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I was thinking marines should be 2W since... 5th edition? I pretty much always felt that should happen. I can understand SOME disparity between fluff and gameplay but it was pretty absurd.

Now if they could just nerf basic human stats to S2/T2...

In my view it's the background that got out of hand but it's been a long time that way so I've accepted it now.

The background isn't out of hand when you read everyones background. It's all propaganda. EVERYONE has the most lethal weapons and the best troops. Everyone.

The SM are not tougher or more deadly then everyone else. They just have the same propaganda.

The disconnect is when the rules actually made them better.

SM need all their enhancements just to fight on an even playing field with all the crazy threats of the superior to human threats in the galaxy. Nids are bigger than human bio weapons designed with redundant organs and purpose built to kill. Orks are a species literally bred for toughness and killing. Deamons. Nuff said. Necrons are self repairing mechanical monstrosities that are responsible not just for winning the war in heaven, a conflict that makes the Horus Heresy look like a couple children fighting over candy, but they actually killed, not broke, but killed, a C'tan and whos basic guns destroy the atomic bonds in all mater. The Eldar have tech, reflexes, and training that exceeds what the SM are capable of.

It's really only Imperial Guard and Tau that on a model to model basis shouldn't be on a near even footing with the SM.

Any fluff disconnect anyone has is because they haven't been reading enough fluff.

Really the same as every single thing in the lore never fearing anything because they were made that way/have no emotions/are fear incarnate/are expendable appendages an ancient entity beyond fear/are zealots/fight and die for fun/have a gun pointed at their head/have already seen it comming. However, in a galaxy full of bad-ass action heroes, we somehow still get a mechanism for models or units running away every single edition

Anyone who thinks that a troop which can be consistently fielded in a single world in numbers greater than there are Space Marines in the entire galaxy has ever been or even should be portrayed as overall superior one on one is either incredibly biased or frankly delusional.

Space Marine basic troops are superior to every faction in the galaxy's with the exception of the Custodes, Chaos Marines, and both flavors of Knights. Maybe also the Harlequins.

A Necron tomb world can have billions of Necron warriors. Over a thousand times the amount of marines in the entire galaxy. If each warrior was superior to a marine the Necrons would be unbeatable in a firefight for the Imperium, which is bluntly and obviously not the case.

Which isn't to say that these armies can't have troops that can be on par with or superior to a basic marine, like Necron immortals, Ork Nobz, or Tyranid Warriors. I'm sympathetic to the idea that there should be more parity wit Marines, particularly concerning Necron immortals who I actually agree should be 2W and be just straight up tougher than a Tacmarine or Intercessor.

But you can't have your silver tide who fight as an overwhelming horde also be individually highly elite fighters who can take out marines one on one reliably. It doesn't work narratively without doing something idiotic like gutting the rest of the Necron army.

I think we're all forgetting the bigger picture that their current stat and d6 system is inherently limited, thus making attempts to make things "lore accurate" absolutely useless in the grand scheme. There just isn't enough variance in the game to accommodate the wide range of differences between every faction.

I mean, at what point did it ever make sense that a random human joe in the IG has the same physical stats as an Eldar? At what point in the wider lore does it make sense that an Eldar Shuriken Catapult has half the range of a Boltgun, but otherwaise hits just as hard?

2W marines makes some sense lore wise, giving them a leg up in survivability over regular humans, but then what about Orks? Members of their race are known to survive having their head chopped off! Have chunks of their brains blown out and keep fighting! Either of those would instantly kill a Marine. In that case, lore wise suggests that they are not only hardier (+1W at least) but also tougher to kill (+1T).

Then there's Tyranids. It has been stated time and again that their impossibly razor sharp claws can slice right through power armor. Should all Tyranid melee get AP-4?

Why can't a Necron Destroyer overkill a Landraider in one shot as seen in lore in their 4E codex? I'm sure everyone would love to see all Gauss weapons either cause permanent armor damage or ignore it entirely as they strip it away at the atomic level. They should also get +1W, +1T, and 2+ reanimation protocol as their ability to soak and ignore damage then stand up again even after being destroyed is a common aspect of their lore. The new Castus model even has a couple Necrons missing the lower half of their bodies and continuing to crawl to their enemy. I don't recall hearing about any nameless marines getting cut in half and continuing to fight - though it wouldn't actually surprise me if the Ultramarines had an example or two in random lore - much less happening many many times in their stories.

All inconsistencies aside, the most important part of any game is keeping it fun for all players. If you make a game unbalanced, someone will be upset. Sure, if things don't seem to match the lore, some lore fans will also be upset, but it is in the best interest of the game to ignore that in the favor of making things fun.

Try imagining how fun most FPS games would be if they made things as realistic as possible? Imagine a Battlefield or Call of Duty where there is no way to heal and there are no revives or checkpoints, a single bullet is enough to kill you if it hits right, surviving a hit can still take you out of the fight, you can bleed out if you don't tend to wounds, enemies can see just as good as you, sights are true to scale tiny and not necessarily sighted to you, you can't just scavenge ammo, weapons jam, etc. Sure, there's a niche crowd who would eat that up, but WH40k is no longer a niche crowd and GW very much intends for it not to be if their marketing actions for the last decade or so is any indication. That means they can't just make everything lore accurate and expect it to work. Not without a major overhaul of the entire game system. It's one of the reasons that fan made versions exist.

And for those of you who want to complain about lore accuracy anyway, I'd love to hear why your special army just happens to field all the rarest and most valuable relics, wargear, and artefacts that are usually closely guarded and kept only for use in times of great need. (I am staring very pointedly at the Relic Contemptor with Twin Volkite Culverins and other models in their army meta right now that are lore rarities like Russ Plasma Executioner.)

On that side note, I eagerly await Russ variants with macro plasma incinerators and heavy onslaught gatling cannons. They've already got weaker versions, might as well mount the new ones in their place. Russ are nothing if not dependably adaptable to new tech if the appearance of new variants in 5E is anything to go by.

That concludes my late night/early morning sleepy rant about 40k problems. Thanks for reading and taking this trip down memory lane with me!

Wyldhunt wrote:

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

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).



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 Void__Dragon wrote:
Anyone who thinks that a troop which can be consistently fielded in a single world in numbers greater than there are Space Marines in the entire galaxy has ever been or even should be portrayed as overall superior one on one is either incredibly biased or frankly delusional.

Space Marine basic troops are superior to every faction in the galaxy's with the exception of the Custodes, Chaos Marines, and both flavors of Knights. Maybe also the Harlequins.

A Necron tomb world can have billions of Necron warriors. Over a thousand times the amount of marines in the entire galaxy. If each warrior was superior to a marine the Necrons would be unbeatable in a firefight for the Imperium, which is bluntly and obviously not the case.

Which isn't to say that these armies can't have troops that can be on par with or superior to a basic marine, like Necron immortals, Ork Nobz, or Tyranid Warriors. I'm sympathetic to the idea that there should be more parity wit Marines, particularly concerning Necron immortals who I actually agree should be 2W and be just straight up tougher than a Tacmarine or Intercessor.

But you can't have your silver tide who fight as an overwhelming horde also be individually highly elite fighters who can take out marines one on one reliably. It doesn't work narratively without doing something idiotic like gutting the rest of the Necron army.

Nah, that's a big part of what makes Necrons scary. Moreover, I don't know if the numbers of Necrons are ever outright stated the way you imply they are.

Tyranid warriors are more than a match for an Astartes, the fact that the Tyranids can field billions of them doesn't break the setting. The reason why it doesn't is because they can be killed by things like a battle cannon - just like Necrons.

Fundamentally the reason Immortals don't have 2 wounds is that GW sees it as better for selling the Astartes power fantasy if all of the Necrons technology looks like gak compared to the Astartes' gear. Even the Deathwatch's stolen Necron gear has at various times been portrayed as better than the stuff the Necrons have themselves. There's no coherent thought behind it other than designating the Necrons as an NPC faction.

When an individual Necron warrior was a match for an individual Astartes the setting was in a better place and the armies had better thematics.

Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).

Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop? How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).

Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop? How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?

I think it may be extreme to think of necrons like that, but they are slower and more ponderous in automation.
With not every engagement being pitched in equality, and that allmost every battle for the imperium should be with at least some combination of different military groups.
It shouldn’t really be needed to make marines just so much better and awesome, with a big theme that they are brilliant military strategists as well.
The current theming of them actually tends to hinder there own themes.
Space marines sorta stopped being really crazy high tech special forces, and kinda slid into the just more badass super heroes.
And everyone else had to fall in line to make that work.

Hecaton wrote:

Nah, that's a big part of what makes Necrons scary. Moreover, I don't know if the numbers of Necrons are ever outright stated the way you imply they are.

The entire civilian population of the Necrontyr, a galaxy-spanning civilization, were converted to Necron warriors. We also know that Necron superweapons like the World Engine housed tens of thousands.

Necron warriors aren't as numerous as Ork boyz or Tyranid gaunts, but they would outnumber Marines in any given battlefield 1,000/1 or more.

Tyranid warriors are more than a match for an Astartes, the fact that the Tyranids can field billions of them doesn't break the setting. The reason why it doesn't is because they can be killed by things like a battle cannon - just like Necrons.

Can you show me where the Tyranids field "billions" of Tyranid Warriors?

And do the Tyranids not have their own heavy munitions or anti-tank to counteract the battle cannons? Because if they were fielding billions of Tyranid warriors in battles one would imagine all they'd have to do is neuter the enemy's artillery to effortlessly win every battle. Yet strangely I can't recall any fluff where billions of Tyranid warriors just 1v1 every space marine they come across. Strange, right?

Fundamentally the reason Immortals don't have 2 wounds is that GW sees it as better for selling the Astartes power fantasy if all of the Necrons technology looks like gak compared to the Astartes' gear. Even the Deathwatch's stolen Necron gear has at various times been portrayed as better than the stuff the Necrons have themselves. There's no coherent thought behind it other than designating the Necrons as an NPC faction.

Buddy I don't give a single gak about your thoughts on why GW does anything, nor does anybody else. Try to rein in your marine envy and stay on topic.

When an individual Necron warrior was a match for an individual Astartes the setting was in a better place and the armies had better thematics.

No, it's idiotic. If you believe it would be better for a horde of barely sentient robotic chaff to be the equal of the Imperium's best soldiers south of the Custodes despite the fact that said robotic chaff outnumbers the Astartes by many orders of magnitude you are simply wrong.Or, more accurately, you just really hate the Imperium in general and the Astartes in particular which, given your posting history, is very blatantly the case. But your own personal biases do not take precedence over what makes far better sense in the fluff, I'm sorry.


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Apple fox wrote:

I think it may be extreme to think of necrons like that, but they are slower and more ponderous in automation.

Yes, which is part of what makes them inferior to marines.

With not every engagement being pitched in equality, and that allmost every battle for the imperium should be with at least some combination of different military groups.

I deliberately brought up the World Engine because there were no other Imperial armies within it.

And so what? If Necron warriors were truly the equals of Space Marines they would have the best of both worlds, being able to crush their equal Marines with sheer weight of numbers while being able to easily mulch through hordes of guardsmen or whoever by virtue of being able to field troop deployments of at times comparable size while also consisting of at the baseline troops that rivaled the very best the Imperium could muster.

It shouldn’t really be needed to make marines just so much better and awesome, with a big theme that they are brilliant military strategists as well.

So you'd prefer the other factions just be dumber than marines?

The current theming of them actually tends to hinder there own themes.
Space marines sorta stopped being really crazy high tech special forces, and kinda slid into the just more badass super heroes.
And everyone else had to fall in line to make that work.

It would be more accurate to compare them to greek heroes, ala Achilles from the Iliad.

And it is perfectly possible to portray other factions as competent and even having them defeat marines militarily without having their basic troop choices which outnumber them significantly being their betters.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).

Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop? How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?

I think (!) on a planetary scale it often comes down to the navy (which raises of course other questions regarding the Necron Navy, but lets ignore that for a while). Apart from that SM winning against any other faction can be attributed to "how much of that factions elite warriors can really be present?". I don't see a distinct problem in Tyranid Warriors being more or less on par with SM AND outnumbering them by far, if the SM usually fight more or less on their terms against comparable numbers of Warriors etc. If they face a superior number it should usually come down to the navy reducing them from orbit first or SM/Guard/AdMech Artillery wrecking havoc.
ANd fighting through the world engine etc. can always be attributted to SMs fighting a limited number of warriors at a time. I'm willing to believe 1000 Marines beating 100.000 warriors that are on par with them if it comes down to a series of battles all fought in numerical superiority (like against 100 Warriors) or for example with the help of tanks facing Warriors without heavy support.


EDIT: I might be confused: are Necron Warriors the really basic dudes or already the elites?

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Can you show me where the Tyranids field "billions" of Tyranid Warriors?

And do the Tyranids not have their own heavy munitions or anti-tank to counteract the battle cannons? Because if they were fielding billions of Tyranid warriors in battles one would imagine all they'd have to do is neuter the enemy's artillery to effortlessly win every battle. Yet strangely I can't recall any fluff where billions of Tyranid warriors just 1v1 every space marine they come across. Strange, right?

This is like the craziest post I've seen. What is even going on here?

Yes Tyranid Warriors will kill Space Marines, and yes they number in the billions. But wars aren't won by a series of duels.

feth warrior versus tac marines. The Anphelion project has a single regular genestealer use it's rending claws to slice through terminator armor as though it wasn't there.

A Carnifex with Scything Talons does the same to a Dread. It peels him open like a can of tuna.

Now granted, the rest of the marines shooting at him and the dread fighting it kill the Carnifex in the process. But it doesn't change what the One Carnifex does to the armor plating on a Dread with the most basic weapon the nids have.

The idea that Marines can't be killed by lower tier weapons is a weird one, though I'm not saying anyone here believes that, when I'm pretty sure there's lore of Lasguns taking out Chaos Marines, and i know for a fact that there's lore of human wielded Chainswords taking out Chaos Marines. Necrons fielded in the millions? Field Guard in the millions to billions. High tier Necrons there? Release the Scions/Space Marines/Ogryns/Tanks/Artillery. You shouldn't be able to fight on a Tomb World and have the advantage, in any scenerio. It's like saying Marines could go into the Warp and beat Daemons at their own game. You need to destroy the Tomb World, cut it off from its power, or just hope the rest don't wake up while you fight something more pressing.

The reason Necrons aren't unbeatable normally is because, when they're properly destroyed, it takes time to come back, and they're teleported to their home planet or fleet. Once they're gone, you can press your advantage.

I'm not too up on the 'new' Necron lore, but isn't the *point* of them that they're an undefeatable threat that will inevitably eradicate all other races in the galaxy? Much like the Tyranids and Daemons, and to a lesser extent the Orks.

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

Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

 the_scotsman wrote:

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

Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Right up to the point where one army uses all of them.

 the_scotsman wrote:

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

Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I'd say that requiring 20 lasgun shots to kill a marine out of cover is a bad thing. 40 for a marine in cover - even worse. We'll see how the Eldar and Nid books pan out, but Genestealers and Banshees aren't nearly as marine-killy as they should be.

I'd also say that boltguns having no benefit over lasguns when firing at Orks is a bad thing. That actually reduced a difference between troops.

Wyldhunt wrote:


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.)

This is what I hate about the setting right now. Necron warriors were never meant to be "Mob of bodies" or "Endless skeletal Horde". That is garbage and not even true in the fluff. The war in heaven is where Necrons became their current metal selves. They were fighting a war against the "old ones" and the old ones biggest army was....KRORKZ! Want to talk about endless horde, imagine current day orkz, except the weediest git is the size of Ghazkuul. Imagine an Army of Power armored Ghazkuuls running around the galaxy, and here is the kicker....THEY LOST. That's right, a galaxy of Ghazkuulz lost to the Necrons. And it wasn't because of an "endless Skeletal Horde" it was because the average Necron warrior was that ridiculously OP! So this nonsense where a Space Marine is 1v10ing a bunch of necrons is just stupid.

It’s a symptom of the principle in 40k where the more your faction is written for, the cooler it gets cause of the little Superman “power of the week” thing that goes on.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

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

Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I'd say that requiring 20 lasgun shots to kill a marine out of cover is a bad thing. 40 for a marine in cover - even worse. We'll see how the Eldar and Nid books pan out, but Genestealers and Banshees aren't nearly as marine-killy as they should be.

I'd also say that boltguns having no benefit over lasguns when firing at Orks is a bad thing. That actually reduced a difference between troops.

if only boltguns were fired by models with higher ballistic skill or better access to passive auras they'd still be better, or if they had some kind of bonus rules that gave them some additional stats like AP - but alas.


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 Lance845 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

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

Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Right up to the point where one army uses all of them.

There's room for a 'good at everything, downside = very elite' but not a ton of room. Which is why Custodes should stay a very, very limited model range, because they just arent that interesting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and to be clear - marines are not that. Their toughness stat is barely above average, and their wounds stat of '2' is not particularly high either. Marines have good save, low toughness, and low model count in general.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).

Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop? How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?

Because GW and Black Library is filled with Space Marine fan boys who write bolter porn on a regular basis and the idea of Humanity's saviors losing is as close to heresy as you can get Plus if you want to take a look at how terrible they are in mindset, look no further than Armageddon.

According to all the fluff, there were 50k Marines present and 1.5 Million Guardsmen who took on the greatest Ork army ever seen since the Beast. To put that into perspective, the US Military alone has about 1.4 Million Active duty Soldiers/sailors/airmen and Marines. They also have another 800k or so reserves. So one of the biggest wars ever in the 41st millenia was fought by fewer troops than just the current day US.

So if you are going to use 40k/black library fluff writers to accurately describe/use numbers and logistics you will ALWAYS be let down.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Anyone who thinks that a troop which can be consistently fielded in a single world in numbers greater than there are Space Marines in the entire galaxy has ever been or even should be portrayed as overall superior one on one is either incredibly biased or frankly delusional.

If your argument is that anything scare must always be better than something that isn't scarce, then I guess the Valiant must be the best tank in the entire world (as one one was ever manufactured).

Marines having 2 wounds is literally double everyone else's. They also come with T4 and 5 being easy enough to get, a 3+ save, with 2+ not being difficult to get, and invul saves available.

SM 100% are the guys doing all of them. Compare them to ANY xenos army and you will see how everyone else gets 1 or 2 of the toughness stats and SM regularly get 3 and sometimes 4.

Just because custodes do it all better doesn't mean SM isn't doing it.

Also going to point out here how despite orks being t5, their invuln save went from a 5++ to a 6 ++.
Because of the wounding system lasguns shred orks better despite them going up in points .

Don't Tyranid warriors have T4 and W3?

I think that's a bit nuts, and for 21 ppm? Absurd! Takes two overcharged plasma shots!

All kidding aside I'm a big fan of Tyranid warriors being how they are. It's different and unique. But seems like everyone harps on marines being W2 but warriors being W3 is just fine.

 fraser1191 wrote:
Don't Tyranid warriors have T4 and W3?

I think that's a bit nuts, and for 21 ppm? Absurd! Takes two overcharged plasma shots!

All kidding aside I'm a big fan of Tyranid warriors being how they are. It's different and unique. But seems like everyone harps on marines being W2 but warriors being W3 is just fine.

Yes. With 4+ save and no invul coming with a higher price tag.

SM again, lower price. Same T, 2w, 3+ save. Thats just tacs.

1 in 3 wounds that get through SM T will make it through their save. 1 in 2 will make it through the warriors.

One of these has more of the survivability toys than the other and pays less to do it.

fraser:It might seem like that, but as this thread demonstrates, the majority of posters prefer 2W marines.

The majority of players also play space marines, and probably don’t want their toys brought back in line

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

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

Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I'd say that requiring 20 lasgun shots to kill a marine out of cover is a bad thing. 40 for a marine in cover - even worse. We'll see how the Eldar and Nid books pan out, but Genestealers and Banshees aren't nearly as marine-killy as they should be.

I'd also say that boltguns having no benefit over lasguns when firing at Orks is a bad thing. That actually reduced a difference between troops.

if only boltguns were fired by models with higher ballistic skill or better access to passive auras they'd still be better, or if they had some kind of bonus rules that gave them some additional stats like AP - but alas.

Wait do loyalist space marine bolters actually work?