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BrianDavion wrote:

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

I honestly can see 40k returning to rock paper scissors again a little. All the fuss about eradicators is because people wrote off hordes because of blast, then nobody takes blast weapons.

It'd be nice for a while not to have a clear list/army that's the best because an off meta army can challenge them like a horde list.

So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

I don't think they would. I think those were removed for the sake of easier bookeeping in the same way that Combi-weapons went to multi-use.

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

I'll have a skeg through my white dwarf for hints over lunch, I can see them.maybe being just a keyword now to trigger strats/abilities.

 Insectum7 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

I don't think they would. I think those were removed for the sake of easier bookeeping in the same way that Combi-weapons went to multi-use.

would it really be that hard? it's be effectively a once per game strat.

 Insectum7 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
There might be a couple, but a lot of the complaints are coming from people who've played pretty recently.

You say that, but let me put it to you this way:

I'm not a 40k expert, I never will be. But I've got a pretty solid understanding of Necromunda, because I've gone through a lot of campaigns. I can sit and read when people on the internet are passionately complaining about certain things- well, they're usually lying when they say that they've played it out, it's very likely they're just playing one-off skirmish games, they don't know how to put down terrain, they're not using tactics cards at all, or they've taken some dude's house rules as 'official rules gospel', etc. Whatever the case is- they're not playing campaigns, or they're not doing something right.

And you know what? Here's the harsh part:

A lot of times these people are lying. Yeah, people will do that. I'm not saying that out of disgust, disdain, or mockery. If anything- I feel a great deal of sympathy, because I think they may be a lot like I was at a certain point- living somewhere with no one that plays these games, flipping through a book and painting models that will stay on a shelf and collect dust until I can talk some disinterested person into 'trying' the game.

They're not playing the game at all, they're just looking at the rules and 'brainhammering' it out in their mind, without factoring in the myriad of potential problems. It's really, REALLY easy to see something as 'broken' or 'weak' or anything in between when you see it in a bubble by itself. There are very, very few people who can analyze rules in 40k and factor in all the variables and comparisons to other armies. I know they exist, and I know that there's a few people that claim to be able to do this- and maybe one of them is telling the truth... I'm pretty sure this forum might have two? Three? At best.

But yeah, call me what you like- "Meta" doesn't mean anything. For nearly 99% of all of us, "Meta" is just whatever handful of locals we can play with down at the local FLGS or the buddies that we meet to play garagehammer with. And if you have more than one of those little groups, you'll know that the "meta" in each one is different. Now, relocate to another city entirely- completely different kind of "meta".

And quite honestly, considering that every story I've read about the major tournaments in the last few years involves some degree of scumbaggery and cheating? That "meta" to me is about as trustworthy and reliable as a Bill Cosby cocktail.

I dunno about lying, but I see a LOOOOT of mathhammer and not a lot of discussions on actual experiance. Mathhammer tends to be a bit odd because it misses certain things. like the battle reps with the Orks earlier, most mathhammer people ignore the fact that access to large amounts of cheap bodies gives a an advantage on objectives

True. Mathhammer is a useful tool but it isn't a substitute for playing.

Mathammer is also just way, way easier to convey a "fact", than going on about an experience you had on the table. Math is nice and concrete, and more importantly on a forum, for better or for worse, you can't argue against the math itself unless the actual calculations are wrong. The debate becomes more about the meaning of the numbers within the context of a game, and the context is nebulous because there's way more variables in the context of games.

Actual "tactics" discussions tend to be harder because it's a conversation with a higher requirement for two people to actually work together to reach an understanding.

But @AD
Just because people are bad at analyzing 40K (or come to different conclusions than you) doesn't automatically mean they're lying. Since you acknowledge that different "metas" is a thing, that means people can have drastically experiences with the game. Assuming that a story that doesn't line up with your experience is automatically coming from a lie is. . . I'd say that says more about you than it does about them.

Also, some people just genuinely suck at 40K. I've seen people who really don't get it, and probably never will. Their experience of "balance" is going to be veeeery different.

A bunch of recent complaints are not actually about army balance (which is about winning games) but about model balance (which isn't about overall victory, but about how individual models compare to one another).

I'm not saying all complaints are legitimate, but lumping space marine gripers into liars and non-players? Yeah. . . right.

Yeah. To use a recent example, when discussing why Howling Banshees are just..not a very good unit, you run into a ton of people saying stuff like

"oh it only matters who gets the charge, if the banshees get the charge they'll kill marines!"

or

"oh you're just talking about 150 points of banshees fighting 200 points of marines, of course they're gonna lose"

or

"you're only looking at the round where the marines get Shock Assault, after the first round the marines will lose!"

The best way to tackle something like that is breaking out a bit of a mathammer comparison. Saying "ok, so let's look at this 160 point unit of banshees against this 160 point unit of 8 intercessors, we'll give the banshees the charge, and see how they do on average, and then we'll compare them to the same performance of an equal point unit of Shining Spears"

You use math to demonstrate the specific point, while setting the tactical situation to be as normal as possible: Intercessors are likely to be the front line of a marine army. Banshees and Spears have the same or very similar charge threat range. The banshees and spears are likely to be able to charge across the board and hit the closest thing in the marine player's army, and those units are likely to behave like this or that.

Mathhammer provides a way to respond to a general, vague claim with slightly more proof. It isn't the be-all-end-all and you need to do more rigorous effort than a lot of people on the forum do to make sure that your scenario is semi-realistic and doesn't rely on stuff that just would not happen.

To go back to the same example, the strength change to Power Swords means that, theoretically, the same Howling Banshees unit can defeat equivalent points of Intercessors in melee, but that hinges on the person playing the intercessors just deciding not to Fall Back with them the following turn. That's a pretty unrealistic assumption to make about any melee-oriented unit fighting any shooting-oriented unit, where the expected default response once the game rolls around to the defender's turn is that theyll have more efficient ways to kill the melee-oriented unit with the rest of their army's shooting than with melee.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

Wait...marines had doctrines in 7th edition?

How did I miss this?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

Hilariously, Erads are not actually all that inefficient at shooting boyz. They get nearly the same points return that Intercessors in Rapid Fire do.

And typically, from what I'm seeing in competitive lists, usually you fill your HS slot with erads, and then you just handle infantry with Troops and Elites. A couple squads of Salamander rules Aggressors is plenty to take care of the potential problem of Boyz.

the_scotsman wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

Wait...marines had doctrines in 7th edition?

How did I miss this?

It wasn't anything like what you think of today.

You got to use each one once per game, you could use each twice if you made a specific style of list. They had a minor boost, then a bigger boost for matching units i.e. Tactical was a shooting minor reroll, and Tac Squads could reroll all, Assault Doctrine helped any charge, and gave fight-based units - i.e. Assault Squads, Bikes and such - one of the old USR's generally better than the charge range helper.

Edit to Add, I can't remember, but I think it started as the UM Chapter mojo in 6th, then expanded to everyone in 7th.

Dudeface wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

I'll have a skeg through my white dwarf for hints over lunch, I can see them.maybe being just a keyword now to trigger strats/abilities.

Right, I've looked through the WD battle report for marine hints and got the following:

Rites of War warlord trait: all <core> units get obsec within 6" of warlord.
Know no fear agenda: pass a morale test, get exp
"When the marines got into my lines and moved to assault doctrine they were brutal" - doctrines still present in some capacity

Breton wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
So random thought I had just now, we know Marines are keeping doctrines but what if they shift it back to be more like doctrines where back in 7th edition? where you can use a doctrine once each game, and it lasts for a single turn.

Wait...marines had doctrines in 7th edition?

How did I miss this?

It wasn't anything like what you think of today.

You got to use each one once per game, you could use each twice if you made a specific style of list. They had a minor boost, then a bigger boost for matching units i.e. Tactical was a shooting minor reroll, and Tac Squads could reroll all, Assault Doctrine helped any charge, and gave fight-based units - i.e. Assault Squads, Bikes and such - one of the old USR's generally better than the charge range helper.

Edit to Add, I can't remember, but I think it started as the UM Chapter mojo in 6th, then expanded to everyone in 7th.

in the the ultramarines chapter tactic in 6th and 7th. IF however you ran a gladius, you'd get access to one of each. effectively doubling the doctrines Ultramarines got, and giving all the other chapters essentially UM chapter tactics for free.
No one noticed it because honestly it wasn't THAAAT great. it was potentially useful if used in the right circumstances, but not game breaking. people. (for obvious reasons) focused more on the gladius battle company's free transports. But yeah doctrines in 6th and 7th where pretty weak

BrianDavion wrote:

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

That's what aggressors are there for. Elite slot. Same with relic contemptors and long range firepower. Elite slot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

a_typical_hero wrote:

Am I the worst Marine player maybe because I can't kick all the NPCs off the board by 2nd turn max? Or *gasp* my opponents have fun as well and ask me for more games afterwards?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say,but I don't have any issues finding people to play with repeatedly. My whole point was that it sucks that balance is so bad I have to tone down my lists most of the time so it's a decently balanced match and everyone involved has fun.

I make it a point to exchange lists way before we meet so the lists can be well matched,and if I know someone's more of a laid back gamer I'll build to that right from the start.
Same with competitive players, I'll try to build something that'll be a challenge for them.

I don't stricktly play marines, but I do play a lot against them. There seem to be a lot of different marines armies, with different units with them, people, which includes me, seem to be having a lot of fun. Games don't end turn 2, there are problems with huge buffs to going first and some specific rules that work against specific armies, but all in all 9th ed is awesome comparing to 8th ed. It is even worth the 2 hour trip to new store.

Karol wrote:
I don't stricktly play marines, but I do play a lot against them. There seem to be a lot of different marines armies, with different units with them, people, which includes me, seem to be having a lot of fun. Games don't end turn 2, there are problems with huge buffs to going first and some specific rules that work against specific armies, but all in all 9th ed is awesome comparing to 8th ed. It is even worth the 2 hour trip to new store.

Don't get me wrong, when I gripe about balance I mean the points values and stuff like that. The game itself is WAY better than 8th as it's less focussed on killing. I just wish they had put more effort into the Field Manual and balance in general. And sounds like you have a community now that's working well for you, glad to hear that!

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Your wallet has a louder voice than your mouth, or anything you can type on the internet. Don't want to see as many Marine releases? Do your part and generate interest in something else. Whatever your faction is, show it off. Show someone how it works. Play your army with someone, not against them.

Nah, I ain't gonna fall for that. Then if they were selling, you can say "these minis are selling, no need for resculpts!" They're not giving Astartes players sets like Blood of the Phoenix with a bunch of old models; xenos players shouldn't have to buy stuff they already own to justify getting new stuff.

Hecaton wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Your wallet has a louder voice than your mouth, or anything you can type on the internet. Don't want to see as many Marine releases? Do your part and generate interest in something else. Whatever your faction is, show it off. Show someone how it works. Play your army with someone, not against them.

Nah, I ain't gonna fall for that. Then if they were selling, you can say "these minis are selling, no need for resculpts!" They're not giving Astartes players sets like Blood of the Phoenix with a bunch of old models; xenos players shouldn't have to buy stuff they already own to justify getting new stuff.

Also I love how much this comes up again and again, but GW just recently did their whole barely-veiled "we have so much warehouse overstock please just let us sell you mystery boxes at cost so they don't build up overhead" thing and what was in those boxes?

Box a: Knight, space marine unit X5
Box b: Arco-flagellants, Electropriests, Space Marine Unit X7

brand spanking new primaris characters galore right alongside clearly super popular models such as "old space marine bikers" and "Fenrisian Wolves"

Yeah those must be sellin like HOTCAKESSSSSSSSS.

Hecaton wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


Your wallet has a louder voice than your mouth, or anything you can type on the internet. Don't want to see as many Marine releases? Do your part and generate interest in something else. Whatever your faction is, show it off. Show someone how it works. Play your army with someone, not against them.

Nah, I ain't gonna fall for that. Then if they were selling, you can say "these minis are selling, no need for resculpts!" They're not giving Astartes players sets like Blood of the Phoenix with a bunch of old models; xenos players shouldn't have to buy stuff they already own to justify getting new stuff.

are you saying space marines get tons of new stuff because all their stuff isn't selling? really?

... thats not how busniesses work.

I'm waiting for the day "Firstborn" units disappear from Codex completely.

Until then Firstborn still is cheapest easiest way to play.

Add Primaris in small units not a massive splurge of $$$ and you'll be ok

 Corennus wrote:
I'm waiting for the day "Firstborn" units disappear from Codex completely.

Until then Firstborn still is cheapest easiest way to play.

Add Primaris in small units not a massive splurge of $$$ and you'll be ok

Technically I added a bunch of Primaris, but I did it through all the boxed sets as Primaris was releasing, and kept the other halves for other armies. So I spent some, but got extra. I was going to say I don't care if FirstBorn stay or go, but I wish they'd just get it over with, I'm kind of tired of the "will they or won't they" like it's some sort of Prime Time TV drama romantic story arc, but that's not really true, I'll be somewhat annoyed when/if my SM collection lost half or more of it's playable models.

 Corennus wrote:
I'm waiting for the day "Firstborn" units disappear from Codex completely.

Until then Firstborn still is cheapest easiest way to play.

Add Primaris in small units not a massive splurge of $$$ and you'll be ok

even if you play cheap you've proably got a ton of primaris Marines.

assuming you didn't buy any independantly packed units and simply purchased stuff that came out in boxed sets you'll have by now (I'm assuming a single dark Imperium purchase and no purchase of know no fear) you'd have primaris wise...

From DI:
10 intercssors, 5 hell blasters, 3 inceptors, 1 ancient, 1 captain, 2 lts.

From Tooth and Claw:
1 Space Wolf Leuitenant, 5 intercessors, 3 agressors and a redemptor

From Wake the Dead:
1 Leuitenant, 5 intercessors, 3 inceptors, 5 reivers

From Shadowspear:
1 Phobos Captain, 1 Phobos Lt. 1 Phobos Libby, 10 Infiltrators, 3 eliminators, 3 supressors


And I'll skip prophecy of the wolf as IMHO it wasn't the greatest deal from a Marine POV.


All told if you simply bought the discounted battleboxes in 8th edition you'd have

20 Intercessors, 5 Hellblasters, 6 inceptors, 3 Agressors, 5 Reivers, a Redemptor Dreadnought, 10 Infiltrators, 3 eliminators, 3 supressors, 2 Captains, 5 Leuitenants, 1 Ancient, 1 Librairan


All told, if you bought all of the discount boxes in 8th edition. and thats the only primaris you have, you own 2060 points worth of primaris Marines... 380 points of which is in Primaris Leuitenants

not that I expect people to have bought ALL the boxes but figured it was fun to do the math

 Corennus wrote:
I'm waiting for the day "Firstborn" units disappear from Codex completely.

Until then Firstborn still is cheapest easiest way to play.

Add Primaris in small units not a massive splurge of $$$ and you'll be ok

Are you joking? The cheapest way to play marines is almost certainly buying big boxed sets where you get like 600pts of stuff for 240$ then selling the non-marine half on ebay.

Yeah,the only expensive parts of a primaris force are the vehicles and unique characters, pretty much anything else is dirt cheap if you just grab the models from the big boxes. Sure, you don't get all the optios, but that's not a big deal - most people can't tell if those guns are the assault or the rapid fire version anyway.

BrianDavion wrote:
those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

Dude, three Eradicators kill 3.33 Boyz on average. Six Intercessors kill 2 on average at long range, 4 at short range. Eradicators are significantly more points-efficient than Intercessors at killing Boyz outside of 15", and are nearly as good inside of 15". You can face an army of entirely chaff and the Eradicators are still damned good- and even in your example, having one unit get the 4 wounds in on Ghaz is a good role for them.

Plus you still have your Elites slots open to take Aggressors for anti-horde and Contemptors for long-range fire support, so it's not like the Heavy Support slot is your only source of firepower.

Plus for a whopping 2CP you can take a Patrol to get some more slots, or 3CP for a Battalion. You're Marines, your HQs and Troops are good, it's a very low tax to get all the HS slots you need.

Slot-based limits are not a good balancing factor. If the only significant negative thing you can say about a unit is that it takes up a slot, chances are it's OP.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

Good lord, you know it's desperate when the argument for Eradicators being fair is now 'if your tank gets one-shotted because it has the temerity to exist, it's your fault for bringing a tank'.

 catbarf wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

Dude, three Eradicators kill 3.33 Boyz on average. Six Intercessors kill 2 on average at long range, 4 at short range. Eradicators are significantly more points-efficient than Intercessors at killing Boyz outside of 15",

Most Intercessors will be standing still, wouldn't they making them good to 30"

and are nearly as good inside of 15". You can face an army of entirely chaff and the Eradicators are still damned good- and even in your example, having one unit get the 4 wounds in on Ghaz is a good role for them.

Plus you still have your Elites slots open to take Aggressors for anti-horde and Contemptors for long-range fire support, so it's not like the Heavy Support slot is your only source of firepower.

Plus for a whopping 2CP you can take a Patrol to get some more slots, or 3CP for a Battalion. You're Marines, your HQs and Troops are good, it's a very low tax to get all the HS slots you need.

Slot-based limits are not a good balancing factor. If the only significant negative thing you can say about a unit is that it takes up a slot, chances are it's OP.

It takes up a third of your slots the same slots your own tanks and transports generally come from. And they;re 3 and only 3 (but that's more of a personal pet peeve). 3 MM Devs and 2 Basic bodies is 135. 3 Eradicators isn't that far out of sync. If 2W was the reason for the CA2020 price hike, its even less so.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

Good lord, you know it's desperate when the argument for Eradicators being fair is now 'if your tank gets one-shotted because it has the temerity to exist, it's your fault for bringing a tank'.

You ought to try pointing out Land Raiders are unlikely to be "good" any time soon.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Essentially, the issue is that most of space marines' power comes not from particular units but just from the overall army rules. This means that almost any collection of junk you can throw together is going to end up being pretty good, and much better than a random collection of junk thrown together from pretty much any other faction.

We recently ran a series of 'test' games with Chaos Marines sporting 2x wounds base. There was obviously a point disparity, though I'm not sure how it was calculated or what the calculations were based on- we just rolled with it. The other factions we were playing did quite well, but there was a notable improvement with Chaos Marines.

However, one of the most competitive players we know runs Admech and Guard, and he's still entirely capable of crushing everything.

That always seems to be the case, there are a guy or two in any given group that demolish everyone else they play no matter what faction they favor. Our local top dog plays Imperial Guard, Blood Angels, or Deathguard depending on his mood, I've never beaten his IG or his DG even with Iron Hands at their most broken.

The Newman wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Essentially, the issue is that most of space marines' power comes not from particular units but just from the overall army rules. This means that almost any collection of junk you can throw together is going to end up being pretty good, and much better than a random collection of junk thrown together from pretty much any other faction.

We recently ran a series of 'test' games with Chaos Marines sporting 2x wounds base. There was obviously a point disparity, though I'm not sure how it was calculated or what the calculations were based on- we just rolled with it. The other factions we were playing did quite well, but there was a notable improvement with Chaos Marines.

However, one of the most competitive players we know runs Admech and Guard, and he's still entirely capable of crushing everything.

That always seems to be the case, there are a guy or two in any given group that demolish everyone else they play no matter what faction they favor. Our local top dog plays Imperial Guard, Blood Angels, or Deathguard depending on his mood, I've never beaten his IG or his DG even with Iron Hands at their most broken.

Part of the equation is, assertions of the power of an army assume a lot of different things.

1) The player in question is playing the most powerful version of that army available
2) the player in question knows exactly what rules to use from that army to make them the most powerful
3) their opponent is randomly selected and fielding a list that is in no way tailored against the powerful army

In practice, in local games, none of those three are commonly true, at least in my experience.

People who know they'll be going up against the current hotness are more likely to be bringing their "a game" lists and loading up on counter-units to that potent army, even if they don't know precisely what their opponent will be bringing.

And people who play armies that happen to get buffed through the stratosphere very rarely have the EXACT combination of powerful units that the internet loves to complain about.

part of the reason that the space marine dominance of 2.0 was so massive was because of a few unusual factors. first, many of the units that marine players were already taking in their competitive lists (Smash captains, Leviathan Dreadnoughts, Chaplain Dreadnoughts, Thunderfires, Eliminators) were among the units elevated to god-tier by 2.0. Second, many of the units that were newly strong were units that many people had from the various starter boxes of the game, mostly the Intercessors that many people got in Dark Imperium.

The tyranny of 7th ed eldar was immediately apparent to everyone conceptually upon reading their rules, but the competitive meta eldar list prior to the 7th ed codex was wave serpents filled with dire avenger squads. The 7th ed meta list became Scatter Laser Jetbikes (a brand new unit) and Wraithknights. People who wanted the new hotness actualy had to go out and buy the new stuff. Other competitive lists throughout 8th relied on people having massively skewed extremely expensive lists overnight, like 20 hand flamer acolytes (a unit that costs 400$ to build since you can only get hand flamers out of the plastic kit) or 6 hive tyrants with wings and a wargear combination that doesnt come in the kit, or dozens of tau shield drones, an option that prior to the codex was terrible and you can't buy separately.

I'll be the first to admit that this was just unfortunate happenstance. The most popular faction immediately became the strongest, using the units that everybody already had and was fielding, leading to a massive string of extremely imbalanced games.

Eradicators are not broken, they are SEVERELY undercosted. I have run mine only once, in a ravenguard army. I held them in deep strike thanks to ravenguard strat. I popped them up t2 at 13" from a repulsor. I dropped it to 1w. It was a bit nuts.

Personally I think they should be 60 pts a model with their current loadout and rules. They are too good at their job otherwise.

As for intercessors, my local group and I have come to the conclusion that the auto bolt rifle is the answer to their job. 3 squads putting out 45 bolter shots a turn? Yeah that will work just fine........

Finally, on the bahsee thing, I have been running banshees almost all of 8th. I love my girls, they are fast, useful harrassment units. But I would never have said they were good at killing stuff. Anyone who thinks that needs to stop drinking the Kool aid. I am excited for the power sword update because "gasp" they will be able to kill stuff again! But atm.... thats a weak argument lol.

So yeah, my local meta is fine. I am still games happening here, at least 1 a week. Marines are seen as a tough army to face but not unbeatable. Personally i think DG and Imperial Guard are tougher enemies to take on depending on who is running them. But can marines be overwhelming? Yes. The core changes to rerolls is going to be huge and I can't wait for it. Game I played last week (my black legion vs new imperial fist army, I won thanks to my lord of skulls) I was very nervous going in because he had a repulsor executioner and leviathan dread and contemptor relic dread.... and a smash captain as chapter master and relic to make him a lieutenant as well. Thats a ton of anti tank rerolls that just makes those units so freaking good.

Azuza001 wrote:
Eradicators are not broken, they are SEVERELY undercosted. I have run mine only once, in a ravenguard army. I held them in deep strike thanks to ravenguard strat. I popped them up t2 at 13" from a repulsor. I dropped it to 1w. It was a bit nuts.

Personally I think they should be 60 pts a model with their current loadout and rules. They are too good at their job otherwise.

As for intercessors, my local group and I have come to the conclusion that the auto bolt rifle is the answer to their job. 3 squads putting out 45 bolter shots a turn? Yeah that will work just fine........

Finally, on the bahsee thing, I have been running banshees almost all of 8th. I love my girls, they are fast, useful harrassment units. But I would never have said they were good at killing stuff. Anyone who thinks that needs to stop drinking the Kool aid. I am excited for the power sword update because "gasp" they will be able to kill stuff again! But atm.... thats a weak argument lol.

So yeah, my local meta is fine. I am still games happening here, at least 1 a week. Marines are seen as a tough army to face but not unbeatable. Personally i think DG and Imperial Guard are tougher enemies to take on depending on who is running them. But can marines be overwhelming? Yes. The core changes to rerolls is going to be huge and I can't wait for it. Game I played last week (my black legion vs new imperial fist army, I won thanks to my lord of skulls) I was very nervous going in because he had a repulsor executioner and leviathan dread and contemptor relic dread.... and a smash captain as chapter master and relic to make him a lieutenant as well. Thats a ton of anti tank rerolls that just makes those units so freaking good.

Question...how does one use a "Harrassment unit" in a game of 9th edition?

The only units I would class as such in my own gameplay would be ultra-cheap chaff infantry units and characters, in which the 'harrassment' generally takes the form of forcing an opponent to target them to prevent them from scoring, or move around them, preventing expensive units from going where they want to go.

Banshees are neither durable nor inexpensive, nor do they deep strike. They are mobile, but not compared to vypers or windriders. They are less durable for the points vs shooting than almost anything else in the army. What do you use them for that you would call "useful harrassment"?

Dudeface wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

nekooni wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Eradicators have a specific rule to shoot twice on their datasheet - so yeah.....

At the same target.
That means that's scary to one model or unit on the table, usually a single vehicle or a knight or something.
If that's the basket you stuffed all your eggs into? Well, what did you learn today?

It's 120pts for a squad. It's really easy to bring three squads. are you going to claim that putting your eggs in three baskets that just got eradicated is your own fault, too?

On topic: the current balance is gak. I hate that it's gak, because playing marines is only fun if the marine player actively avoids the good stuff available to them,and in the case of Salamanders even "anything that's working well with your chapter tactic" has to be avoided, basically.
My main army is Salamanders, by the way.

those 3 squads is ALL your gonna be able to take in your heavy support slot. which means you sacrifice the ability to kill enemy HQs with eliminators, l;ay down heavy fire at range with devestators etc.
And you're going to feel reaaaaaaaaaallly stupid if you run into ohhh... a list that consists of mostly Ork Boyz led by Ghaz.

I honestly can see 40k returning to rock paper scissors again a little. All the fuss about eradicators is because people wrote off hordes because of blast, then nobody takes blast weapons.

It'd be nice for a while not to have a clear list/army that's the best because an off meta army can challenge them like a horde list.

it is why orks are doing pretty well right now honestly. if people come armed for space marines and then face a goff ork list led by ghaz and backed up by wagh banners painboys and such they are at an extreme disadvantage. inversely if you gear up for the ork list you lose to space marines (unless you are playing as space marines)... like cannot possibly win. I have marines (both chaos and normal including basically every faciton), all imperium and chaos armies, plus every xenos army but tyranids. This truly is the generalist edition so marines are shining stars.

I've played mainly GKs for the last two editions. Though I've dabbled in both chaos and IG as well.

I've only found problems at larger games. 2K pnts and up, and even then. It's a problem with unit balance and coaxing new players into the game.

 Oborosen wrote:
I've played mainly GKs for the last two editions. Though I've dabbled in both chaos and IG as well.

I've only found problems at larger games. 2K pnts and up, and even then. It's a problem with unit balance and coaxing new players into the game.

that is actually a really important distinction. its a very different and more balanced game in the 1k-1250 range imo. I think i prefer 1k point games they are fast, people bring interesting lists and its genuinely (subjectively) more fun.

 G00fySmiley wrote:


that is actually a really important distinction. its a very different and more balanced game in the 1k-1250 range imo. I think i prefer 1k point games they are fast, people bring interesting lists and its genuinely (subjectively) more fun.

Because of minimum point costs to SM, I have almost always preferred 2K+ games. My lists are almost always kitchen sink lists. I like to take a little of everything, and everything usually has a primary and secondary job, with every job having at least two units that can perform it. When 3 compulsory troops are roughly 60% of that 1,000 points, there’s no way you can fill out the rest of all those jobs once, let alone twice.