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The new marine codex and models have been announced and for the first time, I heard a figure for the number of datasheets in the codex, which set me off on one of those "how many Delawares" style research jaunts to try and figure out just how many marines are out there.

In this thread, if I say "Marines" I'll be referring exclusively to marine chapters traditionally contained within Codex: Space Marines. Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Deathwatch, Dark Angels and Blood Angels were considered to be officially full-blooded factions by GW, even if there are some indications they're planning on bringing them at least closer to under the same roof with these releases, so it seems unfair to lump them together when talking about releases, models, and numbers of datasheets.

1) The new marine codex contains 98 datasheets, which is all Codex Space marines datasheets excluding named characters and Forgeworld options. If you exclude Superheavies and named characters, the sum total of the number of datasheets present for all legions in The Horus Heresy is by my count 91. (Based on 1d4chan, I did not comb through all of battlescribe)

2) The new marine codex contains 34 weapons that are or contain variations of boltguns. There is a potential for 2 more if entries in the assembly datasheets are not typos (The single shot heavy bolter on the Invictor, the 30" range normal bolter on Space Marine Veterans). If there are 2 more, there will be as many bolt weapons contained within Codex: Space Marines chapters as there are items in the Tau ranged wargear list.

3) The last model release for Codex Tyranids was November 2014, excluding repackagings such as the reselling of Genestealers as Purestrain Genestealers for Codex Genestealer Cults. Since that time, not counting limited edition releases, there have been 64 kits released for Codex: Space Marines.

4) There was one codex book released between Codex Space Marines 2.0 and Codex Space Marines 3.0. There will be a total of five books containing content for other armies between the release of Saga of the Beast and the release of the new Space Wolves supplement. If one supplement is released per month in 2020 and the Space Wolves supplement is released in november, there will have been 8 months between codex updates for the Space Wolves, almost certainly a warhammer 40k record.

5) If you include the datasheets for chapter-specific units traditionally contained within Codex: Space Marines, there will be more datasheets in Codex: Space Marines than in Codex: Chaos Knights, Codex: Imperial Knights, Codex: Harlequins, Codex: Adepta Sororitas, Codex: Adeptus Custodes, Codex: Genestealer Cults and Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus combined.

*Quiet weeping*

These fun facts have inspired me to build my indomitus marines and I will now become a space marine player.

the_scotsman wrote:
The new marine codex and models have been announced and for the first time, I heard a figure for the number of datasheets in the codex, which set me off on one of those "how many Delawares" style research jaunts to try and figure out just how many marines are out there.

In this thread, if I say "Marines" I'll be referring exclusively to marine chapters traditionally contained within Codex: Space Marines. Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Deathwatch, Dark Angels and Blood Angels were considered to be officially full-blooded factions by GW, even if there are some indications they're planning on bringing them at least closer to under the same roof with these releases, so it seems unfair to lump them together when talking about releases, models, and numbers of datasheets.

1) The new marine codex contains 98 datasheets, which is all Codex Space marines datasheets excluding named characters and Forgeworld options. If you exclude Superheavies and named characters, the sum total of the number of datasheets present for all legions in The Horus Heresy is by my count 91. (Based on 1d4chan, I did not comb through all of battlescribe)

Okay, Space Marines have too many units, zero debate there. The other issue is that they have SEVERE bloat in terms of datasheet that could be wargear options. I mean, a Captain, a Captain in Terminator armor, and a Captain on a bike were 3 different datasheet. The new Storm Speeder? 3 Sheets. Land Raiders? 3 sheets. 2-3 Librarians, 2-3 Chaplains, a couple techmarine(?), at least 2 ancients/banner boys. Like, 4-5 "veteran" datasheets in Sternguard, Bladeguard, Honor Guard, Command Squads, Vanguard Veterans...etc. If they folded these together properly, you'd probably drop 20+ sheets from the codex, easily.

2) The new marine codex contains 34 weapons that are or contain variations of boltguns. There is a potential for 2 more if entries in the assembly datasheets are not typos (The single shot heavy bolter on the Invictor, the 30" range normal bolter on Space Marine Veterans). If there are 2 more, there will be as many bolt weapons contained within Codex: Space Marines chapters as there are items in the Tau ranged wargear list.

This is the absolute worst. Just...awful. Not only does every unit have it's own type of bolter, some units has 5-6 types of unique bolter! (See heavy intercessors). I pity anyone not playing Space Marines as a main army that has to face them, because who knows if that dude with a bolt gun is S4 AP0, 24" rapid fire, or S5, AP-1 Assault 3 with 30+ inch range? There's not enough of a difference to warrant all the variants. I could see maybe a half dozen....12 at the most? It's just pure insanity.

3) The last model release for Codex Tyranids was November 2014, excluding repackagings such as the reselling of Genestealers as Purestrain Genestealers for Codex Genestealer Cults. Since that time, not counting limited edition releases, there have been 64 kits released for Codex: Space Marines.

4) There was one codex book released between Codex Space Marines 2.0 and Codex Space Marines 3.0. There will be a total of five books containing content for other armies between the release of Saga of the Beast and the release of the new Space Wolves supplement. If one supplement is released per month in 2020 and the Space Wolves supplement is released in november, there will have been 8 months between codex updates for the Space Wolves, almost certainly a warhammer 40k record.

5) If you include the datasheets for chapter-specific units traditionally contained within Codex: Space Marines, there will be more datasheets in Codex: Space Marines than in Codex: Chaos Knights, Codex: Imperial Knights, Codex: Harlequins, Codex: Adepta Sororitas, Codex: Adeptus Custodes, Codex: Genestealer Cults and Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus combined.

The neglect of some of the xenos races is painful. I play tyranids in addition to my marines, and I don't think I've bought a new unit for nids in nearly 10 years. On the other hand, I have like 30 more marines to paint ATM. From a collector's stand point, there's just so much more to do with marines. From a gamer's perspective, the marines have so many units, chapter tactics and characters that you can play 25+ games and play nearly a completely different army every time. After the first 4-5 with tyranids, it's back to the basics.

It feels like someone with some sense needs to clean up the space marine codex, and shift at least a portion of the marine production team to non-imperial marines. If non-imperial marines got 2 kits kits for every imperial marine kit I'd be happy.

 DalekCheese wrote:
*Quiet weeping*

* pats back* could be worse, could be worse, you could be a R&H or Elysian player.

* starts putting warning stripes on a shovel to dig a trench for the salt produced*.

I think the thing that boggles my mind with Tyranids in particular is the sheer lack of any kind of thought or creativity that has gone into their current ruleset. If you look at the Haruspex, Toxicrene, Trygon, Hive Tyrant, Maleceptor and Tervigon, they have nearly IDENTICAL defensive profiles and damage outputs with just the very slightest variation. They're also just, just bad. If any of them were Chaos Daemon Engines, they'd be the worst chaos Daemon Engine.

And basically all their special 'unit shticks' are less exciting than a fart in a wet paper bag.

The Mawloc is a 125-point gigantic worm monster whose whole shtick is that it Ant-Lions up out of the ground directly underneath squads, devouring them from below! And how is that represented in game? Well, it can deep strike anywhere more than 1" from enemy units, and any units within 2" of it take, most likely, one. single. mortal wound.

Oh and it can't charge that turn and when it does charge the next turn you find out its damage output is next level, I'm talking an average of two guardsmen or 1.2 wounds to a standard vehicle, NEXT LEVEL bad.

How is it possible that you could sit a Games Workshop designer next to something that looks as objectively bitching as a Mawloc or a Maleceptor and he's not able to come up with more interesting rules than Primaris Sword Guy #21352?

Not going to lie, when I saw the Heavy Intercessors have 5 brand new boltweapon stand ins, I thought of you.

Tyel wrote:
Not going to lie, when I saw the Heavy Intercessors have 5 brand new boltweapon stand ins, I thought of you.

i still find it ironic that you couldn't equip half of them because there seemingly was noone willing to proofread the sheet......

Not Online!!! wrote:

 DalekCheese wrote:
*Quiet weeping*

* pats back* could be worse, could be worse, you could be a R&H or Elysian player.

If I’d been in the hobby 5 years earlier I would have been. RIP Vraksians.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Carnage43 wrote:

The neglect of some of the xenos races is painful. I play tyranids in addition to my marines, and I don't think I've bought a new unit for nids in nearly 10 years. On the other hand, I have like 30 more marines to paint ATM. From a collector's stand point, there's just so much more to do with marines. From a gamer's perspective, the marines have so many units, chapter tactics and characters that you can play 25+ games and play nearly a completely different army every time. After the first 4-5 with tyranids, it's back to the basics.

It feels like someone with some sense needs to clean up the space marine codex, and shift at least a portion of the marine production team to non-imperial marines. If non-imperial marines got 2 kits kits for every imperial marine kit I'd be happy.

At least the Nids models have aged well. Us Guard players are stuck with...



...an army of these!

At least the Nids models have aged well. Us Guard players are stuck with...

Best. Post. Ever.


Far as the new marine dex - I'm REALLY hoping that they get this out of their system by the end of October and we can look forward to 12-18 months of consistent updates for ALL of the other armies in the game. It's absolutely shameful that the army with the most (by far) unit entries is still getting releases while armies like Dark Eldar have only LOST units since their last major update in 5th ...

We've gotten some really just incredible human-scale models recently in the form of blackstone fortress, rogue trader, necromunda, and the LE catachan models and it's gotta be almost a crime at this point that the backbone of the military trained guard models are still the current catachan and cadian models.

That'd take like, what, six kits to fully update the plastics on?

Just release the catachan characters you've already made as regular sculpts you can buy, make fist guy the company commander, make bolter lady the platoon commander. And make these kits new in plastic:

1 - Cadian infantry squad - include helmeted heads and officer cap heads
2 - Catachan Infantry Squad - include bare heads and scarved heads
3 - Cadian Command Squad
4 - Catachan Command Squad
5 - Cadian HWT
6 - Catachan HWT.

And then release a huge, kickass conversion guide for kitbashing various combos of bits and kits between all the various Necromunda, GSC, Admech and guard bits.

Do you want your guardsmen to be ragged frateris militia? Combine the new scarved-head catachan bits with Necromunda Cawdor gang bits?

Do you want them to be drafted workers from an industrial forge world? Combine Genestealer Cults and Orlock Ganger bits!

Do you want them to be highly trained spec ops? Combine bits from Palanite Enforcers and Militarum Tempestus!

Do you want them to be amazonian warrior women? Combine the female bits and weapons from the new Catachan kits and Escher gangers!

 DalekCheese wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 DalekCheese wrote:
*Quiet weeping*

* pats back* could be worse, could be worse, you could be a R&H or Elysian player.

If I’d been in the hobby 5 years earlier I would have been. RIP Vraksians.

Rip Vraksians 07
We had a nice run.

the_scotsman wrote:
2) The new marine codex contains 34 weapons that are or contain variations of boltguns. There is a potential for 2 more if entries in the assembly datasheets are not typos (The single shot heavy bolter on the Invictor, the 30" range normal bolter on Space Marine Veterans). If there are 2 more, there will be as many bolt weapons contained within Codex: Space Marines chapters as there are items in the Tau ranged wargear list.

My sig is looking awfully spicy in light of these numbers

 Mixzremixzd wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
2) The new marine codex contains 34 weapons that are or contain variations of boltguns. There is a potential for 2 more if entries in the assembly datasheets are not typos (The single shot heavy bolter on the Invictor, the 30" range normal bolter on Space Marine Veterans). If there are 2 more, there will be as many bolt weapons contained within Codex: Space Marines chapters as there are items in the Tau ranged wargear list.

My sig is looking awfully spicy in light of these numbers

I just like to imagine little timmy deciding to start the hobby, cracking open his brand new marine codex, army that is intended to be newbie-friendly and going

"what..........the fething feth?"

"hey dawg we went ahead and made marines so much easier for you dont need to worry about gluing a plasma gun or a melta gun or a flamer on your one guy don't even wooooooooorry about it we took caaaaaare of it it's so straightforward now

so um.

You are gonna need to decide whether you want your troops to have

bolters
assault bolters
bolt rifles
stalker bolt rifles
heavy bolt rifles
hellstorm bolt rifles
executor bolt rifles
oculus bolt carbines
marksman bolt carbines
bolt pistols and chainswords

the difference is SUPER important and you DO need to know what it is, I hope you're taking notes this will be on the Space Marine quarterly exam."

And this is why, for the sake of new players, they're going to have to remove a bunch of Marine datasheets in the next version of the Codex.

the_scotsman wrote:
I think the thing that boggles my mind with Tyranids in particular is the sheer lack of any kind of thought or creativity that has gone into their current ruleset. If you look at the Haruspex, Toxicrene, Trygon, Hive Tyrant, Maleceptor and Tervigon, they have nearly IDENTICAL defensive profiles and damage outputs with just the very slightest variation. They're also just, just bad. If any of them were Chaos Daemon Engines, they'd be the worst chaos Daemon Engine.

And basically all their special 'unit shticks' are less exciting than a fart in a wet paper bag.

The Mawloc is a 125-point gigantic worm monster whose whole shtick is that it Ant-Lions up out of the ground directly underneath squads, devouring them from below! And how is that represented in game? Well, it can deep strike anywhere more than 1" from enemy units, and any units within 2" of it take, most likely, one. single. mortal wound.

Oh and it can't charge that turn and when it does charge the next turn you find out its damage output is next level, I'm talking an average of two guardsmen or 1.2 wounds to a standard vehicle, NEXT LEVEL bad.

How is it possible that you could sit a Games Workshop designer next to something that looks as objectively bitching as a Mawloc or a Maleceptor and he's not able to come up with more interesting rules than Primaris Sword Guy #21352?

You should take a look at Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal. For example, the Mawloc received a Stratagem where you can make sure it's going to party a little bit harder underneath those enemy squads. Tervigons have a very different defensive stat line than Hive Tyrants, they are completely different in damage output and they have completely different roles and capabilities. I have absolutely no Idea why you would think any of these units are the same, to be honest. Did you even take a look at their abilities? Mawloc rules are way more creative than the rules than Bladeguards have. They need the stratagem, to be fair, but then they're a) worthwhile and b) the mechanic is still more interesting than anything that Bladeguards offer. They're just Sword&Board Primaris dudes. That's as basic as it gets.

As long as GW continues its current development model, where rules come after sculpts, and where space marines get one new sculpt for every one new sculpt the entire rest of the game gets combined, the situation is only going to get worse and worse as they're forced to find even more ridiculous rules to tack onto the new kits to give them a niche in an army that can already do everything and even more ridiculously fine hairs to split on wargear to distinguish their various kits.

What needs to happen is GW needs to put short-term profits aside for the moment and spend a couple years asking not "what faction can we make the most money from making a new sculpt for?" and instead ask "what factions need new sculpts most?" In the long run, it's going to be better for the game and better for profits to have a game people actually want to play than a game where everyone plays space marines and tries to find that that rare non-space-marines-playing unicorn with their 20 year old models to beat up on.

 Carnage43 wrote:

This is the absolute worst. Just...awful. Not only does every unit have it's own type of bolter, some units has 5-6 types of unique bolter! (See heavy intercessors). I pity anyone not playing Space Marines as a main army that has to face them, because who knows if that dude with a bolt gun is S4 AP0, 24" rapid fire, or S5, AP-1 Assault 3 with 30+ inch range?

I see much BS potential against casual players and noobies in this. Like the Marine player deciding "in the heat of battle" to roll with the variant that has one AP more, or one hit roll more or whatever instead of the one he equipped because it would be favorable in that particular situation. Is someone whose knowledge of Boltguns amounts to the distinction "Pistol version - rapid fire version - heavy version" going to instantly recognize this and say "STOP! That's Boltgun flavor Nr 25 you're using, not Boltgun flavor 21!"

Good reading, poster boys are doing well and GW are making it work.

I'm really surprised Tyranids last got love in 2014, they've aged better than their mid-00s counterparts.

nekooni wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I think the thing that boggles my mind with Tyranids in particular is the sheer lack of any kind of thought or creativity that has gone into their current ruleset. If you look at the Haruspex, Toxicrene, Trygon, Hive Tyrant, Maleceptor and Tervigon, they have nearly IDENTICAL defensive profiles and damage outputs with just the very slightest variation. They're also just, just bad. If any of them were Chaos Daemon Engines, they'd be the worst chaos Daemon Engine.

And basically all their special 'unit shticks' are less exciting than a fart in a wet paper bag.

The Mawloc is a 125-point gigantic worm monster whose whole shtick is that it Ant-Lions up out of the ground directly underneath squads, devouring them from below! And how is that represented in game? Well, it can deep strike anywhere more than 1" from enemy units, and any units within 2" of it take, most likely, one. single. mortal wound.

Oh and it can't charge that turn and when it does charge the next turn you find out its damage output is next level, I'm talking an average of two guardsmen or 1.2 wounds to a standard vehicle, NEXT LEVEL bad.

How is it possible that you could sit a Games Workshop designer next to something that looks as objectively bitching as a Mawloc or a Maleceptor and he's not able to come up with more interesting rules than Primaris Sword Guy #21352?

You should take a look at Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal. For example, the Mawloc received a Stratagem where you can make sure it's going to party a little bit harder underneath those enemy squads. Tervigons have a very different defensive stat line than Hive Tyrants, they are completely different in damage output and they have completely different roles and capabilities. I have absolutely no Idea why you would think any of these units are the same, to be honest. Did you even take a look at their abilities? Mawloc rules are way more creative than the rules than Bladeguards have. They need the stratagem, to be fair, but then they're a) worthwhile and b) the mechanic is still more interesting than anything that Bladeguards offer. They're just Sword&Board Primaris dudes. That's as basic as it gets.

Oh man, don't defend Nids MC rules, please. Yes, let's start with the Mawloc. Okay, it gets that cool PA strat, great! But... why's it T6? Why's it so bad at melee? Why does it have the same talons as the little dudes with the talons from a rules perspective even though the talons are clearly bigger and scarier? Why doesn't it get extra attacks for all of its talons? Why can't it burrow with enemies near it? Why does it degrade like it does? Why did GW give one of the fastest movement speeds to an MC that will always be deep striking and won't make use of that?

I mean, c'mon. This is just not hard, I could do this all day for any of the MCs Scotsman listed. Here's a great article that gets at this same sort of thing: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38330368?fbclid=IwAR0NsD7UjltwgTm15gubi6QXd7Yk7IdpyxW-co6ZTR8QjA2Rfi1qEVgdcrs

nekooni wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I think the thing that boggles my mind with Tyranids in particular is the sheer lack of any kind of thought or creativity that has gone into their current ruleset. If you look at the Haruspex, Toxicrene, Trygon, Hive Tyrant, Maleceptor and Tervigon, they have nearly IDENTICAL defensive profiles and damage outputs with just the very slightest variation. They're also just, just bad. If any of them were Chaos Daemon Engines, they'd be the worst chaos Daemon Engine.

And basically all their special 'unit shticks' are less exciting than a fart in a wet paper bag.

The Mawloc is a 125-point gigantic worm monster whose whole shtick is that it Ant-Lions up out of the ground directly underneath squads, devouring them from below! And how is that represented in game? Well, it can deep strike anywhere more than 1" from enemy units, and any units within 2" of it take, most likely, one. single. mortal wound.

Oh and it can't charge that turn and when it does charge the next turn you find out its damage output is next level, I'm talking an average of two guardsmen or 1.2 wounds to a standard vehicle, NEXT LEVEL bad.

How is it possible that you could sit a Games Workshop designer next to something that looks as objectively bitching as a Mawloc or a Maleceptor and he's not able to come up with more interesting rules than Primaris Sword Guy #21352?

You should take a look at Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal. For example, the Mawloc received a Stratagem where you can make sure it's going to party a little bit harder underneath those enemy squads. Tervigons have a very different defensive stat line than Hive Tyrants, they are completely different in damage output and they have completely different roles and capabilities. I have absolutely no Idea why you would think any of these units are the same, to be honest. Did you even take a look at their abilities? Mawloc rules are way more creative than the rules than Bladeguards have. They need the stratagem, to be fair, but then they're a) worthwhile and b) the mechanic is still more interesting than anything that Bladeguards offer. They're just Sword&Board Primaris dudes. That's as basic as it gets.

Man you are trying really hard to sell the Mawloc here, their best use in 9th is just to hold an objective because they are not terrible at it...

Do you really think that a stratagem that allows a Mawloc to do 3 MW on a 4+ makes them decent all of a sudden? For feths sake a psyker casting smite can do that every turn. Outside of that MW the Mawloc is garbage in offense and defense, it is just a bag of wound that can hold a late game objective decently.

Also, he is right. Tyranid monsters are almost universally T7 with a 3+ save, a few have a 4+ save and a few more have at best a 4+ invul save. The only difference is the amount of wounds they have. Now I don't know how much 9th you have played but how hard do you think it is to kill a T7 3+ model? Ask guard players how well a T7 3+ survives, at least the Leman Russ has some shooting power to hit back with. Most Tyranid monsters have to walk across the table to get into melee.

Tyranid monsters all suffer from a complete lack of identity, they all boil down to run forward and hit with big stick. They each have a little unique rule that makes them different but the majority of them are absolutely worthless. Tervigons can only spawn in new unit of gaunts if you have points saved for it, which is garbage. Toxicrene cause mortals wounds in melee on a 6. Maleceptor does a mortal wound within 6" on a 2+ and 3 on a 6. Almost universally Tyranid special rules are just weaker version of other armies special rules which makes them feel like they have no real identity.

Not to be contrarian buy Russes are T8, 3+

Devilfish and Predators are T7 3+, and I'm sure you can tell how many of those you've seen since even 8th started New improved melta haha yeah hope you like your Nid char grilled.

I don't think many old school SM players agree with how GW is making things with Marines. They're getting new models, but:

- The lore is utterly destroyed by those new Primaris.
- The army has no flavor at all, it's a mess of ruleset that leeches from all the other factions playstyle.
- The army is no longer accessible to new players, outside of how easy is to find the models, of course. But I agree, opening that Codex has to be hell.

We don't need the several different entries for the Carnifex, and we don't need several Marine entries. Consolidation is gold.

nekooni wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I think the thing that boggles my mind with Tyranids in particular is the sheer lack of any kind of thought or creativity that has gone into their current ruleset. If you look at the Haruspex, Toxicrene, Trygon, Hive Tyrant, Maleceptor and Tervigon, they have nearly IDENTICAL defensive profiles and damage outputs with just the very slightest variation. They're also just, just bad. If any of them were Chaos Daemon Engines, they'd be the worst chaos Daemon Engine.

And basically all their special 'unit shticks' are less exciting than a fart in a wet paper bag.

The Mawloc is a 125-point gigantic worm monster whose whole shtick is that it Ant-Lions up out of the ground directly underneath squads, devouring them from below! And how is that represented in game? Well, it can deep strike anywhere more than 1" from enemy units, and any units within 2" of it take, most likely, one. single. mortal wound.

Oh and it can't charge that turn and when it does charge the next turn you find out its damage output is next level, I'm talking an average of two guardsmen or 1.2 wounds to a standard vehicle, NEXT LEVEL bad.

How is it possible that you could sit a Games Workshop designer next to something that looks as objectively bitching as a Mawloc or a Maleceptor and he's not able to come up with more interesting rules than Primaris Sword Guy #21352?

You should take a look at Psychic Awakening: Blood of Baal. For example, the Mawloc received a Stratagem where you can make sure it's going to party a little bit harder underneath those enemy squads. Tervigons have a very different defensive stat line than Hive Tyrants, they are completely different in damage output and they have completely different roles and capabilities. I have absolutely no Idea why you would think any of these units are the same, to be honest. Did you even take a look at their abilities? Mawloc rules are way more creative than the rules than Bladeguards have. They need the stratagem, to be fair, but then they're a) worthwhile and b) the mechanic is still more interesting than anything that Bladeguards offer. They're just Sword&Board Primaris dudes. That's as basic as it gets.

Hive Tyrant: S6 Ap-3 D3 and variations
Carnifex: S6 AP-3 D3
Tervigon: S7 Ap-3 Dd6
Haruspex: S7 AP-1 Dd6 or S14 Ap-3 Dd6
Maleceptor: S7 AP-3 Dd6
Toxicrene: S7 Ap-2 Dd3 RR wounds
Trygon: S7 Ap-3 D3

Yes, there are major variations in damage output primarily driven by WS and Attacks and seemingly only extremely loosely correlated to the point cost of the model or the value of its abiliites....but it doesn't really change that GW put out seven melee-only creatures and the best they could do to differentiate them were such mind-blowingly incredible abilities as:

-Deep strike
-Poops out a 50-point min size infantry unit
-Heals 1 of its 13 wounds if it kills something in melee, an ability so exciting GW gave it to all daemon engines for free by default
-Is a basic 2-power psyker for 170pts
-Does a bunch of gak that does 1MW on a 6 to models within 1" of it.

"Sword guy" i was referring to was the Justicar, whose "fight last" ability is more impactful than any of the unique special abilities on any of the 160-180 point gigantic nid creatures with their various super exciting usually "mortal wound on a 6" based abilities.

Yeah it is pretty remarkable how boring a lot of Xenos units are compared to Imperium equivalents. It's a strange inversion of how things used to be.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And this is why, for the sake of new players, they're going to have to remove a bunch of Marine datasheets in the next version of the Codex.

So, in order to bring us close to a rational number of Bolt weapons, they're going to ditch the Primaris stuff?

Works for me

Tyel wrote:
Not going to lie, when I saw the Heavy Intercessors have 5 brand new boltweapon stand ins, I thought of you.

I didn't. I'd lost track of whose turn it was to create the latest spam thread about space marines.

Its somewhat perverse, I admit, but the more I see the same dozen-or-so people make the same complaints about marines over and over again, the more convinced I become that GW's approach is a good one. Just for the sheer lack of restraint to the opposition approach, and sheer annoyance level of the ceaseless arguments.

 Carnage43 wrote:
Okay, Space Marines have too many units, zero debate there. The other issue is that they have SEVERE bloat in terms of datasheet that could be wargear options. I mean, a Captain, a Captain in Terminator armor, and a Captain on a bike were 3 different datasheet.

But the thing is, I only have one datasheet for my canonness because she doesn't have access to a better armor, and she doesn't have access to a bike. It's not marine units being more artificially separated into different datasheet than other armies. It's them having more options.

Not disagreeing with the rest of the stuff said, Tyranid rules are in general obnoxious, pointlessly conditional, uninspiring, pre nerfed to n-th degree, and failing at implementing anything resembling the actual Nid lore.

But those "missing" attacks on Tyranids with triple pairs of scything talons are all hidden in their base attack characteristics. Raveners have more attacks than dual scything talon warriors, Trygons have 7 attacks with talons and Mawlocs what, 8? I haven't actually physically attacked anything with a Mawloc in ages.