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Tonight was hard. I met a good friend to play a game, my first game of 8th since the new Marine Codex came out, using my CSM.

Tabled turn 2. I couldn't believe it, just a few months ago I could easily go toe to toe with just about any army in my area, but tonight I learned that once again CSM are outpaced by Loyalists.

There were many things I noticed, but one stood out above all. Ultramarine Banner Abuse. It seems to me that for the mere price of whatever that Primaris banner guy costs, the benefit FAR outweighs the cost. Being able to have your models shoot their weapons before dying just because you rolled a 4+ or being able to fight IMMEDIATELY, even interrupting the rest of my squads attacks just seems beyond broken to me. Put a few hellblasters next to the banner and laugh as they get to double shoot, the second time with no fear of suffering any penalty for overcharging.

Every time I went to go attack something, I got hit back twice as hard. What made it even worse is the overlapping Auras from Captains and Lieutenants. A lot of my usual tricks, -1 to hit, 5+ FNP on tough targets, even my Sorcerer got shived hard thanks to all the new toys the Ultramarines have.

I especially like the 1CP stratagem that literally says "Pick a shot, don't roll, you just hit" which cause his Dev squad to auto explode my Rhino, in cover, with popped smoke. The Doctrines, +1 hit, +1 Ap, all this stuff that put shots outside of all my saves.

So here we are again. CSM are once more inferior jokes while loyalist marines get all the toys, all the best gear. Heck, his tanks got Chapter Tactics, but now mine still do not. I guess this is just the price for playing Chaos?

He cant interrupt in melee with the banner. All your guys in a squad fight at the same time so if he gets to fight back its after all your guys have hit and then he gets 1 attack per model back. If there are multiple units in combat then he get to attack before the second unit but he cant interrupt mid unit. Its quite bad in melee since 1 attack is usually much worse than shooting once with a weapon.

Try to kill his shooting guys near the banner in melee or out of range and it does barely anything. There are plays around it and if you do Hellblasters becomes a very expensive unit that doesnt do much.

I got wrecked by that combo in my first 8th edition game as well but now I just see it as an expensive gimmick.

To my uneducated mind, seems the biggest disparity right now are Eliminators being excellent character killers, and Chaos, to the best of my memory, not having any Snipers at all.

Means Space Marines can knock holes in your synergy, whilst there’s nothing you can do in return, barring incredibly cunning charges etc to get to his characters?

The banner is nothing new though. It's been around since the first SM Codex this edition.

I thought the banner had to roll to see if the killed Marines manage to look at it before dying? Or was that just an Index thing?

 Sim-Life wrote:
I thought the banner had to roll to see if the killed Marines manage to look at it before dying? Or was that just an Index thing?

It does, and unless I'm mistaken it's only on a 4+ that it goes off, I'm no expert on the codex but I believe the old relic banner that went off on a 3+ was removed/changed.

Ok, gonna address this issue by issue.

There were many things I noticed, but one stood out above all. Ultramarine Banner Abuse. It seems to me that for the mere price of whatever that Primaris banner guy costs, the benefit FAR outweighs the cost. Being able to have your models shoot their weapons before dying just because you rolled a 3+ or being able to fight IMMEDIATELY, even interrupting the rest of my squads attacks just seems beyond broken to me. Put a few hellblasters next to the banner and laugh as they get to double shoot, the second time with no fear of suffering any penalty for overcharging.

The banner allows him to fire after being killed on a roll of 4 or better. if he was claiming 3's he was cheating and likely got some shots in he shouldn't have. Likewise as others have said if he's interupting your attacks thats now how it goes. NO banner that Ultramarines have access too grants a "first first" ability BTW.
(as for helblasters well.. a captain sovles their dying problem *shrugs*)

Every time I went to go attack something, I got hit back twice as hard. What made it even worse is the overlapping Auras from Captains and Lieutenants. A lot of my usual tricks, -1 to hit, 5+ FNP on tough targets, even my Sorcerer got shived hard thanks to all the new toys the Ultramarines have.

the lack of a leuitenant for chaos is annoying. or more specificly their Leuitenant equivilant only working in melee, it'd be a lot better if GW would just let chaos have fething boltguns AND chainswords.

especially like the 1CP stratagem that literally says "Pick a shot, don't roll, you just hit" which cause his Dev squad to auto explode my Rhino, in cover, with popped smoke. The Doctrines, +1 hit, +1 Ap, all this stuff that put shots outside of all my saves.

keep in mind, this is a SINGLE shot, not "a single squads shooting" but a SINGLE shot. on an army that hits on 3s anyway, except in cases of people stacking penalties to hit (something the strat is part of GW putting counters out for) it's not that great considering you can just spend a CP for a re-roll.

Marines are powerful yes, and the lack of an answer to doctrines on chaos marines feels annoying (although your chaos marines are cheaper then loyalist marines now at least) but reading your post it sounds like you got outplayed, and that maaaybe your opponent MAY have misused some of the abilities.

The title of this thread should probably be "banner use" instead of "banner abuse." Also I could have sworn the 3+ relic banner went away with the new book so it's a 4+ now.

Pretty sure the new codex actually nerfed the banner to only trigger on 4+ now; no longer as easy to get off. Also, the auto hit stratagem only works in a SINGLE hot roll, not all shots from a squad or even all shots from a weapon.

 Corrode wrote:
The title of this thread should probably be "banner use" instead of "banner abuse." Also I could have sworn the 3+ relic banner went away with the new book so it's a 4+ now.

yup, no 3+ banners for ultramarines. or any of the vanilla chapters. can't speak for blood angels and dark angels though

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To my uneducated mind, seems the biggest disparity right now are Eliminators being excellent character killers, and Chaos, to the best of my memory, not having any Snipers at all.

Means Space Marines can knock holes in your synergy, whilst there’s nothing you can do in return, barring incredibly cunning charges etc to get to his characters?

R&H marauders can take sniper rifles. You could run them in a vanguard detachment.

Of course like most of the things being mentioned here it does little to cover up the advantages the loyalists currently have over pretty much everyone else.

Hold on a second. The 3+ artifact banner can't be used anymore because it's from the old codex and is resolved after all other shots. +1 to hit doctrine? Sounds like you got hustled.

The 3+ artifact was the one of the few things hold the old codex together but know would be OP with the new stuff. This is kind of why people need to use the current stuff

For what it's worth one of the Legions got a strat in Faith and Fury to point at a guy and say "you get no auras this turn", that's incredibly powerful going into Loyalist marines. If I'm not mistaken it's Emperor's Chidren, so you could combo it with some Slannesh Daemons for the Forbidden Orb and completely shut down a Loyalist Marine army's synergy for a turn.

Loyalists are still entirely dependent on those rerolls to function. I know because I play White Scars a lot and the 2/3 of my army that can't keep up with the bike Captain is mopey as hell in shooting and melee despite all the buffs in the new codex. Pointing at the Captain or the Banner and saying "like ---- you do" can make an army designed around those auras fold up like a cheap suit.

 fraser1191 wrote:
Hold on a second. The 3+ artifact banner can't be used anymore because it's from the old codex and is resolved after all other shots. +1 to hit doctrine? Sounds like you got hustled.

The 3+ artifact was the one of the few things hold the old codex together but know would be OP with the new stuff. This is kind of why people need to use the current stuff

Yeah isn't that banner only on a 4+ now?

From what it sounds like the guy was either using battlescribe and didn't know he was picking stuff from the old book, or deliberately picking and choosing not realizing the new book replaces the old one entirely.

Try the Dark Angel banner sitting in among devastators and plasma guys....they shoot on a friggin 2+.

Little things like that basically killed 8th for me.

 Elbows wrote:
Try the Dark Angel banner sitting in among devastators and plasma guys....they shoot on a friggin 2+.

Little things like that basically killed 8th for me.

No, they get to fire on a 4+ but with a BS of 2+ if using the Chapter Ancient.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To my uneducated mind, seems the biggest disparity right now are Eliminators being excellent character killers, and Chaos, to the best of my memory, not having any Snipers at all.

Means Space Marines can knock holes in your synergy, whilst there’s nothing you can do in return, barring incredibly cunning charges etc to get to his characters?

It's not just that, but you are correct that it is a big part of it.

Their plasma -4, Mine -3. They get AP-1 Bolters, I get AP0. They have 2 wounds, I have 1. They can reroll hits from captains, and wounds from Lieutenants. I can reroll hits from my lord, but my champions only allow for wound rerolls in the fight phase. Their devastator squads can sponge wounds by adding bolter marines, my havoks are T5, but it's not really a big deal and doesn't seem to make much difference. Their tanks get chapter traits, mine do not. Their Dreadnoughts are better than mine.

Yes, I have Obliterators and when buffed by Lord/Apostle/Sorcerer/Strats can be utterly devastating, they're a one trick pony, you either drop them and kill, then get killed, or march and kill and then get killed. Getting the bonus attack helps a lot with the CC, but getting to CC in 8th is more trouble than it is worth.

I made a 9 inch charge out of DS with my Terminators last night, 6 Terminators with Combi-Bolters and Power Axes, 1 With a Heavy Flamer and a power Fist. Barely managed to wipe a whole squad of intercessors. Got splatted by laser cannons when he fell back.

Ultras get to fall back and still shoot, they get to recoop CP on a 5+ and deny the witch with that relic. The banner is just stupid, but it isn't the only problem.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
Ok, gonna address this issue by issue.

There were many things I noticed, but one stood out above all. Ultramarine Banner Abuse. It seems to me that for the mere price of whatever that Primaris banner guy costs, the benefit FAR outweighs the cost. Being able to have your models shoot their weapons before dying just because you rolled a 3+ or being able to fight IMMEDIATELY, even interrupting the rest of my squads attacks just seems beyond broken to me. Put a few hellblasters next to the banner and laugh as they get to double shoot, the second time with no fear of suffering any penalty for overcharging.

The banner allows him to fire after being killed on a roll of 4 or better. if he was claiming 3's he was cheating and likely got some shots in he shouldn't have. Likewise as others have said if he's interupting your attacks thats now how it goes. NO banner that Ultramarines have access too grants a "first first" ability BTW.
(as for helblasters well.. a captain sovles their dying problem *shrugs*)

Every time I went to go attack something, I got hit back twice as hard. What made it even worse is the overlapping Auras from Captains and Lieutenants. A lot of my usual tricks, -1 to hit, 5+ FNP on tough targets, even my Sorcerer got shived hard thanks to all the new toys the Ultramarines have.

the lack of a leuitenant for chaos is annoying. or more specificly their Leuitenant equivilant only working in melee, it'd be a lot better if GW would just let chaos have fething boltguns AND chainswords.

especially like the 1CP stratagem that literally says "Pick a shot, don't roll, you just hit" which cause his Dev squad to auto explode my Rhino, in cover, with popped smoke. The Doctrines, +1 hit, +1 Ap, all this stuff that put shots outside of all my saves.

keep in mind, this is a SINGLE shot, not "a single squads shooting" but a SINGLE shot. on an army that hits on 3s anyway, except in cases of people stacking penalties to hit (something the strat is part of GW putting counters out for) it's not that great considering you can just spend a CP for a re-roll.

Marines are powerful yes, and the lack of an answer to doctrines on chaos marines feels annoying (although your chaos marines are cheaper then loyalist marines now at least) but reading your post it sounds like you got outplayed, and that maaaybe your opponent MAY have misused some of the abilities.

It was probably a 4+, My Opponent is my best friend and he doesn't cheat. He does roll an insane number of 5+ though, so 4+ didn't seem to matter much. For the Single Shot start, it mattered because he got to auto hit my lord with a las cannon. Guess what my save Die roll was. A 3. Guess what dmg he rolled. A 6.

I don't count being able to set my range to 30+ inches and then lay down more firepower than the Tau being outplayed. I call it "GW doesn't balance gak and they just throw rules out into the wild and then go back to playing whatever Narrative style they play in the office. He and I have played this match up many times, before the Codex Supplement, it was 3 wins for him to my 12 wins. Last nights two games were the first time he was able to answer every. Single. Unit in my army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To my uneducated mind, seems the biggest disparity right now are Eliminators being excellent character killers, and Chaos, to the best of my memory, not having any Snipers at all.

Means Space Marines can knock holes in your synergy, whilst there’s nothing you can do in return, barring incredibly cunning charges etc to get to his characters?

R&H marauders can take sniper rifles. You could run them in a vanguard detachment.

Of course like most of the things being mentioned here it does little to cover up the advantages the loyalists currently have over pretty much everyone else.

Our group bans FW and I only want to play Black Legion. I hate the allies system, mono codex should be the only way to fly IMO.

Okay, mono-Black Legion. Not going to make life easy for yourself eh? Lol, all good - they're my favourite army in the GAME (though GSC are a close second), so let me tell you some tips:

#1 - Obliterators. You need 'em, and you need to play them REALLY well. Poking just out from LoS to kill a unit so that they're no longer in sight sort of deal.

#2 - Abaddon's gun being Dmg 2 makes it moderately okay at killing Primaris. In fact, anything with Dmg 2 in the codex is going to be gold for you.

#3 - Get good at tri-pointing units. If you tri-point an enemy model, they can't leave combat, despite the Ultramarine ability. Khorne Berzerkers are especially good at this since they get to fight (and thus pile in + consolidate) twice, though they might accidentally kill the squad. You can actually do okay by not caring too much about the overwatch you're going to eat.

#4 - Disco Lords are pretty darn good, and against Primaris Marines will get some darn good use out of both the Baleflamer and Abaddon's warlord trait. Go figure!

Oh yeah, Primaris Marines do not like running into an army with a lot of Autocannons.

 Yarium wrote:
Okay, mono-Black Legion. Not going to make life easy for yourself eh? Lol, all good - they're my favourite army in the GAME (though GSC are a close second), so let me tell you some tips:

#1 - Obliterators. You need 'em, and you need to play them REALLY well. Poking just out from LoS to kill a unit so that they're no longer in sight sort of deal.

#2 - Abaddon's gun being Dmg 2 makes it moderately okay at killing Primaris. In fact, anything with Dmg 2 in the codex is going to be gold for you.

#3 - Get good at tri-pointing units. If you tri-point an enemy model, they can't leave combat, despite the Ultramarine ability. Khorne Berzerkers are especially good at this since they get to fight (and thus pile in + consolidate) twice, though they might accidentally kill the squad. You can actually do okay by not caring too much about the overwatch you're going to eat.

#4 - Disco Lords are pretty darn good, and against Primaris Marines will get some darn good use out of both the Baleflamer and Abaddon's warlord trait. Go figure!

I run Obliterators, unfortunately even with buffs from sorcerers and what not, they still die to massed plasma easily.

Abaddon is good, but I don't always bring him.

What is Tri-point??




Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Newman wrote:
Oh yeah, Primaris Marines do not like running into an army with a lot of Autocannons.

That's why he killed all of mine first.

 Togusa wrote:

What is Tri-point??

Tri-pointing (also known as taking hostages), is when you surround a model in an enemy unit in combat. This is done to prevent that models unit from falling back out of combat.
The trapped model cannot move, as it is blocked in by your models, and the other models in its unit are not permitted to abandon it.
It's called tri-pointing because it takes a minimum of three of your models equally spaced around an enemy models base to prevent it from leaving.

Arson Fire wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

What is Tri-point??

Tri-pointing (also known as taking hostages), is when you surround a model in an enemy unit in combat. This is done to prevent that models unit from falling back out of combat.
The trapped model cannot move, as it is blocked in by your models, and the other models in its unit are not permitted to abandon it.
It's called tri-pointing because it takes a minimum of three of your models equally spaced around an enemy models base to prevent it from leaving.

So that's not something I can really do, I do not play a dedicated CC or dedicated Shooting army, but more of a hybrid. Also, if your opponent knows how to play, they'll never let you get in that position.

Is it so much to ask that there should be some kind of penalty for leaving CC instead?

Either roll off to see if you can escape, or suffer Mortal wounds to thin you down.

it seems like so much of 8th was intended to make the game quicker and simpler, but then as the codexes have released, they've fallen right back into that tired old issue of writing rules to ignore other rules.

It used to be, if you left CC you couldn't shoot. Now, tons of factions have some way around this. Moral is useless...at least as a marine. Go to 5 man squads at LD 8+ and you'll basically never fail. The focus that GW has put on Imperial V. Chaos means that you rarely see armies on the table (at least for me) in the vain of Necrons or Tyranids or even eldar anymore.

 Togusa wrote:

Arson Fire wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

What is Tri-point??

Tri-pointing (also known as taking hostages), is when you surround a model in an enemy unit in combat. This is done to prevent that models unit from falling back out of combat.
The trapped model cannot move, as it is blocked in by your models, and the other models in its unit are not permitted to abandon it.
It's called tri-pointing because it takes a minimum of three of your models equally spaced around an enemy models base to prevent it from leaving.

So that's not something I can really do, I do not play a dedicated CC or dedicated Shooting army, but more of a hybrid. Also, if your opponent knows how to play, they'll never let you get in that position.

Is it so much to ask that there should be some kind of penalty for leaving CC instead?

Either roll off to see if you can escape, or suffer Mortal wounds to thin you down.

it seems like so much of 8th was intended to make the game quicker and simpler, but then as the codexes have released, they've fallen right back into that tired old issue of writing rules to ignore other rules.

It used to be, if you left CC you couldn't shoot. Now, tons of factions have some way around this. Moral is useless...at least as a marine. Go to 5 man squads at LD 8+ and you'll basically never fail. The focus that GW has put on Imperial V. Chaos means that you rarely see armies on the table (at least for me) in the vain of Necrons or Tyranids or even eldar anymore.

The mixture of CC and shooting is probably a problem. Armies these days tend to be all or nothing, because CC and ranged do not complement eachother very well. Threat over-load is extremely important, and having a mixture of CC and ranged allows your enemy to take you apart at their leisure.

Tri-pointing is absolutely doable against good enemies. It's based on the end of CC consolidation. It does take some luck (you generally have to maim, but not wipe, the unit), but it's a skill all its own.

 Togusa wrote:

The Newman wrote:
Oh yeah, Primaris Marines do not like running into an army with a lot of Autocannons.

That's why he killed all of mine first.

I'm kind of curious how he managed that. Loyalists can't take a normal AC on anything except as a Legends option on a dread, CMS can put them on troop squads. If Loyalists could put ACs on Tac/Dev squads you'd never see anything else on them.

 morganfreeman wrote:

Tri-pointing is absolutely doable against good enemies. It's based on the end of CC consolidation. It does take some luck (you generally have to maim, but not wipe, the unit), but it's a skill all its own.

There are also multiple approaches you can take to do it.
Rather than risking overkilling a unit, I'll often pick two units next to each other. I declare a charge on only one of them, but as part of the charge move I place some models next to the other. When I pile in + consolidate I can move into and tri-point that second unit, but I am not permitted to allocate any attacks to them, as they were not declared as a charge target. That means there's no way the opponent can remove the tri-pointed model as a casualty.

AL termi lord with headhunter and vipers wail is a good sniper now, only held back by 24" range. If you really need a character dead (a banner for instance) you can throw votlw and cacophany on him to put 8 shots on a target, wounding on 2s, flat 2 damage, enough to kill any normal character, certainly enough to end an ancient, even without strats.

 Corrode wrote:
The title of this thread should probably be "banner use" instead of "banner abuse." Also I could have sworn the 3+ relic banner went away with the new book so it's a 4+ now.

Some banners want to use you, some of them want to be used by you.

 Togusa wrote:


I especially like the 1CP stratagem that literally says "Pick a shot, don't roll, you just hit" which cause his Dev squad to auto explode my Rhino, in cover, with popped smoke. The Doctrines, +1 hit, +1 Ap, all this stuff that put shots outside of all my saves.

That stratagem is for one attack from one weapon on one model. Not all the shots from the whole unit.

Yeah, the whole party line of "ultras/Sallies/WS/whoever are reasonable and fine and good, everyone ELSE is the problem!" is utter horsecrap.

Any space marine chapter that has a less than stellar chapter tactic can keep all their bonuses, relics, and assorted free gak and swap that tactic out for "Reroll 1 hit and 1 wound, you are in cover over 12" away."

All of them get at least four army-wide abilities that are on par with other armies' chapter tactics.

All of them have ridiculously easy access to crazy cheap full hit rerolls that are now uniquely resistant to negative to-hit modifiers (well, unique unless you're Bellisarius Cawl).

Every marine subfaction has access to a whole suite of rules that no other faction gets, and even when other factions get stuff that resembles numarine stuff, they have to make actual trade-offs and sacrifices to get it - see Tyranid/Eldar/Drukhari pick-your-own chapter tactics. Do you get to pick your own chapter tactic for those factions and get the relic/stratagem/warlord trait of a subfaction of your choice? feth no, that'd be stupid, obviously you will be able to powergame those and find a combo that's probably better than most chapter tactics.

But marines get to. And marines get 6x the warlord traits, 6x the relics, a whole psychic discipline, and 10x the stratagems than anyone else gets for their subfactions.

Imagine the level of rage coming from the marine fanbase if a xenos faction had been released with an army wide chapter tactic of:

-Reroll failed morale tests
-Reroll 1 hit and wound roll per unit
-All units are in cover if the firer is over 12" away
-Additional -1AP on all heavy weapons turn 1, then on all basic infantry weapons turn 2+
-Rapid Fire weapons fire two shots at full range if the unit was stationary
-+1 attack per model if any unit charged, was charged, or performed a heroic intervention
-All units count as stationary unless they advance turn 2+

That is what people are touting as perfectly reasonable and only IH/IF are over the line. Turn 2+ Aggressors with a bonus AP on all their guns getting double shots all the time, and BTW they've also got a 2cp stratagem to fall back and count as stationary even if you didn't take the Ultras chapter tactic lololololol.

These supplements make Decurions and scatterbikes look like a joke. I'd take any chapter against Necrons with full 7th ed decurion bonuses paying 8th ed point costs any day.

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, the whole party line of "ultras/Sallies/WS/whoever are reasonable and fine and good, everyone ELSE is the problem!" is utter horsecrap.

Any space marine chapter that has a less than stellar chapter tactic can keep all their bonuses, relics, and assorted free gak and swap that tactic out for "Reroll 1 hit and 1 wound, you are in cover over 12" away."

That's not actually true. Black Templars and Crimson Fists can't.