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Klickor wrote:
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.

This might be true - but I think the real issue is a suspicion on stats.

I mean with Goonhammer (and I guess others) I now feel we have a reasonable body of data, that's being processed on roughly a similar basis every month. The circumstances of competitive 40k right now are strange - but its there.
I'm not sure we had the same data at the end of 8th.
Although we did have for instance the 2020 LVO - where Marines were by far the biggest faction (27% of all lists), got just shy of a 60% win rate (I think 65% excluding mirrors) and 5/6 spots from the top 8.

The game doesn't feel that skewed today. But at the same time, in a global meta where Marines are still seemingly 25-35% of lists and regularly placing in tournaments, this view they only have about a 50% win rate, far below the figure reported for some other factions who seem to place nowhere, seems like a strange data point. Or at least a contradiction that needs to be explained.

Because I don't buy that Marines are an average to bad faction. So I am left wondering if some features can be identified in Marine lists or players who are doing very badly, and ones making it to the top.

Tyel wrote:

Klickor wrote:
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.

This might be true - but I think the real issue is a suspicion on stats.

I mean with Goonhammer (and I guess others) I now feel we have a reasonable body of data, that's being processed on roughly a similar basis every month. The circumstances of competitive 40k right now are strange - but its there.
I'm not sure we had the same data at the end of 8th.
Although we did have for instance the 2020 LVO - where Marines were by far the biggest faction (27% of all lists), got just shy of a 60% win rate (I think 65% excluding mirrors) and 5/6 spots from the top 8.

The game doesn't feel that skewed today. But at the same time, in a global meta where Marines are still seemingly 25-35% of lists and regularly placing in tournaments, this view they only have about a 50% win rate, far below the figure reported for some other factions who seem to place nowhere, seems like a strange data point. Or at least a contradiction that needs to be explained.

Because I don't buy that Marines are an average to bad faction. So I am left wondering if some features can be identified in Marine lists or players who are doing very badly, and ones making it to the top.

I remember back in 4th/5th when I was active last time before coming back in 8th. There were about the same amount of marines as now. Sure we might have more other factions now but at the same time marines have gotten about the same extra support.

The thing is that having just above a 50% win rate is very good. You dont need to be at 55%+ to be a good faction. The higher you get in a tournament the harder the competition and the more likely you are to face other good armies/players that reduces your chances to win and get an even better win rate. If you have anything above 60% the game is propably broken. Like IH might have had 65% win rate and BA at the same time had like 40% but if those 2 armies played against each other IH had like 95% win rate and not just 65%. They managed to get to 65% in a meta against marines against other top tier lists. An armies win rate in a tournament is mostly against other armies in the same bracket. So tier 1 armies have 55% against mostly other tier 1 armies. Tier 4 have a 45% win rate when facing mostly other tier 4 armies. When tier 1 and tier 4 face each other its more often than not 70/30 or above instead of just 55/45 as can be easily misunderstood.

The more competitive players pushing the better chapters to a high fifties win rate sounds reasonable to me. Same with more casual/fluffy/invested players continuing playing their favorite chapter and getting sub 50% win rates.

I think it is actually a good thing that the most diverse and most supported faction have the winrate it currently does when played to the best of its ability. A faction with so many options have the tools to play any meta and it will show. If the best marine lists could barely push above 50% to like 52% then it would mean most of the army is crap, and when it comes to marines that is a huge number of units that would be crap due to the amount of datasheets available. I do think marines should lose more units and be a bit more limited in list design so they cant play or counter everything. But as long as they can it is no wonder they are placing where they are.

Marines seem to be getting consistent 3rd/4th place, which means even the better players are tagging in some losses. Smaller overall tourneys also means that going X-1 is a smaller win rate than what we were seeing in 6+ round events.

It's because people are still overwhelmingly building armies solely to counter Marines to the exclusion of any other potential threat. Now, CWE aren't doing so hot right now, but if you look at any advice for listbuilding for them it's just "build to kill Marines and take as many Starcannons as you can."

But you know which armies Starcannons are bad versus? Daemons, Orks and Harlequins.

And you see this same mentality spread across a range of different factions. Marines still have the best anti-horde in the game, Aggressors are still well-worth their points, but people have overreacted and refuse to take any of them whatsoever and construct armies entirely around beating other Marines. Now obviously Harlequins, Daemons and Orks all have their powerful options and lists and are being piloted by very good players, but the fact remains for as long as power armour is 60% of any tournament you're attending, people are going to keep focusing on that. It's a hard sell to include stuff to counter an army that will be 1% of the entire tournament playerbase. In late 2018/early 2019 I was going hard on tournies and I had a period where 3 in a row, all I played against were Imperium soup lists. It was like 15+ games of nothing but that, even though Aeldari soup/Ynnari was technically stronger you practically never saw it, even in the hyper competitive tournament environment.

It's also mentioned a lot but in tournaments you get a ton of non-competitive people, just there to have a good time and play some games. These people are overwhelmingly using Marine armies a lot of the time so it tends to drag the overall absolute winrate of the faction down a little, but even then looking at absolute winrates can be really misleading in general so try not to do it if you can.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Marines are victims of being too common.

With Marines making up half or two thirds of the played armies, players inevitably tailor against them.

When Marines are balanced, this means they appear bad, because the weight of most armies is skewed against them. This was the case with Marines in the past, who would have been quite good against an army with flamethrowers and shotguns - but because marines were so common, no one brought flamethrowers and shotguns. Plasmaguns still kill tyranids.

When Marines are phenomenally good, they still seem only okay, because the weight of most armies is still skewed against them. Only now, instead of being a major problem for someone with only shotguns and flamethrowers, they're completely unbeatable - meaning people skew even HARDER into marines than before. You end up with armies like Harlies and Daemons on top, who can skew the easiest against marines by ignoring the sheer amount of -AP fire coming out and who have a plethora of multi-damage attacks to deal with 2 wound infantry.

It doesn't look at if marine player felt they were victims right now. non marine players acting strange, maybe. Self etitled too. But I really don't think there are many, if any at all, marine players that view themselfs as the wronged people right now. In casual or tournament settings. Even the weaker marine armies are different enough to be fun to play with, and with marines delivering a varity of lists and ways to play.

Karol wrote:
It doesn't look at if marine player felt they were victims right now. non marine players acting strange, maybe. Self etitled too. But I really don't think there are many, if any at all, marine players that view themselfs as the wronged people right now. In casual or tournament settings. Even the weaker marine armies are different enough to be fun to play with, and with marines delivering a varity of lists and ways to play.

How exactly are non-Marine players acting entitled?

"We want to not be punching bags for Marines that get new releases only once a decade!" is an unreasonable demand, since they're not the poster child of the game and need to learn to suck up and deal with it.

I do not think it is inconsistent to evaluate marines as a single faction and base their competitive winrate on the competitive winrate of the best subfaction within that faction.

That is the standard for eeeeeveryone else. You dont see "goffs winrate" separated from "orks winrate" or "soaring spite winrate" separated from "harlequins winrate".

Maybe the most recent winrate listed as the top for narines was 59.8% (with mirror matches with marines at a 33% play rate lul) and not 60%, mea culpa.

A meta where marines overall removing mirror matches are at 33% play 58% win, and harlequins are at 6% play 60% win is a marine meta with a successful harlequin countermeta. Im sorry. Everyones feelings about how marines are good actually does not change that fact.

Its more like 10% of the meta is 58% win rate marines and 6% is harlequins at 60%. Then we have 23% of the meta that is 45-55% win rate marines. You make it seem that it is all of the marines that are 60%. They are a huge part of the meta and you will see them a lot at events but if they were as good as you make them out to be then tournament results would look the same now as they did 1 year ago and they dont. They are way more diverse now. And among the marines it is also more diverse now and not just IH/IF with their successors.

Arent you just defeating your own arguments when bringing up the other factions subfactions? Why do we count the best subfaction for all marine winrates when we dont actually do that for any other faction? We dont see Goff winrate but how could we know they arent at 60% and its only the other subfactions dragging down orks overall winrate? What is the winrate for marines combined? From what I can see if we count marines the same way we count Orks and Harlequins is just right at 50% or slightly below it if my quick headcount is correct. So if we use the standard for everyone else marines isnt OP at all.

Klickor wrote:
Its more like 10% of the meta is 58% win rate marines and 6% is harlequins at 60%. Then we have 23% of the meta that is 45-55% win rate marines. You make it seem that it is all of the marines that are 60%. They are a huge part of the meta and you will see them a lot at events but if they were as good as you make them out to be then tournament results would look the same now as they did 1 year ago and they dont. They are way more diverse now. And among the marines it is also more diverse now and not just IH/IF with their successors.

Arent you just defeating your own arguments when bringing up the other factions subfactions? Why do we count the best subfaction for all marine winrates when we dont actually do that for any other faction? We dont see Goff winrate but how could we know they arent at 60% and its only the other subfactions dragging down orks overall winrate? What is the winrate for marines combined? From what I can see if we count marines the same way we count Orks and Harlequins is just right at 50% or slightly below it if my quick headcount is correct. So if we use the standard for everyone else marines isnt OP at all.

I think looking solely at win rates is missing the point.

Looking at what lists place in the top positions, be it first, top four, top eight, whatever, is a bit of a better picture.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Klickor wrote:
Its more like 10% of the meta is 58% win rate marines and 6% is harlequins at 60%. Then we have 23% of the meta that is 45-55% win rate marines. You make it seem that it is all of the marines that are 60%. They are a huge part of the meta and you will see them a lot at events but if they were as good as you make them out to be then tournament results would look the same now as they did 1 year ago and they dont. They are way more diverse now. And among the marines it is also more diverse now and not just IH/IF with their successors.

Arent you just defeating your own arguments when bringing up the other factions subfactions? Why do we count the best subfaction for all marine winrates when we dont actually do that for any other faction? We dont see Goff winrate but how could we know they arent at 60% and its only the other subfactions dragging down orks overall winrate? What is the winrate for marines combined? From what I can see if we count marines the same way we count Orks and Harlequins is just right at 50% or slightly below it if my quick headcount is correct. So if we use the standard for everyone else marines isnt OP at all.

I think looking solely at win rates is missing the point.

Looking at what lists place in the top positions, be it first, top four, top eight, whatever, is a bit of a better picture.

I definitely agree with that. Just saying that the_scotsman is using bad arguments. I am myself a marine player that is sick of marines and want some nerfs. I just dont think it is as bad as he is calling it.

Marines are the TOP tier faction right now, and the only reason they aren't running away with it more than they are is simply because every other top list is tailored to beat up on Marines as much as possible, or in the case of Orkz, is so far skewed in the opposite direction that SM players don't have enough tools to deal with them in a timely manner.

Hey look a bunch of biased bad faith posters pretending incredibly powerful factions like Slaanesh daemons, who give up assassinate and abhor the witch really hard against an army with some of the best shooting in the game as well as not particularly compelling reasons to take a psyker, are "counter meta" when they bring huge 16 wound models that are susceptible to anti-elite guns that are good against Marines and rely on squishy T3 models to hold objectives despite the fact that five intercessors who shoot and then charge into ten Daemonettes with no support will kill eight of them on average alone.

Let's also ignore that Harlequins beat almost every other army in the game, not just Marines, more times than not on average.

But yes, these factions aren't actually that strong! They're just "counter meta" and good versus Space Marines.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Karol wrote:
It doesn't look at if marine player felt they were victims right now. non marine players acting strange, maybe. Self etitled too. But I really don't think there are many, if any at all, marine players that view themselfs as the wronged people right now. In casual or tournament settings. Even the weaker marine armies are different enough to be fun to play with, and with marines delivering a varity of lists and ways to play.

How exactly are non-Marine players acting entitled?

Well eldar players for example think that GW ows them good rules and new models. Where it is clearly not the wait GW operates why making model lines or writing rules.

Karol wrote:

Well eldar players for example think that GW ows them good rules and new models. Where it is clearly not the wait GW operates why making model lines or writing rules.

Yes they do, because they are a paying customer and deserve to have an army that is as satisfying to play as Marines.

Games Workshop doesn't owe it's playerbase anything. In reality, they're only interested in making money. It's the players, the customers, who should be trying to pressure Games Workshop to make changes. If they don't, they'll continue to get gouged hard, since GW has no reason to provide a good customer experience if you're going to be buying their product anyways. Likewise, as a consumer, we should only be interested in getting the best experience from our products as possible, and have should have no interest in whether it's profitable as a business.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Hey look a bunch of biased bad faith posters pretending incredibly powerful factions like Slaanesh daemons, who give up assassinate and abhor the witch really hard against an army with some of the best shooting in the game as well as not particularly compelling reasons to take a psyker, are "counter meta" when they bring huge 16 wound models that are susceptible to anti-elite guns that are good against Marines and rely on squishy T3 models to hold objectives despite the fact that five intercessors who shoot and then charge into ten Daemonettes with no support will kill eight of them on average alone.

Let's also ignore that Harlequins beat almost every other army in the game, not just Marines, more times than not on average.

But yes, these factions aren't actually that strong! They're just "counter meta" and good versus Space Marines.

I mean as someone who runs a Slaanesh Daemons list, let me tell you:

They don't give up abhor the witch that well, because you don't really bring that many psykers who aren't Keepers. You also don't give up assassinate that well, because you don't bring that many CHARACTERs who aren't Keepers.

Keepers are what makes the list work. You don't run daemonettes to capture objectives. You run Daemonettes because you have to if you feel compelled for some reason (e.g. detachment bonuses), otherwise you just run Nurglings because they're 110 percent better and don't suffer from the problems that you rightly point out with 'nettes.

Keepers, meanwhile, are amazing. 16 wounds is great, probably the best wound stat in the game after 17, because you can still hide behind 5" tall terrain (so better than 18+) but have enough wounds to absorb six or so before worrying. They also have a heal mechanic. In addition, they are less vulnerable to anti-elite guns than one might think; an invuln save works very well against those guns (especially a 4++ which Keepers have ample access to in multiple ways).

Unbuffed eradicators with 1x multimelta shoot 8 shots, hit roughly 6 times, wound roughly 4 times, and only get 2 through for about 8 damage in half range, without either side using a CP reroll. Keepers are considerably more durable against anti-big-stuff shooting than most other units in the game because of the 4++. Their movement speed also makes them durable - in a straight line, they can go from outside eradicator-with-mm threat range (29") and into melee combat, with 10 attacks at 3 damage. This is especially true with certain warlord traits and/or Exalted upgrades.

Do you know why they're so good as an anti-marine pick?

10 attacks with 3 damage and stratagems/abilities to shut down melee while healing from melee. They kill 10 Heavy Intercessors almost exactly as well as they kill 10 Grots. Making them a bad choice against 10 grots, and a fantastic, excellent, awesome choice against Space Marines. If hordes were more common, Keepers would be less powerful. QED, they are powerful because Marines are the most common opponent.