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.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because as we all know, only Marine armies have flamers, blast weapons, and guns to fight light/heavy vehicles.

There are certainly other armies in contention, chaos marines are the immediately obvious ones (and as said, Death Guard I feel are the most viable), similarly I think Tau will be a worrisome opponent however Nobody does it better than Marines. They have the most flexibility, standard, durable and numerous ObSec troops They can field in MSU with heavy weapons, drop pods as well as a variety of assault options.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because as we all know, only Marine armies have flamers, blast weapons, and guns to fight light/heavy vehicles.

Imperial armies get new weapon profiles and buffs, Xenos are told to play in the kiddie pool for 2 years until their codex comes out that may make them playable.

Yeah, I can't see why people might be worried/salty about that /s.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Let's do one more comparison: 10 Tacticals (150 pts) vs. 30 Guardsmen (150 pts).

New 2W tacticals are base 18 points. So 10 would be 180 vs. 150.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
And the typical flaw of such threads start to appear...

Your argument is based on Rhinos staying as they are.

Probably a good guess they won't be.

we know the durability stats of the Vindicator didn't change, so there's not many places the Rhino can go. The Vindicator is T8 11 wounds.

 D6Damager wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Let's do one more comparison: 10 Tacticals (150 pts) vs. 30 Guardsmen (150 pts).

New 2W tacticals are base 18 points. So 10 would be 180 vs. 150.

I think you missed the point and quoted the wrong person.

I used current tacticals (15 ppm, 1W) in my example to show how they do in fact, contrary to what yukishiro1 claims, need to get tougher against small arms fire, because point by point Infantry Squads outgun Tacticals currently.

It will be more even when Firstborn get slightly more expensive and move to 2W.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 D6Damager wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Let's do one more comparison: 10 Tacticals (150 pts) vs. 30 Guardsmen (150 pts).

New 2W tacticals are base 18 points. So 10 would be 180 vs. 150.

I think you missed the point and quoted the wrong person.

I used current tacticals (15 ppm, 1W) in my example to show how they do in fact, contrary to what yukishiro1 claims, need to get tougher against small arms fire, because point by point Infantry Squads outgun Tacticals currently.

It will be more even when Firstborn get slightly more expensive and move to 2W.

Except that's against Guard who have managed to survive into 9th with troops costed like grots for whatever baffling reasong GW have.

10FW vrs 5 Tacticals

10×.5, x.666x.333= 1.1 Wound, 9 points

5x.666,x.666x.5= 1.1 Wound 9 points

So they now shoot as well as firewarriors before doctorines.(1.48 wounds with Ap-1)

CC,

10x.333, x.333,x.333= .40 wounds

11x.666,x.666,x.5= 2.44 wounds

That's definitely not in line with FW at 9 points being correctly costed to have a balanced game.

 MinscS2 wrote:

- 30 Guardsmen: 57 shots, 28,5 hits, 9,5 wounds, 3,17 wounds after saves. That's ~47,5 points worth of dead Tacticals.

It would be 3.17 * 9 = 29 points of marines since each wound is "half" of their cost.

It doesn't change the perspective much though.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 D6Damager wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Let's do one more comparison: 10 Tacticals (150 pts) vs. 30 Guardsmen (150 pts).

New 2W tacticals are base 18 points. So 10 would be 180 vs. 150.

I think you missed the point and quoted the wrong person.

I used current tacticals (15 ppm, 1W) in my example to show how they do in fact, contrary to what yukishiro1 claims, need to get tougher against small arms fire, because point by point Infantry Squads outgun Tacticals currently.

It will be more even when Firstborn get slightly more expensive and move to 2W.

aren't FRFSRF guardsmen generally one of the most efficient troops in the game?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:

- 30 Guardsmen: 57 shots, 28,5 hits, 9,5 wounds, 3,17 wounds after saves. That's ~47,5 points worth of dead Tacticals.

It would be 3.17 * 9 = 29 points of marines since each wound is "half" of their cost.

It doesn't change the perspective much though.

Current 1W Tacticals Daedalus81, hence every wound being worth 15 pts. 3,17x15 = 47,55.

However, if it was 2W Tacticals it would result in 28,53(29) just as you said, which makes a shootout between Guardsmen and 2W Tacticals dead even.

 Ordana wrote:

aren't FRFSRF guardsmen generally one of the most efficient troops in the game?

I'm not even giving them the benefits of FRFSRF in most of the comparisons.

I'm also using Guardsmen as example because that's the unit yukishiro1 used as an example for why Firstborn shouldn't get more resilient against small-arms fire. I'm not cherrypicking, I'm genuinely just using the same unit the guy I'm discussing this topic with brought up.

 Ordana wrote:
aren't FRFSRF guardsmen generally one of the most efficient troops in the game?

yes they are they ironically cost the same as A grot currently because 9th edition most balanced play tested edition ever.

Ice_can wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
aren't FRFSRF guardsmen generally one of the most efficient troops in the game?

yes they are they ironically cost the same as A grot currently because 9th edition most balanced play tested edition ever.

FRFSRF IS are not the same cost as a grot. They're near 7 points and an HQ slot, which come at more of a premium these days.

 LunarSol wrote:
It's a little weird. I had kind of accepted that Primaris were going to phase out classic marines, but apparently they were just a beta test?

I think the original plan was (and is) a phase-out, looks like they are coming to the merger point. Once there's no difference between the game stats, there's little reason to keep the old models in stock.

However, I'm not giving up my rhino chassis and land raiders any time soon. Hovercraft are nice models too, but I still want my tank treads.

Minsc is missing the point of comparison entirely, which is ironic since I specifically explained what the point was. The comparison has little to do with points efficiency, and certainly nothing to do with offensive points efficiency. Saying that guardsmen are more points efficient at shooting than 1W tacticals is completely besides the point, because these changes don't change that at all. In fact, they make tacticals even less efficient offensively than they were.

The point of the comparison, as I stated earlier, was to show to people that say "tacticals aren't durable enough to small fire!" that, contrary to that claim, they are in fact 3x as durable as a normal human trooper. Being three times as tough as a normal soldier strikes me as pretty superhuman already. Apparently it doesn't to some others - perhaps it's the influence of comic books movies, and people think that heroes being 3x as tough as normal people are no longer heroic enough.

Whatever the case may be, the comparison is meant to illustrate that in 40k, even 1W space marines are already extremely durable compared to normal human soldiers with regard to low quality attacks. Increasing the wounds of regular marines by 1 while buffing the damage characteristic of lots of heavy weapons is, if anything, more likely to diminish space marine survivability than to enhance it. The problem with 1W marines really isn't that they die too easily to low S, low AP fire. It's that that kind of fire barely exists in the game any more, and as soon as you start upping the S and/or AP, 1W marines quickly start evaporating almost as easily as guardsmen. But this change actually makes that discrepancy worse, not better. So making weapons more deadly, with higher S, AP and damage, but boosting old marines to 2W, seems a very odd way to address a perceived problem with survivability. These changes are very likely to make the game even deadlier overall, not less deadly.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
aren't FRFSRF guardsmen generally one of the most efficient troops in the game?

yes they are they ironically cost the same as A grot currently because 9th edition most balanced play tested edition ever.

FRFSRF IS are not the same cost as a grot. They're near 7 points and an HQ slot, which come at more of a premium these days.

Note how he said most efficient, not the mostest cheapestest.

Because grots only come with 12" pistols, more often than not they don't have any offensive output (because you usually park them in the objective in the rear). In comparison, IS is worth far more than grots.

What a shock, a trained infantry unit is better than the camp followers that have to be flushed out with Squig Hounds and pressed into battle.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Whatever the case may be, the comparison is meant to illustrate that in 40k, even 1W space marines are already extremely durable compared to normal human soldiers.

On paper, maybe. In practice, the only way to keep your tacs alive is by:
1. not giving the unit any special weapon (reduces overall threat).
2. park them in cover for 2+ save, and hope opponent doesn't have cover ignore.

Let's face it - if guardsmen are indeed taken for their offensive output, you're not bringing them so that you can deal some real, reliable damage with your S3 guns. The whole selling point of guardsmen is that they can be easily spammed for massive weight of fire. You're not going for statistically sound result here - you're actually going for the statistically improbable result, hoping for those lucky shots. Again, the whole point of guardsmen's offensive output is to normalize the probability curve through sheer sample size.

Even then, ten guardsmen w/ 9 lasguns still out damage five 2W tacs in terms of points per damage.

 Kanluwen wrote:
What a shock, a trained infantry unit is better than the camp followers that have to be flushed out with Squig Hounds and pressed into battle.

I think the shocking thing is that the game considers these to be of roughly equal capability when constructing your army.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
What a shock, a trained infantry unit is better than the camp followers that have to be flushed out with Squig Hounds and pressed into battle.

I think the shocking thing is that the game considers these to be of roughly equal capability when constructing your army.

I'd love Grots to be 2ppm...but it isn't happening. Not unless they get just melee weapons, have a negative modifier to any/all of their saves, etc.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 D6Damager wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Let's do one more comparison: 10 Tacticals (150 pts) vs. 30 Guardsmen (150 pts).

New 2W tacticals are base 18 points. So 10 would be 180 vs. 150.

I think you missed the point and quoted the wrong person.

I used current tacticals (15 ppm, 1W) in my example to show how they do in fact, contrary to what yukishiro1 claims, need to get tougher against small arms fire, because point by point Infantry Squads outgun Tacticals currently.

It will be more even when Firstborn get slightly more expensive and move to 2W.

Yeah. . . I used the same logic during 8th to show that Tacticals were superior to Dark Reaper Squads. It's a flawed model.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
aren't FRFSRF guardsmen generally one of the most efficient troops in the game?

yes they are they ironically cost the same as A grot currently because 9th edition most balanced play tested edition ever.

FRFSRF IS are not the same cost as a grot. They're near 7 points and an HQ slot, which come at more of a premium these days.

Still not fairly costed using the most broken troop unit of 8th as your yardstick for balance makes all those xeno who got shafted by 9th's infantry models cost 9 points spreadsheet CA2020 take less of a rofl stomping from marines.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Minsc is missing the point of comparison entirely, which is ironic since I specifically explained what the point was. The comparison has little to do with points efficiency, and certainly nothing to do with offensive points efficiency. Saying that guardsmen are more points efficient at shooting than 1W tacticals is completely besides the point, because these changes don't change that at all. In fact, they make tacticals even less efficient offensively than they were.

The point of the comparison, as I stated earlier, was to show to people that say "tacticals aren't durable enough to small fire!" that, contrary to that claim, they are in fact 3x as durable as a normal human trooper. Being three times as tough as a normal soldier strikes me as pretty superhuman already. Apparently it doesn't to some others - perhaps it's the influence of comic books movies, and people think that heroes being 3x as tough as normal people are no longer heroic enough.

Whatever the case may be, the comparison is meant to illustrate that in 40k, even 1W space marines are already extremely durable compared to normal human soldiers with regard to low quality attacks. Increasing the wounds of regular marines by 1 while buffing the damage characteristic of lots of heavy weapons is, if anything, more likely to diminish space marine survivability than to enhance it. The problem with 1W marines really isn't that they die too easily to low S, low AP fire. It's that that kind of fire barely exists in the game any more, and as soon as you start upping the S and/or AP, 1W marines quickly start evaporating almost as easily as guardsmen. But this change actually makes that discrepancy worse, not better. So making weapons more deadly, with higher S, AP and damage, but boosting old marines to 2W, seems a very odd way to address a perceived problem with survivability. These changes are very likely to make the game even deadlier overall, not less deadly.

Well by lore, marines are supposed to be 10x as tough as a regular human - "Give me a hundred space marines Or failing that, give me a thousand other troops" - Rogal Dorn.

 skchsan wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Whatever the case may be, the comparison is meant to illustrate that in 40k, even 1W space marines are already extremely durable compared to normal human soldiers.

On paper, maybe. In practice, the only way to keep your tacs alive is by:
1. not giving the unit any special weapon (reduces overall threat).
2. park them in cover for 2+ save, and hope opponent doesn't have cover ignore.

Let's face it - if guardsmen are indeed taken for their offensive output, you're not bringing them so that you can deal some real, reliable damage with your S3 guns. The whole selling point of guardsmen is that they can be easily spammed for massive weight of fire. You're not going for statistically sound result here - you're actually going for the statistically improbable result, hoping for those lucky shots. Again, the whole point of guardsmen's offensive output is to normalize the probability curve through sheer sample size.

Even then, ten guardsmen w/ 9 lasguns still out damage five 2W tacs in terms of points per damage.

Please read the rest of the post instead of singling out one line. Every point you raised is addressed. Note particularly the bit where I said the point of the comparison is not to say that space marines are more points efficient than guardsmen, and certainly not about their offensive capability.

It is a statistical fact that 1W tacticals are 3x as resilient to lasguns as a normal human guardsman. That's already very elite. The problem with 1W tacticals isn't that they die too easily to small arms fire compared to normal humans, it's that they're overpointed and have too little offense, and, most of all, that they exist in a game where small arms fire barely exists any more because of constant stat inflation.

GW's response to the fact that small arms fire no longer exists is to increase the W count to 2 while also further inflating offensive stats. That is very unlikely to result in a less killy game where space marines feel more durable.

The basic problem with 1W marines is that they've been left behind in a game where weapons have become more and more deadly. You don't really address that by making guns even *more* deadly while tacking on an additional wound.

 Stormonu wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Minsc is missing the point of comparison entirely, which is ironic since I specifically explained what the point was. The comparison has little to do with points efficiency, and certainly nothing to do with offensive points efficiency. Saying that guardsmen are more points efficient at shooting than 1W tacticals is completely besides the point, because these changes don't change that at all. In fact, they make tacticals even less efficient offensively than they were.

The point of the comparison, as I stated earlier, was to show to people that say "tacticals aren't durable enough to small fire!" that, contrary to that claim, they are in fact 3x as durable as a normal human trooper. Being three times as tough as a normal soldier strikes me as pretty superhuman already. Apparently it doesn't to some others - perhaps it's the influence of comic books movies, and people think that heroes being 3x as tough as normal people are no longer heroic enough.

Whatever the case may be, the comparison is meant to illustrate that in 40k, even 1W space marines are already extremely durable compared to normal human soldiers with regard to low quality attacks. Increasing the wounds of regular marines by 1 while buffing the damage characteristic of lots of heavy weapons is, if anything, more likely to diminish space marine survivability than to enhance it. The problem with 1W marines really isn't that they die too easily to low S, low AP fire. It's that that kind of fire barely exists in the game any more, and as soon as you start upping the S and/or AP, 1W marines quickly start evaporating almost as easily as guardsmen. But this change actually makes that discrepancy worse, not better. So making weapons more deadly, with higher S, AP and damage, but boosting old marines to 2W, seems a very odd way to address a perceived problem with survivability. These changes are very likely to make the game even deadlier overall, not less deadly.

Well by lore, marines are supposed to be 10x as tough as a regular human - "Give me a hundred space marines Or failing that, give me a thousand other troops" - Rogal Dorn.

10 x as valuable doesn't mean 10 x tougher.

Guardsmen should probably be 6 points.

Realistically though I think you are getting a lot of soft advantages on the tacticals (unless they get taken away) that a "they both walk to 12" and have at each other and the guardsmen win" isn't totally compelling.

 Stormonu wrote:

Well by lore, marines are supposed to be 10x as tough as a regular human - "Give me a hundred space marines Or failing that, give me a thousand other troops" - Rogal Dorn.

I missed the line in the Warcom post that said that marines are becoming 90 points per model.
You want to be 10× better then pay 10x the points


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
Guardsmen should probably be 6 points.

Realistically though I think you are getting a lot of soft advantages on the tacticals (unless they get taken away) that a "they both walk to 12" and have at each other and the guardsmen win" isn't totally compelling.

Really they should cost the same as a cultist despite having a better statline?
Guard should be 8 points each in the new 9th edition points.

 Stormonu wrote:


Well by lore, marines are supposed to be 10x as tough as a regular human - "Give me a hundred space marines Or failing that, give me a thousand other troops" - Rogal Dorn.

That quote doesn't say what you think it does. It's not saying each marine is 10x as durable, strong, fast, and deadly as a normal human. It's saying that 100 space marines is as effective or more effective an overall fighting force as 1000 normal human troops.

100 US special forces are more effective in many ways than 1000 infantry grunts, but it's not because each ranger can take 10x as many bullets as a grunt. It's because they can operate together in a way that increases their effectiveness beyond the physical capabilities of each individual.

If each space marine was 10x as tough as a normal human, 15 or 20 of them would be enough to be worth 1000 normal troops, not 100.

But the point of the comparison I was making wasn't necessarily to say that the right value is 3x or 6x or 10x. It's that space marines are ALREADY much, much more resilient to small arms fire than normal humans...and they still die like flies, because the game has moved on from small arms fire, and the advantages space marines have over normal humans evaporate as weapon quality increases. So GW's approach of inflating weapon stats *even more* while making them 2W is not going to make them stop dying like flies, because the stuff that kills them isn't small arms fire in the first place.

It's not going to have the effect people are hoping. Space Marines are not going to feel more durable, except against stuff that wasn't killing them anyway. Space Marines getting gunned down by lasguns wasn't the problem they were facing.

Guard can be 8 points when they're a 4+ save, everyone has a Lasgun, and they get access to more special weapon options per squad.

Because that's getting into Skitarii points territory, which are 4+/6++ with Canticles(always on across the whole army), 3x special weapons in 10 model squads, and no mandatory weirdly equipped unit leader.

Why would a model pay points for the privilege to pay points to get a weapon? Are there existing units that pay for the privilege to get special weapons? Every unit I can think of (GK Purifiers, CSM Chosen, SM veterans + devastators, retributors, dominions) have extra rules/stats that make up the points difference between their regular counterpoints, so they aren't paying for the privilege.

Ice_can wrote:
Really they should cost the same as a cultist despite having a better statline?
Guard should be 8 points each in the new 9th edition points.

I can't see how you can value guardsmen at 8 points compared to comparable units.

I don't really know what to do with cultists. I don't have anything against them per se - but GW clearly does. Tbh I think they and conscripts should probably just go to legends.

The important thing is that Battle-Brother Stacey has a new hat.