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Cornishman wrote:

However one of the eternal problems of the T4 1W 3+ set up has been that they are vulnerable both to mass low str low ap anti personel weapons, and high str high AP anti-tank weapons. . . .

Why should marines NOT be vulnerable to massed small arms fire? It took about 20 GEQ Lasgun shots to kill a marine.

Now it will take 40.

In cover, it will take 80.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

So the best weapon is one that can be both effective against 1W and 2W (for a bit of risk) infantry. So, basically, if it remains 10 ppm: Plasma is king.

But then terminators are W3 - where is your god now?!

My 3W, T4, 2+, 5++ combi-plasma terminators with Icons of Vengeance hitting everything LD9 or less on 2s with Prey On The Weak and being -1 to hit from the retaliatory attack because they're In Midnight Clad.

Ave Dominus Nox.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Cornishman wrote:

However one of the eternal problems of the T4 1W 3+ set up has been that they are vulnerable both to mass low str low ap anti personel weapons, and high str high AP anti-tank weapons. . . .

Why should marines NOT be vulnerable to massed small arms fire? It took about 20 GEQ Lasgun shots to kill a marine.

Now it will take 40.

In cover, it will take 80.

The points is that as 'Heavy' Infantry overall they are less durable than light(er) infantry. If causualties from a weapon are expressed in points of units removed per shot they the Tac Marine has until now had a similar expected damage from low str negilble ap (e.g. the lasgun) compared to lighter units, and a much much higher expected damage vs those anti-tank shots (a AT hit may remove a single gaunt, guardian, firewarrior or the much more expensive tac marine just as easily...). For instance if you look at the maths outside of cover a Krak Missile is as (pretty much) effective as a Frag missile against that stat line, and is noticable better in cover. This differentiation is shown in the way the krak missile is pretty much twice as good as frag vs that 2W Tac in all situations as 5 time out of 6 the krak will do at least 2 damage.

Now, as truely heavy infantry, they have an increased vulnerabilty to AT (most AT will take out 2 wounds as easily as 1 and you are paying for those 2W), but are more durable against small arms, a trade off, and differentiation.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Mostly for me, between gaming venues being closed, the release of a new edition to learn, the hamfisted points "rebalancing" for 9E, the changes to a slew of weapons, and all the Marine changes, it means 40k is essentially "on hold" for me for the foreseeable future until there's some sort of marginally stable metagame and rebalancing for a significant number of non-SM factions comes into play, as right now it feels like 9E is essentially still in an early pre-release state, a game that was released before it really knew what it wanted to be and is still undergoing primary development.

+1. I'm currently enjoying playing games of Apocalypse (i.e. Epic with larger-size models) at home and getting back up to speed with 4th/5th edition for other 40k games. I have lost interest in 9th edition.

 skchsan wrote:

Bluflash wrote:
We've also seen datasheets suggesting basic bolters are moving out to 30" range, with 15" rapid fire. That leaves a bit more room for move and shoot without bolter discipline.
Smaller tables also make the range game nearly a non-issue.

Okay, but S5 is still something worth considering, no? Fire warriors hit harder and gets killed easier, marines hit less hard and are harder to kill.

But their BS is lower, which negates the small advantage they have against T4 and T5 enemies.

 Gnarlly wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Mostly for me, between gaming venues being closed, the release of a new edition to learn, the hamfisted points "rebalancing" for 9E, the changes to a slew of weapons, and all the Marine changes, it means 40k is essentially "on hold" for me for the foreseeable future until there's some sort of marginally stable metagame and rebalancing for a significant number of non-SM factions comes into play, as right now it feels like 9E is essentially still in an early pre-release state, a game that was released before it really knew what it wanted to be and is still undergoing primary development.

+1. I'm currently enjoying playing games of Apocalypse (i.e. Epic with larger-size models) at home and getting back up to speed with 4th/5th edition for other 40k games. I have lost interest in 9th edition.

I wouldn't say I've lost all interest in the edition, but it is rapidly becoming clear to me that it is going to be six months or a year, possibly longer, before the edition gets to point where GW isn't constantly embarrassing itself by releasing FAQs to FAQs of FAQs while also putting out "seismic" changes to the game on a piecemeal, codex-by-codex basis that will leave the game reeling until everyone gets their codex.

It's pretty exhausting just thinking about it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Mixzremixzd wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Insectum, you're hitting on a point I've been trying to make for a while.

40k is now a (war)game in which plastic models stand on a table, their owners roll dice.

It is no longer a war(game), in which assembled armies of hostile foes engage each-other in a pitched battle (abstracted by models and dice).

You're gonna have to fill me in as I started playing earnestly in 6th (or 7th?), when was 40k ever portrayed that way and how?

It's been an uphill and downhill struggle between editions but Epic was pretty good and 4th edition was pretty good. HH is also pretty good, and though it uses the 7th edition architecture, it does a bit better in the 'modeling strategic maneuver/communications/etc.' department. It's more "realistic" in general.

Yeah, so realistic how future military vehicles explode when they touch bushes or fences, or slight inclines.

And, I don't know how to tell you this, but EVERY wargame is a game where plastic models stand on a table and their owners roll dice.

Cornishman wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Cornishman wrote:

However one of the eternal problems of the T4 1W 3+ set up has been that they are vulnerable both to mass low str low ap anti personel weapons, and high str high AP anti-tank weapons. . . .

Why should marines NOT be vulnerable to massed small arms fire? It took about 20 GEQ Lasgun shots to kill a marine.

Now it will take 40.

In cover, it will take 80.

The points is that as 'Heavy' Infantry overall they are less durable than light(er) infantry. If causualties from a weapon are expressed in points of units removed per shot . . .

From one point perspective, yes. But likewise from a different point perspective it takes 100 points of Guard Infantry to kill an 18 point marine in the open, or 200 points to kill one in cover. Now, thankfully, Guardsmen also have access to Heavy and Special weapons. Maybe we'll see more of those. But I also play Tyranids, and at the moment it looks like it's going to take 25 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a single marine (not in cover). How does that feel for the person who likes and wants to field Termagants? Is it right to have basic infantry models that can nearly ignore ranged fire from so many models?

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Gnarlly wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Mostly for me, between gaming venues being closed, the release of a new edition to learn, the hamfisted points "rebalancing" for 9E, the changes to a slew of weapons, and all the Marine changes, it means 40k is essentially "on hold" for me for the foreseeable future until there's some sort of marginally stable metagame and rebalancing for a significant number of non-SM factions comes into play, as right now it feels like 9E is essentially still in an early pre-release state, a game that was released before it really knew what it wanted to be and is still undergoing primary development.

+1. I'm currently enjoying playing games of Apocalypse (i.e. Epic with larger-size models) at home and getting back up to speed with 4th/5th edition for other 40k games. I have lost interest in 9th edition.

I wouldn't say I've lost all interest in the edition, but it is rapidly becoming clear to me that it is going to be six months or a year, possibly longer, before the edition gets to point where GW isn't constantly embarrassing itself by releasing FAQs to FAQs of FAQs while also putting out "seismic" changes to the game on a piecemeal, codex-by-codex basis that will leave the game reeling until everyone gets their codex.

It's pretty exhausting just thinking about it.

So why are you? Your sig says you're american. For us, there are no major tournaments for the rest of the year, minimum. Probably not even well into next year, I doubt the LVO or adepticon are even going to be possible. Locals are few and far between with relatively small turnouts due to fear of the virus.


There is not a single game in the entire fething country that has any stakes attached to it going on right now. Why does it matter if space marines are OP, or if the meta is in continuous flux or any of the other crap? It's not like you have to get your adepticon list ready in 3 months and oh shoot and FAQ came out that killed your gimmick.

There has never been a better time in history for the rules to be in a crazy upheaval. You can bring absolutely nonsensical lists to your buddy's basement for months that will be totally different every time you play. You can proxy and 'mark of dave' as much stuff as you want, try anything you can think of and really explore the zanieness of the current ruleset with absolutely ZERO consequences.

By the time we have any games that matter back on the slate, we'll be halfway through the new codexes, well on our way to a new normal.

I get bitching here for the sake of bitching, it's a fun way to relieve stress. I do the same thing. But there's a difference between whining about marines getting 2 shot multimeltas even though you know you're probably getting them too, and stressing out over the rules being unbalanced or certain factions being farther along ruleswise than others or 'keeping up' with the 'seismic changes' going on in a period of history where it LITERALLY CANNOT MATTER.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Cornishman wrote:

However one of the eternal problems of the T4 1W 3+ set up has been that they are vulnerable both to mass low str low ap anti personel weapons, and high str high AP anti-tank weapons. . . .

Why should marines NOT be vulnerable to massed small arms fire? It took about 20 GEQ Lasgun shots to kill a marine.

Now it will take 40.

In cover, it will take 80.

Oh noes, it'll take a whole ONE squad of guardsmen to kill a marine now!

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Cornishman wrote:

However one of the eternal problems of the T4 1W 3+ set up has been that they are vulnerable both to mass low str low ap anti personel weapons, and high str high AP anti-tank weapons. . . .

Why should marines NOT be vulnerable to massed small arms fire? It took about 20 GEQ Lasgun shots to kill a marine.

Now it will take 40.

In cover, it will take 80.

Oh noes, it'll take a whole ONE squad of guardsmen to kill a marine now!

And what about GEQ who don't have Orders? Cultists, Gaunts, etc.

Should it really take a whole 10 man squad of CSM to Bolter down a marine, too? It appears that's what it takes. 20 Bolters makes 2.2 wounds not in cover.

The math's off anyways.

Sergeants don't have lasguns. Adding specials or heavies drop you down a lasgun too for the purposes of FRFSRF.

It will always take one more squad than the math says, simply by the fact that upgrades remove a lasgun from the equation unless you're talking about Conscripts who start at 20 models and can only take Orders on a 4+.

All I can think of is

Primaris fanboy: "NO, you can't just give old marines 2W, they're supposed to be squatted!" GW: "Heavy Bolters go brrrrrrrr"

jokes aside, i'm excited as SW bloodclaws fan. But I do have a issue with updated stats coming in little by little instead of giving all armies Indexes .

 Insectum7 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Cornishman wrote:

However one of the eternal problems of the T4 1W 3+ set up has been that they are vulnerable both to mass low str low ap anti personel weapons, and high str high AP anti-tank weapons. . . .

Why should marines NOT be vulnerable to massed small arms fire? It took about 20 GEQ Lasgun shots to kill a marine.

Now it will take 40.

In cover, it will take 80.

Oh noes, it'll take a whole ONE squad of guardsmen to kill a marine now!

And what about GEQ who don't have Orders? Cultists, Gaunts, etc.

Should it really take a whole 10 man squad of CSM to Bolter down a marine, too? It appears that's what it takes. 20 Bolters makes 2.2 wounds not in cover.

Unless the spike tax is harsh, then it sounds like CSM will actually have reason to take chaos space marines.

Or... you can just shoot at 2W marines with appropriate weapons, and leave lasguns to kill T3 models?

I think the time of automatically deferring to marines vs guardsmen comparison is over with this buff.

Why not invest in proper MEQ killing weapons? For example, any one of the 2D weapons discussed.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Mostly for me, between gaming venues being closed, the release of a new edition to learn, the hamfisted points "rebalancing" for 9E, the changes to a slew of weapons, and all the Marine changes, it means 40k is essentially "on hold" for me for the foreseeable future until there's some sort of marginally stable metagame and rebalancing for a significant number of non-SM factions comes into play, as right now it feels like 9E is essentially still in an early pre-release state, a game that was released before it really knew what it wanted to be and is still undergoing primary development.

This pretty much mimics my own thought and situation.

 skchsan wrote:
Or... you can just shoot at 2W marines with appropriate weapons, and leave lasguns to kill T3 models?

I think the time of automatically deferring to marines vs guardsmen comparison is over with this buff.

Why not invest in proper MEQ killing weapons? For example, any one of the 2D weapons discussed.

The Marines v. Guardsmen comparison comes in because if you're playing Guard against Marines you don't have any T3 targets to shoot at with the lasguns. Why do your small arms exist if the scale creep of the game is going to render them increasingly irrelevant against more and more targets?

 skchsan wrote:
Or... you can just shoot at 2W marines with appropriate weapons, and leave lasguns to kill T3 models?.

And if you're playing against marines, the most popular army, which T3 models do you shoot your lasguns at?

 Insectum7 wrote:
From one point perspective, yes. But likewise from a different point perspective it takes 100 points of Guard Infantry to kill an 18 point marine in the open, or 200 points to kill one in cover. Now, thankfully, Guardsmen also have access to Heavy and Special weapons. Maybe we'll see more of those. But I also play Tyranids, and at the moment it looks like it's going to take 25 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a single marine (not in cover). How does that feel for the person who likes and wants to field Termagants? Is it right to have basic infantry models that can nearly ignore ranged fire from so many models?

A meltagun/plasmagun on an IS squad is merely the cost of a single extra guardsman. 6 Tacs gets you 20 IS with 2 specials.

tacs
12 * .666 * .666 * .666 = 3.5 * 5 = 17.5

IS
2 * .5 * .833 * .833 = 0.7 * 18 = 12.6
16 * .5 * .333 * .333 = 0.9 * 18 = 15.8

IS "win" without FRFSRF or being in double tap range.

Can people PLEASE stop acting like bolters are amazing or that a different variant of Primaris changes the game.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Cornishman wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Cornishman wrote:

However one of the eternal problems of the T4 1W 3+ set up has been that they are vulnerable both to mass low str low ap anti personel weapons, and high str high AP anti-tank weapons. . . .

Why should marines NOT be vulnerable to massed small arms fire? It took about 20 GEQ Lasgun shots to kill a marine.

Now it will take 40.

In cover, it will take 80.

The points is that as 'Heavy' Infantry overall they are less durable than light(er) infantry. If causualties from a weapon are expressed in points of units removed per shot . . .

From one point perspective, yes. But likewise from a different point perspective it takes 100 points of Guard Infantry to kill an 18 point marine in the open, or 200 points to kill one in cover. Now, thankfully, Guardsmen also have access to Heavy and Special weapons. Maybe we'll see more of those. But I also play Tyranids, and at the moment it looks like it's going to take 25 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a single marine (not in cover). How does that feel for the person who likes and wants to field Termagants? Is it right to have basic infantry models that can nearly ignore ranged fire from so many models?

As for 'ignoring' fire, Intercessors are already doing this... As for removing 2W marines as a 'nid player there are other tools available. If 10 Genestealers manage to charge them (likely if those tac are sitting on an objective) they will tend to kill at least 4 marines with the initial hit, fine this isn't providing the overkill that they'd get against 1W tactical marines, but it is hardly 'ineffectice'. @18 pts each 10 tactical marines are around an Exocrine, which if if can fire twice will tend to kill at least 4 of those 2W tactical marines (not the the exocrine notices the extra wound). Hive Guard with Impaler Cannons I suspect will do better than the Termagants too. In short it's about using the right tool for the right job.

9E looks to be a game where board control, and controlling objectives are key to victory. Being able to outnumber me 3.6:1 or 4:1 is going to greatly help in that department. 7 new 2W tactical marines are point off of those 25 Termagants. Having 25 models over 7 I suspect is going to be more useful for controlling objectives and the table.

Scouts are still going to be 1W, as I think blood claws in space wolves armies may be. It depends whether marine players are going to take cheaper troops, or invest in more durable troops, either way, you are not fully hamfisted as guard.

Scouts are still killable with las, and if they go for marines, then there will be less of them, meaning they cannot destroy your units as quickly. It's not an ideal argument, but math hammer is seriously defunct when you take into account actual points costs, yeah, it may take a lot to kill 1 marine, but how many lasguns can you buy for that 18pt marine? You'll know when your codex is out fully.

I also double down on people need to move away from math hammer as the game is now more fluid, and more focussed on mobility, LOS blocking and control.

Don't ask yourself how many marines you can kill with your points, ask yourself how many VP's you can accrue for the same pt investment as marines.

Mathhammer relies on perfect conditions to prove itself correct, conditions are hardly ever perfect in a game to prove it's worth and validity in predicting who will win a game.

I'll just repeat most of what I said in another thread.

I actually rate the T5 higher than I would an extra wound. The extra wound is not what makes Primaris Marines good, in actual fact throughout most of the previous edition it was touted as the main reason for why Primaris were so bad and underwhelming. When you're paying a premium for an extra wound in an edition where D2+ is EVERYWHERE it sucks. And nothing about that has changed. In actual fact, the amount of D2+ weapons is increasing. What obfuscated this was the gigantic improvement in Marine lethality with the 2.0 Codex, which is where their actual strengths lie. People are getting all excited about this but their hype will disappear when they come up against mass Dark Reapers and Shining Spears or a Necron list with 30 Praetorians.

The only places where the increase in wounds make legitimate and scary differences are 3W Termies (since that 3W is an important damage threshold) and 2W Plague Marines. On something with a decent FNP, 2W actually becomes scary; you only have to look at the IH lists to see that. Everyone else though? You've just made all the D2-3 weapons in my army way more cost efficient because you've massively jumped up in cost for no real increase in survivability. Before it wasn't worth shooting Dark Reapers at Tac Marines. But now it just got a lot more enticing.

 Bosskelot wrote:
I'll just repeat most of what I said in another thread.

I actually rate the T5 higher than I would an extra wound. The extra wound is not what makes Primaris Marines good, in actual fact throughout most of the previous edition it was touted as the main reason for why Primaris were so bad and underwhelming. When you're paying a premium for an extra wound in an edition where D2+ is EVERYWHERE it sucks. And nothing about that has changed. In actual fact, the amount of D2+ weapons is increasing. What obfuscated this was the gigantic improvement in Marine lethality with the 2.0 Codex, which is where their actual strengths lie. People are getting all excited about this but their hype will disappear when they come up against mass Dark Reapers and Shining Spears or a Necron list with 30 Praetorians.

The only places where the increase in wounds make legitimate and scary differences are 3W Termies (since that 3W is an important damage threshold) and 2W Plague Marines. On something with a decent FNP, 2W actually becomes scary; you only have to look at the IH lists to see that. Everyone else though? You've just made all the D2-3 weapons in my army way more cost efficient because you've massively jumped up in cost for no real increase in survivability. Before it wasn't worth shooting Dark Reapers at Tac Marines. But now it just got a lot more enticing.

T5 is massively useless with a single wound since you still die to any random 1D weapons that you are forced to take in some units

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Or... you can just shoot at 2W marines with appropriate weapons, and leave lasguns to kill T3 models?

I think the time of automatically deferring to marines vs guardsmen comparison is over with this buff.

Why not invest in proper MEQ killing weapons? For example, any one of the 2D weapons discussed.

The Marines v. Guardsmen comparison comes in because if you're playing Guard against Marines you don't have any T3 targets to shoot at with the lasguns. Why do your small arms exist if the scale creep of the game is going to render them increasingly irrelevant against more and more targets?

And it's important to note that not all armies have great access to flat 2D weapons. IG have Autocannons and some plasma, Necrons have... uhhhhhh... the Staff of the Destroyer? and Tyranids have the Bio-Plasmic Cannon. You pay a premium for d3 and d6 weapons, and those all stand a good chance of either not doing enough to kill a marine, or wasting damage output better spent on bigger targets.

Also, every faction has a troop tax, and most troops can't carry bigger guns. So sure, Marines have to pay 20% more for their wounds, but just about every other faction suffered a 50% decrease in their ability to kill them. Those aren't points I can simply shift over into better MEQ-killing weapons.

Long term, it'll shake out. Short term, I have worries.

Archebius wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Or... you can just shoot at 2W marines with appropriate weapons, and leave lasguns to kill T3 models?

I think the time of automatically deferring to marines vs guardsmen comparison is over with this buff.

Why not invest in proper MEQ killing weapons? For example, any one of the 2D weapons discussed.

The Marines v. Guardsmen comparison comes in because if you're playing Guard against Marines you don't have any T3 targets to shoot at with the lasguns. Why do your small arms exist if the scale creep of the game is going to render them increasingly irrelevant against more and more targets?

And it's important to note that not all armies have great access to flat 2D weapons. IG have Autocannons and some plasma, Necrons have... uhhhhhh... the Staff of the Destroyer? and Tyranids have the Bio-Plasmic Cannon. You pay a premium for d3 and d6 weapons, and those all stand a good chance of either not doing enough to kill a marine, or wasting damage output better spent on bigger targets.

Also, every faction has a troop tax, and most troops can't carry bigger guns. So sure, Marines have to pay 20% more for their wounds, but just about every other faction suffered a 50% decrease in their ability to kill them. Those aren't points I can simply shift over into better MEQ-killing weapons.

Long term, it'll shake out. Short term, I have worries.

Clearly you've not been keeping up as a ton of Necron units are getting flat D2-3 weapons in the new Codex. And these are all S5+ with Ap-2/3.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
From one point perspective, yes. But likewise from a different point perspective it takes 100 points of Guard Infantry to kill an 18 point marine in the open, or 200 points to kill one in cover. Now, thankfully, Guardsmen also have access to Heavy and Special weapons. Maybe we'll see more of those. But I also play Tyranids, and at the moment it looks like it's going to take 25 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a single marine (not in cover). How does that feel for the person who likes and wants to field Termagants? Is it right to have basic infantry models that can nearly ignore ranged fire from so many models?

A meltagun/plasmagun on an IS squad is merely the cost of a single extra guardsman. 6 Tacs gets you 20 IS with 2 specials.

tacs
12 * .666 * .666 * .666 = 3.5 * 5 = 17.5

IS
2 * .5 * .833 * .833 = 0.7 * 18 = 12.6
16 * .5 * .333 * .333 = 0.9 * 18 = 15.8

IS "win" without FRFSRF or being in double tap range.

Can people PLEASE stop acting like bolters are amazing or that a different variant of Primaris changes the game.

And the other units I mention that don't get specials, Gaunts? Cultists? It's not about "winning" per point, it's about "am I really forced to roll 50 dice to remove 1 model?"

Btw. Drop 1 Tac, buy a Grav Cannon and Plasma gun for the Marines and you hit 22.6 points killed. You didn't assume the free Tac Doctrine either.

And I noted Bolters aren't amazing, that's why it takes almost 10 CSM rapid firing or 25 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a marine.

Also keep in mind that Blasts are back in a big way, further punishing horde style units that have these low S, no AP guns.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Or... you can just shoot at 2W marines with appropriate weapons, and leave lasguns to kill T3 models?.

And if you're playing against marines, the most popular army, which T3 models do you shoot your lasguns at?

May I ask if guardsmen were ever actually taken for their offensive output or are they taken to fill the FOC requirements?

Considering guardsmen are still 5 ppm, a guardsmen squad hitting with 9 lasguns will theoretically yield 0.50 wounds, resulting in 9.00 pt loss on the marines.
On the other hand, 18 ppm tac squad hitting with 5 boltguns will theoretically yield 1.48 wounds, resulting in 7.41 pt loss on the infantry squad.

Before the buff, the above infantry squad would've dealt 7.5 pts worth of damage to the tac squad.

Of course, it's a vacuum comparative analysis but I'd say 5 ppm guardsmen are still better point for point than tac marines.

 Bosskelot wrote:

Archebius wrote:

And it's important to note that not all armies have great access to flat 2D weapons. IG have Autocannons and some plasma, Necrons have... uhhhhhh... the Staff of the Destroyer? and Tyranids have the Bio-Plasmic Cannon. You pay a premium for d3 and d6 weapons, and those all stand a good chance of either not doing enough to kill a marine, or wasting damage output better spent on bigger targets.

Also, every faction has a troop tax, and most troops can't carry bigger guns. So sure, Marines have to pay 20% more for their wounds, but just about every other faction suffered a 50% decrease in their ability to kill them. Those aren't points I can simply shift over into better MEQ-killing weapons.

Long term, it'll shake out. Short term, I have worries.

Clearly you've not been keeping up as a ton of Necron units are getting flat D2-3 weapons in the new Codex. And these are all S5+ with Ap-2/3.

I've been following the updates and leaks. I think, so far, we have two ranged 2D weapon options, both on pretty expensive elite platforms - our troops are still all at 1D. Necrons will likely benefit from being an earlier codex, and thus getting their buffs earlier. The point still applies for those poor, poor souls stuck with an 8e codex for months.

Edit: Oh, and yeah, our new melee options are amazing, I've watched a few battle reports with them. I'm excited to play some Skorpekh with buddies - on a meta level, though, I'm not convinced 9e has corrected 8e's preference for shooty armies, so I'm not expecting to see them sweep any tournaments soon.

 skchsan wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Or... you can just shoot at 2W marines with appropriate weapons, and leave lasguns to kill T3 models?.

And if you're playing against marines, the most popular army, which T3 models do you shoot your lasguns at?

May I ask if guardsmen were ever actually taken for their offensive output or are they taken to fill the FOC requirements?

Considering guardsmen are still 5 ppm, a guardsmen squad hitting with 9 lasguns will theoretically yield 0.50 wounds, resulting in 9.00 pt loss on the marines.
On the other hand, 18 ppm tac squad hitting with 5 boltguns will theoretically yield 1.48 wounds, resulting in 7.41 pt loss on the infantry squad.

Of course, it's a vacuum comparative analysis but I'd say 5 ppm guardsmen are still better point for point than tac marines.

Guardsmen aren't the only troops out there with 1D weapons. How do Tau, Eldar and Necron players feel about this? I've been a fan of Termagants, and often used them for their offensive output.

Here's something to ponder. Lots of people felt that the four non-heavy Weapon guys in a Tac Squad often served as mere bodyguards for the guy with the Special. Has this notion gotten more accurate or less so, now that even more common targets for Bolters have gone to two wounds?

And as mentioned in another post, Blast has come back too, so those horde style units are not only halving their offensive capability against a number of targets, but are also going to get chewed up by blasts.

On thing I'd really like to see the confirmation on is the bolters.

All the leaked stormbolters had the old 24 range, however, the marine veterans weirdly have range 30 bolters. I really hope the latter is either a mistake or a special bolter for veterans. I think all bolters being range 30 would be too much, would be inconsistent with the storm bolter and would make them too similar to bolt rifles, thus probably making tacticals too much like the Intercessors.