Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hellbrute, Defiler and old finecast daemon prince of Nurgle.

26 would be way too much. You have to realize that without special weapons that add another 10-15 points per model they don´t kill squat. Plague bolters would be nice but let´s not pretend S4 AP- D1 is a particularly fearful profile even with reroll to wound.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
About time Plague Marines had A2 base.

they're basicly on par with primaris marines now. just with extra toughness instead of a good rifle.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
About time Plague Marines had A2 base.

And it's about time that Daemon Engines were good at combat.

Horla wrote:
Are those new Dreadnoughts of some description in the background here?

Nope. Its the current Helbrute, set up for twin fist. Might even be the DG one from the store page, though if so, the lighting is shifting the colors a lot.

Hmmm. 26 points for a bolter sounds awful.
26 points for 2 T5 3+/5+++ wounds however sounds quite good.

There is always a "that's the point" to some of this - but I think you are seeing this strange increase of lethality, while at the same time basic S4/S5 AP- 1 damage attacks become more and more worthless.

People simply can't help but hate things that dare survive getting shot at

Currently a plague marine is 17 points, a tactical marine paid 3 points for an extra wound, so paying 4-5 for the effective 1.5 extra wounds seems like a fair deal. An extra attack on a marine profile seem to be worth 2 points so you'll end up with 23-24 if GW, maybe another point of spike tax.

Anything beyond that would be a hard nerf on a unit that already was struggling.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
About time Plague Marines had A2 base.

And it's about time that Daemon Engines were good at combat.

Canoptek units did them a solid and traded crappy BS4 for some reason roles.

 Jidmah wrote:
People simply can't help but hate things that dare survive getting shot at

Currently a plague marine is 17 points, a tactical marine paid 3 points for an extra wound, so paying 4-5 for the effective 1.5 extra wounds seems like a fair deal. An extra attack on a marine profile seem to be worth 2 points so you'll end up with 23-24 if GW, maybe another point of spike tax.

Anything beyond that would be a hard nerf on a unit that already was struggling.

I don't think the bolded is a good analysis - as often as it comes up - because it assumes the 1 wound Tactical Marine was perfectly balanced at 15 points, which I don't think anyone believed. If the 1 wound tactical marine was actually worth about 13-14 points, then they paid 4-5 for the extra wound.

I mean boring analysis - at 24 points.
Intercessors with bolt rifles into Plague Marines.
2*2/3*1/3*1/2*2/3=0.1481. *12=1.77 points. Divided by 20=8.8% return.
Plague Marines regular Bolters into Intercessors.
2*2/3*1/2*1/3=0.222. *10=2.22 points. Divided by 24=9.26% return.

So factoring in doctrines etc and potentially more Death Guard rules its probably close enough. Arguably the DG are superior though, given the likelihood of a 5+++ messing with 2 damage weapons which you want to put into these units because of how poor the above returns are.

Tyel wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
People simply can't help but hate things that dare survive getting shot at

Currently a plague marine is 17 points, a tactical marine paid 3 points for an extra wound, so paying 4-5 for the effective 1.5 extra wounds seems like a fair deal. An extra attack on a marine profile seem to be worth 2 points so you'll end up with 23-24 if GW, maybe another point of spike tax.

Anything beyond that would be a hard nerf on a unit that already was struggling.

I don't think the bolded is a good analysis - as often as it comes up - because it assumes the 1 wound Tactical Marine was perfectly balanced at 15 points, which I don't think anyone believed. If the 1 wound tactical marine was actually worth about 13-14 points, then they paid 4-5 for the extra wound.

I mean boring analysis - at 24 points.
Intercessors with bolt rifles into Plague Marines.
2*2/3*1/3*1/2*2/3=0.1481. *12=1.77 points. Divided by 20=8.8% return.
Plague Marines regular Bolters into Intercessors.
2*2/3*1/2*1/3=0.222. *10=2.22 points. Divided by 24=9.26% return.

So factoring in doctrines etc and potentially more Death Guard rules its probably close enough. Arguably the DG are superior though, given the likelihood of a 5+++ messing with 2 damage weapons which you want to put into these units because of how poor the above returns are.

we also don't know what special rules death guard will get. it's a save bet they'll also have an "anti-souping" rule.

 Jidmah wrote:
People simply can't help but hate things that dare survive getting shot at

Currently a plague marine is 17 points, a tactical marine paid 3 points for an extra wound, so paying 4-5 for the effective 1.5 extra wounds seems like a fair deal. An extra attack on a marine profile seem to be worth 2 points so you'll end up with 23-24 if GW, maybe another point of spike tax.

Anything beyond that would be a hard nerf on a unit that already was struggling.

Assault Intercessors are 19 point. Intercessors are 20 points. Plague Marines are +1 T, -1 M compared to them. Their bolter & Plague Knife are inferior to the stock Intercessor options (Various Bolt Rifles or Heavy Bolt Pistol and Astartes Chainsword). So we are looking at a model that is maybe a hair better than an Intercessor if they keep a 5+++. Let's hope they aren't more than 22 points without upgrades (weapon or rules wise).

Plague marines are now a close combat unit. Cos like who cares about AP0 bolter shooting... Its a waste of dice rolling. Meanwile, T5 2W 2A with other rules is going to be good in close combat.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Plague marines are now a close combat unit. Cos like who cares about AP0 bolter shooting... Its a waste of dice rolling. Meanwile, T5 2W 2A with other rules is going to be good in close combat.

Especially if they keep the Vectors of Death and Disease special rule. Assault Intercessors who?

I doubt PM will cost anymore than 20-22pts a model, probably closer to 22pts.

22 points seems a tad low, unless their special rules get nerfed.

Assuming the DG special rules balance out doctrines, a heavy intercessor is effectively the same profile once DR is factored in. They're 28 points base with the better gun but worse melee option, so if plague rounds were added to bolters or something else mild then 24 seems OK.

So far I'm liking this, depending on the point cost.

Tyel wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
People simply can't help but hate things that dare survive getting shot at

Currently a plague marine is 17 points, a tactical marine paid 3 points for an extra wound, so paying 4-5 for the effective 1.5 extra wounds seems like a fair deal. An extra attack on a marine profile seem to be worth 2 points so you'll end up with 23-24 if GW, maybe another point of spike tax.

Anything beyond that would be a hard nerf on a unit that already was struggling.

I don't think the bolded is a good analysis - as often as it comes up - because it assumes the 1 wound Tactical Marine was perfectly balanced at 15 points, which I don't think anyone believed. If the 1 wound tactical marine was actually worth about 13-14 points, then they paid 4-5 for the extra wound.

Tactical marines and plague marines were the same unit though, and if plague marines were anywhere near "perfectly balanced", they would show up in lists more and not be replaced by nurgle daemons by everyone. Their main use right now is the grenade combo, which I'm absolutely sure will go away.

I mean boring analysis - at 24 points.
Intercessors with bolt rifles into Plague Marines.
2*2/3*1/3*1/2*2/3=0.1481. *12=1.77 points. Divided by 20=8.8% return.
Plague Marines regular Bolters into Intercessors.
2*2/3*1/2*1/3=0.222. *10=2.22 points. Divided by 24=9.26% return.

Not to discount you work, but this kind of comparison is worthless. Essentially you are comparing the speed of two cars driving on different tracks.
You need to have both units shoot at the same target to compare their offensive output.

So factoring in doctrines etc and potentially more Death Guard rules its probably close enough. Arguably the DG are superior though, given the likelihood of a 5+++ messing with 2 damage weapons which you want to put into these units because of how poor the above returns are.

2W and FNP are effectively 3 wound models, which die to 2 damage shots 4 out of 9 times. Obviously shooting them with 2 damage weapon is just as a bad idea as shooting gravis models with 2 damage weapons.

Galas wrote:Hellbrute, Defiler and old finecast daemon prince of Nurgle.

Voss wrote:

Horla wrote:
Are those new Dreadnoughts of some description in the background here?

Nope. Its the current Helbrute, set up for twin fist. Might even be the DG one from the store page, though if so, the lighting is shifting the colors a lot.

Thanks, I'm not that familiar with a lot of the big Chaos machines. Yet.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I'd heavily expect Plague Marines to be about 26 points per model, unless they nerf the heck out of their special rules. If their bolter ALSO gets plague weapon they'd be very good, and possibly under costed though.

They'd better add -1 AP to the bolter then because in ranged combat Death Guard is very pillow-fisted unless they use the few special weapons they have access to.

I don't think 1 to 1 comparison of units between codices is very accurate as Space Marines have a much larger toolkit to work from - making them more flexible - whereas Death Guard has a much more limited toolkit. Those things must be taken into account when balancing pointwise.

What I am curious about is whether Nurgle Daemons will still stay in the codex or if they are going away.

 Eldarsif wrote:
What I am curious about is whether Nurgle Daemons will still stay in the codex or if they are going away.

I really hope that we will get a glimpse at some functional summoning rules.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
What I am curious about is whether Nurgle Daemons will still stay in the codex or if they are going away.

I really hope that we will get a glimpse at some functional summoning rules.

summoning rules are working, just for those that have access to MoP's.

One of the plague fleets has one of the best summoners in the game (PL7+d6, after moving) and it's still useless.

The mechanic as it is now simply doesn't work, flexibility alone is not worth all the drawbacks.

I'd much rather they scrap summoning as-is, incorporate Nurgle daemons into the Death Guard list wholesale (without messing up subfaction rules), and then allow them to deep strike as a stratagem.

I am wondering if the Death Guard book will have some Nurgle Daemon data sheets in it.

I am interested to see how their rules might of changed.

 Jidmah wrote:
One of the plague fleets has one of the best summoners in the game (PL7+d6, after moving) and it's still useless.

The mechanic as it is now simply doesn't work, flexibility alone is not worth all the drawbacks.

And yet there were tournament wins with a list using this mechanic.

But in general i agree the drawbacks as of now are unrealistic.

I would prefer that Daemons are either properly integrated or not in codex at all.
The halfway house is useless so would prefer it gone

 Jidmah wrote:
Not to discount you work, but this kind of comparison is worthless. Essentially you are comparing the speed of two cars driving on different tracks.
You need to have both units shoot at the same target to compare their offensive output.

2W and FNP are effectively 3 wound models, which die to 2 damage shots 4 out of 9 times. Obviously shooting them with 2 damage weapon is just as a bad idea as shooting gravis models with 2 damage weapons.

If you were just interested in offensive output that might make sense - but since the whole thing of "tough" armies is that they take less damage but, for balance, do less damage, you aren't. You are trying to see the nexus of offensive+defensive stats for a certain number of points.

I think the second quoted paragraph is sort of key to the debate.
Basically are Plague Marines meant to be "Heavy Intercessors with gimped guns" (i.e. 28 points minus something) - or "significantly tougher intercessors" (still with slightly weaker guns - but special rules depending maybe not by much) - in which case its 20 points plus something.

I'm more in the former - and certainly at 22 points I think the defensive profile is faintly ridiculous.
I guess it will just highlight Tau problems - but an unbuffed fire warrior, with two shots, is getting a 13.5% return on his points, while the Plague Marine would get an 18.1% return shooting back with his bolter. A tactical marine gets an awful 6% return shooting at Plague Marines, while the Plague Marine gets 9% shooting back.

If you think Plague Marines should have this superiority then that's fine. I mean its unclear why Intercessors should remain arguably the best troops in the game forever and ever.
But its concerning to me I think that 40k is evolving into a game where you basically have a melta gun, or you do nothing. (To a degree its always been the case, but Marines becoming a 2/3 wound army seems to be really pushing it.)
Which in turn it feeds the view that everything dies too fast, because everything is skewed to expensive but powerful offensive output.

Tyel wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Not to discount you work, but this kind of comparison is worthless. Essentially you are comparing the speed of two cars driving on different tracks.
You need to have both units shoot at the same target to compare their offensive output.

2W and FNP are effectively 3 wound models, which die to 2 damage shots 4 out of 9 times. Obviously shooting them with 2 damage weapon is just as a bad idea as shooting gravis models with 2 damage weapons.

If you were just interested in offensive output that might make sense - but since the whole thing of "tough" armies is that they take less damage but, for balance, do less damage, you aren't. You are trying to see the nexus of offensive+defensive stats for a certain number of points.

I think the second quoted paragraph is sort of key to the debate.
Basically are Plague Marines meant to be "Heavy Intercessors with gimped guns" (i.e. 28 points minus something) - or "significantly tougher intercessors" (still with slightly weaker guns - but special rules depending maybe not by much) - in which case its 20 points plus something.

I'm more in the former - and certainly at 22 points I think the defensive profile is faintly ridiculous.
I guess it will just highlight Tau problems - but an unbuffed fire warrior, with two shots, is getting a 13.5% return on his points, while the Plague Marine would get an 18.1% return shooting back with his bolter. A tactical marine gets an awful 6% return shooting at Plague Marines, while the Plague Marine gets 9% shooting back.

If you think Plague Marines should have this superiority then that's fine. I mean its unclear why Intercessors should remain arguably the best troops in the game forever and ever.
But its concerning to me I think that 40k is evolving into a game where you basically have a melta gun, or you do nothing. (To a degree its always been the case, but Marines becoming a 2/3 wound army seems to be really pushing it.)
Which in turn it feeds the view that everything dies too fast, because everything is skewed to expensive but powerful offensive output.

This all makes sense to me, my impression was always that a faction intent on being the durable one had higher damage output in the long run due to having more of it's forces left alive, rather than expecting them to be able to trade blows equally with offensive units which inevitably cranks the points up.

I would say ironically in the age of everyone being unhappy with the increased lethality in the game, requiring more small arms fire to kill stuff is actually a good thing, but people immediately then want to default back to making their stuff more killy to bypass the increased durability.

Tyel wrote:
If you were just interested in offensive output that might make sense - but since the whole thing of "tough" armies is that they take less damage but, for balance, do less damage, you aren't. You are trying to see the nexus of offensive+defensive stats for a certain number of points.

The only thing you've shown is that Plague Marines are more efficient at shooting intercessors than intercessors are at shooting plague marines. That's about as valuable as saying "a football team is better at playing basketball than a basketball team is at playing football." and then trying to figure out which one is the better team by comparing scores. At the very least you need to have both shoot intercessors *and* plague marines.
And let's face it, at <10% return of investment neither has any business shooting the other if they can help it.

Basically are Plague Marines meant to be "Heavy Intercessors with gimped guns" (i.e. 28 points minus something) - or "significantly tougher intercessors" (still with slightly weaker guns - but special rules depending maybe not by much) - in which case its 20 points plus something.

"Something" can easily be calculated.

The same unit with the same stats and costs can be great in one codex and bad in another, because of context. You cannot convert army context to points. Absolute point values always contain army context. Therefore you cannot compare absolute values at the accuracy you are trying to do, but only compare whether they are roughly in the same ballpark.

What you can compare is relativ values. The extra wound provides the exact same relative gain in durability to any single wound model. Plague marines already paid a ~21% tax compared to tacticals for their extra durability and army context when they had just one wound, and GW seems to value the extra wound on marines at ~29% extra points, and an extra attack at ~11%.
No matter whether we are looking at a plague marine with an extra wound and attack for 17*1.29*1.11= 24.3 or at an intercessor with death guard tax 20*1.21=24.2. Either way, you end up with 24-25 points.

That said, intercessors are a fairly solid unit, while plague marines were not. On the other hand, tacticals have become decent with their second wound, so I wouldn't see a point change in either way. And yes, 22 would be on the low side and would only be worth discussion if they get no further buffs to their damage.

I guess it will just highlight Tau problems - but an unbuffed fire warrior, with two shots, is getting a 13.5% return on his points, while the Plague Marine would get an 18.1% return shooting back with his bolter. A tactical marine gets an awful 6% return shooting at Plague Marines, while the Plague Marine gets 9% shooting back.

As explained above, another worthless calculation. The only thing this proves is that tau fire warriors are the wrong tool to kill plague marines, while plague marines are good at killing tau fire warriors. Neither of which is particularly surprising.
How about you math out which one of them kills more intercessors? Traditionally, you compare unit efficiency by targeting guardsmen, marines and a rhino.

If you think Plague Marines should have this superiority then that's fine. I mean its unclear why Intercessors should remain arguably the best troops in the game forever and ever.

Frankly, yes I think that plague marines should be one of the most durable troops, only to be outdone by things like custodes guardians, grey knight terminators and similar units. That's the whole point of plague marines. If you make them exactly a durable per point as marines are, they fail at that job by definition.
Yet, you have failed to actually provide a reason why this is a bad thing for a unit that is armed that moves 1" less than marines is armed with regular boltguns that have both no AP and 6" less range. And that's assuming that the doctrines and army tactics from the new codex even remotely compares in offensive power to what marines get.
The perceived superior offensive power solely stems from you comparing apples to oranges.