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Other armies can be top tier but mostly using very skew list that only overly competitive players are willing to collect. Top SM, Custodes and Harlequins armies look pretty close to typical/average collections of models instead, that's why I'd rate them far above other top armies like Adepta Sororitas or Chaos Daemons.
There is also the fact that if you look at tournament results, there is no specific SM list that is winning. I mean literally there isn't. You see a general trend with some units but there are just so many that its actually a bit astonishing to be honest.
The last 3 Space Marine winning lists were from 3 different chapters, Smurfs, scars and furry killers (Black Templars)
Smurf brought redemptors, contemptors, blade guard, incursors, infiltrators, intercessors, Tacticals, suppressors, eradicators and a razorback.
Scar brought Assault intercessors, incursors, bladeguard, Company vets, Vanguard vets, attack bikes and an inceptor squad.
The furry killer brought bladeguard, Cenobyte, Assault terminators, vanguard vets, attack bikes, Inceptors, Eradicators and a whirlwind.
There is a bit of overlap but compare that to Orkz which is basically 90+ ork boyz, ghaz, painboy, warboss and either kommandos or meganobz in basically every winning list for the last month.
Space Marines as a faction are absolutely the best codex right now and the only reason they aren't running away with more than 12 wins in 10 tournaments is because people are list building against them specifically.
I sincerly hope every faction ends up in this position. I hate it when you see people new and eager to 40k logging in for list advice and being told "yeah don't run that fluffy list you want to run, run this absurd skew list or go home" it's just so depressing :(
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
BrianDavion 794191 10996132 wrote:
I sincerly hope every faction ends up in this position. I hate it when you see people new and eager to 40k logging in for list advice and being told "yeah don't run that fluffy list you want to run, run this absurd skew list or go home" it's just so depressing :(
In deed it is. Although it gets a lot worse, when they buy in to the meme of play what you want with an army that doesn't have strong enough carries to do it, or is in general good. A bad build good army is one thing to buy and play with, a bad build bad army is a game quiter creator in progress.
In general the 9th books look fun though. We didn't have a what were they thinking book yet, and that is big considering how 8th looked and what GW does in AoS on a regular basis.
If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain.
BrianDavion 794191 10996132 wrote:
I sincerly hope every faction ends up in this position. I hate it when you see people new and eager to 40k logging in for list advice and being told "yeah don't run that fluffy list you want to run, run this absurd skew list or go home" it's just so depressing :(
In deed it is. Although it gets a lot worse, when they buy in to the meme of play what you want with an army that doesn't have strong enough carries to do it, or is in general good. A bad build good army is one thing to buy and play with, a bad build bad army is a game quiter creator in progress.
In general the 9th books look fun though. We didn't have a what were they thinking book yet, and that is big considering how 8th looked and what GW does in AoS on a regular basis.
Yes I find this sentiment very true. That is why I am very positive to the trend in 8th and 9th edition to balanse things both internally and externally.
If you are in an army that is very strong over all you can just play what ever you want and have a descent chance. But if an army is very very weak then just playng what ever fluffy list you choose can lead to a real disaster in playing experience. (Asuming winning once is a while is a contributor to a good experience. I know getting steamrolled is a bad experience.) This is especially true in a game like warhammer where getting, assmebling, painting, mentally interacting with the game in general, and playig takes a long time. If you have 2000 points of garbage it will take a lot of money and time to correct this. A good game balance is not there to benefit the comptetive players. It is there to benefit thematic, cassual, friendly, painters and/or newbie players. Although it is more fun for the experimental competetive players when it is not just cookie cutter what is the 'best builds'.
However, it is much less of that these days I feel, then how it used to be.
Without trying to stir the pot too much, have we officially reached the point where even the SM defenders admit that the SM codex is a bit OP compared to everyone else?
SemperMortis wrote: Without trying to stir the pot too much, have we officially reached the point where even the SM defenders admit that the SM codex is a bit OP compared to everyone else?
Well none of them have posted in here so assumingly they don't care either way. I mean you also have 3 flavours of marines in the bottom 5 (or 3) of the TiWP which doesn't look great when only 1 is in the top 5.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/29 17:53:13
SemperMortis wrote: Without trying to stir the pot too much, have we officially reached the point where even the SM defenders admit that the SM codex is a bit OP compared to everyone else?
Well, I've already seen people elsewhere saying that Blood Angels are now bottom of the barrel dumpster trash.
These types of people are truly delusional and will never change their opinion. They have no direct experience or knowledge about any other army outside their own and don't want to contemplate that their game wins might not be down to their flawless tactical acumen. Back during late 2019/early 2020 these people would have complained about how Destroyers getting a re-roll stratagem is unacceptably OP while they were using an Iron Hands army. They'll never change their tune or see reason. Just don't engage with them.
Harlequins (the best army in the game btwlol@Space Marines), the best Space Marines chapters (probably Ultramarines and Dark Angels), and idk, Daemons or Sisters. Leaning towards Daemons but I'm biased towards them.
SemperMortis wrote: Without trying to stir the pot too much, have we officially reached the point where even the SM defenders admit that the SM codex is a bit OP compared to everyone else?
Well, I've already seen people elsewhere saying that Blood Angels are now bottom of the barrel dumpster trash.
I believe this will change as the newest latest supplement becomes widely used and available.
There are fair few potentially "gotcha" game wining gimmicks in there..
Like dropping your sanguinary from DS in your enemies enemies charge phase and then making all the attacks be allocated against him rather than your death company, sanguinary guard, dread, tank or whatever else...
Also Flat 3 MW just because.. No save.. No roll... no nothing.
On their own I don't think BA could hack it due to CC not being great as you have to hold objectives and at the same time remove from other objectives with shooting. But if you can just have other marines doing their "be more shooty than the shootiest of armies" thing while you do your "be more fighty than the flightiest army" thing its a pretty strong combo.. So yeah..
AngryAngel80 wrote: I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "
On their own I don't think BA could hack it due to CC not being great as you have to hold objectives and at the same time remove from other objectives with shooting.
You seem to have a very backwards idea of what's strong in ninth.
Close combat is more important than it ever was in eighth due to charging into combat and killing the enemy being the only way to flip an objective for your next command phase.
But its not nearly as reliable as mobility and shootyness with the kind of lethality units are kicking out at range... Why arent WE winning stuff or kraken genestealers?
By all means having a good CC unit is good/crucial (hence saying BA element in a SM force is good) but having only CC army wont get you far.. unless its a boys or demonette horde. But then you are relying on your horde of ob sec ratehr than CC output.
AngryAngel80 wrote: I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "
But its not nearly as reliable as mobility and shootyness with the kind of lethality units are kicking out at range... Why arent WE winning stuff or kraken genestealers?
Because in the case of the latter those are not amazing at killing something big and bulky sitting on a point and have been arguably nerfed out of viability (IIRC their points went up more than the average), and WEs and CSM in general are very fragile and in the case of Berzerkers aren't actually very fast.
By all means having a good CC unit is good/crucial (hence saying BA element in a SM force is good) but having only CC army wont get you far.. unless its a boys or demonette horde. But then you are relying on your horde of ob sec ratehr than CC output.
By comparison, wholly shooting armies are non-functional in ninth and are almost completely unheard of. Tau are pretty much the worst army in the game for this among many other reasons, and other heavily shooting armies like Imperial Guard aren't great either.
Let's look at the most recent 1st place Slaaneshi Daemons list.
MSU infantry squads leaning on the maximum amount of Keeper of Secrets HQs you can muster as incredibly fast hammer units to run up the board and kill everything.
The only reason it works so well is because of the staggering mobility across the entire army. All other armies have to contend with delivery.
Also its essentially breaking the RO3 by having 3 greater deamons + a named one and receiving benefit of terrain. The need for delivery is gone. No ds needed, no transports needed is what other armiers need to deliver their hard hitting CC units.
Give the Greater deamons few more wounds to make them LOW and this army would ceases to function nowhere near as well. Or simply cut their movement to about 7-8" If they have to start worrying about delivery like other CC elements of other armies it will no longer be an issue. If they can't guaranteed get into combat on T2 then their output in CC no longer wings the game.
Also they are doing really well out of smaller boards while having buffs for bigger boards and transitioned really well for their pts..
My point is its a single list or more to the point single unit carrying the faction. Bump pts on the keeper/ nerf its movement and the faction would cease to be competitive as a whole without being propped up by the keeper.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/12/03 05:26:49
AngryAngel80 wrote: I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "
The only reason it works so well is because of the staggering mobility across the entire army. All other armies have to contend with delivery.
Also its essentially breaking the RO3 by having 3 greater deamons + a named one and receiving benefit of terrain. The need for delivery is gone. No ds needed, no transports needed is what other armiers need to deliver their hard hitting CC units.
By comparison armies consisting of nothing but shooting are pretty much unheard of in ninth. The only top four Imperial Guard list so far souped in Sisters for squads of Zephyrim and Repentia to charge onto objectives and flip them, for example.
And just so we're clear: daemons are pretty much the only army in the entire game that can more times than not field an army with literally no shooting. Other lists that take some incidental shooting have still done well in ninth, like this Black Templars list from November:
Spoiler:
Ben Cherwin - Mid-MO Maelstrom
++ Vanguard Detachment -3CP (Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Black Templars) [100 PL, 1,998pts, 6CP] ++
+ Configuration +
Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)
Detachment CP [-3CP]
Gametype: Matched
+ Stratagems +
Crusader Relics [-1CP]
+ HQ +
High Marshal Helbrecht [8 PL, 155pts]: Warlord
Primaris Chaplain on Bike [7 PL, 150pts, -1CP]: 1. Litany of Divine Protection, 4. Fires of Devotion, Ancient Breviary, Chapter Command: Master of Sanctity, Fortress of Resolve, Litany of Hate, Rites of War, Stratagem: Hero of the Chapter
Only two killy shooting units (I can pretty much guarantee the whirlwind is only there to use the suppressing fire strat). Both for focusing down a big priority target and taking it down. This list's punch is still mostly melee.
Give the Greater deamons few more wounds to make them LOW and this army would ceases to function nowhere near as well. Or simply cut their movement to about 7-8"
If they have to start worrying about delivery like other CC elements of other armies it will no longer be an issue. If they can't guaranteed get into combat on T2 then their output in CC no longer wings the game.
Also they are doing really well out of smaller boards while having buffs for bigger boards and transitioned really well for their pts..
My point is its a single list or more to the point single unit carrying the faction.
Bump pts on the keeper/ nerf its movement and the faction would cease to be competitive as a whole without being propped up by the keeper.
Your point is frankly completely irrelevant to whether or not melee is important in ninth (it is).
If you gut a list's key unit it ceases to function well, what a concept!
The bottom line is this: CC is the best way to flip an objective. If you just shoot a unit off of an objective you deny them points, but you can't claim the point yourself on your following command phase and the opponent can just move their dudes back on the point, forcing you to have to direct fire towards them again. Charge an enemy unit and kill it or at least wipe out enough to take control of the point and you deny them the point and force them to commit something to take you off the objective or else you get primary points.
You still often want decent shooting to troubleshoot in your games but an army that just shoots is largely pretty bad. AdMech are the closest good faction to a pure shooting list, but even they typically lean on priests or serberys raiders for some combat punch.
Yeah 9th is a CC edition make no mistakes about it. Being able to remove something off of an objective and then score the point yourself is central to how missions work. It doesn't even need to be unit-wiping CC ability either, but just reliable ways to make charges and start contesting or flipping objs. This is why Novokh is such a popular Necron Dynasty right now; yes Novokh Warriors aren't the most frightening things in combat, but they still do enough damage and get incredibly reliable charges off that it's basically impossible for your opponent to stop you from charging them on their point with more obsec bodies.
Why aren't Genestealers and WE strong? Probably because they're either overcosted or have terrible delivery systems and very little in the way of extra utility or gameplay variety to pick up the slack. SW don't have great mobility either but: they're much tougher to kill than WE, have psychic potential, can build strong shooting elements and with all the obscene LSM buffs are still better than a dedicated CC army like WE anyway.
Why aren't Genestealers and WE strong? Probably because they're either overcosted or have terrible delivery systems and very little in the way of extra utility or gameplay variety to pick up the slack. SW don't have great mobility either but: they're much tougher to kill than WE, have psychic potential, can build strong shooting elements and with all the obscene LSM buffs are still better than a dedicated CC army like WE anyway.
Kind of what I was getting at CC is only relevant if there is a delivery method/mobility.
Which the KOS list brings in abundance.
AngryAngel80 wrote: I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "
Kind of what I was getting at CC is only relevant if there is a delivery method/mobility.
Which the KOS list brings in abundance.
All of the best factions have the ability to take advantage of their strong CC units, through either being tough enough to survive shooting or through the ability to majestically gallop into the field of battle like a beautiful gazelle.
So yes, fragile and slow armies who can't take advantage of their CC power suck.
Genestealers are still super mobile, and have little problem reaching combat. But their problem is that they are both expensive and very fragile. 9th does indeed favour melee units that can flip an objective, but the second part of that is they should also be tough enough to take a few hits so they can remain on the objective for a turn afterwards. Genestealers can't.
In 8th genestealers could deal with the fragility problem to some extent by tri-pointing/hostaging enemy units, but Desperate Breakout has made that unfeasible.
They also had a couple of tricks where they could avoid getting struck first via a Counter-Offensive stratagem, which no longer work in 9th.
They were rather more reliant on those sorts of 8th edition CC tricks than most units, so between that and the price hike, they just don't work very well in 9th.
Poll results look pretty on point for what I'd expect to be a fairly casual playerbase. Clearly space marines aren't winning every event but they are strongly represented among all player types and extremely easy to play.
artific3r wrote: Poll results look pretty on point for what I'd expect to be a fairly casual playerbase. Clearly space marines aren't winning every event but they are strongly represented among all player types and extremely easy to play.
World wide games played must be lower than in years so the amount of real world 9th experience is probably limited. With that in mind a fair few results are likely just precieved power levels based off other peoples games (tournament results) or Internet hype.
I don't like the new BA supplement but I think it is very strong.
Sanguinary Guard is an amazing unit. They don't need a delivery system since they are 12" fly infantry. Have a combined 6-7 attacks/shots each that can mulch large units and 4+ melee attacks that wound on 4+ at the worst, removes most armor and deals flat 2 damage. Only thing they aren't amazing against are things with -1 to damage. Can even have nullzone in BA lists now so not even invulnerable saves can stop them anymore.
Then you have some nice HQ options and DC with JP. Plasma Inceptors are also very strong in BA.
With the smaller tables and increase in terrain 12" move on flying infantry is amazing. Perhaps not in 8th ITC missions if people still have those subconsciously in mind but now that you need to get on the objectives and do it fast and hard BA really plays into the mission design this edition. They didn't do it in 8th buy 9th is almost tailor made for them.
Aash wrote:I don’t understand why BA, DA, SW and DW are separate entries from SM. They all share the same codex now. So either each codex supplement should be listed separately or none should.
Because, if you bothered to look at last meta GW article, DW have 20% win range. Yes, twenty. The fact similar number of clowns voted for them as for Orks, Demons, Sisters, Necrons and DG makes this poll pretty much worthless from the start. SM will get kneejerk vote from higher than next three armies combined, even these handily beating them, and that will be it. It's not like facts or numbers matter here anymore, they could lose next thirty GTs and you will still have circlejerk finding excuses why this is not representative and marines are OP, eh?
Sasori wrote:Custodes has fallen off a bit, they haven't really won any events in a while now. They fall solidly into the second bracket with Slaanesh, Necrons and Ad mech Breacher spam.
Custodes have some pretty disgustingly broken things in new FW book. Wait till people will notice these and add to their armies, win rate will rocket up.
Marines are 33% of the player pool and the best marine factions still get 60+% WRs despite EVERY non-marine army in existence tailoring the gak out of their lists to kill marines.
What "excuse" do you need to have at this point? It's been a year and a half. The meta still has not figured out how to keep marines from winning despite the tremendous handicap of basically being guaranteed at least 40-50% of your games you'll be trying to kill W2-W3 MEQ spam.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
Aash wrote:I don’t understand why BA, DA, SW and DW are separate entries from SM. They all share the same codex now. So either each codex supplement should be listed separately or none should.
Because, if you bothered to look at last meta GW article, DW have 20% win range. Yes, twenty. The fact similar number of clowns voted for them as for Orks, Demons, Sisters, Necrons and DG makes this poll pretty much worthless from the start. SM will get kneejerk vote from higher than next three armies combined, even these handily beating them, and that will be it. It's not like facts or numbers matter here anymore, they could lose next thirty GTs and you will still have circlejerk finding excuses why this is not representative and marines are OP, eh?
Sasori wrote:Custodes has fallen off a bit, they haven't really won any events in a while now. They fall solidly into the second bracket with Slaanesh, Necrons and Ad mech Breacher spam.
Custodes have some pretty disgustingly broken things in new FW book. Wait till people will notice these and add to their armies, win rate will rocket up.
Marines are 33% of the player pool and the best marine factions still get 60+% WRs despite EVERY non-marine army in existence tailoring the gak out of their lists to kill marines.
What "excuse" do you need to have at this point? It's been a year and a half. The meta still has not figured out how to keep marines from winning despite the tremendous handicap of basically being guaranteed at least 40-50% of your games you'll be trying to kill W2-W3 MEQ spam.
What Marine chapter is getting that win rate? From all I have seen Chaos(Daemons/Slaneesh) and Harlequins have better winrate than the best marine factions. Sisters and custodes about equal win rate as the best marine chapters. New necrons looks to be at about the same level as well.
It has been a while since marines were unstoppable. They are very good and have tons of viable lists but almost all of the most broken stuff have been nerfed. A fix/nerf to eradicators and plasma inceptors and there wont be any real offenders left.
Aash wrote:I don’t understand why BA, DA, SW and DW are separate entries from SM. They all share the same codex now. So either each codex supplement should be listed separately or none should.
Because, if you bothered to look at last meta GW article, DW have 20% win range. Yes, twenty. The fact similar number of clowns voted for them as for Orks, Demons, Sisters, Necrons and DG makes this poll pretty much worthless from the start. SM will get kneejerk vote from higher than next three armies combined, even these handily beating them, and that will be it. It's not like facts or numbers matter here anymore, they could lose next thirty GTs and you will still have circlejerk finding excuses why this is not representative and marines are OP, eh?
Sasori wrote:Custodes has fallen off a bit, they haven't really won any events in a while now. They fall solidly into the second bracket with Slaanesh, Necrons and Ad mech Breacher spam.
Custodes have some pretty disgustingly broken things in new FW book. Wait till people will notice these and add to their armies, win rate will rocket up.
Marines are 33% of the player pool and the best marine factions still get 60+% WRs despite EVERY non-marine army in existence tailoring the gak out of their lists to kill marines.
What "excuse" do you need to have at this point? It's been a year and a half. The meta still has not figured out how to keep marines from winning despite the tremendous handicap of basically being guaranteed at least 40-50% of your games you'll be trying to kill W2-W3 MEQ spam.
What Marine chapter is getting that win rate? From all I have seen Chaos(Daemons/Slaneesh) and Harlequins have better winrate than the best marine factions. Sisters and custodes about equal win rate as the best marine chapters. New necrons looks to be at about the same level as well.
It has been a while since marines were unstoppable. They are very good and have tons of viable lists but almost all of the most broken stuff have been nerfed. A fix/nerf to eradicators and plasma inceptors and there wont be any real offenders left.
The most recent november Goonhammer tournament tier list has Tier 1 as
Harlequins
Daemons
Sisters of Battle
White Scars
Dark Angels
Ultramarines
Chaos Soup
40% marine subfactions
and tier 2 as
Adeptus Mechanicus
Custodes
Orks
Necrons
Raven Guard
Salamanders
Iron Hands
Blood Angels
Space Wolves
Deathwatch
Black Templars
60% marine subfactions. This is based on competitive tournament placings over the last month.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
Dont see the problem there to be honest. With marines being a bit more streamlined it is expected that they all should be close to each other in how good they are. You could almost treat SM as one codex and only single out the chapters that stand out instead of writing out every chapter with special rules. A year ago there was a huge difference between the chapters but now the core power isnt from broken doctrines, stratagems or chapter tactics as much as very good base units.
Tier 1
Harlequins
Daemons (the better gods)
Sisters of Battle
Chaos Soup
Space Marines (the better chapters)
Tier 2
Adeptus Mechanicus
Custodes
Orks
Necrons
Space Marines(the weaker chapters)
Daemons (the not so good gods but not Khorne)
You could rewrite that same list this way and just add that a lot of players play marines so you will se a lot of different flavours of that. Marines are in the top 5 and in a very good spot but it isnt like they alone drive the meta. Custodes, Necrons and parts of the sisters and chaos lists are also playing with elite units close to marine stat lines and weapons driving the need for everyone to gear up with plasma.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/12/09 16:34:14
Klickor wrote: Dont see the problem there to be honest. With marines being a bit more streamlined it is expected that they all should be close to each other in how good they are. You could almost treat SM as one codex and only single out the chapters that stand out instead of writing out every chapter with special rules. A year ago there was a huge difference between the chapters but now the core power isnt from broken doctrines, stratagems or chapter tactics as much as very good base units.
Tier 1
Harlequins
Daemons (the better gods)
Sisters of Battle
Chaos Soup
Space Marines (the better chapters)
Tier 2
Adeptus Mechanicus
Custodes
Orks
Necrons
Space Marines(the weaker chapters)
Daemons (the not so good gods but not Khorne)
You could rewrite that same list this way and just add that a lot of players play marines so you will se a lot of different flavours of that.
If you don't see the problem with 33% of the play field for a game with 20 factions being taken up by 1 faction, and the best list setups for that 1 faction still pulling 60%+ winrates in a meta where basically everyone else is tailoring to try and destroy them, then I don't really know what to say. In previous editions would you have been cool with a disclaimer that "you know, just a lot of people play Eldar, so you will see a lot of different flavors of that"? This is essentially an identical situation to Eldar in 7th, except in 7th people just CLAIMED you could take any random assortment of units from codex eldar and stomp face but in actual competitive lists it was mostly all the same stuff. With marines right now, marines have contenders for the best durability skew list, the best melee list, the best shooty alpha strike list, the best mobile list...
This kind of single faction dominance would be basically a disaster in any other faction based game that keeps track of that sort of thing. In 40k we're just like 'meh, guess people just decided to REALLY LIKE marine fluff a year and a half ago, and keep REALLY REALLY LIKING IT on an ongoing basis ever since they coincidentally got huge buffs in 2.0dex. Weird.'
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
I have complained in other threads about marines and I dislike that they have so many new units with new rules while everyone else is playing with old rules and models.
But Marines right now arent that bad for the game when accounting for win rates. And you are arguing in bad faith a lot right now. You are in one post arguing as marines are 10 factions and in the other as 1 depending on if it suits your needs. And you are also saying marines as a whole have a 60%+ win rate when I cant even find one subfaction with a winrate that high.
Marines being so prevalent right now I think have a lot to do with their dominance at the end of 8th and the massive amount of releases they have had for the last few years more than their rules breaking the game. So many players have updated their old marine armies with the new primaris stuff lately, especially the competitive people before 9th, that they all have well built armies for 9th now. It is easy to bring out a good, but not broken, marine list ready to tackle the new edition if you have been keeping up with the latest releases. Not as easy a feat for the other factions and less incentive for them to do so when they could just update their marine army easily and cheaply instead.
Had marines not had that insane last 9 months of 8th we would have seen way less of them now in 9th even if their current rules were exactly the same.
Eldar- 4436 pts
higher than next three armies combined, even these handily beating them, and that will be it. It's not like facts or numbers matter here anymore, they could lose next thirty