 13ppm T4 3+ more efficiently than 8ppm T3 5+; most weapons most certainly do not.
Then you rant about how SM have no defensive gear options, as if all other infantry does.
Finally, your kicker is that *they lack mobility*, and therefore are less durable.

WTF?

Not being mobile means more turns of being shot. That's what he means.

Storm shields are only on certain units, and many of those already have severe problems, like terminators.

Marines are a mess. A giant mess. They haven't really conceptually worked for a long time.

"Overall, the Eldar units are still less durable than Marine units."

I don't think this is true at all. At least, not the Eldar units I see on the table. Alaitoc says "hello".

Martel732 wrote:
Not being mobile means more turns of being shot. That's what he means.

In other words, he doesn't mean "Not durable". He means "not competitive".

To be clear, when I say "durable", I don't mean "competitive".

Storm shields are only on certain units, and many of those already have severe problems, like terminators.

And Black Guardians isn't only on certain units?

Marines are a mess. A giant mess. They haven't really conceptually worked for a long time.

"Overall, the Eldar units are still less durable than Marine units."

I don't think this is true at all. At least, not the Eldar units I see on the table. Alaitoc says "hello".

I'm sorry, I didn't realise that Alaitoc Guardians with -1-to-hit were so much more durable than Raven Guard Marines with -1-to-hit.

There are Eldar units that are more durable (Serpent, Wraith Constructs, Covens), but most are not.

Hemlocks? Wave Serpents? Shining Spears?

For the record; the guy saying Marines are made of paper is not the same guy saying their mobility issues hurt their durability.

Also for the record; I didn't say Marines weren't more durable than most other troops. I didn't even really say that they're not more durable per point than other troops. (They're not in a lot of cases, but certainly not in all cases.) What I said was that the game is too lethal for their extra durability to matter most of the time, and they do pay a premium for that durability.

The Newman wrote:
For the record; the guy saying Marines are made of paper is not the same guy saying their mobility issues hurt their durability.

Also for the record; I didn't say Marines weren't more durable than most other troops. I didn't even really say that they're not more durable per point than other troops. (They're not in a lot of cases, but certainly not in all cases.) What I said was that the game is too lethal for their extra durability to matter most of the time, and they do pay a premium for that durability.

Durable means high toughness good armor lots of wounds and an extra save, either invul or feel no pain.

Unless you are playing wraith guard or covens space elfs are the opposite of that. Elfs have tricks. When the tricks fail, elfs die.

Elfs are supposed to die, but kinda dont.

I agree that the game is too lethal. Thats why I quoted you above.

Martel732 wrote:
Elfs are supposed to die, but kinda dont.

Elves are supposed to die if you can hit them solidly where they don't want to hit.

They're not supposed to die if you can't hit them.
They're not supposed to die if you hit them in the shield, or hit their tanks/APCs.
And their constructs (vehicles, Wraiths, Covens) aren't Elves.

In this way, the game measures up; Elf units are *very* fragile per-model compared to Marines, unless the above.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Headlss wrote:
I agree that the game is too lethal. Thats why I quoted you above.

Quoted for truth.

Headlss wrote:

The Newman wrote:
For the record; the guy saying Marines are made of paper is not the same guy saying their mobility issues hurt their durability.

Also for the record; I didn't say Marines weren't more durable than most other troops. I didn't even really say that they're not more durable per point than other troops. (They're not in a lot of cases, but certainly not in all cases.) What I said was that the game is too lethal for their extra durability to matter most of the time, and they do pay a premium for that durability.

Durable means high toughness good armor lots of wounds and an extra save, either invul or feel no pain.

Unless you are playing wraith guard or covens space elfs are the opposite of that. Elfs have tricks. When the tricks fail, elfs die.

In all fairness, tricks matter just as much, often more, than armor or toughness. Eldar, at least Craftworld Eldar, have often been among the most resilient armies in the game through history. Wounds and Armor are only one aspect of resiliency, and are usually the most straightforward to defeat. Rerollable saves, invuls, cover, to hit penalties, damage mitigation wargear (e.g. serpent field, Holofields, etc), and mobility to take advantage of LoS blocking terrain have made them far harder to kill than ostensibly beefier foes in many instances. Slightly less so in 8E, there's no unkillable Holofalcons or rerollable 2++ seer councils, but they're still not a particularly squishy army unless one really builds them to be such.

I appologize that I derailed the thread a bit down the "Marines themselves are more durable than Space Elves themselves" rabbit hole. I still believe my premise, but that conversation went off the rails and doesn't really matter to the point at hand.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Headlss wrote:

The Newman wrote:
For the record; the guy saying Marines are made of paper is not the same guy saying their mobility issues hurt their durability.

Also for the record; I didn't say Marines weren't more durable than most other troops. I didn't even really say that they're not more durable per point than other troops. (They're not in a lot of cases, but certainly not in all cases.) What I said was that the game is too lethal for their extra durability to matter most of the time, and they do pay a premium for that durability.

Durable means high toughness good armor lots of wounds and an extra save, either invul or feel no pain.

Unless you are playing wraith guard or covens space elfs are the opposite of that. Elfs have tricks. When the tricks fail, elfs die.

In all fairness, tricks matter just as much, often more, than armor or toughness. Eldar, at least Craftworld Eldar, have often been among the most resilient armies in the game through history. Wounds and Armor are only one aspect of resiliency, and are usually the most straightforward to defeat. Rerollable saves, invuls, cover, to hit penalties, damage mitigation wargear (e.g. serpent field, Holofields, etc), and mobility to take advantage of LoS blocking terrain have made them far harder to kill than ostensibly beefier foes in many instances. Slightly less so in 8E, there's no unkillable Holofalcons or rerollable 2++ seer councils, but they're still not a particularly squishy army unless one really builds them to be such.

But is that, necessarily, an antipattern?

Say the design of Marines is durable generalists.
Say the design of Space Elf Ascetics (CWE) are squishy individuals, who focus on perfection, advanced tech, tricksiness, and using the right tool for the job.

Consider the Wave Serpent. It's an advanced piece of tech designed to be hard to kill, so the easy-to-kill precious Space Elves can be safe inside.
This is probably just about the only vehicle in 40k that would have a 5-star Crash Raitingin the game - remember, every single Eldar is worth more than the planet you were born on!
It focuses on protection. It uses all the advanced tech, tricksiness, and perfection the Eldar people have.
It is not, itself, a squishy Space Elf.
Shouldn't it be durable?

The individual Elves should be easy to kill when you catch them with their pants down.
However, even if a Ranger is squishy, if it's an expert at fieldcraft hiding at max range from a poorly-trained target, while being concealed from the minds of the enemy and has had a Farseer read it's fortune, how easy should it be to kill?
It *should* be hard to kill that ranger. Not because you can't wound it or it has a great armor save. But because it's very hard to hit, or because it's been told the future.

So shouldn't there be times CWE has things more durable than Marines? They're obsessed with perfection, not speed/spectacle/durabilty (that's DE). Part of perfection is dodging. Part is blocking. Part is avoiding. So they should be able do these things, at cost.

Now, where it all goes wrong is cost/balance.

Consider the ranger. Even with Alaitoc, on it's own, it's not particularly egregious; it's hard to kill from across the map, but is very easy to kill close up (especially for a 12ppm model), and has rather meh firepower (single BS3+ sniper shot). This is what CWE should be - specialists. He's perfected hiding in cover, and trades meh firepower for situationally excellent durability. A real tradeoff.

Now consider the 6E coded Wave Serpent. It clearly focuses on defense and is suitably really hard to kill - reasonable for a vehicle who's purpose is to be so hard to kill and to help CWE get into position to unleash the stuff that *can* kill. It would have done that well - but GW gave it firepower, too. Absurdly good firepower. The problem here isn't the concept - the concept works and is fair. The problem is the execution. If the Serpent Shield didn't provide the insane dakka it did, the Wave Serpent in that book would have been entirely reasonable.

The idea was that CWE are hard to kill until they engaged, but couldn't hurt you until they engaged - and are paper afterwards. So a list mounted up in Serpents should be more durable than Marines, but shouldn't be blowing them off the table. And units not protected by some shenanigans should die quickly. Unfortunately, the game makers biffed that. It *has* been to easy for CWE, historically and currently, to be both more durable than they should be and more killy than they should be *at the same time*.

Nobody is saying CWE aren't or weren't broken. Or that, historically, the army as a whole when used correctly hasn't been harder to kill at times. What's being said is that the "Marine" is designed to be more durable than the "Space Elf" (note - "Space Elf" not "Slow and durable construct" or "super-advanced tank"). And that the counterpoint that Space Elves have tricksiness/tech/mobility/etc to not die isn't a problem - as long as it's counterbalanced (which it isn't currently/hasn't been).

This is all fine, but Eldar underpay for their tricks and marine overpay for their nontricks. I guess you already said that.

It's basically sour grapes from marines not getting what they pay for. Basically ever in the history of the game.