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ccs wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Every core infantry unit is hit hard with 2w Marines. Even Marines, since their Bolters only do 1w. Remember all that complaining about "bolters feel useless"? Well it's that, except across the board for basic infantry of all factions.

I can't say that I've noticed this much with my Necrons.
Within my core infantry my space-robot skelies have plenty of shots with enough AP &/or plenty of melee attacks with plenty+ of AP to get the job done.
I carve through 2w SMs just fine.
And with this recent Balance update? Now I have more core.

When talking about the Necron Warrior I'd say that comes down primarily to two things. The first is that Warriors have dropped in value in comparison to SM over the years, so you can field more in comparisson. The second is that you have higher AP guns now. Your core unit has increased in num-shots (because ^num-bodies) and AP in relation to Marines. Individually though, they've still lost ground.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 the_scotsman wrote:
lol. I straight up forgot you guys' particular Grog of Choice is 4th edition, which I played maybe 3 games of before 5e dropped.

Sure, whatever, it's probably the best one ever, perfect in every way and the unwashed idiot masses just cant recognize its genius.

Who cares. Honestly, I'm a bit sick of this gak, i'm gonna just put the Old Ed Best Ed crew on block for a few weeks.

Well that's a shame.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have seen you explain the op gak from 5-7, but can you share your memories of what you had problems with in 4th?

A lot of core rules made for some strange interactions.. Nearly all of them involve skimmers in some form. You had the classic Tau Fish of Fury which allowed for Tau to use their transports to block for their ranged units but then fire back with impunity on their turn. 4th edition Eldar Skimmers were a nightmare at the time with some combination of wargear that made them nearly unkillable compared to any other armor ingame.

Yeah, I have mentioned before the 'unkillable skimmers' problem, but that has very little to do with the price of tea in China when people are talking about 40k lethality.

"Lethality has always been high!"
"What about 4th?"
"Well in 4th you couldn't kill certain skimmers!"

...

If the problem is "a class of unit is overpoweringly durable" then it probably wasn't too lethal

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, I have mentioned before the 'unkillable skimmers' problem, but that has very little to do with the price of tea in China when people are talking about 40k lethality.

"Lethality has always been high!"
"What about 4th?"
"Well in 4th you couldn't kill certain skimmers!"

...

If the problem is "a class of unit is overpoweringly durable" then it probably wasn't too lethal

It's been many years since my last game of 4th. Refresh my memory as to what this supposedly unkillable skimmer was.

ccs wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, I have mentioned before the 'unkillable skimmers' problem, but that has very little to do with the price of tea in China when people are talking about 40k lethality.

"Lethality has always been high!"
"What about 4th?"
"Well in 4th you couldn't kill certain skimmers!"

...

If the problem is "a class of unit is overpoweringly durable" then it probably wasn't too lethal

It's been many years since my last game of 4th. Refresh my memory as to what this supposedly unkillable skimmer was.

Off the top of my head it was something like Penetrating hits got reduced to Glances, and then a wargear upgrade forced the attacking player to roll 2D6 for the damage effect, but only the lowest die roll took effect, (which likely meant Shaken or Stunned), and then Eldar also had a bit of wargear (Spirit Stones?) which allowed them to ignore the effects on Shaken/Stumned on a 4+. I'm sure that's not entirely accurate, but it was something like that.

There were some other interesting skimmer rules, like they didn't block LOS, and you could only hit them on a 6 in CC, those weren't really problem areas though. The Eldar Super-serpent or whatever was a bit of a pain, but very specific.

Yeah, I have "fond" memories of playing footslogging orks and having to slog around on foot trying to "catch" eldar skimmers that were faster than me, could fly over me, and were basically impossible to kill with shooting. You had to hope to immobilise and then kill them in CC unless you were running lists specifically designed with max rokkits and the like.

It wasn't super fun. Every edition has had it's problems, but I certainly agree that 4e's problem wasn't lethality. Just the usual codex merry go round that left some armies in the cold and others powered up beyond belief. But that's 40K, isn't it? Never been any different as long as I've been involved.

Basically correct.

Any skimmer that moved more than 6" from it's starting location could only be glanced. The glancing hits table was fairly generous (vehicles only destroyed on a 6). Some Eldar skimmers could get Holofields, which forced the attacker to roll 2d6 and pick the lowest for damage.

Spirit Stones turned Stunned (can't move or shoot) into Shaken (can't shoot) which meant you couldn't stop the skimmer from moving without rolling a 5 (immobilized) as your lowest dice.

Now, immobilizing a moving skimmer destroyed it, and some weapons (mostly Forge World AA mounts) ignored the *Skimmers Moving Fast* rule, so it wasn't AS nightmarish, but not everyone had access to those weapons and if you relied entirely on melee, good luck catching the skimmer.

As I remember, it was luckily not that common to face those but I tended to run into at least one per tournament, and it was always the toughest fight.

But as I say, I see that more as an Eldar codex issue, not a core rules issue. The problems in 40K are always and have always primarily been codex issues, with the possible exception of 6/7e where the game started to collapse under the weight of it's own core rules bloat.

Right, and I admit that the Holofields wargear was a problem in 4th.

But in general, the overall lethality of the edition was quite low, and you didn't get this "Marines melt like plastic under a blowtorch" effect, even though they had one wound.

So to wrap it back around to the point of the thread, it is possible to have 1w Marines feel like Marines, but there were two problems with that:

1) their prevalence in the meta (even in 4th) meant that people erred on taking Marine-splatting weaponry where available. (It just wasn't that available compared to later. But plasma guns trumped Flamers, and Multi-Lasers trumped Heavy bolters since wounding Marines on 2s was better than penetrating 4+ armor or worse)

2) the escalating lethality of subsequent editions meant that Marine-splatting weaponry was EVERYWHERE and they increasingly began to get scooped off the table in droves.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, I have "fond" memories of playing footslogging orks and having to slog around on foot trying to "catch" eldar skimmers that were faster than me, could fly over me, and were basically impossible to kill with shooting. You had to hope to immobilise and then kill them in CC unless you were running lists specifically designed with max rokkits and the like.

Hilariously, when searching for 4th edition problems on google, I found a post by you, here on dakka, saying essentially the same during 4th edition.

The other obvious problem besides skimmers in that editions seems to have been rolling consolidates.

I couldn’t remember when they fixed that, but do recall the days where once melee hit your lines, it would just devour your army, jumping from one to the next. And when if one model moved, the squad counted as moving, falling back to avoid it would hose all your heavy weapons.

 Nevelon wrote:
I couldn’t remember when they fixed that, but do recall the days where once melee hit your lines, it would just devour your army, jumping from one to the next. And when if one model moved, the squad counted as moving, falling back to avoid it would hose all your heavy weapons.

In 3rd was the "armies roll each other up in combat"

In 4th you could consolidate into combat, but you didn't fight that combat until the next round.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I couldn’t remember when they fixed that, but do recall the days where once melee hit your lines, it would just devour your army, jumping from one to the next. And when if one model moved, the squad counted as moving, falling back to avoid it would hose all your heavy weapons.

In 3rd was the "armies roll each other up in combat"

In 4th you could consolidate into combat, but you didn't fight that combat until the next round.

So still stuck in, but not instant death. I recall some provision for the unit that was consolidated into being able to fire, but might be misremembering.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I couldn’t remember when they fixed that, but do recall the days where once melee hit your lines, it would just devour your army, jumping from one to the next. And when if one model moved, the squad counted as moving, falling back to avoid it would hose all your heavy weapons.

In 3rd was the "armies roll each other up in combat"

In 4th you could consolidate into combat, but you didn't fight that combat until the next round.

So still stuck in, but not instant death. I recall some provision for the unit that was consolidated into being able to fire, but might be misremembering.

That was also 3rd, in 4th both sides were locked in combat, but the side that consolidated didn't count as charging (so the other side could reinforce their side in the combat on the next player turn and actually make that consolidation-into-combat a costly mistake).

 Jidmah wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, I have "fond" memories of playing footslogging orks and having to slog around on foot trying to "catch" eldar skimmers that were faster than me, could fly over me, and were basically impossible to kill with shooting. You had to hope to immobilise and then kill them in CC unless you were running lists specifically designed with max rokkits and the like.

Hilariously, when searching for 4th edition problems on google, I found a post by you, here on dakka, saying essentially the same during 4th edition.

The other obvious problem besides skimmers in that editions seems to have been rolling consolidates.

Hahaha, that got an actual laugh out loud from me. Jeez. Must have been right around when I started posting on Dakka.

I want to also give a special shout out to 4th for being arguably the last editon before GW started giving Space Marines absolutely everything. The SM rosters really began to balloon in 5th when the non-vanilla Marine books got their own full codexes.

Also stuff like, xenos factions could have nice things on pretty regular models. Tau Broadsides could have S10 Railguns, for example. Necrons had a number of teleportation abilities and Destroyers could be wicked fast.

4th edition has a lot to offer with a few quick house rules. Ex. banning holofields; maybe changing Rending to wound rolls instead of hit rolls like in 5th. 4th had improved melee consolidation rules over 3rd edition, more realistic terrain rules versus "true line of sight" (no shooting at exposed gun barrels, antennae, models' feet, etc.), and vehicles actually needed to play smart and seek cover if possible to avoid penetrating hits (vs. 5th edition's "parking lot" table setups where vehicles had little to fear).

TBH i always thought marines should have 2 wounds. I mean just reading thru the lore on all the implants and surgeries they have to go thru to become a marine means they should have enough scar tissue to constitute a second wound all by itself.

Seriously, second heart, better blood, "larraman cells", etc al makes them being one wound seem wrong.

Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?

Don't see why not. I really think the game needs to go in one of two ways. Simplify down all the rules.

Or just multiply all the points values by 10. 20000pt games.

2w space marines cost their 150 or so points each. Ork Boyz can coat something else with their 2w's, and be appropriately balanced against the rest of the game with a higher granularity of points costs. Basically so a model can exist between other models.

(Not real numbers just an example)
Guardsmen cost 5 points. Grots cost 4. Where does a cultist go?
Guardsmen cost 50, grots cost 40. More space to balance a cultists or something between those values.

 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?

Yes and no.

T5 is not a good representation of Ork durability, but it is an expedient one. Their durability would be far better represented via a FNP style save, but that would add tons of dice rolling to the game as Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. W2 would also do it, but then that's something else to keep track on with every unit. T5 is an imperfect method, but the quickest way to represent their durability.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?

Yes and no.

T5 is not a good representation of Ork durability, but it is an expedient one. Their durability would be far better represented via a FNP style save, but that would add tons of dice rolling to the game as Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. W2 would also do it, but then that's something else to keep track on with every unit. T5 is an imperfect, but the quickest way to represent their durability.

Well that and the fact that with all the D2+ weapons floating around it would be functionally useless since you know GW would make it a 6+ FNP save. Hey I killed 10 of your orkz with these heavy bolters, now go roll 20 dice in sets of 2 and hope for a double 6.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?

Yes and no.

T5 is not a good representation of Ork durability, but it is an expedient one. Their durability would be far better represented via a FNP style save, but that would add tons of dice rolling to the game as Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. W2 would also do it, but then that's something else to keep track on with every unit. T5 is an imperfect, but the quickest way to represent their durability.

Ok, so just to poke the bear, why not Marines at T5 then? Instead of 2w.

I already said why: It's expedient for Orks because Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. With Marines, there aren't as many of them. It's not as big a chore to keep track of W2 (or FNP, for that matter) when you have a lower model count army.

This is why Death Guard should have kept their FNP.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I already said why: It's expedient for Orks because Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. With Marines, there aren't as many of them. It's not as big a chore to keep track of W2 (or FNP, for that matter) when you have a lower model count army.

This is why Death Guard should have kept their FNP.

Well from what I've heard there are more Marines in Marine armies than there are Orks in Ork armies these days.

And you can make Guard armies with no infantry and Chaos Marine armies with no Chaos Marines. Doesn't make that the norm.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And you can make Guard armies with no infantry and Chaos Marine armies with no Chaos Marines. Doesn't make that the norm.

I think my lists are probably the heaviest in terms of model count for ork boyz right now, and I run 30 trukk boyz in 3 separate detachments and the only reason I run them at all is because I want 3 warbosses and I can take them as a Speshulist mob. If I had to take them as regular boyz I wouldn't take them at all and I would just take the CP hit.

The Revenant wrote:
TBH i always thought marines should have 2 wounds. I mean just reading thru the lore on all the implants and surgeries they have to go thru to become a marine means they should have enough scar tissue to constitute a second wound all by itself.

Seriously, second heart, better blood, "larraman cells", etc al makes them being one wound seem wrong.

Ok sure, if Necron warriors had 2 wounds and regained their 2+ save.

The issue is that GW is giving Astartes 2W to encourage the power fantasy and sell models, not to faithfully represent the background.

Hecaton wrote:

The Revenant wrote:
TBH i always thought marines should have 2 wounds. I mean just reading thru the lore on all the implants and surgeries they have to go thru to become a marine means they should have enough scar tissue to constitute a second wound all by itself.

Seriously, second heart, better blood, "larraman cells", etc al makes them being one wound seem wrong.

Ok sure, if Necron warriors had 2 wounds and regained their 2+ save.

The issue is that GW is giving Astartes 2W to encourage the power fantasy and sell models, not to faithfully represent the background.

Eh. Respectfully, I feel like you might not be factoring in the thematics of those units.

Necron warriors these days make up the "endless skeletal horde" side of the necron aesthetic. They're the mob of bodies that encircle our protagonists and keep the necrons from feeling like a finite threat. You can knock them down relatively easily (for necrons), but they knit back together and just keep coming (represented by warriors having better RP than other 'crons). (Now giving immortals some tougher stats is a conversation we could have.)

And conversely, being an "army of heroes" is kind of baked into the theme of marines. We joke about plot armor, but having action movie protagonist levels of durability is part of marines' "thing." Having 2W goes a long way towards capturing that theme. Every army in 40k is some sort of power fantasy. Durability happens to be part of that fantasy for marines.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

The Revenant wrote:
TBH i always thought marines should have 2 wounds. I mean just reading thru the lore on all the implants and surgeries they have to go thru to become a marine means they should have enough scar tissue to constitute a second wound all by itself.

Seriously, second heart, better blood, "larraman cells", etc al makes them being one wound seem wrong.

Ok sure, if Necron warriors had 2 wounds and regained their 2+ save.

The issue is that GW is giving Astartes 2W to encourage the power fantasy and sell models, not to faithfully represent the background.

Eh. Respectfully, I feel like you might not be factoring in the thematics of those units.

Necron warriors these days make up the "endless skeletal horde" side of the necron aesthetic. They're the mob of bodies that encircle our protagonists and keep the necrons from feeling like a finite threat. You can knock them down relatively easily (for necrons), but they knit back together and just keep coming (represented by warriors having better RP than other 'crons). (Now giving immortals some tougher stats is a conversation we could have.)

And conversely, being an "army of heroes" is kind of baked into the theme of marines. We joke about plot armor, but having action movie protagonist levels of durability is part of marines' "thing." Having 2W goes a long way towards capturing that theme. Every army in 40k is some sort of power fantasy. Durability happens to be part of that fantasy for marines.

Yeah that's more or less what Hecaton said. The game has eroded to pander to the Space Marine power fantasy. The background apparently has to. It's lame.

There's a reason why I dropped Necrons from my armies of interest, and don't play them anymore. I liked them when the basic Warrior was valued higher than a Marine, even as an automaton.