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 Type40 wrote:

Enjoy this thread and discuss the problems with marines and their players here. I wont be participating much here. But with your own space for this topic we can keep it out of literally every single other thread that mentions power armor at all.

For those that don't understand the subtext here:

"I like marines, and enjoy all the attention they get, but I dislike being reminded about how favoured and overpowered they've become. So if all of you little people could keep your complaints nicely isolated to this thread so I never have to listen to them again, that would be great. Kthxbai."


I mean my paraphrasing of it is only about 10% more patronising than the original, I'm not sure I could do a better job at passive aggressiveness. Bravo sir.

Also to people who are replying to this thread - don't bother. The person who started it has said he's ignoring it, and so the only people who post here will be people who already agree with you anyway. There's no discussion, just an echo chamber. Things wont improve with the game in any way because of this thread.

The best thing to do is spam every thread that Type40 comments on, so that no no, don't do that. Best thing for balance is to just chat to your game group and try and convince people not to take tfg lists. Game is more fun with balanced armies. As far as model releases go... don't buy any marines. The less GW sell, the more they might actually try something crazy (like plastic aspect warriors).

Yup, I'm done with marines this edition. I don't even want to play against them in any form.

SecondTime wrote:
Yup, I'm done with marines this edition. I don't even want to play against them in any form.

I like Marines - i just like other things as well.

Hecaton wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:
It's always been that way. And space marines miniatures sell because they are iconic and emblematic of the entire universe. They are likely the biggest initial point of connection players new to GW have - and that drives sales.

No, it hasn't always been that way. I'm old enough to remember that - also, them driving sales is a feedback loop that just will result in Astartes being a cancer on the rest of the setting.

I started playing with Rogue Trader - so I don't know at what point in the past you are thinking of where the imperium wasn't the focal point of the lore. Care to elaborate?

EDIT: For the record, I do wish more "design space" was given or prioritized to non-marine armies. I do feel like, even acknowledging the importance of SM in lore/sales/etc. that it's out of whack big time. Seems like 75% of everything is Marines, when even 50% would be a lot given there are nearly a dozen other main factions to share the other 50% of the love.

I first learned the game and read about the lore in 1991. It was clear then that Space Marines were the story focus around which everything else was centered. That is still true.

 vipoid wrote:
I think Catbarf talked about this in a different thread. Basically, a problem of there being no one willing to stick up for the Xeno factions and say 'hang on, this is a core part of our faction's identity - it shouldn't just be handed to Marines. Especially when they'll be able to do it even better than the Xeno faction'.

Yep. Let's consider some examples of the results.

Which faction can sneakily forward deploy, or deep strike in the midst of the enemy on the first turn, executing a sudden ambush without warning? GSC, right? Nope. Marines get to break the no-DS-turn-1 rule with Drop Pods. GSC are based on ambush and deep strike, but they have to wait until T2.

Which faction gets transports that can drop troops after moving, allowing them to cover lots of ground in one turn and shoot from close range? Probably Drukhari, famed for their lightning-assault style, right? Nope, it's Marines again with the Impulsor.

Who's got a sniper unit that can also do decent anti-heavy-infantry/anti-vehicle, making them a good source of long-ranged firepower? Hey, that sounds like the old Tau rail rifle! Nah it's Eliminators, so Marines again.

Do you want a fast lightning assault army that uses lots of bikes to get in close and press the attack? Well you could go Craftworlds, but White Scars do it better. Do you want footslogging lunatics who chop the enemy into little bits? Orks or Berserkers are fun, but Blood Angels and Space Wolves do it too, require a lot less finesse, and also have great shooting to cover. Do you want to form a gunline and out-shoot the enemy? That once was Tau's thing, but Imperial Fists and Iron Hands do it better. With the most stratagems, most psychic powers, most subfactions, best subfaction traits, and significant mono-faction bonus, there's nothing they can't do well.

Basically, rather than being jacks of all trades, they're masters of all of them too. Worse, they don't give up secondary capabilities to specialize, like how Khorne trades off shooting to be good at melee and Tau trades off melee to be good at shooting. If you're a new player and you ask the local guru 'what's the best army at [X]?', I give it 80% odds that the answer is some flavor of Marine.

And note that none of this has to do with points costs. It's not about whether Marine units are costed appropriately, it's about capability and specialization. Impulsors and Drop Pods could double in cost but they'd still represent the kind of role-defining specialties that Drukhari and GSC respectively ought to have. Making Drukhari and GSC cheaper makes them more cost-effective and more competitive, but 'I'm not the best at [thing], I just do it cheaper' isn't really characterful.

This isn't how wargames are designed; it's more like designing an RPG, where you hyper-specialize the NPCs to make interesting but counterable threats, while keeping the player characters both more flexible and able to out-specialize their enemies so they can feel powerful. Given how much the design team focuses on Marines, I don't think this is any coincidence. If you don't put boundaries on what a faction can do, or have people on the design team advocating for other factions to be the best at their respective strengths, this kind of capability creep is inevitable.

And I mean, if GW really wants to just bite the bullet and make Marines explicitly the protagonists against an array of NPC enemies, I'd be fine with that. Seriously. Just so long as the focus changes from an adversarial competition to a collaborative RPG experience, and as the GM I'm given the tools to make an appropriately challenging experience for the players. Make it overtly a game where Marines are the good guys and the best at everything and they're expected to win, level up, and go on to greater triumph, rather than this charade where all factions are equal but some are more equal than others.

I would like the other armies brought up to the same level as marines are right now. Every army should be as fun and feel as correct as the current marine rules make marines. I'd much rather see Craftworlds, Regiments, Warbands, Klans, Septs, Hive Fleets, and whatever else I may be forgetting get the treatment that the marine chapters are getting. I think that it would require simultaneous rules writing and a faster release schedule to limit how long an army languishes with bad rules.

 Brotherjanus wrote:
I would like the other armies brought up to the same level as marines are right now. Every army should be as fun and feel as correct as the current marine rules make marines. I'd much rather see Craftworlds, Regiments, Warbands, Klans, Septs, Hive Fleets, and whatever else I may be forgetting get the treatment that the marine chapters are getting. I think that it would require simultaneous rules writing and a faster release schedule to limit how long an army languishes with bad rules.

The problem is how do you do this?

Do you really want a unit better than the Hounds at countering psykers? I feel bad for psykers in that case. Of course you could just buff psykers to ignore half the Hounds rules, but then why waste everyone's time with them?

Do you really want an army to be faster and killier than White Scars are right now? The board has a limited size!

Do you really want an army shootier than Marines? That's a terrifying thought!

Asking everyone to be moved up because one faction is overrepresented has major negative effects on gameplay. After all, Slaanesh are faster than eldar, Eldar are faster than Marines, so I look forwards to the 24" + advance + charge moves when the Slaanesh daemons book is out... :/

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Brotherjanus wrote:
I would like the other armies brought up to the same level as marines are right now. Every army should be as fun and feel as correct as the current marine rules make marines. I'd much rather see Craftworlds, Regiments, Warbands, Klans, Septs, Hive Fleets, and whatever else I may be forgetting get the treatment that the marine chapters are getting. I think that it would require simultaneous rules writing and a faster release schedule to limit how long an army languishes with bad rules.

The problem is how do you do this?

Do you really want a unit better than the Hounds at countering psykers? I feel bad for psykers in that case. Of course you could just buff psykers to ignore half the Hounds rules, but then why waste everyone's time with them?:/

You mean Sisters of Silence or Culuxes - well maybe they don't make up new BS for one super favoured sub sub faction......

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Brotherjanus wrote:
I would like the other armies brought up to the same level as marines are right now. Every army should be as fun and feel as correct as the current marine rules make marines. I'd much rather see Craftworlds, Regiments, Warbands, Klans, Septs, Hive Fleets, and whatever else I may be forgetting get the treatment that the marine chapters are getting. I think that it would require simultaneous rules writing and a faster release schedule to limit how long an army languishes with bad rules.

The problem is how do you do this?

Do you really want a unit better than the Hounds at countering psykers? I feel bad for psykers in that case. Of course you could just buff psykers to ignore half the Hounds rules, but then why waste everyone's time with them?

Do you really want an army to be faster and killier than White Scars are right now? The board has a limited size!

Do you really want an army shootier than Marines? That's a terrifying thought!

Asking everyone to be moved up because one faction is overrepresented has major negative effects on gameplay. After all, Slaanesh are faster than eldar, Eldar are faster than Marines, so I look forwards to the 24" + advance + charge moves when the Slaanesh daemons book is out... :/

Yup. Other armies do need to be bought up. Not to where SM are now but to where SM should be. Which is knocked back down a few pegs. The geniuses at GW that are writing this new edition are out of their fething minds. The rules bloat and imbalance that is coming over the next 12 months is going to put the last 2 editions to shame.

What really irks me about Type40 is that, at least from his posts, he doesn’t have any sympathy for other factions’ players. It’s just “me me me, my stuff my stuff my stuff,” without any regard to how others feel.

I doubt that he’s like that outside the forum, or at least I hope not, and part of it is that I and others can get a bit over the top in critiques.

But still. A simple “I’m sorry that GW focuses so much on Marines, and I agree that other factions could use nice things” would go a long way.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Brotherjanus wrote:
I would like the other armies brought up to the same level as marines are right now. Every army should be as fun and feel as correct as the current marine rules make marines. I'd much rather see Craftworlds, Regiments, Warbands, Klans, Septs, Hive Fleets, and whatever else I may be forgetting get the treatment that the marine chapters are getting. I think that it would require simultaneous rules writing and a faster release schedule to limit how long an army languishes with bad rules.

The problem is how do you do this?

Do you really want a unit better than the Hounds at countering psykers? I feel bad for psykers in that case. Of course you could just buff psykers to ignore half the Hounds rules, but then why waste everyone's time with them?

Do you really want an army to be faster and killier than White Scars are right now? The board has a limited size!

Do you really want an army shootier than Marines? That's a terrifying thought!

Asking everyone to be moved up because one faction is overrepresented has major negative effects on gameplay. After all, Slaanesh are faster than eldar, Eldar are faster than Marines, so I look forwards to the 24" + advance + charge moves when the Slaanesh daemons book is out... :/

The problem is that, for all intents and purposes, fast marines are already very fast, more than fast enough for current board sizes.

There are a few edge cases where Eldar and Slaanesh are faster, but in a lot of situations it's just points being spent on something that isn't necessary. For the same points, marines get fast movement AND melee ability AND shooting ability AND a T4/2W/3+ defence profile that Eldar would give their left soulstone for.

Right, Niiru, that is my point. The design space isn't infinite, so you can't continue making BIGGERER NUMBERS and BETTERER ABILITIES. There are practical limits (e.g. board size, number of dice rolled, time it takes to play a game, etc). that 40k is already dramatically closing in on (or smashed into a pulp against after impacting at escape velocity, really) that should not - indeed cannot be further expanded.

That finite universe is almost wholly consumed by Marines at the moment, which by default relegates other factions to "as good, but no better" in the one thing they specialize in, and "worse" in every other way - not to mention the loss of army identity and capability that stings fluffbunnies like me.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Right, Niiru, that is my point. The design space isn't infinite, so you can't continue making BIGGERER NUMBERS and BETTERER ABILITIES. There are practical limits (e.g. board size, number of dice rolled, time it takes to play a game, etc). that 40k is already dramatically closing in on (or smashed into a pulp against after impacting at escape velocity, really) that should not - indeed cannot be further expanded.

That finite universe is almost wholly consumed by Marines at the moment, which by default relegates other factions to "as good, but no better" in the one thing they specialize in, and "worse" in every other way - not to mention the loss of army identity and capability that stings fluffbunnies like me.

Oh I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you, so much as confirming the parts that I thought needed to be focused on.

This is certainly an issue with the limited D6 design space. Changing the dice would loosen things up a bit, but I don't think it'll ever happen.

Marines need to be nerfed, hard. But it won't happen, cos historically speaking the marine playerbase is the one that cries the loudest, and generally speaking spends the most money. So 40k has become even more pay-to-win than ever before, unfortunately.

 catbarf wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I think Catbarf talked about this in a different thread. Basically, a problem of there being no one willing to stick up for the Xeno factions and say 'hang on, this is a core part of our faction's identity - it shouldn't just be handed to Marines. Especially when they'll be able to do it even better than the Xeno faction'.

Yep. Let's consider some examples of the results.

I've long felt that part of GW's agenda here is to have it such that for any given playstyle (other than horde/blobs), there is a marine army/chapter that delivers that style as well as a non-marine / xeno force that also delivers it.

 Lance845 wrote:
The geniuses at GW that are writing this new edition are out of their fething minds. The rules bloat and imbalance that is coming over the next 12 months is going to put the last 2 editions to shame.

I'm a 5th edition legacy player - but I try to keep up to speed on the newer stuff. I was skimming through the new SM codex and was just stunned by how much stuff there is. Maybe they intend to bring this much stuff to the other factions too (yeah right?), but when you look at how much rules and details are in there, the amount of sheer content to process to understand the codex and the myriad of operations is orders of magnitude more complex than 5th edition (or even 7th).

It's not just the volume of different units. It's also remembering 10 different types of bolters. And its the staggering complexity that results from the intersection of detachment abilities, chapter tactics, successor tactics, relics, warlord traits, command traits, PAGES of straegems, psyker disciplines, litanies of battles, chapter rules, global abilities. We haven't even got to the unit entries yet. There 101 unit data sheets in the list. WTF?

Now, maybe 8th edition managed to cram the core rules of the game onto 12 pages. And 9th seemed to expand that about 24 pages. Not bad. But when you such a staggering amount of bloat in the codex, what really is even the point of trying to streamline the core game when you just made a codex with 101 unit profiles ad 25 different flavors of bolt guns. Crazy. I'm glad I got off the train earlier.

Changing the dice doesn't change anything. You can arrive at almost any probability you want by adjusting the permutations the dice go through in the rules.

GW is fundamentally against the wall in design space for 40k after firing themselves against it like a bullet, and they'll still scrape and ooze along it instead of actually fixing the problem.

Changing to a d12 doesnt fix this. Nothing on the stat line of the new unit is the problem here.

The basic problem isn't just that space marines get all the releases. It's that every new release gives space marines something that used to be an iconic element of another faction...and usually, better than that faction did it in the first place. Because <reasons>.

What can't space marines do now? Pick the right color and they can do virtually anything other army can do, usually better.

This didn't used to be the case. Historically space marines were strong but in a vanilla sort of way. They lacked the tricks and hard specializations of Xenos factions. This was a trade-off that made sense both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the lore.

Now, they just do everything, usually better. It's boring and terrible game design. The ONLY thing marines can't do now as well or better than any other faction is hordes.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The basic problem isn't just that space marines get all the releases. It's that every new release gives space marines something that used to be an iconic element of another faction...and usually, better than that faction did it in the first place. Because <reasons>.

What can't space marines do now? Pick the right color and they can do virtually anything other army can do, usually better.

This didn't used to be the case. Historically space marines were strong but in a vanilla sort of way. They lacked the tricks and hard specializations of Xenos factions. This was a trade-off that made sense both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the lore.

Now, they just do everything, usually better. It's boring and terrible game design. The ONLY thing marines can't do now as well or better than any other faction is hordes.

actually i'd argue a IF or IH intercessor "horde" would still significantly outperform any true horde faction in , "hording"

 Mezmorki wrote:
I've long felt that part of GW's agenda here is to have it such that for any given playstyle (other than horde/blobs), there is a marine army/chapter that delivers that style as well as a non-marine / xeno force that also delivers it.

I think that's completely fine.

But the Marine equivalent that delivers that style through the vehicle of jack-of-all-trades Marines cannot be as good as the ultra-specialized non-Marine/xeno force. If glass cannon Eldar are going to get the biker style archetype, White Scars can't be as fast or as killy as them, otherwise combined with their durability they're just better. Tau give up almost all melee ability to lean into gunlines, so while it's okay for Fists to be gunline Marines, they still have melee ability and so shouldn't be as good at shooting. For them to have those capabilities and be better than the specialists at their specialization is just too much.

From a raw balance perspective, Marines are priced as if they were specialists despite not having the drawbacks of specialists. When they do get appropriately priced for their abilities, historically Marine players then tend to complain that they're useless. See: Aggressors.

From a theming/faction design perspective, Marines being 'everything you can do, I can do better' undermines the identities of all those other factions.

IMO while Marines should be able to lean into those disparate playstyles, they shouldn't be able to embody them as well as the factions for whom those archetypes are the core of their theme. Raven Guard should be sneaky for Marines but not as sneaky as GSC, Blood Angels should be fighty for Marines but not as fighty as Khorne Berserkers, Imperial Fists should be shooty for Marines but not as shooty as Tau, Iron Hands should be tough for Marines but not as tough as Death Guard, and so on. Let those factions have their identities and let the different flavors of Marine lean in those directions without usurping them.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Yeah I'm not really convinced the Hounds took all that much effort or money to create.

It's literally a Reiver box with the existing SW upgrade sprue.

More resources than the Sisters of Silence got - or anyone else. Yet again.

An d of course there will be more - waits for the anti psyker Super wolf character or group of units.

Similar low cost options for SoS would have gone MILES further. For example: We have Valerian and Aleya models and Rules. By merely allowing Aleya to be fielded solo, they would have done SO MUCH for us- that's not even inventing another data sheet!

They could also have printed a generic Knight Commander data sheet and offered a head swap. But even that low bar was too hard to get over, Funny thing: while Hounds of Morkai will be widely panned for the poor choice of recycling models, offering an alternate head with a Knight Commander data card would have been celebrated as a major breakthrough victory for SoS.

 catbarf wrote:
From a theming/faction design perspective, Marines being 'everything you can do, I can do better' undermines the identities of all those other factions.

Many marine players, however, would argue that 'everything you can do, I can do better' is an important part of their faction identity.

PenitentJake wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Yeah I'm not really convinced the Hounds took all that much effort or money to create.

It's literally a Reiver box with the existing SW upgrade sprue.

More resources than the Sisters of Silence got - or anyone else. Yet again.

An d of course there will be more - waits for the anti psyker Super wolf character or group of units.

Similar low cost options for SoS would have gone MILES further. For example: We have Valerian and Aleya models and Rules. By merely allowing Aleya to be fielded solo, they would have done SO MUCH for us- that's not even inventing another data sheet!

They could also have printed a generic Knight Commander data sheet and offered a head swap. But even that low bar was too hard to get over, Funny thing: while Hounds of Morkai will be widely panned for the poor choice of recycling models, offering an alternate head with a Knight Commander data card would have been celebrated as a major breakthrough victory for SoS.

Heck even just generic rules for Knight Commander from 30k in 40k as an HQ choice to allow them use detachments.

What really annoys me right now is the insane amount of Intercessor, Insessor agresstisessors maris this maris that... Its BLAND! Mario Carts and moveable gun platforms... I mean COMEON!!! If space marines get fluff units, like Sanguinor guards for BA, Wulfen for Space Wolves, Blightlord Terminators for DG etc, thats COOL, flavorful... Primaris spam sucks. And it gets dumber and dumber (okay i admit the bikes were cool). Next unit is gonna be Pogocessors, with jumping pogostickmaris marines with fly keyword, immune to overwatch and can triple tap.

Hecaton wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
From a theming/faction design perspective, Marines being 'everything you can do, I can do better' undermines the identities of all those other factions.

Many marine players, however, would argue that 'everything you can do, I can do better' is an important part of their faction identity.

Except its not. SM are the best humanity has to offer in numbers that can act as a small army. Custodes are better but they dont have the numbers. Being the best humanity has to offer doesnt make you the best. The whole point of the setting is that despite these super soldiers humanity is loosing. The nids far outnumber everyone. Carnifexes tear through dreads like paper bags. Genestealers slice through terminator armor as though it wasnt there.

Eldar are fast in a way humanity could never dream of and despite their civilization falling apart their tech is as good as it has ever been.

The necrons tech is so far beyond humanities understanding it is literal magic and they caged gods and use them as pokemon. A basic gauss weapon turns sm armor and the person i side into atoms.

The orks sheer ferocity is unmatched. Nobody, NOBODY fights like the orks fight. So severe is their ferocity that a jagged piece of steel is enough to turn an ork into a warrior that can win battles.

Being the best of humanity doesnt mean being the best. And players who think otherwise need to start reading about the actual setting.

They removed double shotting and advance+shoot from Aggressors, literally their two defining special habilities, leaving them as just a statline with weapons (And they are very good and offer a different enough unit like that!) so is not like GW can't take some steps back with space marines and remove many stuff that other armies should do like T1 deepstrike or disembarking from a vehicle after moving.

Sadly with the SM codex allready out we won't see that in the near to medium future.

Just today I talked in whatssap with my group about how many of the SM weapons could be merged to reduce redundancy (Like the Reivers, Incursors and the other you make from the same kit's bolters, that should all just be the same, a normal bolter or a bolter that ignores cover save bonuses) and they basically started claiming that if we are gonna do that why don't just remove all datasheets and play with 5 units for army


I'll say it again. Dark Angels is how all marines should be, changing their chapter tactic when appropriate, but making most stratagems, powers, etc... tactical options and less "lololo 3d6 charge from deepstrike and 3000 attacks in meele". But maybe is because Dark Angels (Ultramarines probably also fit the same niche) aren't really mono thematic space marines. They aren't shooty, meele, speedy, or something like that. They are a healthy mix of everything and you need to use all your tools to win, but you never feel like you are better than specialized armies (Outside the opness of 2.0 and beyond space marines pure stats+stacked general rules)




I agree with everything you say with two exceptions.
Eldars and technology. I have never seen eldars depicted actually as a technological race. Their technology was given for them by their creators, and they were stagnant from the beginning. Yeah, of course it IS very powerfull technology, but even their armors and "robots" (DoW3 Cinematic show this excellently with the banshee armors) are literally "grow" with magic from Bonesingers). Necrons are THE technological race. Full technology, 0 magic, where Eldar are full magic.

And orks. I mean, yeah orks are very big and brutal, and in many cases kunning, but they are the imperial guard of the xenos. They are not the best at anything and they don't need to be. Meganobz are terryfing and can cut space marines in half but in the great scheme of the galaxy theres a ton of more threatening "meele" enemies. Khorne Demons, Eldar aspect warriors both craftworld and dark like Incubi, Custodes, etc... are the true masters of meele combat. But orks also are NOT A MEELE RACE please. Stop this. This forum is literally called in honour of the shotty nature of 40k orks. Orks are a very balanced army and race both by fluff and thematically.

When are we due a FAQ fix for Marines?

 JNAProductions wrote:
What really irks me about Type40 is that, at least from his posts, he doesn’t have any sympathy for other factions’ players. It’s just “me me me, my stuff my stuff my stuff,” without any regard to how others feel.

I doubt that he’s like that outside the forum, or at least I hope not, and part of it is that I and others can get a bit over the top in critiques.

But still. A simple “I’m sorry that GW focuses so much on Marines, and I agree that other factions could use nice things” would go a long way.

Why do you keep harassing me. I am literally not participating in this thread except for OP. You have literally not comprehended any of my posts in any thread if that is what you think. I have done nothing but try to justify why you shouldn't just squat my faction. So fine be irked. I an advocating for not removing my factions stuff AND that is all. I want you to have your stuff, I want to share the space. But removing my stuff for you to magically to get more stuff instead doesn't seem like a logical solution to me. I am not going to participate in a conversation about it here because I am tired of this conversation and I am tired of the remove them at all cost attitude people seem to have (no in-betweens all or nothing). Stop harassing me and stick to the topic on this thread. I am not the one with no sympothy here ; "hey just squat his unique rules, kits, and army because somehow that means the rest of the factions get more attention." For gorks sake, what is your problem with me.

I honestly DO agree "The Marinening" needs to end. I have repeatedly expressed to you that I don't think there has been a healthy release schedule and that other factions SHOULD be focused on... but for what ever reason you think that me telling people I don't want my SWs unique rules, models and identity to go away means I think every other faction doesn't deserve anything ... I don't want to keep arguing with people about why SWs should exist with unique rules, I don't want to keep arguing with people about how I am not advocating for less stuff for others and I don't want to keep arguing with people that the position of "less for SWs means more for me."

I want to be able to have a conversation about fluff, new releases, ranges and potential rules without a horde of people showing up to say what we already know ... "marines get too much attention" YES we know, and we all agree. But can we please just get to the next topic.

This is a thread for people to talk about the problems... so talk about them, I don't want to participate, I have talked about it enough. So please just leave me out of it and stop harassing me. I am sorry I even bothered arguing that SWs should get to be unique and exist. I am sorry I was excited for I perceived to be fluffy rules for the new unit,,, my bad for getting excited about it. Instead of getting to have fun conversations about a new unit, talks about how to potentially better format rules and talks about fluff, I was mate with more hostility then I can even imagine because I dared to speak somewhat positively about a marine unit. next time I guess I'll just keep my mouth shut.

By the way, look at my post history. My main factions are Craftworld/Harlequins and I post more about them then anything else. So how about you stop being a judgmental jerk, read my actual posts, get an understanding of who you are talking about and stop directly calling me out and harassing me in a thread I am not even participating in.

Hecaton wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
From a theming/faction design perspective, Marines being 'everything you can do, I can do better' undermines the identities of all those other factions.

Many marine players, however, would argue that 'everything you can do, I can do better' is an important part of their faction identity.

Marine identity was historically based on being jacks of all trades and individually potent, but not able to rival the dedicated specialists in their areas of expertise. They didn't move as fast as Eldar jetbikes, shoot as hard as Tau, or fight as well as Genestealers, but they were tougher than any of those three, had capabilities where those factions had weaknesses, and were individually still elites.

There is a very fine line between being able to beat any other faction's rank-and-file trooper one-on-one, versus being able to beat any other faction's specialists in their area of expertise. The former is a key part of their theme, but the latter has never been part of their background, and has only become the reality on the tabletop in the last couple of years.

They should be able to beat any rank-and-file grunt in both shooting and melee on a one-on-one basis.
They should be able to beat equal points of specialists by exploiting their weaknesses; eg punching Fire Warriors or shooting Genestealers.
That does not mean they should be able to ambush better than GSC, do mechanized assault better than Drukhari, or do gunlines better than Tau. Not having the crippling weaknesses of those factions means not being able to rival their faction strengths, either.

So, frankly, if there are players who feel that an important part of their faction identity is being better than everyone else at all the things they're supposedly good at- basically, Mary Sues- I wouldn't lose any sleep over violating their very skewed perception of the background.

Well said, Catbarf.