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 Castozor wrote:
An anti-elite/SM secondary is sorely needed if they want to keep kill secondaries in the game. Having a vast swathe of armies be immune to most kill secondaries while the other half of armies bleed them everywhere is bad design.

It's great design if you want to reinforce to Astartes players that they've made the right choice in their purchases, and they should buy even more.

Dakka jumping the conspiracy shark again.

Does Mental Interrogation indicate GW favoring armies that can take cheap psykers?
Do infantry actions indicate favoritism towards armies with cheap infantry that have throw away shooting?

But you don't argue anything other than "is this an advantage for marines? REEEEE".

I totally agree that there should be something to level things off, but get a grip, really. Its like reading Q posts.

Raiders/ravagers have 10W, they give only a single point.

9-12 points in assassinate is normal for any list.
Even SM between captains, LTs, Apot, Ancients and so on usually give 12 points in assassinate. But assassinate is a bad secondary in most cases. It is usually a trap choice. To get at the enemy chars you need to table the opponent. Assassinate is a strictly "Win More" secondary. The only case where it is good, is when the enemy chars are aggressive, like Daemon lists.

Except that it’s actually a lot harder to kill that many space marine characters realistically. Between taking Iron Hands, and the 2+ saves and invulnerable they have access to - assassinate sucks against marines so again - yet another example where they should be vulnerable but aren’t. And fair enough about the raiders (most of our Drukari players either gave up the game or switched armies a while ago so that was a shot in the dark admittedly), but my point still stands. There will always be some armies that are more effected than others, but as soon as you have one or two that are simply not effected? That’s a huge problem. You seem to think I’m specifically hung up on marines here and frankly, they are the worst offenders but like I said before - you’re right about Harley’s and that’s also a big problem. Weird too isn’t it ... the two most dominant factions ... don’t give up kill secondaries. Especially interesting considering you can’t even blame codex creep for the Quinn’s. It’s almost as if being immune to a major part of the game gives you some kind of ... advantage?

Considering how common are raiders, venoms, ravagers, bombers, jetfighters and talos 10-12 VPs from Bring it Down is far from being hard to achieve against any possible Drukhari list.

3 ravagers/flyers and 6 talos are already 9 VPs and that's before the mandatory transports for the infantries, unless the Drukhari player is using only wracks, mandrakes, scourges and characters as infantries.

 Blackie wrote:
Considering how common are raiders, venoms, ravagers, bombers, jetfighters and talos 10-12 VPs from Bring it Down is far from being hard to achieve against any possible Drukhari list.

3 ravagers/flyers and 6 talos are already 9 VPs and that's before the mandatory transports for the infantries, unless the Drukhari player is using only wracks, mandrakes, scourges and characters as infantries.

Your point doesn't stand.

So, let's assume that together with 3 ravagers/flyers and 6 talos, someone is also bringing 4 transports. That's 13 VP IF YOU TABLE HIM.

That's NOT easy 12 VP, at all.

And if you are now thinking "They are Drukhari, they suck and tabling them is easy", you are again conflating faction balance with mission design.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tycho wrote:

Raiders/ravagers have 10W, they give only a single point.

9-12 points in assassinate is normal for any list.
Even SM between captains, LTs, Apot, Ancients and so on usually give 12 points in assassinate. But assassinate is a bad secondary in most cases. It is usually a trap choice. To get at the enemy chars you need to table the opponent. Assassinate is a strictly "Win More" secondary. The only case where it is good, is when the enemy chars are aggressive, like Daemon lists.

Except that it’s actually a lot harder to kill that many space marine characters realistically. Between taking Iron Hands, and the 2+ saves and invulnerable they have access to - assassinate sucks against marines so again - yet another example where they should be vulnerable but aren’t. And fair enough about the raiders (most of our Drukari players either gave up the game or switched armies a while ago so that was a shot in the dark admittedly), but my point still stands. There will always be some armies that are more effected than others, but as soon as you have one or two that are simply not effected? That’s a huge problem. You seem to think I’m specifically hung up on marines here and frankly, they are the worst offenders but like I said before - you’re right about Harley’s and that’s also a big problem. Weird too isn’t it ... the two most dominant factions ... don’t give up kill secondaries. Especially interesting considering you can’t even blame codex creep for the Quinn’s. It’s almost as if being immune to a major part of the game gives you some kind of ... advantage?

1) Iron hands are no longer seen on these tables. All compliant marines are now either white, black or blue.

2) Assassinate sucks against all factions, not only against marines. They need to have something like 7 chars before it starts being a real secondary. Marine characters are actually EASIER to kill than other faction characters. Their defensive stats are nothing special, except maybe the captains, but they like to be on the frontline and they suffer a lot more than other factions from the new LoS rules (smaller units). Even like this though, if you take assassinate against someone with 5 characters is because you have already decided that it is an easy match. Against 3-4 chars is a bad choice.

3) Your point stands only if marines were the only faction, or at least among the few factions, that don't suffer from seconaries. This isn't true. Even more so after the FAQ. The list of factions that doesn't suffer from secondaries is much much bigger than the short list of the ones that do (GK, TS and some lists of a few other factions). Sure, many factions can actually put together a list that bleeds them if they actively pursue that, but the same is true for marines.

EDIT: By the way, the Harlquin's standing in the tiers is actually not related to bleeding secondaries. Harleys have a LOWER win% going first than Grey Knights, which for sure are not immune to bleeding. Faction wise, they are good, but nothing special. What propels Harleys into the top of the competition is their ability to offset the first turn advantage by menacing the other player's home objectives directly from turn 1. Their extremely good win% when going second gives them an high overall win% and a much better chance of making it to the top of the ladder in events.
Also look at chaos daemons. Top of the meta, and yet before this FAQ they bled Abhor the witch horribly.

Tycho wrote:

Weird too isn’t it ... the two most dominant factions ... don’t give up kill secondaries. Especially interesting considering you can’t even blame codex creep for the Quinn’s. It’s almost as if being immune to a major part of the game gives you some kind of ... advantage?

And not being able to affect large parts of the game *cough*T'au*cough* gives you a massive disadvantage.

Spoletta wrote:


Your point doesn't stand.

So, let's assume that together with 3 ravagers/flyers and 6 talos, someone is also bringing 4 transports. That's 13 VP IF YOU TABLE HIM.

That's NOT easy 12 VP, at all.

And if you are now thinking "They are Drukhari, they suck and tabling them is easy", you are again conflating faction balance with mission design.

I'm looking at real life here. Getting those 10-12 VPs against an optimized Drukhari armies IS super easy for any other optimized army, and I'm not talking about tournament level lists. That's a fact.

I'm not saying that in turn 1 or 2 anyone auto gets those VPs, but over the course of a regular game against Drukhari it's easy to score those VPs without focussing on scoring Bring It Down. For "easy" I have in mind a complete game.

If faction rules suck and they're not competitive it's irrelevant. My orks can give up tons of points on Bring It Down (6 mek gunz and 4 buggies are already 10 VPs, less than 700 points and some of the best units in the codex) and they'd still be competitive. Same for Sisters in the example I made in a previous post. It's super common to win games with just a few dudes standing at the end of turn 5, killing 80% (or more) of someone's army is an average result in 40k, if the game is played correctly. It's avoid getting tabled or almost tabled that isn't easy, for some armies, including some competitive ones like orks, is flat out impossible.

I agree with Spoletta that assassinate isn't a good choice if they only have 3-4 characters - and is potentially a bold choice if they have exactly 5, although I think you'd fancy 9ish points unless things go horribly wrong.

Where I disagree though is certain factions do - or at least *could* - bring 6-7 characters fairly easily, without an undue skew. Guard are an obvious one. GSC another. Tau to a degree if you bring any Marksman. Orks can easily can have quite a few characters even if it isn't optimal.

 Blackie wrote:

Spoletta wrote:


Your point doesn't stand.

So, let's assume that together with 3 ravagers/flyers and 6 talos, someone is also bringing 4 transports. That's 13 VP IF YOU TABLE HIM.

That's NOT easy 12 VP, at all.

And if you are now thinking "They are Drukhari, they suck and tabling them is easy", you are again conflating faction balance with mission design.

I'm looking at real life here. Getting those 10-12 VPs against an optimized Drukhari armies IS super easy for any other optimized army, and I'm not talking about tournament level lists. That's a fact.

I'm not saying that in turn 1 or 2 anyone auto gets those VPs, but over the course of a regular game against Drukhari it's easy to score those VPs without focussing on scoring Bring It Down. For "easy" I have in mind a complete game.

If faction rules suck and they're not competitive it's irrelevant. My orks can give up tons of points on Bring It Down (6 mek gunz and 4 buggies are already 10 VPs, less than 700 points and some of the best units in the codex) and they'd still be competitive. Same for Sisters in the example I made in a previous post.

You are definitely underestimating how hard it is to score killing secondaries.

Let me give you some data. Before the FAQ, Bring it Down was one of the most selected secondaries. It got maxed in one game out of five with an average score of 9 points. Now, this could be because the one selecting it loses the game and doesn't manage to actually kill a lot of stuff of the other guy. So, let's look only at those who selected it and won, you will notice that it got maxed only in one game out of 3. This was the old Bring it Down.

Now, the current Bring it Down rewards around 40% less points than the previous one. I'll let you make your own conclusions.

And you are definitely overestimating data found on the internet. Those data DON'T reflect the current state of 40k, only a tiny fraction of it, which is tournament gaming affected by a global pandemic.

They're based on lists that aren't real (or they're just uncommon at most) for the majority of the players. Probably also based on 3 turns games due to tournaments' time limitations. Not to mention that most competitive tournament lists couldn't grant more than 10-12 VPs with the old system even if they got tabled.

This data may reflect the state of 40k online simulator maybe, not real 40k. Yours is pure theoryhammer.

Try playing in real life. I'd have no trouble getting 10+ VP for the new Bring it Down ojective against a typical optimized Drukhari list, and I'm not Lawrence Baker.

Getting 12-15 VPs for Bring it Down against any list with lots of vehicles/monsters was almost automatic before the FAQ. 10 VPs with the old system is the consquence of killing 5 models between venoms, raiders, ravagers, talos, flyers, which pretty much everyone could do within two turns, some even in one turn.

You have no problem killing 10+ Venoms/Raiders/Ravagers/Jetfighters and Talos?

I mean okay - but you might as well say "I have no problem tabling Dark Eldar" - because they can't have much else on the table after some HQ choices and troops.

Tyel wrote:
You have no problem killing 10+ Venoms/Raiders/Ravagers/Jetfighters and Talos?

I mean okay - but you might as well say "I have no problem tabling Dark Eldar" - because they can't have much else on the table after some HQ choices and troops.

It is possible with something like marines with a lot of eradicators and melta bikes, or harlequins. OR if you know what your opponent plays, and then you playing with a tailored list in advance.

Karol wrote:

Tyel wrote:
You have no problem killing 10+ Venoms/Raiders/Ravagers/Jetfighters and Talos?

I mean okay - but you might as well say "I have no problem tabling Dark Eldar" - because they can't have much else on the table after some HQ choices and troops.

It is possible with something like marines with a lot of eradicators and melta bikes, or harlequins. OR if you know what your opponent plays, and then you playing with a tailored list in advance.

you shouldnt be playing tailored lists in tournaments tho...And in casual its usually pretty frowned upon

 Blackie wrote:
And you are definitely overestimating data found on the internet. Those data DON'T reflect the current state of 40k, only a tiny fraction of it, which is tournament gaming affected by a global pandemic.

They're based on lists that aren't real (or they're just uncommon at most) for the majority of the players. Probably also based on 3 turns games due to tournaments' time limitations. Not to mention that most competitive tournament lists couldn't grant more than 10-12 VPs with the old system even if they got tabled.

This data may reflect the state of 40k online simulator maybe, not real 40k. Yours is pure theoryhammer.

Try playing in real life. I'd have no trouble getting 10+ VP for the new Bring it Down ojective against a typical optimized Drukhari list, and I'm not Lawrence Baker.

Getting 12-15 VPs for Bring it Down against any list with lots of vehicles/monsters was almost automatic before the FAQ. 10 VPs with the old system is the consquence of killing 5 models between venoms, raiders, ravagers, talos, flyers, which pretty much everyone could do within two turns, some even in one turn.

Wait... let me understand... I bring actual data from real games to the table against your pure general armchairing... and I'm the one who should play more real games???


Sorry to tell you that that data IS real 40K, no matter how you slice it.

 Blackie wrote:
And you are definitely overestimating data found on the internet. Those data DON'T reflect the current state of 40k, only a tiny fraction of it, which is tournament gaming affected by a global pandemic.

They're based on lists that aren't real (or they're just uncommon at most) for the majority of the players. Probably also based on 3 turns games due to tournaments' time limitations. Not to mention that most competitive tournament lists couldn't grant more than 10-12 VPs with the old system even if they got tabled.

This data may reflect the state of 40k online simulator maybe, not real 40k. Yours is pure theoryhammer.

Try playing in real life. I'd have no trouble getting 10+ VP for the new Bring it Down ojective against a typical optimized Drukhari list, and I'm not Lawrence Baker.

Getting 12-15 VPs for Bring it Down against any list with lots of vehicles/monsters was almost automatic before the FAQ. 10 VPs with the old system is the consquence of killing 5 models between venoms, raiders, ravagers, talos, flyers, which pretty much everyone could do within two turns, some even in one turn.

"Bro trust me bro feth any data trust me in MY games I max bring it down every time trust me!"

The fact that it's now harder to max out on some kill secondaries doesn't make up for the fact that there are no kill secondaries for units of multiple multi-wound models in the more "elite" factions. Either there should be a kill secondary for everything that can be skewed or there should be no kill secondaries (my personal preference).

A "skew" is something that invalidates a weapon category.

Multiwound infantry doesn't negate anything. Tell me what a ravener invalidates.

To invalidate a class of weapons you need to either be so insignificant that AT weapons sent your way are as good as trashed, or your wound AND T needs to be so high that a good part of the weapons in the game can't touch you.

Being multiwound in itself isn't something that can generate skewed lists. In fact, the PEQ profile has historically been considered bad (this board's words, not mine) because it can be dented by light fire, the single model is big enough to suffer AT fire and all the while it is harshly punished by D2 weapons. The PEQ profile cannot skew.

The gravis profile instead can, because 3W T5 starts being quite resistant to light fire, and I've already said that I would be in favor of such secondary.

Edit: Or so I thought before running the math. On further analysis, gravis profiles are not as resistant as I initially believed to light weapons.

Spoletta wrote:
A "skew" is something that invalidates a weapon category.

Multiwound infantry doesn't negate anything. Tell me what a ravener invalidates.

To invalidate a class of weapons you need to either be so insignificant that AT weapons sent your way are as good as trashed, or your wound AND T needs to be so high that a good part of the weapons in the game can't touch you.

Being multiwound in itself isn't something that can generate skewed lists. In fact, the PEQ profile has historically been considered bad (this board's words, not mine) because it can be dented by light fire, the single model is big enough to suffer AT fire and all the while it is harshly punished by D2 weapons. The PEQ profile cannot skew.

The gravis profile instead can, because 3W T5 starts being quite resistant to light fire, and I've already said that I would be in favor of such secondary.

multiwound infantry negates most of the anti-infantry weapons.... When you NEED to bring plasma (or something similar) to deal with the basic troops of an army, that means things like lasguns, scatter lasers and burst cannons dont do gak anymore

Spoletta wrote:
A "skew" is something that invalidates a weapon category.

Multiwound infantry doesn't negate anything. Tell me what a ravener invalidates.

To invalidate a class of weapons you need to either be so insignificant that AT weapons sent your way are as good as trashed, or your wound AND T needs to be so high that a good part of the weapons in the game can't touch you.

Being multiwound in itself isn't something that can generate skewed lists. In fact, the PEQ profile has historically been considered bad (this board's words, not mine) because it can be dented by light fire, the single model is big enough to suffer AT fire and all the while it is harshly punished by D2 weapons. The PEQ profile cannot skew.

The gravis profile instead can, because 3W T5 starts being quite resistant to light fire, and I've already said that I would be in favor of such secondary.

Edit: Or so I thought before running the math. On further analysis, gravis profiles are not as resistant as I initially believed to light weapons.

That's exactly what most of us are talking about: an equivalent to the ITC secondary "Gangbusters", which targets non-troops units comprised of multiple 3+ wound models. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Edit: It takes 41S4, AP0, BS3 bolter rounds or 54 S3, AP0, BS4 lasgun shots to kill one 3W, T5, 3+ gravis marine. How is that not resistant to light weapons?

That's what I thought too. Then I ran the math on it. PEQ and GrEQ are clearly not countered with light fire, but they also don't ignore it.


For reference, look at a sister. She has a basic bolter and she isn't a glass cannon, but a model with a balance between offense and defense.

Now, a sister rapid firing into an intercessor has a return of 20% on her points. Clearly she isn't shooting at her optimal target, when shooting at a boyz she gets double that return. When shooting at a leman russ though, she gets less than 7%. That's a bad target.
If my opponent theorically has only leman russes, then my bolters are useless. If my opponent instead only has intercessors, then my bolters have no optimal targets, but are not wasted.

Now look at AT weapons. Let's take a lad predator as an example. Said predator shoots on the leman russ and gets a return of 33%. A good target. The same predator shoots at a boy squad and gets around 1%. Very bad target. Now it shoots an intercessor squad with a 20% return. Not good, but not bad.

As you can see, the PEQ profile isn't immune to neither light fire nor AT. Any weapon firing on it has some return. In all this, they are extremely vulnerable to anti elite fire.

A list made entirely of intercessors wouldn't invalidate any of your weapons.

Edit: Yes, gravis are not immune. Actually, look at the return of a guardmen on an aggressor, it's hilarious

By the way, it is not my thesis that the intercessors are not immune to light fire. It is something that was said multiple times by multiple people on this same board. I'm quite sure that if go and check old posts, I will find some of the same people that are now posting in this thread.

Your also ignoring one of the biggest issue's with the secondarys which is which one do you use to score point's against marine spam as marines can run gravis or similar statlines in troops, heavy, fast attack, HQ and elites.

Which if they hit like wet noodles also wouldn't be a problem, except they don't. They have some of the best overall functioning units almost tailor made to abuse the 9th edition mission rules.

Undercosted heavysupport units that can return over 100% of their points in a single rouns of shooting.

Aura buffs that can be stacked on units with such defensive statlines not even a 2000 point list can kill them in a single turn.

Not to mention the free buffs to their not insignificant damage output for being painted a given color.

When you can run an entire army of T5 3W 3+ or better your opponents going to have to work excessively hard to gain anything for killing your army.

Which would be fine if kill secondarys didn't exsist full stop, or were capped at a much lower score or something.


Custodes run into a similar issue minus the damage output buffs. They can be rediculously inefficient to kill the benifit so far as they are still only puting out 8th edition levels of damage so you arn't tabled by them in 2 good rounds.

Ice_can wrote:
Aura buffs that can be stacked on units with such defensive statlines not even a 2000 point list can kill them in a single turn.

That's the kind of claim that just begs you to show your work, especially when every third thread on this board is [censored] about how absurdly lethal the game is.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
you shouldnt be playing tailored lists in tournaments tho...And in casual its usually pretty frowned upon

And you shouldn't hit your opponent in the scrotum durning fights and people still do it, be it to get on the main team or even at big events. If you don't get caught it just is what it is. The opponent or person from your weight class can frown all he wants, if it is you who is getting the scholarship or sponsors for being ranked.

I have not seen, not being a tournament player, but heard enough about people dropping games, letting friends roll them over or playing lists just to run in to someone in specific rounds, and kick them out of top 8, or as a plain event meta choice for your team, to know that it happens in w40k too. And if it happens in tournaments, then it 100% happens at stores too, specialy with people you know you will never play int he next 2-3 months.

Karol wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
you shouldnt be playing tailored lists in tournaments tho...And in casual its usually pretty frowned upon

And you shouldn't hit your opponent in the scrotum durning fights and people still do it, be it to get on the main team or even at big events. If you don't get caught it just is what it is. The opponent or person from your weight class can frown all he wants, if it is you who is getting the scholarship or sponsors for being ranked.

I have not seen, not being a tournament player, but heard enough about people dropping games, letting friends roll them over or playing lists just to run in to someone in specific rounds, and kick them out of top 8, or as a plain event meta choice for your team, to know that it happens in w40k too. And if it happens in tournaments, then it 100% happens at stores too, specialy with people you know you will never play int he next 2-3 months.

stop comparing 40k to your wrestling experience, theyre two very different things.

Every sport and every competition looks like that. w40k is a game, it has a clear winner and a clear loser. There for people do the same things.
As I listed, throwing games to friends so they get in to top tables, playing slow so the game doesn't have a real resolution and they can't score full points. There is ton of stuff people shouldn't do, but they clearly do it, and they do it durning huge events while they are streamed.

And outside of tournaments, anytime someone knows there chance they will probably not interact with the other person in a long time, or even at all, they are willing to do more or less anything, if it gives them an adventage. I use sport examples, because I think through pictures and it is easier for me to visualize stuff with them.

Karol wrote:
And outside of tournaments, anytime someone knows there chance they will probably not interact with the other person in a long time, or even at all, they are willing to do more or less anything, if it gives them an adventage.

Again, no. Not all people are like that. There are some, sure, but Poland isn't chock-full of them, and you should be aware enough to know that it isn't true globally as well.

I was talking about the stuff that was going on in US tournaments in 8th ed. And if stuff like that is done by known, people who then become GW playtesters, I assume that it has to be a Thing people do. And to be honest I don't really care if it is internet statistics 100% or real 100%. it is enough if people know that other people can do it, and live and act if the other person could do it at any moment.

Karol wrote:
I was talking about the stuff that was going on in US tournaments in 8th ed. And if stuff like that is done by known, people who then become GW playtesters, I assume that it has to be a Thing people do. And to be honest I don't really care if it is internet statistics 100% or real 100%. it is enough if people know that other people can do it, and live and act if the other person could do it at any moment.

The issue is you're talking in absolutes. Yes, some people do it, but not everyone. But you like to act like everyone in Poland is a sociopath, for some reason.

Karol wrote:

And you shouldn't hit your opponent in the scrotum durning fights and people still do it, be it to get on the main team or even at big events. If you don't get caught it just is what it is. The opponent or person from your weight class can frown all he wants, if it is you who is getting the scholarship or sponsors for being ranked.

I have not seen, not being a tournament player, but heard enough about people dropping games, letting friends roll them over or playing lists just to run in to someone in specific rounds, and kick them out of top 8, or as a plain event meta choice for your team, to know that it happens in w40k too. And if it happens in tournaments, then it 100% happens at stores too, specialy with people you know you will never play int he next 2-3 months.

The difference is that in 40k I can take a glance at your list and determine if it was tailored to stomp me, and can then decide not to play with you, perhaps even spit in your face or say something inappropriate about your mother.

Unlike low-blowing in a combat sport it is easy to see from the get-go, it doesn't just happen out of nowhere.

Ice_can wrote:
Your also ignoring one of the biggest issue's with the secondarys which is which one do you use to score point's against marine spam as marines can run gravis or similar statlines in troops, heavy, fast attack, HQ and elites.

Which if they hit like wet noodles also wouldn't be a problem, except they don't. They have some of the best overall functioning units almost tailor made to abuse the 9th edition mission rules.

Undercosted heavysupport units that can return over 100% of their points in a single rouns of shooting.

Aura buffs that can be stacked on units with such defensive statlines not even a 2000 point list can kill them in a single turn.

Not to mention the free buffs to their not insignificant damage output for being painted a given color.

When you can run an entire army of T5 3W 3+ or better your opponents going to have to work excessively hard to gain anything for killing your army.

Which would be fine if kill secondarys didn't exsist full stop, or were capped at a much lower score or something.


Custodes run into a similar issue minus the damage output buffs. They can be rediculously inefficient to kill the benifit so far as they are still only puting out 8th edition levels of damage so you arn't tabled by them in 2 good rounds.

I think that we have been repeating the same things for 5 pages now.
Let me tell you one last time, then I'm done answering you. In this thread, marines are not OP. All factions are 100% balanced. Take your SM OP issues to an SM nerf thread. Stop bringing spot balance issues into a thread discussing a general rule.

Thanks.