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 Insectum7 wrote:

A: Most people didn't know how to use Tacs, not my fault that I could.
B: You mention Grey Hunters, which happen to be 1W troop choices in Power Armor. Huh, look at that..

a) or your opponents sucked. You do know the game is for 2? Everybody can appear great when given even worse as comparison. Lot more likely than you being better than 99.99999999999999% players of 40k in the world. Do you realize how arrogant it sounds claiming you are so god-level player is?
b) he said silly rules and wargear requirement. Funny that. Grey hunters had those. Until they removed those and hey presto they became meh just like tactical marines. Funny that. Remove the only thing that makes 1W power armour usable and it becomes unusable.

 BlaxicanX wrote:


Marines being too fragile to do their jobs properly has been a consistent complaint for like 15 years, and when you look at the top marine lists of those times, you see that the basic marine was almost always left in the box in favor of some specialist unit that benefitted from absolutely bonkers special rules or wargear.

Marine players complained since decades despite their armies were never actually bad, sometimes even top tiers. I remember SM players complaining in 7th, when they were as oppressive as eldar. They still complain, so forgive me if I don't give much weight to that consisten complaint.

Power armour dudes were fine in classic 40k 3rd-7th, they were also fine in 8th when they were too cheap. It's termies that were a bit too fragile the moment GW started increasing average RoF for all armies, being only 1W and typically full or mostly melee.


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 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'm glad tactical marines have always been strong in your fluffy beerhammer garage games, but they were seeing little play in top tables from at least 5th edition to the end of 7th. Now you could argue that damage creep is the chief for why Marine fragility has historically been so prominent, and you may even be right. However it is delusion to try to assert that the basic marine statline was functional pre-8th.

Even in 7th power armour based SM armies were much more competitive than the vast majority of the other factions. Probably not because of the stateline of tac dudes, but they were present. And by the way what armies did rely that much on their basic infantry troops to win games?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
We've returned to the anecdotal Tactical Marines are great arguments.

Didn't say they were great, only that they were functional if used well. How many people did you know that bought minimum Tacs and then sat them in the back pew-pewing with a single heavy weapon? Were they leveraging ATSKNF, their S4 or their or Grenades when they did that? They were not, and they were wasting combat potential.

tneva82 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

A: Most people didn't know how to use Tacs, not my fault that I could.
B: You mention Grey Hunters, which happen to be 1W troop choices in Power Armor. Huh, look at that..

a) or your opponents sucked. You do know the game is for 2? Everybody can appear great when given even worse as comparison. Lot more likely than you being better than 99.99999999999999% players of 40k in the world. Do you realize how arrogant it sounds claiming you are so god-level player is?
b) he said silly rules and wargear requirement. Funny that. Grey hunters had those. Until they removed those and hey presto they became meh just like tactical marines. Funny that. Remove the only thing that makes 1W power armour usable and it becomes unusable.

a) quote me where I said I was "god level"
b) the point is that a t4, 3+ save, 1W model could be competitive. . . the next point is that if they struggled, it had less to do with their statline and more to do with the other bat-gak crazy stuff that was going on in editions 6 and 7.

The actual relevant point to the thread is that marines didn't feel "soft" because of basic rifles and light infantry. They felt soft because powerful weapons were handed out like candy, which brings us to the 9th edition solution of 2W, and how it largely boosts defensive capability against small arms, but the handed-out-like-candy anti-elite and anti-tank weapons will still pulverize them.

 Blackie wrote:

Marine players complained since decades despite their armies were never actually bad, sometimes even top tiers.

Also this ^^^^^

 Insectum7 wrote:
The actual relevant point to the thread is that marines didn't feel "soft" because of basic rifles and light infantry. They felt soft because powerful weapons were handed out like candy, which brings us to the 9th edition solution of 2W, and how it largely boosts defensive capability against small arms, but the handed-out-like-candy anti-elite and anti-tank weapons will still pulverize them.

To focus on this, how would you define "handed out like crazy?" What would be a good example? To me, it seems like the problem is that regardless of how restrictive you get for special weapons, people will still take as many as they can.

2W marines were not related to the increase in lethality of the game, they were related to the new damage/wound design.

If you disagree with marines having 2 wounds, you disagree with the current design of damage/wound, which is honestly a fine opinion to have.

In the previous system, we had infantry at 1 wound, light vehicles at 2, MBT at 3, very heavy vehicles at 4. Anything above 4 was a Titanic model.

In this system, marines were fine at 1 wound, since they were infantry.

In the current system, we have infantry at 1 wound, light vehicles at 7,MBT at 12, heavy vehicles at 16, Titanic models from 18.

In this system you have more design space to differentiate between a "lighter" light vehicle like a sentinel and an "heavier" light vehicle like an ork buggy. One is 5 wounds the other is 9.

In the same way, you no longer have only one value for the infantry, but depending on how heavy is that infantry it can range from 1 to 4.
Light infantry at 1, medium infantry at 2, heavy infantry/bikers at 3, extremely heavy infantry at 4.

Marines are not light infantry, they are medium infantry so they are correctly values at 2 wounds.

It is a simple consequence of the new damage/wound system.

If they took away multi wounds for marines I could already hear the rage from vanilla chaos players, never having had the extra wound. GW, don't be so cruel at least let them have it for a month before you take it away in a balance patch.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
If they took away multi wounds for marines I could already hear the rage from vanilla chaos players, never having had the extra wound. GW, don't be so cruel at least let them have it for a month before you take it away in a balance patch.

So, the "Traitor Legions" treatment, only even shorter. Don't give gw ideas.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
We've returned to the anecdotal Tactical Marines are great arguments.

Balance changes are merely points on a circle, FAQs simply push the game back to it's origin.

TACs are never very good and always the best there is. As are all units.

The Munitorum Field Manual is a lie.

Well, I think 2wound Marines are fine and actually feel quite robust on the table. 3 wound gravis Melter and heavy Marines seem a little much though.

Yeah it's ultimately the case that the playerbase generally agrees that marines should be 6 times tougher than guardsmen. I think it's a bit much for a game the size of 40K to be tracking wounds like that on a normal infantry model but I've been assured it's all fine, and I believe that it is for those people.

In practice it's incredibly easy to track wounds on multi-wound infantry, as you can only allocate wounds to one model until it's dead.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
To focus on this, how would you define "handed out like crazy?" What would be a good example? To me, it seems like the problem is that regardless of how restrictive you get for special weapons, people will still take as many as they can.

As a Guard player, 5th Ed gave me as many AP3 pie plate Leman Russes as I could cram into a list, and changed hellguns (hot-shot lasguns) from AP5 lasguns into AP3 lasguns. Overnight, the amount of AP3 I could fit in a list skyrocketed. There was also nothing stopping me from spamming plasma guns in all my infantry squads- which I had done and continued to do- and the new Orders system improved their effectiveness.

Over time there was an increase in AP3 weapons, even as GW also shuffled costs around to try to discourage things like the plasma spam I just mentioned. The problem was that when all the armies I faced were power armor except for the one Ork guy, I wasn't going to be taking flamers and grenade launchers, I was going to take plasma guns, and as many as I can fit. A take-all-comers list for me was an anti-Marine hard counter list, and making plasma guns more expensive just meant I took less other stuff.

Reducing the amount of AP3 available (the only reason I can fathom for hot-shots being AP3 is to specifically allow them to kill Marines) would be a decent first step, but the fact that everyone tailored against Sv3+ defensive profiles was a more systemic issue that could only be addressed by either increasing the diversity of armor profiles within the Marine army list, decreasing the proportion of Marine armies within the game space, and/or buoying up other factions to escape the playerbase being 75+% Marines.

Honestly it feels like the bigger issue is the covid release schedule has made GW's raging obsession over marines even more painful for the armies that don't have an update. 2W marines seem fine against updated armies, but man does it feel like an uphill battle for CSM/Tau. Spending 1CP to upgrade noise marines so they can 1 shot loyalist marines is incredibly satisfying while feeling like the right amount of "extra effort" required to obliterate elite infantry.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
The actual relevant point to the thread is that marines didn't feel "soft" because of basic rifles and light infantry. They felt soft because powerful weapons were handed out like candy, which brings us to the 9th edition solution of 2W, and how it largely boosts defensive capability against small arms, but the handed-out-like-candy anti-elite and anti-tank weapons will still pulverize them.

To focus on this, how would you define "handed out like crazy?" What would be a good example? To me, it seems like the problem is that regardless of how restrictive you get for special weapons, people will still take as many as they can.

In 5th edition access to high AP weapons blossomed wildly. From my own codex (Marines) the prime examples would be things like Sternguard(formerly Veterans) and Command Squads. In 4th ed, a Veterans squad was built just like a Tactical Squad, 1 Special 1 Heavy, but with the Veteran statline. For 5th, this unit became Sternguard, with access to not only AP3 bolters for every model, but the ability to take Combi-Plasma/Melta for every model. The unit went from 2 high AP weapons to 10. Combine that with Drop Pods and you enter the phase of alpha strike "erasure" units that can just appear on the table and annihilate stuff.

In addition to the problem of being units that concentrate high AP weapons, you now have a unit that devalues other units in the codex. "Why take Tacs when you can take Sternguard?" becomes a common question. The value of Tacs drops in comparison. Internal balance gets wonky.

Prior to 5th, there were some instances of units that could concentrate high AP, but these were often CC units, a.k.a. units that required more maneuvering to get into striking distance. Or units like Fire Dragons, lightly armored (4+) and requiring placement using on-table transports (rather than instantly appearing in the case of Drop Pods). Also Fire Dragons were still only half the potential shots per-model of plasma-Sternguard.

Edit:
Also 5th ed brought TLOS, making it waaaay easier to draw LOS between units. So more high AP, and less cover to avoid being shot by it.


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Spoletta wrote:
2W marines were not related to the increase in lethality of the game, they were related to the new damage/wound design.

If you disagree with marines having 2 wounds, you disagree with the current design of damage/wound, which is honestly a fine opinion to have.

In the previous system, we had infantry at 1 wound, light vehicles at 2, MBT at 3, very heavy vehicles at 4. Anything above 4 was a Titanic model.

How many wounds did Carnifexes have? 5 or 6? Riptides were . . . I forget. 6?

If marines intended for 2w in the new paradigm, why did it take a whole edition to do it, and why oh why are CSM still on 1?

Fexes were 4 wounds, and marines have always been 2 wounds (at least the ones not meant for squatting).

Spoletta wrote:
Fexes were 4 wounds, and marines have always been 2 wounds (at least the ones not meant for squatting).

CSM are for squatting then?

Pretty sure Carnifexes could get an extra wound at some point. 3rd-4th maybe? I dont have a nid codex from 5-7.

Edit: Confirmed Carnifexes could be 5w. Riptide was 5. Great Unclean one was 6.

@spoletta, it's not a terrible theory, but the issue is how much 2w marines harm the comparative efficacy all sorts of other infantry that has traditionally been able to inflict meaningful damage on them. Things like Scorpions, Genestealers, Banshees, and basic weapons like Shuriken Catapults and Gauss Flayers. And the idea that it should take 40 Guardsmen lasgun shots to down a Marine is just plain fan-fic silly, imo. Never mind the case where Marines are in cover for a 2+ save.

Like I've said before, there's a lot riding on GW for me when it comes to the Nid and Eldar codexes. They've already blasted Necrons further down the ranks of "elite".

I dunno man, I've been playing against my friends with marines for years and it wasn't till they had 2W that they themselves said they "feel" like marines now. So it's not only about my immersion but for my opponents as well.

I don't think I'd play my marines as much if they went back to 1W. They'd be too similar yet inferior to my Admech in my opinion

Same BS, same wounds but with the amount of ap they'd die at the same rate anyways.

Amazing how people here can simultaneously ask for a more granular game while also whining when GW proceeds to make steps doing so by giving Marines an extra wound to differentiate them both from less elite troop choices like guardsmen as well as from other more durable models like Orkz or Necrons.

 fraser1191 wrote:
I dunno man, I've been playing against my friends with marines for years and it wasn't till they had 2W that they themselves said they "feel" like marines now. So it's not only about my immersion but for my opponents as well.

Fair, but two counterpoints:

1: Marines in the "fluff", novels etc have inflated over the years. Its called "bolter porn" for a reason.

2: Go ask an Eldar player about their experience with Banshees, and if they "feel" like Banshees should feel. Or if even Shuriken Catapults "feel" how they should feel.


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 Void__Dragon wrote:
Amazing how people here can simultaneously ask for a more granular game while also whining when GW proceeds to make steps doing so by giving Marines an extra wound to differentiate them both from less elite troop choices like guardsmen as well as from other more durable models like Orkz or Necrons.

Sure seems like you might be putting words in my mouth. Not to mention differentiation can be achieved in numerous ways, but the game has been squashed down do "damage input" and "damage output".

 Insectum7 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Fexes were 4 wounds, and marines have always been 2 wounds (at least the ones not meant for squatting).

CSM are for squatting then?

Pretty sure Carnifexes could get an extra wound at some point. 3rd-4th maybe? I dont have a nid codex from 5-7.

Edit: Confirmed Carnifexes could be 5w. Riptide was 5. Great Unclean one was 6.

@spoletta, it's not a terrible theory, but the issue is how much 2w marines harm the comparative efficacy all sorts of other infantry that has traditionally been able to inflict meaningful damage on them. Things like Scorpions, Genestealers, Banshees, and basic weapons like Shuriken Catapults and Gauss Flayers. And the idea that it should take 40 Guardsmen lasgun shots to down a Marine is just plain fan-fic silly, imo. Never mind the case where Marines are in cover for a 2+ save.

Like I've said before, there's a lot riding on GW for me when it comes to the Nid and Eldar codexes. They've already blasted Necrons further down the ranks of "elite".

My point was about 6th and 7th, before those editions wounds for vehicles were not even a thing, and fexes were 4w in 6th and 7th.

Spoletta wrote:

Spoiler:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Fexes were 4 wounds, and marines have always been 2 wounds (at least the ones not meant for squatting).

CSM are for squatting then?

Pretty sure Carnifexes could get an extra wound at some point. 3rd-4th maybe? I dont have a nid codex from 5-7.

Edit: Confirmed Carnifexes could be 5w. Riptide was 5. Great Unclean one was 6.

@spoletta, it's not a terrible theory, but the issue is how much 2w marines harm the comparative efficacy all sorts of other infantry that has traditionally been able to inflict meaningful damage on them. Things like Scorpions, Genestealers, Banshees, and basic weapons like Shuriken Catapults and Gauss Flayers. And the idea that it should take 40 Guardsmen lasgun shots to down a Marine is just plain fan-fic silly, imo. Never mind the case where Marines are in cover for a 2+ save.

Like I've said before, there's a lot riding on GW for me when it comes to the Nid and Eldar codexes. They've already blasted Necrons further down the ranks of "elite".

My point was about 6th and 7th, before those editions wounds for vehicles were not even a thing, and fexes were 4w in 6th and 7th.

I believe there is a general consensus that those editions were "flawed".

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Even in 7th power armour based SM armies were much more competitive than the vast majority of the other factions.

All your comments make me think you don't actually remember what marine players brought in 7th. I'll remind you- it usually involved hundreds of points of individually bad but **free** units. It also tended to involve a lot of dogs. I played comp marines in 7th, and them being a powerful army didn't stop me from complaining about how terrible their rules were at every opportunity, because being stupid and anti-fun is a far worse sin than being ineffective. Power armour marines were only 'good' in the sense that they were essentially free. They got an organic transport with obsec that was more useful than the marines that brought it, and despite being on paper more expensive you only had to shell out for the combat squad. And the squad's only job was to cap points and die in place of something useful, being unfit for basically anything else.

A space marine that's effectively the price of a guardsman is probably good on the table but it's absolutely garbage for the game in every other respect.

This is par for the course even - Space Marines tend to be at least 'okay' in most editions, but actual bolter bitches have basically always been trash for pretty much the entire run of 40k's history. See also: CSM the unit.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Amazing how people here can simultaneously ask for a more granular game while also whining when GW proceeds to make steps doing so by giving Marines an extra wound to differentiate them both from less elite troop choices like guardsmen as well as from other more durable models like Orkz or Necrons.

Call me crazy, but I dont think OP actually wants a more granular game. If I had to guess, this guy is an "Old Editions Best!!!" poster who hasnt played much/any of the current eds.

I mean, heck, even Fantasy had more varied statlines inside the same army than 40k. You had elite units having more strenght or tougthenss and characters normally had outright better stats than normal stuff like empire captains with S4/T4.

And weapons there were much more simplified. Armor penetration was based in your strenght!

But 40k, the game of crazy space fantasy had for 90% of its existence, and with and infinitely more varied arsenals and weapons (From lasguns to tank plasma cannons), whole armies whose infantry had literally 2-3 profiles across the faction.

How would not be easy to just tailor agaisnt whole armies?

I'm not sure if Space Marines having a second wound even makes the game more granular anyway, considering it effected what is the most common stat line used across many factions. It's largely shifting the furniture.

 Galas wrote:
I mean, heck, even Fantasy had more varied statlines inside the same army than 40k. You had elite units having more strenght or tougthenss and characters normally had outright better stats than normal stuff like empire captains with S4/T4.

And weapons there were much more simplified. Armor penetration was based in your strenght!

But 40k, the game of crazy space fantasy had for 90% of its existence, and with and infinitely more varied arsenals and weapons (From lasguns to tank plasma cannons), whole armies whose infantry had literally 2-3 profiles across the faction.

How would not be easy to just tailor agaisnt whole armies?

So I've never played Fantasy, so I couldn't really be sure, but one theory in response to what you're saying is that the weapons regularly deployed in 40k are far more powerful than those of Fantasy. Like a S8 in 40k might be 4 times as powerful as a S8 in 40k. Covering a higher range of power with the same digits means that the range on the lower end gets squashed.

But again, theres more ways to differentiate between models than toughness, wounds, save etc. And there are previous editions have managed it pretty well, even when using vastly different philosophies.

I'm saying that 40k was always designed to be extremely easy to just "solve", offensively speaking.

You had a ton of variety in your weapon options and profiles but not really that much variety in your defensive profiles. I'm not talking about other stuff like making armeis play different with morale etc...

But in 40k, for all editions, in general, your only relevant targets would be:
-Cheap crap to kill hordes (or templates or flamers or stuff that ignores cover but really it wasn't that neccesary to go full spec to kill cheap light infantry)
-Kill marines
-Kill vehicles (And most armies had one weapon profile that did excel at that job)

I can understand your point insectium. "As most guns are extremely deadly most infantry is the same because they nearly all die the same to them". At the end of the day when a leman russ battle cannon is shotting at you, does it really matteer if you are in power armour or IG infantry? You are gonna be blasted anyway.

But at the same time I believe thats just... too boring. But as I said, I'm more of a light walkers, infantry and bikers guy. I really don't... like vehicles that much. (Thats why I played fantasy more, more relevance for the lowly grunts. Even a dragon is not that far in power from a knight than a heavy tank from a futuristic soldier)

EDIT: I'll add that I'm talking 5th onward. I never played 1-4, but I played fantasy and MESBG much more.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
I dunno man, I've been playing against my friends with marines for years and it wasn't till they had 2W that they themselves said they "feel" like marines now. So it's not only about my immersion but for my opponents as well.

Fair, but two counterpoints:

1: Marines in the "fluff", novels etc have inflated over the years. Its called "bolter porn" for a reason.

2: Go ask an Eldar player about their experience with Banshees, and if they "feel" like Banshees should feel. Or if even Shuriken Catapults "feel" how they should feel.

If marines have been "over exaggerated" for years wouldn't that now be the norm or general idea making them what they are now?

For what it's worth I don't think Banshees are very immersive, same with shurikens.
When I saw the new rules back when the new kit came out I wasn't too impressed. If there are newer rules I don't know them, but I also haven't been looking.

But this isn't about Banshees and my answer is that they're pretty meh in the immersion corner anyway.

So what's your point? Because Banshees a unit I assume we both agree could use some lovin is underwhelming and therefore marines should also be?

I feel that 2w marines are fine, but that the lack of faction identity for so many other factions has made it feel off.
As well as other elites being left rather outclassed in defence and marines taking so much identity from other factions.

I don’t think it feels good now.

 Ventus wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Even in 7th power armour based SM armies were much more competitive than the vast majority of the other factions.

All your comments make me think you don't actually remember what marine players brought in 7th. I'll remind you- it usually involved hundreds of points of individually bad but **free** units. It also tended to involve a lot of dogs. I played comp marines in 7th, and them being a powerful army didn't stop me from complaining about how terrible their rules were at every opportunity, because being stupid and anti-fun is a far worse sin than being ineffective. Power armour marines were only 'good' in the sense that they were essentially free. They got an organic transport with obsec that was more useful than the marines that brought it, and despite being on paper more expensive you only had to shell out for the combat squad. And the squad's only job was to cap points and die in place of something useful, being unfit for basically anything else.

A space marine that's effectively the price of a guardsman is probably good on the table but it's absolutely garbage for the game in every other respect.

This is par for the course even - Space Marines tend to be at least 'okay' in most editions, but actual bolter bitches have basically always been trash for pretty much the entire run of 40k's history. See also: CSM the unit.

There weren't just vanilla marines with free stuff in 7th. Vanilla marines had other powerful tools: grav spam, invisibility, the skyhammer formation, meltas out of drop pods, etc...

Then we had immortal Dark Angels bikes with re-rollable invuln saves that regularly competed with the top tiers, we had Space Wolves with lots of wulfen and thunderwolves that regularly competed with the top tiers.

So no, it wasn't just marines with free vehicles in 7th.