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Karol wrote:
Maybe stuff like termagants isn't suppose to kill whole units of marines in one go. Maybe killing 2-3 with 30 is what should happen.

So, 30 Termagants put out 90 shots at 18".
45 hits.
26.25 wounds
8.75 unsaved

270 points of Gants kills 72 points of Tactical Marines at 18". What does 270 points of Tactical Marines do to Gants?

30 shots
20 hits
13.33 wounds
11.11 unsaved

They kill 100 points of Gants. Without buffs. Without being in Tactical Doctrine. At 24" instead of 18".

Boy, sure seems fair, don't it?

Karol wrote:
Maybe stuff like termagants isn't suppose to kill whole units of marines in one go. Maybe killing 2-3 with 30 is what should happen.

No. This argument is not a fluff argument. This is a mechanical argument about the way the game plays. Under no circumstance should the game play be represented by almost 100 dice from an anti infantry weapon having no meaningful impact on infantry.

The moment those marines step into some terrain shooting at them goes from near pointless to actually pointless.

Again, this is bad for the game as it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:

Edit: Lance, your math's a bit off; Devourers are S4. A unit of 30 Termagants with Devourers averages 8.75 wounds on MEQ. I should point out to non-Tyranid players that that's also a 270pt unit with a grand total of 30 T3/6+ wounds and 18" range; it's the glassiest of glass hammers.

My bad. Thanks for the corrections.

The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.

When a 1 kills the same a 4 point guardsmen than a 25 point Grey Knight power armored marine, or you start putting things like invulnerables, FNP's , etc, etc... or it is just not worth it to be more expensive than X value. Thats something easely fixed with different "health" values. Maybe in a d10 or a d20 system having everything to be 1 wound like most stuff in Infinity is worth it because maybe a guardsmen dies if he rolls more than 15 on a d20 and a space marine needs to roll a 1,2,3. But with a d6 is unviable.

I mean, I agree with the amount of shotting (And even worse, rerolling) that has plagued the game right now.

 Galas wrote:
The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.

When a 1 kills the same a 4 point guardsmen than a 25 point Grey Knight power armored marine, or you start putting things like invulnerables, FNP's , etc, etc... or it is just not worth it to be more expensive than X value. Thats something easely fixed with different "health" values. Maybe in a d10 or a d20 system having everything to be 1 wound like most stuff in Infinity is worth it because maybe a guardsmen dies if he rolls more than 15 on a d20 and a space marine needs to roll a 1,2,3. But with a d6 is unviable.

Or just getting away from a per model stat line into a per unit stat line ala Apocalypse.

The amount of wounds a unit has versus the amount of dice rolled for a units guns can reign everything in big time. And if it ALSO works like apoc where you never remove individual models then the value of each "model" becomes more valuable and viable per point spent.

Again, it takes a fundamental shift in the way the whole core mechanics of the game work in order for any of this to be viable. I am not disagreeing that there has been a problem with the amount of design space. But just shifting things over doesn't REALLY fix that and creates a bigger issue in the game play.

 Galas wrote:
Theres just so much you can make with the "generalisation" of stats, like a Catachan Infantryman is S4 just like a Space Marine. We all know we can't have a unit being 3,5F or 3,8F so the different brackets of an stat have space for variance.

Actually, 0.5 versions of stats have been discussed on this board before and they work fairly well for doing exactly what you want. The way that S3.5 would work is that it would count as S4 versus T3 and below and as S3 against T4 and up.Years ago it was brought up as a way to fix boyz who were S3 base S4 on the charge back then.

-----

Also, for boyz and gants, doesn't FnP make more sense than flat out extra wounds? They can keep fighting after taking some serious wounds, so give them a chance to shrug off hits and keep on coming. You could have also done this for marines, but that was a DG thing and it would make for a very messy design space.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Theres just so much you can make with the "generalisation" of stats, like a Catachan Infantryman is S4 just like a Space Marine. We all know we can't have a unit being 3,5F or 3,8F so the different brackets of an stat have space for variance.

Actually, 0.5 versions of stats have been discussed on this board before and they work fairly well for doing exactly what you want. The way that S3.5 would work is that it would count as S4 versus T3 and below and as S3 against T4 and up.Years ago it was brought up as a way to fix boyz who were S3 base S4 on the charge back then.

-----

Also, for boyz and gants, doesn't FnP make more sense than flat out extra wounds? They can keep fighting after taking some serious wounds, so give them a chance to shrug off hits and keep on coming. You could have also done this for marines, but that was a DG thing and it would make for a very messy design space.

No. A 6+ save with a 6+ FNP might as well just be a 6+ save for all the good it's going to do.

 Lance845 wrote:
No. A 6+ save with a 6+ FNP might as well just be a 6+ save for all the good it's going to do.

Why not give boyz a 6+ FnP (5+ with a nearby painboy) and gants 5+ FnP in synapse (6+ out of synapse).

For boyz that means they can have a T4 5++ in 5+ FnP which makes a block of 30 very hard to shift. This gets better if you then spend CP to replenish them. For gants it means getting 33% more of them across the table or eating even more shooting per unit to remove them entirely and this is valuable.

EDIT: Even with a base 6+ FnP that's 5 extra gants surviving from an otherwise wiped out unit. If they were badly overkilled anyway, this does nothing, but if not even keeping 1 or 2 on an objective still lets you score it for another round.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
No. A 6+ save with a 6+ FNP might as well just be a 6+ save for all the good it's going to do.

Why not give boyz a 6+ FnP (5+ with a nearby painboy) and gants 5+ FnP in synapse (6+ out of synapse).

For boyz that means they can have a T4 5++ in 5+ FnP which makes a block of 30 very hard to shift. This gets better if you then spend CP to replenish them.

For gants it means getting 33% more of them across the table or eating even more shooting per unit to remove them entirely and this is valuable.

And then Catalyst turns it into a 3+ and leviathan turns that into a 4+/2+ with Catalyst?

 Lance845 wrote:
And then Catalyst turns it into a 3+ and leviathan turns that into a 4+/2+ with Catalyst?

Or we do the sane thing and make Catalyst give a 5+ FnP to units without one or raise the value of FnP by one to a maximum of 4+ FnP.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
And then Catalyst turns it into a 3+ and leviathan turns that into a 4+/2+ with Catalyst?

Or we do the sane thing and make Catalyst give a 5+ FnP to units without one or raise the value of FnP by one to a maximum of 4+ FnP.

Or we can understand that this is a band-aid that is trying to justify the current round of bull crap and in effect causes a cascade of other issues.

A psychic power for the nids gets less useful and becomes worthless for a specific hive fleet. So now we need to redo one or both of those to "make it work".

My point here isn't that gants/gaunts should be 2w. It's that old marines shouldn't and all the arguments being used to justify why they should are either crap fluff arguments that can be disputed by other fluff or mechanical arguments that create other issues.

 Lance845 wrote:
Or we can understand that this is a band-aid that is trying to justify the current round of bull crap and in effect causes a cascade of other issues.

I'm all for going back to older systems where lethality was less of an issue but that literally means removing entire factions (Knights) from the game and going back to square one on balancing units that Fly.

A psychic power for the nids gets less useful and becomes worthless for a specific hive fleet. So now we need to redo one or both of those to "make it work".

How does it get less useful? As written it gives a unit a 5+ FnP and does nothing else. My suggestion was to give it a use on units that already have an FnP and a cap so you can't give any unit in your army a storm shield.

For Leviathan you've saved them from needing to cast a power at all so they can take other powers rather than the same auto-include.

You have reduced it's effectiveness by making it do half it's effect. (Lets be honest. Nids are NEVER outside of synapse and if you ever catch nids outside of synapse things have already gone catastrophically wrong). And you have effected leviathan by removing a psychic power from their list. Name another subfaction that looses a psychic power in exchange for it's subfaction bonus?

 Lance845 wrote:
You have reduced it's effectiveness by making it do half it's effect. (Lets be honest. Nids are NEVER outside of synapse and if you ever catch nids outside of synapse things have already gone catastrophically wrong). And you have effected leviathan by removing a psychic power from their list. Name another subfaction that looses a psychic power in exchange for it's subfaction bonus?

So you can't use your subfaction bonus and Catalyst on your other units now? I suggested the 6+ FnP and 5+ FnP for gants, not the entire faction.

Also, any -1 to hit powers are pretty useless right now, +1 toughness on DA Terminator units is also useless given their special rule. So there's precedence for making certain powers and faction bonuses less useful as you change editions.

Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.

Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".

 Galas wrote:
The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.

When a 1 kills the same a 4 point guardsmen than a 25 point Grey Knight power armored marine, or you start putting things like invulnerables, FNP's , etc, etc... or it is just not worth it to be more expensive than X value. Thats something easely fixed with different "health" values. Maybe in a d10 or a d20 system having everything to be 1 wound like most stuff in Infinity is worth it because maybe a guardsmen dies if he rolls more than 15 on a d20 and a space marine needs to roll a 1,2,3. But with a d6 is unviable.

I mean, I agree with the amount of shotting (And even worse, rerolling) that has plagued the game right now.

Let's look at 3rd-7th, when this 'one wound for infantry' convention existed. You shoot at a Guardsman and a Marine with a bolter.

You need 1.5 hits on average to kill a Guardsman. Wound on 3s, no save.

You need 6 hits on average to kill a Marine. That's four times harder to kill, from not a huge delta in stats. And during this era, Marines were only 2-3x more expensive than Guardsmen (depending on when exactly you look), so point for point they were harder to kill with small arms.

Now consider a T5/2+ profile. You need 18 bolter hits to kill. That's twelve times harder to kill than the Guardsman.

How many times harder to kill than a Guardsman does a humanoid, non-character profile really need to be? If that sets a soft cap on 'efficient' pricing at 50ish points (ten times Guardsman cost), is that really a problem?

I would argue that the prevalence of AP modifiers, as well as a wound chart that makes low-toughness troops tougher than they used to be and high-toughness troops weaker than they used to be, is why expensive troops are perceived as weak to begin with. High T doesn't matter if everyone still wounds you on 5s, and high saves don't matter if they get degraded to 5+ or worse anyways.

In which case the logical solution would be to fix the systems that are meant to represent durability, rather than lean into a new one because the others don't work. And it's not like W2 Marines are going to feel tough when they get splattered by D2 heavy bolter fire.

 Galas wrote:
The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.

But it also goes the other way. Even when anything can wound everything else, you can easily end up with low-level infantry being utterly pointless.

Just look to what guardsmen were like in 7th edition - they struggled to put significant wounds on most units even when firing whole platoons at them, and there were so many torrent flamers and large blasts floating around that you didn't bother removing individual models - you just used a dustpan and brush.

But you couldn't give them more survivability, because that would be unfluffy.

And you also couldn't give them better weapons, because that would also be unfluffy.

So as other units got more and more buffs, guardsmen (and many other units like them) were left in the dirt.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, 30 Termagants put out 90 shots at 18".
45 hits.
26.25 wounds
8.75 unsaved

270 points of Gants kills 72 points of Tactical Marines at 18". What does 270 points of Tactical Marines do to Gants?

30 shots
20 hits
13.33 wounds
11.11 unsaved

They kill 100 points of Gants. Without buffs. Without being in Tactical Doctrine. At 24" instead of 18".

Boy, sure seems fair, don't it?

Considering that a termagaunt's sole reason for existence is to die for Darkseid sure seems fair to me.

It's also why Tyranid players who are finding some success with them aren't giving them a weapon with no AP that nearly doubles their point cost. That unit would cost 150 with fleshborers and is no easier to kill.

 Lance845 wrote:
Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.

Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".

While I agree that a faction wide FnP would make sense for Tyranids, that would require a lot of reworking versus giving a bump to a horde unit that isn't seeing a lot of play. That also explains why I didn't go into every ramification that such a change would cause.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.

Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".

While I agree that a faction wide FnP would make sense for Tyranids, that would require a lot of reworking versus giving a bump to a horde unit that isn't seeing a lot of play. That also explains why I didn't go into every ramification that such a change would cause.

I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications. Bringing other units in line with the new normal based on fluff or balance has ramifications. It not only doesn't make sense fluff wise (unless you start moving everyone else up also) it also doesn't help the game mechanically. It was a bad choice for the game. And I suspect down the line it's going to get worse. Worse for everyone who doesn't get moved up or worse for everyone when we all start throwing tons of dice to no effect. Unless they also make all weapons more lethal too. Then even though the numbers are bigger it won't actually have changed anything.

 catbarf wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.

When a 1 kills the same a 4 point guardsmen than a 25 point Grey Knight power armored marine, or you start putting things like invulnerables, FNP's , etc, etc... or it is just not worth it to be more expensive than X value. Thats something easely fixed with different "health" values. Maybe in a d10 or a d20 system having everything to be 1 wound like most stuff in Infinity is worth it because maybe a guardsmen dies if he rolls more than 15 on a d20 and a space marine needs to roll a 1,2,3. But with a d6 is unviable.

I mean, I agree with the amount of shotting (And even worse, rerolling) that has plagued the game right now.

Let's look at 3rd-7th, when this 'one wound for infantry' convention existed. You shoot at a Guardsman and a Marine with a bolter.

You need 1.5 hits on average to kill a Guardsman. Wound on 3s, no save.

You need 6 hits on average to kill a Marine. That's four times harder to kill, from not a huge delta in stats. And during this era, Marines were only 2-3x more expensive than Guardsmen (depending on when exactly you look), so point for point they were harder to kill with small arms.

Now consider a T5/2+ profile. You need 18 bolter hits to kill. That's twelve times harder to kill than the Guardsman.

How many times harder to kill than a Guardsman does a humanoid, non-character profile really need to be? If that sets a soft cap on 'efficient' pricing at 50ish points (ten times Guardsman cost), is that really a problem?

I would argue that the prevalence of AP modifiers, as well as a wound chart that makes low-toughness troops tougher than they used to be and high-toughness troops weaker than they used to be, is why expensive troops are perceived as weak to begin with. High T doesn't matter if everyone still wounds you on 5s, and high saves don't matter if they get degraded to 5+ or worse anyways.

In which case the logical solution would be to fix the systems that are meant to represent durability, rather than lean into a new one because the others don't work. And it's not like W2 Marines are going to feel tough when they get splattered by D2 heavy bolter fire.

I mean in your example that guardsmen would have had a 4+ save for being in cover vs the marine +3armor save. The thing is, I really don't believe warhammer was better in 3rd-7th edition. I also dont believe HH is better at this because power armored dudes die like schmucks there (And thats proper for the Horus Heresy when your battles where between hundreds of thousands of marines). In general I just like a better distribution of stats with higher point costs and lower model counts without entering skirmish, etc...




Is a problem to throw 120 dice and accomplish nothing but I don't find a problem to make a more organical defensive upgrade making basic statlines better without stuff like 2++ armour saves and 4+FNP. The offensive profiles for now have not been upgraded in 9th. Yeah, melta is better. And melta was useless before. Probably is a little too cheap for what it does but now they can give it a proper cost agaisnt a Lasscannon for example. That makes the game less lethal.

 Lance845 wrote:
[I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications.

Nobody competitive took 1W mini-marines once Cawl's boys found their footing, the ramification is that you'll see a wider variety of 2W marine bodies on the board rather than only the new models. The weapons that killed Intercessors will kill a tac squad just fine.

So which ramifications are you worried about that hadn't already happened once Primaris models arrived? For that matter, why is this only an issue now when bikes, Tau crisis suits, and being a Grey Knight already gave you extra wounds; why do those rules get a pass when the new ones don't?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
[I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications.

Nobody competitive took 1W mini-marines once Cawl's boys found their footing,

That was the point Old marines are supposed to be more cheaper bodies before they get squatted and primaris are the new more expensive but tougher normal.

the ramification is that you'll see a wider variety of 2W marine bodies on the board rather than only the new models. The weapons that killed Intercessors will kill a tac squad just fine.

I am sorry... MORE variety from the faction that has more units then any other 2 combined? Then certain other 3 combined? Are you kidding me? There shouldn't BE more variety of marine infantry. We can go into the side by side comparisons if you want, but you saying this is exactly why it was a negative ramification. This is a problem.

So which ramifications are you worried about that hadn't already happened once Primaris models arrived? For that matter, why is this only an issue now when bikes, Tau crisis suits, and being a Grey Knight already gave you extra wounds; why do those rules get a pass when the new ones don't?

Crisis suits are like dreads. Again, the extra wounds are because you are not damaging a person, you are damaging the suit. Same with the bikes. A extra wound for the machine. Grey Knights have always had their problems and their bonuses. Nobody sees the Grey Knights unbalancing the game.

Lance, you say fluff arguments are stupid so why are you justifying with it things like suits and bikes when you can say the same for a terminator armor? Is a bigger and heavier armor than power armored one so it gives better save and an enxtra wound?

At the end of the day you can't separate, or you shouldnt (GW surely does) the trifecta of Fluff/Feeling, Game desing and balance.

 Galas wrote:
Lance, you say fluff arguments are stupid so why are you justifying with it things like suits and bikes when you can say the same for a terminator armor? Is a bigger and heavier armor than power armored one so it gives better save and an enxtra wound?

Because taken as a whole there is a consistency of design for the old things. A battle suit like a dread had more wounds. It's save was in line with other equivalent armors. It's toughness was in line with the difficulty of wounding other equivalent toughnesses.

Simply putting on a thick armor gave a model a better save. Not more wounds. Actually being encased inside of an entire mech gave you more wounds because at that point you are not a man in armor you are the pilot of a vehicle. Likewise the bike is a man on a vehicle.

There is no consistency of design for giving terminators an extra wound.

At the end of the day you can't separate, or you shouldnt (GW surely does) the trifecta of Fluff/Feeling, Game desing and balance.

That is only true if you have a solid ground of consistent fluff/feeling to base it on. There isn't. So which fluff are you using? Where does my fluff fit in with that? GW has never given us a consistent fluff to build off of to use as a foundation when using game design to bridge the gap between balance and fluff. So we have a game, and it can either be a good game or a bad one. And the fluff/feel can't help in that equation because none of us really know what it is.

@Lance: You're making some good points, and I usually find myself agreeing with you. But I feel like you're being kind of unreasonable in regards to the 2 Wound thing and in regards to fluff having an impact on crunch.

I'm sure there is fluff out there saying that gaunts are unkillable chitin zombies. 40k has a lot of fluff, and it's not rare to find that some of it is contradictory. Now, in game terms, is the concept of a hormagaunt better served by it being hard to kill? I think most people would agree that a hormagaunt should feel like a zergling. That it occupies the role of being a squishy-but-numerous enemy. From a game balance perspective, being squishy means we don't have to charge points for it being durable, and that in turn makes it more viable for them to be taken in large numbers.

We could make gaunts be two wounds as an acknowledgement of the fluff that says they're hard to kill. We would have to increase their points cost to account for this increased durability which would, in turn, probably result in people fielding fewer of them. It would change their "feel" from a bunch of squishy mooks to that of a slightly more "elite" foe.

Game design is not purely about mathing out perfectly balanced stat profiles. A big part of it is conveying the intended experience. In 40k's case, part of that experience is seeing some of an army's fluff manifested on the tabletop. The "feel" matters because "the feel" is how the fantasy of the game is being conveyed. Defining units through their differences is part of how we shape that feel.

So you could make 2W gaunts, but you'll be changing the fantasy conveyed. You'll be telling people that gaunts are not, in fact, zerglings. They are instead a step more durable than that. They are closer to a semi-elite creature like a daemon or an eldar. There are those who may be all for this particular change. You could pitch it in Proposed Rules and make a compelling argument for it. But I think may of us prefer for gaunts to feel numerous and squishy, and moving them away from that feel might make us want to have a unit that does feel like a zergling.

I'm spending a lot of time talking about gaunts. I know you're not actually advocating for more durable gaunts. My point is that, in the same way people want gaunts to feel squishy and numerous, they also want marines to feel durable. Even before primaris marines were a thing, I liked the idea of giving marines 2W or some other form of durability boost because losing a marine to a laspistol didn't "feel" right. The single wound was failing to convey the fantasy that I'd been sold on.

Your insistence that being T4 and having a 3+ save already represented their superior durability misses the point that many felt the marine fantasy wasn't being sufficiently conveyed. Yes, T4 and a 3+ save represent the marine being tougher than a guardsman, but they didn't represent it very well because a marine didn't feel significantly more durable against small arms fire.

Giving marines an extra hitpoint does a lot to fix how they feel. Especially in a game where most infantry units don't have that many wounds. Should marines pay more for that extra wound? Maybe. Should we go even further and make marines have even more wounds and also give more wounds to other units? Maybe! I think there's a way to do that and make it work. These are not unreasonable ideas.

We all know that fluff shouldn't be used as an excuse to make something OP. We all know that there are limits on what fluff should and should not be represented in the rules. But I think we're all also aware that fluff *should* guide what the game looks like. Insisting that you shouldn't make marines more durable because they already have a Toughness and Save better than a guardsman's is just bizarre to me. I kind of get the impression you might be digging your heels in to an unreasonable degree.

Or maybe I'm misinterpreting just how staunch your position actually is.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Lance, you say fluff arguments are stupid so why are you justifying with it things like suits and bikes when you can say the same for a terminator armor? Is a bigger and heavier armor than power armored one so it gives better save and an enxtra wound?

Because taken as a whole there is a consistency of design for the old things. A battle suit like a dread had more wounds. It's save was in line with other equivalent armors. It's toughness was in line with the difficulty of wounding other equivalent toughnesses.

Simply putting on a thick armor gave a model a better save. Not more wounds. Actually being encased inside of an entire mech gave you more wounds because at that point you are not a man in armor you are the pilot of a vehicle. Likewise the bike is a man on a vehicle.

There is no consistency of design for giving terminators an extra wound.

But crisis suits are not mechas, and definetely, Stealth Suits aren't, and both give normal taus extra wounds. The same goes for the bike. If one extra wounds represents the bike taking extra damage, having a bigger armor why can't give an extra wound?

And I'm not even proposing for terminator armor to give an extra wound. GW thinks that it does, and I don't disagree with it being unreasonable. It can work and I can understand why. The difference in your perception is that bikes have always give an extra wound. Thats why most people tought the primaris biker with 4 wounds were extrange, because they should have had 3 wounds, 2+1 for the bike. It has nothing to do with balance or consistence, is just that people is more used to how things used to be. And in general I don't have that much liking for justifying things just because "tradition". Warhammer has always been many things but consistent has never been one of those.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Lance, you say fluff arguments are stupid so why are you justifying with it things like suits and bikes when you can say the same for a terminator armor? Is a bigger and heavier armor than power armored one so it gives better save and an enxtra wound?

Because taken as a whole there is a consistency of design for the old things. A battle suit like a dread had more wounds. It's save was in line with other equivalent armors. It's toughness was in line with the difficulty of wounding other equivalent toughnesses.

Simply putting on a thick armor gave a model a better save. Not more wounds. Actually being encased inside of an entire mech gave you more wounds because at that point you are not a man in armor you are the pilot of a vehicle. Likewise the bike is a man on a vehicle.

There is no consistency of design for giving terminators an extra wound.

At the end of the day you can't separate, or you shouldnt (GW surely does) the trifecta of Fluff/Feeling, Game desing and balance.

That is only true if you have a solid ground of consistent fluff/feeling to base it on. There isn't. So which fluff are you using? Where does my fluff fit in with that? GW has never given us a consistent fluff to build off of to use as a foundation when using game design to bridge the gap between balance and fluff. So we have a game, and it can either be a good game or a bad one. And the fluff/feel can't help in that equation because none of us really know what it is.

There may not be a "one true fluff" to base things on, but designers can choose a fluff interpretation to go with. Fluff that says 5 marines can totally take on 200 orks... is probably not going to be well-received. (Partly because it fails to make room for the non-marine player's own power fantasy.) Fluff that says, "A small number of marines can take on a larger number of orks," tells you that a single marine is more powerful than the average ork and can reasonably be represented on the tabletop.

So while fluff and fans might bicker over exactly how durable a suit of terminator armor is, we can also agree that terminators should feel quite durable. I know you've seen all the threads in the Proposed RUles section trying to make terminators more worthwhile. Those threads were largely a response to the "feel" of terminators not being right. A third wound on a terminator seems like a reasonable way to correct that feel. And I'd argue that making a unit behave in a way that satisfies its intended fantasy while being balanced within the game itself is more important than insisting on whether terminator armor should provide exactly 1 or 2 wounds or what have you. Is the end result of this change desirable? It's too early to be sure, but I think yes.


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 Galas wrote:

And I'm not even proposing for terminator armor to give an extra wound. GW thinks that it does, and I don't disagree with it being unreasonable. It can work and I can understand why. The difference in your perception is that bikes have always give an extra wound. Thats why most people tought the primaris biker with 4 wounds were extrange, because they should have had 3 wounds, 2+1 for the bike. It has nothing to do with balance or consistence, is just that people is more used to how things used to be. And in general I don't have that much liking for justifying things just because "tradition". Warhammer has always been many things but consistent has never been one of those.

Have an exalt. I like a lot of what you're saying in this thread.

 Lance845 wrote:
That was the point Old marines are supposed to be more cheaper bodies before they get squatted and primaris are the new more expensive but tougher normal.

They gave it an entire edition and nobody played mini-marines, so in 9th they either needed to squat them or fix them and they chose to fix them.

I am sorry... MORE variety from the faction that has more units then any other 2 combined? Then certain other 3 combined? Are you kidding me? There shouldn't BE more variety of marine infantry. We can go into the side by side comparisons if you want, but you saying this is exactly why it was a negative ramification. This is a problem.

How exactly is marine glut a problem in gameplay? Units will either find a niche in competitive play or they won't; a second wound doesn't automatically make a questionable unit good. The plus is that casual players will get to use their collection without feeling punished for not buying enough of the new stuff.

Other factions haven't been shafted out of models because marines are getting theirs, GW knows which factions sell and plan accordingly.

Crisis suits are like dreads. Again, the extra wounds are because you are not damaging a person, you are damaging the suit.

What exactly is the difference between a marine in fully enclosed power armor and a Tau in fully enclosed power armor? Remember that Tau limbs do extend at least partway into the arms and legs of their crisis suits; they have never been like a Gundam or a Dreadnought where the pilot is fully within an armored cockpit.

Same with the bikes. A extra wound for the machine.

I guess WWI was wrong and we should have had men on horses charging machine guns because, obviously, a mount should give an extra wound. To continue this insane line of thought a dude on a bike should be able to survive a gunshot wound to the chest solely because they're on a bike. Should 1W biker models have a 50/50 chance to leave a guy on foot or a riderless bike?

Grey Knights have always had their problems and their bonuses. Nobody sees the Grey Knights unbalancing the game.

Did you even play in 5th edition?

My position in this thread started with pointing out how bad the argument is that fluff justifies the extra wound on the marines. The fluff is inconsistent and shouldn't be used.

Mechanically my position in this thread is how bad for the game it is to simply staple more wounds onto things.

Old Marines need to hurry up and get squatted. That fixes a bunch of problems right there. It doesn't matter if they legacy have 2w or not if they are no longer represented in the current books.

But while they exist it IS a problem. Because fluff or mechanical arguments for why everyone else now lives in that world. Everyone else is devalued by comparison. And you either fix that by dropping everyones point values (unlikely after the current rise in point values) making their weapons better (maybe happening? When will that be done? 2 years out?) or start giving them more wounds (so we all roll more dice for less actual effect in the game).

Thats it. Its a problem that it exists as as per the title of the thread I don't think marines should have 2w. It's mechanically bad without drastic other changes and the fluff doesn't justify it.

 Galas wrote:
I mean in your example that guardsmen would have had a 4+ save for being in cover vs the marine +3armor save.

For all the time that I played those editions, a basic cover save was 5+. That made a Marine 2.67x harder to kill than a Guardsman with S4, while costing around 2.5-3x more depending on when you look in the history. The Marines were more vulnerable to anti-tank fire, the Guardsmen were dramatically more vulnerable to template weapons and anything that ignored cover; and of course they had to stay in cover to get that benefit.

Marines felt appropriately tough at 1 wound. It's the changes in mechanics that have degraded Marine durability, and make 1 higher T and a much better save not feel adequate for representing tougher physiology and much better armor.

 Galas wrote:
The thing is, I really don't believe warhammer was better in 3rd-7th edition. I also dont believe HH is better at this because power armored dudes die like schmucks there (And thats proper for the Horus Heresy when your battles where between hundreds of thousands of marines). In general I just like a better distribution of stats with higher point costs and lower model counts without entering skirmish, etc...

Sure. I really like a lot of the gameplay concepts, like armor modifiers, introduced in 8th/9th. But the implementation is key; what we've seen in 8th and now 9th is weapons having access to high AP, and a wounding system that makes high-volume mid-strength fire real good at killing Marines and vehicles alike.

When every basic Marine can get AP-2 on the most relevant turns of the game, obviously even a 2+ save is not going to feel especially durable. And if a lasgun wounds T5 just as easily as T4, and a bolter wounds T5, T6, and T7 all the same, then obviously having a point or two of higher T is not going to make a unit feel noticeably tougher either.

What I'm getting at is that having troops feel tough while staying with the old W1-for-infantry paradigm isn't impossible, it just requires reining in AP modifiers and re-evaluating the Strength-vs-Toughness system. Otherwise handing out W2 everywhere while simultaneously upping existing weapons to D2 is just getting into an arms race of band-aid fixes to core mechanics not working as they should.