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But if GW rules portray marines as supersoldiers... BL books portray them as super soldiers... official fluff has been portraying them as super soldiers for 20+ years, movies, videos, marketing, videogames, portrays them as super soldiers...


Does it really matter that some guy at GW takes a jab at marines?

It comes as a little bit hypocrite. GW CREATED marines as they are, and they profited from them.

I'll see this "but thats just BL!" as if like those books werent written under a serious guidance from GW.

If we can't take seriously any form of GW product that puts marines as extremely elite guys that kick assess... theres literally no source from GW in the past 20 years that we can accept as... "canon".


What I want to say is: Theres no point in 40k history outside Rogue Trader were I can see the universe and not be bombarded with "MARINES ARE SO AWESOME!" the only dissonance in all this years was the tabletop.

 alextroy wrote:
We have about two dozen codexes to see what the new place for all these units, except the Necrons, will be.

But I do believe that Immortals have vastly superior firepower compared to an Intercessor even though they don't cost twice as much anymore.

The gulf in firepower was quite a bit larger. S5 AP-2 Assault 2 30" would be more in line with the original Immortals. We're talking double their current firepower at max range. Oh, and D2 since Marines were 1w back then.

Otherwise "Wait and see" is a pretty tired response.

"Wait and see" being tired doesn't make it incorrect

Nothing will be a perfect analogy to what was. GW has moved on from that. They are rebalancing towards what they want it to be. So far, that doesn't seem to be a horrible level of balance.

Unfortunately, it seems some of the big threats of yesterday have been demoted to threat of the week level

 alextroy wrote:
"Wait and see" being tired doesn't make it incorrect

"Not necessarily incorrect" is a pretty low bar for argumentation and entirely misses the point as to why it's considered a "tired" response.

 catbarf wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
There was a reason GW made that tongue-in-cheek Movie Marine list so many years ago. It because the Space Marine model has long failed to live up to the Space Marine background.

The Movie Marines list opens with a quote from Eddie Murphy saying, paraphrased, 'I'm not a tough guy, but if I fight you in a movie I'm starring in, I'll kick your ass'. You could buy stunt doubles to take wounds instead of your dudes, and it explicitly mentioned that even if your opponent has the same weapons as you, yours get superpowered statlines, because you're the star of the show.

That's not meant to be 'lore-accurate' Marines. It was a fun acknowledgment of the protagonist bias in Marine-centric BL works, and that the BL books- which are inherently power fantasies, like any good action film/novel- portray Marines as far stronger than the 'ground truth' established by the game. Every faction in the game gets that treatment in their own books, but it's only Marines that now get to live up to that power fantasy on the tabletop.

Arguing that it's not a power fantasy because they're supposed to be better than everyone else at everything all the time is, like, completely missing the point of what a power fantasy is.

That rules was even specifically called "The Script Writers Hate Us", which is appropriate for the current conversation...

 Galas wrote:
I actually feel the worst change for the game has not been the rules (Marines being marines and not dying like schumcks to a imperial guard infantry squad firing 37 shots at 12 feels great) but the deliberated portrayal of the Imperium as not only the protagonist but also as the good guys.

I know, they can't marketing their universe to the great audience with the dark stuff the Imperium does, and I know in more secondary outlets (like necromunda narrative, books, etc...) the Imperium is still presented as this horrible dystopia.

But more and more the Space Marines are shiny knights in armor saving the day for the poor innocent human soldiers and civilians.

The problem is, the Imperium is still genocidal, hateful, and corrupt, but now that's portrayed as a good thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:
Simple. If the background has always said Space Marines are powerful, it's not a power fantasy. It is the World of Warhammer 40K.

Marines were historically depicted as being outclassed or matched by demons 1 to 1, to the point where the Grey Knights had to exist.

The rules used to reflect this, too. I remember when Bloodletters getting a charge on a unit of Terminators was real bad for the Terminators.

 Galas wrote:
If we can't take seriously any form of GW product that puts marines as extremely elite guys that kick assess... theres literally no source from GW in the past 20 years that we can accept as... "canon".

Straw man. Marines as extremely elite has always been the case, even on the tabletop. Their basic troops could go one-on-one with the elites of other factions even when they were W1. They were considerably better than the Guard's Navy SEAL equivalents. They were extremely elite guys that kick ass... up against a galaxy full of horrific monsters and alien civilizations that could give them a run for their money.

Marines being so elite that their basic troops stomp the elites of other factions is a very new thing.

 Galas wrote:
What I want to say is: Theres no point in 40k history outside Rogue Trader were I can see the universe and not be bombarded with "MARINES ARE SO AWESOME!" the only dissonance in all this years was the tabletop.

And any of the videogames where you could go up against Marines. And any of the books where Marines weren't the protagonists. Gaunt's Ghosts shoot them dead. Fire Warriors put holes through them. A whole company of Lamenters gets eaten by 'Nids in thirty minutes. Eisenhorn kills two, one before he can even react.

In other words, it's always when Marines are the POV characters that they're given the superpowers- and only now is that extended to the tabletop, which is expected to be reasonably objective rather than a power fantasy for any particular faction.

alextroy wrote:We have about two dozen codexes to see what the new place for all these units, except the Necrons, will be.

The thing is that we have the most technologically advanced army in the game released at the same time and what changes they had were minimal in relation to changes that happened with Astartes.

Honestly, I doubt we'll see much in the way of change up for anything that doesn't say "Marines" and "Astartes", with Chaos Marines will only be having their stats adjusted and still being behind in Special Rules (gotta still pay off that 3.5 codex, right? /s)

alextroy wrote:Nothing will be a perfect analogy to what was. GW has moved on from that. They are rebalancing towards what they want it to be. So far, that doesn't seem to be a horrible level of balance.

Unfortunately, it seems some of the big threats of yesterday have been demoted to threat of the week level

Actually it is coming across as a horrible rebalance as Necrons were left behind in the upgrade.

 catbarf wrote:

 Galas wrote:
If we can't take seriously any form of GW product that puts marines as extremely elite guys that kick assess... theres literally no source from GW in the past 20 years that we can accept as... "canon".

Straw man. Marines as extremely elite has always been the case, even on the tabletop. Their basic troops could go one-on-one with the elites of other factions even when they were W1. They were considerably better than the Guard's Navy SEAL equivalents. They were extremely elite guys that kick ass... up against a galaxy full of horrific monsters and alien civilizations that could give them a run for their money.

Marines being so elite that their basic troops stomp the elites of other factions is a very new thing.
.

But this is untrue. As I said, Inmortals beat point per point Intercessors on a firefight without a sweat, and necron warriors can put a fight agaisnt tacticals. Necron Lychguard or Destroyers don't have a problem facing Marine elite units, and we have things like the new incubi eating primaris for breakfast.

Marines stomp elites of other factions... thats true. Genestealers, Aspect Warriors, etc... but those are mediocre or bad units from old codexes.

I know at the end of the day this is all about the wounds. And I know. It feels wrong. But we should accept the new GW paradigm of wounds in models just representing another form of durability. Just like in Age of Sigmar you have units with 1 wound being more resilient and elite than many 2 wound units like Phoenix Guard vs Tzaangors, etc...

 Galas wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Galas wrote:
If we can't take seriously any form of GW product that puts marines as extremely elite guys that kick assess... theres literally no source from GW in the past 20 years that we can accept as... "canon".

Straw man. Marines as extremely elite has always been the case, even on the tabletop. Their basic troops could go one-on-one with the elites of other factions even when they were W1. They were considerably better than the Guard's Navy SEAL equivalents. They were extremely elite guys that kick ass... up against a galaxy full of horrific monsters and alien civilizations that could give them a run for their money.

Marines being so elite that their basic troops stomp the elites of other factions is a very new thing.
.

But this is untrue. As I said, Inmortals beat point per point Intercessors on a firefight without a sweat, and necron warriors can put a fight agaisnt tacticals. Necron Lychguard or Destroyers don't have a problem facing Marine elite units, and we have things like the new incubi eating primaris for breakfast.

Marines stomp elites of other factions... thats true. Genestealers, Aspect Warriors, etc... but those are mediocre or bad units from old codexes.

That's missing... pretty much all the context.
Genestealers were amazing marine killers on day 1. And that lasted for quite a while, before being summarily neutered to the version we see today.
They had two wounds, two attacks, WS 6 and S5 in Rogue Trader, when that was a big deal and not usual. After that, they went UP to WS7, S6 and doubled their attacks to 4, and Initiative went from 5 to 7, so they were striking before space marine characters. They had innate armor save modifiers and even inflicted hit penalties on units they charged.

Aspect warriors didn't have amazing statlines, but their gear was a huge deal. Banshee masks didn't allow attacks back _at all_ unless the charged unit rolled a 6 on d6. Power swords weren't dependent on the user's stats for killing power. Mandiblasters were a simple toughness test or take a wound (on a roll equal to or greater than the targets T). Exarchs were basically character models, not mere sergeants.

Marines currently stomp the neutered versions of _great_ units. And unsurprisingly that feels bad. Its also crap game design to have a 'better' faction against factions still operating under the limitations of the 'quicker and cleaner' rules revisions from more than 20 years ago. It shouldn't even feel good to marine players, unless they also like kicking puppies.

I know at the end of the day this is all about the wounds. And I know. It feels wrong. But we should accept the new GW paradigm of wounds in models just representing another form of durability. Just like in Age of Sigmar you have units with 1 wound being more resilient and elite than many 2 wound units like Phoenix Guard vs Tzaangors, etc...

Only partly, largely because they spend quite a while taking multiple wounds away from just about everything (with exceptions like tyranid warriors), and have now granted them back to only marines (who didn't even have them, outside of characters!)

And that doesn't even touch all the other things they've taken away over the years. It wasn't so bad when everyone got stuff taken away for a faster ruleset in third edition, but now that its getting added back in, and marines are getting extra special bonuses on top, the whole thing crumbles.

 Galas wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Galas wrote:
If we can't take seriously any form of GW product that puts marines as extremely elite guys that kick assess... theres literally no source from GW in the past 20 years that we can accept as... "canon".

Straw man. Marines as extremely elite has always been the case, even on the tabletop. Their basic troops could go one-on-one with the elites of other factions even when they were W1. They were considerably better than the Guard's Navy SEAL equivalents. They were extremely elite guys that kick ass... up against a galaxy full of horrific monsters and alien civilizations that could give them a run for their money.

Marines being so elite that their basic troops stomp the elites of other factions is a very new thing.
.

But this is untrue. As I said, Inmortals beat point per point Intercessors on a firefight without a sweat, and necron warriors can put a fight agaisnt tacticals.

You are not following the conversation then. This is not about point for point.

 Galas wrote:

I know at the end of the day this is all about the wounds. And I know. It feels wrong. But we should accept the new GW paradigm of wounds in models just representing another form of durability. Just like in Age of Sigmar you have units with 1 wound being more resilient and elite than many 2 wound units like Phoenix Guard vs Tzaangors, etc...

ok. . . It's all about the wounds.

So far Marines have gotten a lot more wounds. Necrons. . . Who are historically of similar toughness, have gotten fewer wound upgrades.

I want to say that I'm not disagreeng with people that want elite units of other factions to feel elite.

I have proposed or at least expresed that I would like for things like ork boyz with 2 wounds, nobz with 3, 2 wound genestealers with more rend, etc...

I was just disagreeing with the idea that what necrons need is more powerfull necron warriors. Necron warriors are fine as is. If you want to make necrons more elite in the feel, make inmortals, lychguard, etc... even more powerfull.

I also feel that for example marines have a ton of their "I'm too powerfull" feel given right now not by stats but by special rules. Remove bolter discipline, make Shock Assault only give +1 attack if you have charged or heroically intervene, and remove the extra AP of Doctrines (Because they are probably the most boring and worst from a design standpoint of the "pure army" bonuses), and without a single change in stats, both tacticals with 1 attack if charged and AP0 bolters and intercessors feel much more reasonable compared with the stuff they are being compared agaisnt.

 Insectum7 wrote:
So far Marines have gotten a lot more wounds. Necrons. . . Who are historically of similar toughness, have gotten fewer wound upgrades.

And ironically, Necrons having more wounds makes their resurrection protocols less effective...

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So far Marines have gotten a lot more wounds. Necrons. . . Who are historically of similar toughness, have gotten fewer wound upgrades.

And ironically, Necrons having more wounds makes their resurrection protocols less effective...

Not really when most have Living Metal which restores Wounds.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So far Marines have gotten a lot more wounds. Necrons. . . Who are historically of similar toughness, have gotten fewer wound upgrades.

And ironically, Necrons having more wounds makes their resurrection protocols less effective...

Not really when most have Living Metal which restores Wounds.

Living metal makes zero difference to models that fail RP rolls because they have multiple wounds.
LM is also hilariously ineffective for units because 9th edition wound allocation rules don't allow more than one model in a unit to end a phase with damage.

The entire package is all or nothing. Best case scenario is you'll get 1 wound back on a model you didn't lose... at the start of your turn. If you went second, you might gain a whole 5 wounds back over the course of the game. But a model lost or recovered by RP isn't going to get any benefit from Living Metal at all. They will quite likely be dead, or they'll be back at full wounds.

I was having some shower thoughts.

If Howling Banshees stayed, when the new Eldar Dex comes out, at their current profile... But went down to 6 points (so that, point for point, if they get a charge against Marines, they'll kill them in one round) I don't think anyone would say they're not a competitive unit. 6 PPM for a T3 3+ wound is damn good, even ignoring they're fast and damn killy at that point value.

But, I think just about any Eldar player and most other players would agree... Would that feel like a good representation of a Howling Banshee? Would that feel good? It'd be powerful, but its power is basically that it's really, really cheap. I don't think ANYONE would be happy about that-even the people who hate Eldar with a passion wouldn't be happy, because they'd have a really strong unit.

Voss wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So far Marines have gotten a lot more wounds. Necrons. . . Who are historically of similar toughness, have gotten fewer wound upgrades.

And ironically, Necrons having more wounds makes their resurrection protocols less effective...

Not really when most have Living Metal which restores Wounds.

Living metal makes zero difference to models that fail RP rolls because they have multiple wounds.
LM is also hilariously ineffective for units because 9th edition wound allocation rules don't allow more than one model in a unit to end a phase with damage.

The entire package is all or nothing. Best case scenario is you'll get 1 wound back on a model you didn't lose... at the start of your turn. If you went second, you might gain a whole 5 wounds back over the course of the game. But a model lost or recovered by RP isn't going to get any benefit from Living Metal at all. They will quite likely be dead, or they'll be back at full wounds.

A lot can happen over the course of the game. RP works well with multiple Wounds, and if RP isn't engaged, they can be restored back to where they were. RP may be engaged for the model at one point, they get Wounded again, but not defeated, so Living Metal engages.

So I don't see how having more Wounds makes the RP that less effective (aside from having an odd number of successes). In most of those cases they are much harder to kill in the first place.

Uh.. more wounds makes RP less effective because of statistics.

A 1 W model is a 1/3 chance. 5+ on d6. A 2 W is a 1/9 chance two successful 5+ rolls A 3W is 1/27 chance...

Causing multiple wounds just isn't that difficult on t4 or t5 models, especially with no invulnerable save (ie, most of them)

On the other hand, multiple wound models benefit more from Rites of Reanimation, because a Destroyer is more valuable than even 3 warriors.

 Tyran wrote:
On the other hand, multiple wound models benefit more from Rites of Reanimation, because a Destroyer is more valuable than even 3 warriors.

Which is why it doesn't work on them: Core only.
The best you can do with Rites is Lychguard or Tomb Blades, or get lucky on the d3 for warriors.