Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Stormonu wrote:
I had long suspected ever since Primaris were giving 2W that this would eventually become the case - chaff left at 1W, elites at 2W, durable elites at 3W, etc.

I personally hope it doesn't go this way, Toughness used to be the way to distinguish more durable units, but between there being little difference between T4 & T5 and the buckets of dice lobbed around for attacks (and proliferation of D2 weapons), I think GW shot themselves in the foot in this aspect.

Before too long, Primaris will go to 3W base, I suspect.

I'm perfectly OK with my opponent having 5 marines to my 10 genestealer cultists. Heck, even 5 to 15 maybe, if I make 'em real cheap and cheerful.

What I'd like tho is for those 10 cultists to have a fighting chance in either a shooting match, or a melee match, with those marines, if they cost the same points.Currently the cultists just get mowed down instantly, and the kits cost the same amount of money.

Spoletta wrote:
According to the latest spoilers, terminators are going to 3 wounds.
The Necron Triarch thing is going from 8 to 10.
Melta is getting its damage increased.
The new primaris veterans are 3 wounds.
The new attak bike has 8 wounds.

I'm starting to see a scheme in this. Looks like that GW is importing another block from AoS, which is the wound system.
In AoS, 2 wounds on infantry is almost baseline, elite units have 3+ wounds and only chaff infantry has 1 wound.
Would make sense as a move to lower the lethality across the board, and fix a bit of the issues that are created by the LoS rule not working for 9W- models.
At this point, I expect Dnaughts and Fexes to go from 8 to 10W, like the Necron walker did.

The advantage of this approach is to make high RoF weapons less effective against big targets, while keeping the efficency against chaff.
Where I'm worried, is that AoS can use this approach because the damage spills over, which doesn't happen in 40K.

Hmm...with the new LOS change to 10 wounds and the 2W marine rumor...it makes a fair bit of sense. But then things like cultists are dog shiiiiiiiii unless they get some useful rules.

*face palm*

Yes, GW... Lets massively increase the durability of marines. I think they weren't performing well enough.

*heavy sigh*

the_scotsman wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
I had long suspected ever since Primaris were giving 2W that this would eventually become the case - chaff left at 1W, elites at 2W, durable elites at 3W, etc.

I personally hope it doesn't go this way, Toughness used to be the way to distinguish more durable units, but between there being little difference between T4 & T5 and the buckets of dice lobbed around for attacks (and proliferation of D2 weapons), I think GW shot themselves in the foot in this aspect.

Before too long, Primaris will go to 3W base, I suspect.

I'm perfectly OK with my opponent having 5 marines to my 10 genestealer cultists. Heck, even 5 to 15 maybe, if I make 'em real cheap and cheerful.

What I'd like tho is for those 10 cultists to have a fighting chance in either a shooting match, or a melee match, with those marines, if they cost the same points.Currently the cultists just get mowed down instantly, and the kits cost the same amount of money.

There's plenty of rules issues with Cults since 8th started, but the problem that did remain constant with them since they were brought back in 7th is price.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
I had long suspected ever since Primaris were giving 2W that this would eventually become the case - chaff left at 1W, elites at 2W, durable elites at 3W, etc.

I personally hope it doesn't go this way, Toughness used to be the way to distinguish more durable units, but between there being little difference between T4 & T5 and the buckets of dice lobbed around for attacks (and proliferation of D2 weapons), I think GW shot themselves in the foot in this aspect.

Before too long, Primaris will go to 3W base, I suspect.

I'm perfectly OK with my opponent having 5 marines to my 10 genestealer cultists. Heck, even 5 to 15 maybe, if I make 'em real cheap and cheerful.

What I'd like tho is for those 10 cultists to have a fighting chance in either a shooting match, or a melee match, with those marines, if they cost the same points.Currently the cultists just get mowed down instantly, and the kits cost the same amount of money.

There's plenty of rules issues with Cults since 8th started, but the problem that did remain constant with them since they were brought back in 7th is price.

Yeah, its the only thing keeping me from actually wanting a refresh to the Ork boyz/Gants/Guardsmen/Cultist kits. If they did rerelease them, it would effectively kill new players getting into those armies because 45$/10 cultists and 40$/5 acolytes certainly makes GSC a nigh impossible prospect for a new player to get into.

You can get 2000pts of Custodes for the price you pay for about 500pts of GSC.

ThePorcupine wrote:
*face palm*

Yes, GW... Lets massively increase the durability of marines. I think they weren't performing well enough.

*heavy sigh*

It's the implication for the rest of the game that matters. Its not like you saw terminators and mini-marines very often.

The thing I'm struggling with is if there is so much W2 in the game people will definitely scramble for D2 weapons. Where does that leave stuff like the Assault Cannon? We know the OGC is going up two shots.

October can't come soon enough to sort this out and reveal if points will be in line with these changes.

Don't mind the principle - stuff having more wounds might actually be a good thing, although its somewhat undermined in turn by guns/weapons seemingly doing more damage.

I wouldn't worry about wounds going up for this exact reason. GW will often make a correction that makes sense, but then see that it changes something else, and then go and "correct" whatever that something else is. Often forgetting why the initial change was made in the first place, and causing the second change to totally cancel out the initial change. So I can see the conversation going like this:

Designer in far corner of the GW rules dungeon:

"Hey! What if we imported the wounds block over from AoS and gave most infantry 2 wounds base and increased wounds generally across the board? That would probably help with the lethality problem we have."

Everyone in that same corner:

"Hey! Great idea!"

Completely different designer in a completely different, not connected part of the rules dungeon:

"Huh ... with all these wounds going up we should probably increase damage to maintain the lethality!"

Everyone in that same corner:

"Hey! Great idea!"

If they were going to do this, the logical place to do it would have been at the beginning of the edition, which they didn't do.

It would make absolutely no sense to do this codex by codex, piecemeal. It was bad enough when certain factions had to wait months or years to get rules like bolter discipline everyone knew they were getting based on prior releases. But to have to wait months or years to get basic stat upgrades like +1W on all their models would be truly ridiculous.

Of course, this is Gee-dubs, so you can't count something out just because it would make no sense.

In theory, I don't really have a problem with this, but if they're going to engage in a paradigm shift of increasing wounds, that's really something I'd have preferred to see done all at once, Index style, rather than dripped and drabbed in over the course of an edition where nothing is ever going to be all on the same page or properly align until everyone's had a release and we're on to the next edition. If this really is the intention, then coupled with the awkward points "rebalancing", my enthusiasm for this edition is going to slacken substantially. There also better be points/PL increases involved for many units.

 Stormonu wrote:
I had long suspected ever since Primaris were giving 2W that this would eventually become the case - chaff left at 1W, elites at 2W, durable elites at 3W, etc.

I personally hope it doesn't go this way, Toughness used to be the way to distinguish more durable units, but between there being little difference between T4 & T5 and the buckets of dice lobbed around for attacks (and proliferation of D2 weapons), I think GW shot themselves in the foot in this aspect.

Before too long, Primaris will go to 3W base, I suspect.

[edit]

Nevermind that, forgot about the extra melee attack.

[/edit]

Stat inflation is rarely good for a game long-term. It just leads to more stat inflation. See multi-meltas going from 1d6 reroll one to 1d6+2, for example. Or even see this +1W thing itself, clearly prompted by stat inflation in offensive weapons.

It creates a vicious spiral.

Daedalus81 wrote:It's the implication for the rest of the game that matters. Its not like you saw terminators and mini-marines very often.

The thing I'm struggling with is if there is so much W2 in the game people will definitely scramble for D2 weapons. Where does that leave stuff like the Assault Cannon? We know the OGC is going up two shots.

I think you might be underestimating how much Primaris have already done that- the overwhelming majority of armies collected by 40K players are Marines, and at this point the strong majority of those are Primaris. Going by the demographics at the shops I've visited, I'd say at least 50% of armies I see on the tables are Primaris. That prevalence means that D2 weapons have been highly popular for basically the entirety of 8th. There's also the fact that D2 is solidly effective against W1 models with FNPs, so things like Death Guard demand D2 weapons as well.

I'm already packing plasma guns out the wazoo because they hit the S8 breakpoint and are D2, it's not like Tacticals and Terminators getting an extra wound is changing my weapon preference.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Stat inflation is rarely good for a game long-term. It just leads to more stat inflation. See multi-meltas going from 1d6 reroll one to 1d6+2, for example. Or even see this +1W thing itself, clearly prompted by stat inflation in offensive weapons.

It creates a vicious spiral.

It is bad if it is a generalized inflation.

If you leave at the actual profile some classes of weapons, you solve problems like taking down tanks with showers of bolter fire.

Also, higher stats usually bring also more design space.

Look at the new melta. It is finally getting a place next to the lascannon. One is long range one has more damage.

GW: *makes regular small arms have an outsized effect on gameplay with a new wound chart and the ability to hurt tanks*

also GW:

*ohno small arms are too good now, feth, uh, DOUBLE THE WOUNDS ON BASIC TROOPS DO IT NOW*

In the grim darkness of 11th edition, small arms needle tanks to death but struggle against squads of 4 wound Guardians.

Meltas would have had a place if they had just been made to do minimum 3 damage at close range, or D3+3; there was no need to inflate their maximum damage potential as well.

Taking down tanks with tons of small-arms fire isn't a problem in the first place though. I've never understood that complaint. If someone is reduced to trying to plink down your tanks with lasguns you are winning.

I think there are two things generally worth pointing out.

1. Giving medium and heavy infantry two wounds allows for greater distinction between chaff-clearing weapons and elite-killing weapons. There's been a significant design problem in 8th with AP modifiers causing a 'flattening' of profiles, where guns that are good against chaff are often still good against Marines, and vice-versa.

Standardizing on W2 means clearer distinction between horde-mulching D1 weapons, heavy-infantry-killing D2 weapons, and anti-tank D3+ weapons. It directly addresses the problem of medium/heavy infantry dying too quickly to massed rifle fire, without simultaneously rendering them overly resilient to weapons that should drop them.

2. Because multi-damage is now a core part of the game, this would probably have felt more natural had it been introduced with 8th- increasing the number of wounds most everything has, while simultaneously increasing the damage most everything outputs.

Having most infantry be W1 made perfect sense in a game where a successful wound did just one damage regardless of the weapon, with the Instant Death mechanic providing the capability for multi-wound heavy infantry to still die instantly to anti-tank guns. With multi-damage now being the norm for anything bigger than a rifle, it makes sense for multi-wound to be the norm as well.

However, I suspect we're going to see a teething period with weapons, since the jump from D1 to D2 is significant (more significant, I would argue, than the jump from W1 to W2). One example is that with the recent speculation that Heavy Bolters are becoming D2, it would make HBs more effective than Autocannons against everything except T6.

 catbarf wrote:
I think there are two things generally worth pointing out.

1. Giving medium and heavy infantry two wounds allows for greater distinction between chaff-clearing weapons and elite-killing weapons. There's been a significant design problem in 8th with AP modifiers causing a 'flattening' of profiles, where guns that are good against chaff are often still good against Marines, and vice-versa.

Standardizing on W2 means clearer distinction between horde-mulching D1 weapons, heavy-infantry-killing D2 weapons, and anti-tank D3+ weapons. It directly addresses the problem of medium/heavy infantry dying too quickly to massed rifle fire, without simultaneously rendering them overly resilient to weapons that should drop them.

2. Because multi-damage is now a core part of the game, this would probably have felt more natural had it been introduced with 8th- increasing the number of wounds most everything has, while simultaneously increasing the damage most everything outputs.

Having most infantry be W1 made perfect sense in a game where a successful wound did just one damage regardless of the weapon, with the Instant Death mechanic providing the capability for multi-wound heavy infantry to still die instantly to anti-tank guns. With multi-damage now being the norm for anything bigger than a rifle, it makes sense for multi-wound to be the norm as well.

However, I suspect we're going to see a teething period with weapons, since the jump from D1 to D2 is significant (more significant, I would argue, than the jump from W1 to W2). One example is that with the recent speculation that Heavy Bolters are becoming D2, it would make HBs more effective than Autocannons against everything except T6.

...and identical against T6.

MEQ being W2 isn't an inherent problem, it only becomes a problem when MEQ are already able to wipe the floor with equivalent points of light infantry. It begs the question "then what are the weapons carried by light infantry for? if they're only for fighting other light infantry, then what is the point of having them at all?" Many MEQ units and vehicles have weapons that effortlessly shovel light infantry off the table at this point, twin assault cannons, storm bolters, bolt rifles, aggressor gauntlets, punisher cannons, wyverns, etc. They're the single worst thing you could try and hold an objective with now. They're the worst at holding cover, the worst at holding objectives, and the worst at fighting already...and now we need to buff Elites by just stright up doubling their wounds so you go from "MEQ beats GEQ in a straight firefight" to "GEQ stands absolutely zero chance whatsoever in a fight, no point in even trying."

If they increase the wounds of models across the board similar to how AoS has it, then I want wounds to carry over. It's absurd that I'd shoot a Multimelta at a unit and do 12 wounds, but only kill one model because they only have one wound.

 Tamwulf wrote:
If they increase the wounds of models across the board similar to how AoS has it, then I want wounds to carry over. It's absurd that I'd shoot a Multimelta at a unit and do 12 wounds, but only kill one model because they only have one wound.

This is a great idea, it'll really fix the problems with the game right now if I could extremely reliably remove a guard infantry squad with a single shot from a multimelta within 12".

I don't really see the problem with guns that are good at killing chaff also being decent at killing more elite infantry, and vice versa. A S3 AP 0 lasgun is three times as likely to kill a T3 5+ target than a T4 3+ target. Is it really a problem that space marines are only three times as resilient to lasguns as guardsmen? That isn't enough of a power premium for elite infantry?

The problem is that we have too much inflation in gun stats, not too little. If the vast majority of fire out there was S3 or S4 with AP 0 or at best AP 1, this wouldn't be an issue. The problem GW has created is that by inflating S and AP values so high on even normal guns, it has created a compression at the top of the wound and save charts that results in elite infantry not having elite defenses, because nobody has any defenses at all.

The solution to that problem is to reduce the lethality of guns, not increase them even further and then compensate by taking on wounds. When your game is too lethal, just lower the damage. Bumping up Ws just results in even more dice being rolled for even less result.

You can't inflate your way out of a lethal game.

Of course, they just blew their best chance to do this with a version reset, so it's a safe bet that GW thinks that inflation is the way to go, despite it making no sense from a game design perspective.

the_scotsman wrote:
...and identical against T6.

Nah, it's not quite that bad- 2 shots wounding on 3s beats 3 shots wounding on 5s, by 33%.

They'd be equal against T7. Against T8/T9 or T5 or less, the HB wins.

the_scotsman wrote:
MEQ being W2 isn't an inherent problem, it only becomes a problem when MEQ are already able to wipe the floor with equivalent points of light infantry. It begs the question "then what are the weapons carried by light infantry for? if they're only for fighting other light infantry, then what is the point of having them at all?" Many MEQ units and vehicles have weapons that effortlessly shovel light infantry off the table at this point, twin assault cannons, storm bolters, bolt rifles, aggressor gauntlets, punisher cannons, wyverns, etc. They're the single worst thing you could try and hold an objective with now. They're the worst at holding cover, the worst at holding objectives, and the worst at fighting already...and now we need to buff Elites by just stright up doubling their wounds so you go from "MEQ beats GEQ in a straight firefight" to "GEQ stands absolutely zero chance whatsoever in a fight, no point in even trying."

That's fair. I do think a large part of that is Marines being overly performant to begin with; Marines should have the edge versus GEQ in exchange for greater vulnerability to heavier weapons, but current Marine performance turns that into a total blowout.

I would slightly counter with asking what did GEQ do in 3rd/4th? Back then they got no saves against MEQ, and didn't have force-multipliers like Orders. I would suggest that, as much as I'd like to see GEQ hold their own, historically their role has been more about board control, objective control, speed-bumping, and just taking up space rather than direct combat.

I think it should go without saying that any unit getting bumped up to W2 needs a commensurate points increase, which both softens the improvement against GEQ and makes them more vulnerable to existing D2 weapons. It further helps to solidify appropriate weapons and counters; massed rifle fire won't wipe out MEQs anymore, but they'll have more reason to be scared of heavy weapons.

Or put another way, I don't feel too bad about 10 Guardsmen with a Plasma Gun and D2 Heavy Bolter (65pts in 9th) going up against four W2 Tacticals (60pts in 9th). The lasguns aren't going to be doing the heavy lifting anymore, but the plasma and HB are going to do serious work- which, IMO, feels more thematically appropriate.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Meltas would have had a place if they had just been made to do minimum 3 damage at close range, or D3+3; there was no need to inflate their maximum damage potential as well.

Taking down tanks with tons of small-arms fire isn't a problem in the first place though. I've never understood that complaint. If someone is reduced to trying to plink down your tanks with lasguns you are winning.

Hmm, not randumb enough

 catbarf wrote:


However, I suspect we're going to see a teething period with weapons, since the jump from D1 to D2 is significant (more significant, I would argue, than the jump from W1 to W2). One example is that with the recent speculation that Heavy Bolters are becoming D2, it would make HBs more effective than Autocannons against everything except T6.

Maybe HBs will go to one shot like the leak suggested, but be RF?

yukishiro1 wrote:
A S3 AP 0 lasgun is three times as likely to kill a T3 5+ target than a T4 3+ target. Is it really a problem that space marines are only three times as resilient to lasguns as guardsmen?

When the Marine costs three times more than the Guardsman (15pts vs 5pts in 9th), but is only three times harder to kill with lasguns, but is only 1.66x harder to kill with heavy bolters/autocannons, and less than 3x the firepower, yeah, I'd say that's a problem. It makes them feel more vulnerable than Guardsmen, rather than less, and they don't have the firepower to make up for it.

Marines becoming more resilient against small arms, without increasing their durability against heavy weapons, is thematically fitting. It also gives them some intrinsic value that doesn't require constant firepower amplification (eg Doctrines) to make them worth their cost.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:


However, I suspect we're going to see a teething period with weapons, since the jump from D1 to D2 is significant (more significant, I would argue, than the jump from W1 to W2). One example is that with the recent speculation that Heavy Bolters are becoming D2, it would make HBs more effective than Autocannons against everything except T6.

Maybe HBs will go to one shot like the leak suggested, but be RF?

See, then that creates the opposite problem; HBs would be strictly worse than Autocannons in most cases, although they would be able to move and fire, which feels very weird for infantry.

One way to balance D2 HBs and Autocannons might be to remove the AP from the Heavy Bolter, making it Heavy 3 S5 AP0, versus the Autocannon being Heavy 2 S7 AP-1. This would give each a little more of a distinct role, while still being equally effective against MEQs.

 catbarf wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
A S3 AP 0 lasgun is three times as likely to kill a T3 5+ target than a T4 3+ target. Is it really a problem that space marines are only three times as resilient to lasguns as guardsmen?

When the Marine costs three times more than the Guardsman (15pts vs 5pts in 9th), but is only three times harder to kill with lasguns, but is only 1.66x harder to kill with heavy bolters/autocannons, and less than 3x the firepower, yeah, I'd say that's a problem. It makes them feel more vulnerable than Guardsmen, rather than less, and they don't have the firepower to make up for it.

Marines becoming more resilient against small arms, without increasing their durability against heavy weapons, is thematically fitting. It also gives them some intrinsic value that doesn't require constant firepower amplification (eg Doctrines) to make them worth their cost.

The problem I have with this is that there's no real way to be more resilient against Small Arms without increasing their durability against Heavy Weapons at the same time. GW's rules aren't structured for that. The move to W2 does it fine, but W2 to 3 suddenly makes you much more resilient against:

1) Plasma of all shapes and sizes
2) Autocannons
3) d6 damage weapons (Lascannons, demolisher cannons, Fire Prism lance-mode) 33% of the time
4) d3 damage weapons (battlecannons, harvester cannons, <cannons>, fire prism focused-mode) 66% of the time.

that's the vast majority of heavy weapons in the game that are significantly affected by the move from 2 wounds to 3. I was going to list every single weapon I could think of but ran out of steam after how many I realized there were and then just plopped down categories. But the point is basically everything is affected, not just small arms.

If this really comes through, then bolter discipline and shock assault are really gone. They were the stopgap measure to make marine into elite units, with a PEQ profile there is no longer a need for those and makes the difference between a marine and a primaris more marked, since the primaris has double the number of attacks.

 catbarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
...and identical against T6.

Nah, it's not quite that bad- 2 shots wounding on 3s beats 3 shots wounding on 5s, by 33%.

They'd be equal against T7. Against T8/T9 or T5 or less, the HB wins.

the_scotsman wrote:
MEQ being W2 isn't an inherent problem, it only becomes a problem when MEQ are already able to wipe the floor with equivalent points of light infantry. It begs the question "then what are the weapons carried by light infantry for? if they're only for fighting other light infantry, then what is the point of having them at all?" Many MEQ units and vehicles have weapons that effortlessly shovel light infantry off the table at this point, twin assault cannons, storm bolters, bolt rifles, aggressor gauntlets, punisher cannons, wyverns, etc. They're the single worst thing you could try and hold an objective with now. They're the worst at holding cover, the worst at holding objectives, and the worst at fighting already...and now we need to buff Elites by just stright up doubling their wounds so you go from "MEQ beats GEQ in a straight firefight" to "GEQ stands absolutely zero chance whatsoever in a fight, no point in even trying."

That's fair. I do think a large part of that is Marines being overly performant to begin with; Marines should have the edge versus GEQ in exchange for greater vulnerability to heavier weapons, but current Marine performance turns that into a total blowout.

I would slightly counter with asking what did GEQ do in 3rd/4th? Back then they got no saves against MEQ, and didn't have force-multipliers like Orders. I would suggest that, as much as I'd like to see GEQ hold their own, historically their role has been more about board control, objective control, speed-bumping, and just taking up space rather than direct combat.

I think it should go without saying that any unit getting bumped up to W2 needs a commensurate points increase, which both softens the improvement against GEQ and makes them more vulnerable to existing D2 weapons. It further helps to solidify appropriate weapons and counters; massed rifle fire won't wipe out MEQs anymore, but they'll have more reason to be scared of heavy weapons.

Or put another way, I don't feel too bad about 10 Guardsmen with a Plasma Gun and D2 Heavy Bolter (65pts in 9th) going up against four W2 Tacticals (60pts in 9th). The lasguns aren't going to be doing the heavy lifting anymore, but the plasma and HB are going to do serious work- which, IMO, feels more thematically appropriate.

They didn't do much of anything, to my memory. Admittedly you said 3rd/4th and I only played through 5th/6th, but basically throughout those editions light infantry was totally defined by either

A) whatever special weapons they could take, which they would then fire out their transport's hatch and ignore their small arms entirely (or in the case of a sergeant's melee weapon, it would be basically the only attack that mattered and you'd use it vs the rear armor of a vehicle to fish for insta-kills)

B) You'd have some way to avoid bringing them altogether by taking say a biker HQ, and that would instantly become the competitive build for the faction.

The only edition I've ever played where autoguns, shootas, choppas, bolters, lasguns, etc felt like anything but a liability that you'd try every way you possibly could to minimize was 8th. Largely because of the wound chart, universal split fire, and the fact that you occasionally got to have 5+ and 6+ armor saves unlike in prior editions where those were just categorically ignored by nearly every weapon in the game.

To me, the biggest loss of 9th ed is the game going back to "mechanized is default" because I really do enjoy having models that I painted on the table when I play a miniature wargame.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The problem I have with this is that there's no real way to be more resilient against Small Arms without increasing their durability against Heavy Weapons at the same time. GW's rules aren't structured for that. The move to W2 does it fine, but W2 to 3 suddenly makes you much more resilient against:

1) Plasma of all shapes and sizes
2) Autocannons
3) d6 damage weapons (Lascannons, demolisher cannons, Fire Prism lance-mode) 33% of the time
4) d3 damage weapons (battlecannons, harvester cannons, <cannons>, fire prism focused-mode) 66% of the time.

that's the vast majority of heavy weapons in the game that are significantly affected by the move from 2 wounds to 3

That's fair. I was focusing specifically on models going from W1 to W2, but you're right, W2 to W3 is a significant shift that devalues D2 weapons.

I would slightly quibble in that random-damage weapons are actually affected less than fixed-D2 ones, since they're less likely to waste damage. It consistently takes 2 unsaved wounds from a D2 weapon to kill a W3 model, while DD3 weapons have a 11% chance to require 3 unsaved wounds, 55% chance to require 2, and 33% chance to do it in 1. DD6 weapons go from a 67% chance to kill to a 50% chance to kill, which is still 75% effectiveness. It's really D2 weapons that get shafted by immediately halving their effectiveness.

 catbarf wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
A S3 AP 0 lasgun is three times as likely to kill a T3 5+ target than a T4 3+ target. Is it really a problem that space marines are only three times as resilient to lasguns as guardsmen?

When the Marine costs three times more than the Guardsman (15pts vs 5pts in 9th), but is only three times harder to kill with lasguns, but is only 1.66x harder to kill with heavy bolters/autocannons, and less than 3x the firepower, yeah, I'd say that's a problem. It makes them feel more vulnerable than Guardsmen, rather than less, and they don't have the firepower to make up for it.

Marines becoming more resilient against small arms, without increasing their durability against heavy weapons, is thematically fitting. It also gives them some intrinsic value that doesn't require constant firepower amplification (eg Doctrines) to make them worth their cost.

But that's a problem with pointing. Which again is solved not by inflation but by deflation.

GW looked at space marines and said "being three times as tough as guardsmen isn't enough! we'll solve the 'problem' by giving them more S, more AP, more shots!"

This is textbook game inflation, and it leads to textbook results. It's all played out exactly, precisely how you would expect: we are left with a game where everything now dies immediately to everything. Space Marines aren't more resilient, nothing is resilient at all.

They don't need to inflate wounds, they just need to stop the pointless compression towards the stop of the stat charts, particularly for S, AP, and shot volumes. S3 AP 0 has become a joke profile, just like T3 5+ is a joke profile, when they should both be average instead. Space marines being "only" 3x as resilient as guardsmen to small arms fire is not a problem that needs fixing.

Spoletta wrote:
If this really comes through, then bolter discipline and shock assault are really gone. They were the stopgap measure to make marine into elite units, with a PEQ profile there is no longer a need for those and makes the difference between a marine and a primaris more marked, since the primaris has double the number of attacks.

Has this been rumored somewhere? I'd actually kind of be of two minds about shock assault being gone. bolter discipline is and always has been cancer of the highest order, encouraging just the absolute worst gameplay pattern that exists in 40k. But shock assault actually made marine melee elements worth using for the first time in ever. I would love to see bolter discipline totally gone and doctrines heavily restructured into something less oppressive in exchange for improved weapon and unit profiles across the board, but I'm not seeing any rumors to the effect that there's going to be any kind of trade-off for any of this.