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Spoletta wrote:
Or maybe don't go into a game armed only with lasguns?

Let me know when you've finished torching that strawman and we can get back to actually having a discussion.

Spoletta wrote:
If you run into a parking lot and you didn't bring any AT, do you blame the rules?

This argument makes no sense.

Neither I no anyone else here was complaining that my anti-infantry weapons couldn't hurt tanks.

The complaint is that my anti-infantry weapons are hopelessly ineffective even against the most basic infantry units in Marine armies.

I think when I bring anti-infantry weapons, but those weapons are useless against infantry because said infantry has been stupidly over-buffed to live up to Marine bolter-porn, then it is not unreasonable of me to blame the rules for that.

To further iterate on the background-to-game design thing, particularly in light of the thread topic, the thing that is MOST IMPORTANT TO BALANCE to me is how the tabletop scenario unfolds if two units go up against each other in various scenarios.

If 10 Genestealers get the drop and ambush 10 Marines, how does that unfold?

If 10 Dire Avengers are in a ranged firefight with 10 Marines, how does that unfold?

If 10 Guardsmen run into 10 Marines in a dark alley, how does that unfold?

Imo those are the sorts of things the game would ideally be balanced around.

Since the only one the game models is the second one (which varies wildly from earlier editions to later editions), they seem like bad examples. That #1 and #3 are also auto-wins doesn't help.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Voss wrote:

An emphasis on setting emulation over game design is part of what keeps this game kind of gakky, rules-wise. Its a driver for intentional imbalance and favored factions.

It's a problem only when they're favoring factions, which is my whole beef at the moment. But that's not an intrinsic fault of "designing to the universe", it's a fault of the degradation of that universe over time, the "bolter porn" paradigm. GW needs to either make the game match their universe more, or fix their universe and reverse the gradual slide into "marines uber alles!"

Except that hasn't been a gradual slide, which is why I provided the intro and the exact quote. Its literally a design principle of the game, and has been for 30+ years. Marines are, according to the setting, simply better. That's extremely consistent, to the point that GW tries (though with a high degree of failure) to 'fix it' when the rules don't actually work out that way. It really is a fault of designing to this particular universe, because this theoretically 'all comers' wargame is actually intended to be unfair to people who don't play the right faction.

And that's crap for game design.

 vipoid wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Or maybe don't go into a game armed only with lasguns?

Let me know when you've finished torching that strawman and we can get back to actually having a discussion.

Spoletta wrote:
If you run into a parking lot and you didn't bring any AT, do you blame the rules?

This argument makes no sense.

Neither I no anyone else here was complaining that my anti-infantry weapons couldn't hurt tanks.

The complaint is that my anti-infantry weapons are hopelessly ineffective even against the most basic infantry units in Marine armies.

I think when I bring anti-infantry weapons, but those weapons are useless against infantry because said infantry has been stupidly over-buffed to live up to Marine bolter-porn, then it is not unreasonable of me to blame the rules for that.

No strawman there, you were the one rising that point.
You are not going to get a 1/3 return on marines for the same reason that your lasguns will not get a 1/3 return on a Rhino.
They are not the right weapon for that job.

Lasguns are anti light infantry. Marines are mid-heavy infantry. Don't expect them to work efficienty (i.e. 1/3 return).
Lasguns are good into other guards, gaunts, guardians, wytches, kabalites, boyz, skiitari and sisters.
They are not the weapon to be used on heavier infantry. You got plasma, heavy bolters and similar weapons for that job.
Complaining that your lasguns can't kill marines efficiently is like complaining that your lasguns are not efficient AT.
The fact that in previous editions MEQ and even TEQ folded to a spam of low level attacks, was a flaw of those editions. The d6 system could not handle that kind of defensive profile. There was no way to make things feel more durable without increasing the wound stat.

So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

What should their role be?

Voss wrote:
Since the only one the game models is the second one (which varies wildly from earlier editions to later editions), they seem like bad examples. That #1 and #3 are also auto-wins doesn't help.

If they're auto-wins, "auto-win by how much" is the relevant question. In 2nd, Genestealers would win in one round and take no casualties. In 9th. . . maybe stealers win? They certainly lose a lot more than they used to. Which version reflects the background?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

Except that hasn't been a gradual slide, which is why I provided the intro and the exact quote. Its literally a design principle of the game, and has been for 30+ years. Marines are, according to the setting, simply better. That's extremely consistent, to the point that GW tries (though with a high degree of failure) to 'fix it' when the rules don't actually work out that way. It really is a fault of designing to this particular universe, because this theoretically 'all comers' wargame is actually intended to be unfair to people who don't play the right faction.

Marines have not been "consistently better" until very late in the game, imo. As I've pointed out numerous times, Necron Warriors were valued higher than Marines up until about very late 4th edition. The example you gave, the Compilation, was releasing Banshees that utterly murdered Marines. Murdered Terminators, even. The slow degradation is VERY clear when you look at things like Shuriken Catapults.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
Marines being A1 was always a joke. Like, I almost always made fun of space marine players when I got into combat with their stuff in 7e and they got to swing before me, like "cmon, finest soldiers of the imperium, do your stuff! Oooooh, only 11 attacks huh?"

Just a quick question: do you think the number of attacks defines how "fine" a soldier is? Is it possible to have infantry that are good but also only have 1 attack per model?

It's a genuine question, as I think there's some element of the game designers themselves forgetting what their abstractions mean. The "number of attacks" a model makes has very little to do with whether or not it is a good soldier; conversely, some of the worst troopers in the game had plenty of attacks back in the day (mutants/mutant brutes).

I think there's a general trend in modern 40k that "elite" armies aren't elite because they're well trained and equipped, but rather because they have excellent statlines and biggo numbers. It's an interesting shift, and I think largely provoked by how gakky 40k's 8th edition rules were at handling things other than "kill the enemy and be killed." If all that matters is how well you kill people, it's hard to feel elite without biggo numbers. And to an extent, 40k has always had this problem, but it's a good bit worse now than it used to be, imho. At least back in the day, it was things like leadership and unique ways of commanding your troops on the board that made Marines feel unique and elite by comparison to other factions.

...Are we now making the claim that "dangerous in close combat, really difficult to kill, and powerful in ranged combat" are not core identifiers of what is a space marine?

They are, but it becomes a question of "dangerous to what".

To a mortal human? Even a 1 attack space marine is an angel of death.

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...

 the_scotsman wrote:

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...

Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.

 the_scotsman wrote:
3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...

It takes just over three attacks to kill a GEQ from ordinary Marine attacks (S4, no AP, hitting on a 3+).

So a squad of 5 Tacticals on the charge kill 2.37 (from the four regular guys) plus 1.11 (Chainsword Sarge) for about three and a half dead GEQ on the charge. Bear in mind, these are not joe-schmoe ordinary person. These are highly trained and well-equipped soldiers-not nearly as good as Marines, but still soldiers.

If those Marines charged a squad of 10 Guardsmen, the Guard get 8-9 attacks back. (5-6 ordinary survivors, one Sarge with Chainsword.) It takes them 36 attacks to kill one Marine, or 18 to at least wound one. We'll assume that the Guard don't take Morale... For whatever reason.

Due to how fighting works, Marines will fight first every turn, unless Counter Offensive or something is done. Those MEQ do lose 5 attacks in later turns, meaning they kill 1.19+.74=1.93 or about two more Guard next turn. The Guard get 6-7 more attacks, or not enough to even have wounded a Marine yet.

Running the math fully, you can expect to suffer about one wound on average. Or, to put another way, this 5-man Tactical squad can mulch through at least two Guard squads before suffering any casualties. Once a casualty is suffered, it'll snowball a bit, but still.

That's not necessarily a good POINTS exchange, since it takes a while to wipe the squad of Guard. But the point is, Marines are fully effective against Guardsmen in close combat.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...

Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.

Dudes with bayonets fighting a super-soldier in power armor?

I guess all I can say is...great? Glad theyre not good at bringing down marines in melee?

You can, of course, put them near a ministorum priest, and order them to fix bayonets, or you can equip the sergeant with a powerfist which has a roughly 50% chance of bringing a marine down in melee unbuffed, or make them catachans for +1s... and guardsmen have always had special and heavy weaponry designed to hurt marines.

It is NOT too difficult to table a marine army currently. it's as trivial as tabling any other army. I dont know, you can say 'ZOMG it takes THIS many of Model X ignoring all strats all bonuses all armywide rules all auras etc etc etc to kill a W2 marine' but all you have to do is watch one online batrep to watch an army full of those W2 marines getting hosed off the table to see how silly of a statement that is. Especially when you consider stratagems. "oh man genestealers used to rip through marines" dude, they still do, ridiculously easily. I can shovel 20 MEQ models off the table with 20 genestealers if I want to, because every genestealer can just have 8 attacks at will.

I'll ask again-what should a Lasgun-armed model do on the tabletop, if you're facing Marines?

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...

Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.

Dudes with bayonets fighting a super-soldier in power armor?

I guess all I can say is...great? Glad theyre not good at bringing down marines in melee?

You can, of course, put them near a ministorum priest, and order them to fix bayonets, or you can equip the sergeant with a powerfist which has a roughly 50% chance of bringing a marine down in melee unbuffed, or make them catachans for +1s... and guardsmen have always had special and heavy weaponry designed to hurt marines.

It is NOT too difficult to table a marine army currently. it's as trivial as tabling any other army. I dont know, you can say 'ZOMG it takes THIS many of Model X ignoring all strats all bonuses all armywide rules all auras etc etc etc to kill a W2 marine' but all you have to do is watch one online batrep to watch an army full of those W2 marines getting hosed off the table to see how silly of a statement that is. Especially when you consider stratagems. "oh man genestealers used to rip through marines" dude, they still do, ridiculously easily. I can shovel 20 MEQ models off the table with 20 genestealers if I want to, because every genestealer can just have 8 attacks at will.

Strats is gonna be your go-to? M'okay.

Tell me how these 20 Genestealers "shovel off" 20 Marines.

And you're still missing the greater point. I don't care that your army is able to shovel off marines. If Marines are showing up in a company sized tank engagement, I expect there to be weapons capable of removing even power armored super soldiers in rapid fashion. What I care about more is how the basic infantry interacts, because that's where a lot of the "drama" and "verisimilitude" is. My evidence is how much Marine players complained about the relationship of Marines to Guardsman in early 8th edition. Yes there were Manticores that dropped artillery on them, but the GEQ vs. MEQ is a fixture for a reason.

Not to mention...20 Genestealers. With 8 attacks apiece. Hitting on a 2+. All in combat with 20 Marines, with no wasted attacks (since few Marines can even take 20-men squads).

It's got good odds of wiping the Marines-just over 80%. Or, put another way, if you have Genestealers, buffed by a Broodlord and with twice their number of attacks, perfectly allocating their swings against MEQ... They'll still fail about 1/5 times to kill equal numbers.

Edit: I did not account for potentially dealing 2 damage with Toxin Sacs, though. That will increase your odds, but also the points cost.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Not to mention...20 Genestealers. With 8 attacks apiece. Hitting on a 2+. All in combat with 20 Marines, with no wasted attacks (since few Marines can even take 20-men squads).

It's got good odds of wiping the Marines-just over 80%. Or, put another way, if you have Genestealers, buffed by a Broodlord and with twice their number of attacks, perfectly allocating their swings against MEQ... They'll still fail about 1/5 times to kill equal numbers.

Edit: I did not account for potentially dealing 2 damage with Toxin Sacs, though. That will increase your odds, but also the points cost.

Ok so buffed Genestealers with a "fight twice" Strat is capable of doing maybe half of what Genestealers would just natively do in 2nd edition. If 5 Genestealers managed to contact 10 Marines during 2nd, those ten Marines were dead. I forget the numbers in 4th edition, but iirc Genestealers would do pretty solidly, since Rending was on 6s to hit.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

What should their role be?

They serve as a meat-shield for the Special Weapon and Heavy Weapon Team in the Infantry Squad. At 24" the damage average for IS models against Marines (T4 Sv 3+) is:

Lasgun: 0.055 (18 models per wound)

Grenade Launcher (Krak): 0.333 (3 models per wound)

Plasma gun: 0.277 (3.6 models per wound)

Plasma gun (Supercharge): 0.694 (1.44 models per wound)

Heavy Bolter: 1 (1 model per wound) [Plus a bonus Lasgun]

Autocannon: 0.667 (1 model per wound) [Plus a bonus Lasgun]

So if you want to kill Marine, you shouldn't take barebones Infantry Squads and instead include weapons that actually kill Marines.

For reference, a nice fluffy Infantry Squad of a Sergeant with Laspistol and Chainsword, 6 Lasguns Guardsmen, 1 Grenade Launcher Guardsman, and a Heavy Bolter Weapons Team does an average 1.72 wound to Marines at 24" and 2.16 Wounds at 12". Not breaking the bank, but a lot more than what you get from a barebones squad (0.5 W at 24" and 1.05 Wounds at 12").

Mayhaps we could approach this from another angle... what should the most common or desirable army of marines and army of guardsman look like? For comparisons sake. How many MEQ models should we see on the table, and how many GEQ should we see on the table? Toss each side a vehicle or two as well, or a few slots with bikes or dreadnoughts or whatever.
It is worth considering a point I heard before; that the models are better thought of as tokens rather than perfect representations of individuals because of the wonky scale of the models. The tanks are out of scale and the range of the weapons even more so. Does this have any bearing on the number you imagine being on the table?
How should the fight unfold on the tabletop?

 alextroy wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

What should their role be?

They serve as a meat-shield for the Special Weapon and Heavy Weapon Team in the Infantry Squad. At 24" the damage average for IS models against Marines (T4 Sv 3+) is:

Lasgun: 0.055 (18 models per wound)

Grenade Launcher (Krak): 0.333 (3 models per wound)

Plasma gun: 0.277 (3.6 models per wound)

Plasma gun (Supercharge): 0.694 (1.44 models per wound)

Heavy Bolter: 1 (1 model per wound) [Plus a bonus Lasgun]

Autocannon: 0.667 (1 model per wound) [Plus a bonus Lasgun]

So if you want to kill Marine, you shouldn't take barebones Infantry Squads and instead include weapons that actually kill Marines.

For reference, a nice fluffy Infantry Squad of a Sergeant with Laspistol and Chainsword, 6 Lasguns Guardsmen, 1 Grenade Launcher Guardsman, and a Heavy Bolter Weapons Team does an average 1.72 wound to Marines at 24" and 2.16 Wounds at 12". Not breaking the bank, but a lot more than what you get from a barebones squad (0.5 W at 24" and 1.05 Wounds at 12").

So 60% (70% if you count the Sergeant, since all he does is a Leadership buff) of my basic troop models should be basically worthless as anything other than meatshields?

Against a Space Marine? Yes! Occasionally they get lucky and manage to get a wound in, but mostly they just flashlight away. There is a reason they are so cheap in comparison.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So 60% (70% if you count the Sergeant, since all he does is a Leadership buff) of my basic troop models should be basically worthless as anything other than meatshields?

Haha, no obviously, since a Bolter is somehow no better at killing an Ork than a Lasgun is, you bring Lasguns to shoot Orks

Or shoot them at vehicles, since that's totally a thing in post-8th.

 alextroy wrote:
Against a Space Marine? Yes! Occasionally they get lucky and manage to get a wound in, but mostly they just flashlight away. There is a reason they are so cheap in comparison.

I feel like that just leads into the Rock Paper Scissors problem Space Marine armies have always dealt with: anything that isn't Anti-MEQ isn't really worth taking, everyone takes Anti-MEQ, MEQ loses out in the efficiency game against anything that isn't MEQ because everyone's taking Anti-MEQ than they're taking anything else.

I feel like this epiphany been realized in this thread seven or eight times in this thread alone.

the_scotsman wrote:Dudes with bayonets fighting a super-soldier in power armor?

I guess all I can say is...great? Glad theyre not good at bringing down marines in melee?

 alextroy wrote:
Against a Space Marine? Yes! Occasionally they get lucky and manage to get a wound in, but mostly they just flashlight away. There is a reason they are so cheap in comparison.

Am I supposed to min-max a Guard army to bring as few Guardsmen as possible and as many plasma guns and heavy-weapon-toting vehicles as I can, or am I supposed to enjoy spending $200+ to build and paint 60+ models that do feth-all against roughly 80% of the armies I go up against? Doesn't sound fun for anybody involved. '''Lore-accurate''' or not, it's bad design.

I want to point out that even when Marines were W1, lasguns were not cost-effective against them and basic Tacticals wiped the floor with Guardsmen. But when a squad of ten models with a special and a heavy weapon don't even average killing a single model, that's bordering on ridiculous.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I'll ask again-what should a Lasgun-armed model do on the tabletop, if you're facing Marines?

Did they ever do much of anything before W2 Marines?

I've been playing Guard for a long time - since before they even had a Codex - and I know that I've gone multiple consecutive games without ever firing a lasgun shot.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I'll ask again-what should a Lasgun-armed model do on the tabletop, if you're facing Marines?

Did they ever do much of anything before W2 Marines?

I've been playing Guard for a long time - since before they even had a Codex - and I know that I've gone multiple consecutive games without ever firing a lasgun shot.

Just go back to look at threads around the first half of 8th edition. You'll find a lot of discussion about the comparative value of GEQ vs MEQ, and the efficiencies of GEQ lasgun fire.

But another way to look at it is: If lasguns weren't that effective against Marines before, is 2W SM really the answer? It's a stat increase which hits basic weapons harder than anything else.

And to bring it around to a different unit. Dire Avengers used to trade firepower with Space Marines pretty evenly. The Shuriken Catapult has dropped in relative effectiveness over time, and 2W Marines are going to blast that former parity completely out of the water. What's the solution for that? 2D Shuriken Catapults at 24" range? Do you think that'll happen? How much will DA fall behind in the next Eldar book?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...

Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.

lol

The absolute state of people whining about 2W marines.

Thank God it takes forty guardsmen to kill a 2W marine in melee.

Should be like one hundred tbh.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

What should their role be?

Taking objectives, stalling the enemy, protecting the ones with the right weapons.

Or pull marines into close range where they can actually hurt them quite well (2 squads in FRFSRF have a 54% return on intercessors. Yes, I'm considering the cost of the orders).

Also, if you are bothered by that, can I ask you:

What is the role of lasguns against a knight army?
What is the role of lasguns against a Custodes army?
What is the role of lasguns against a parking lot of any kind?
What is the role of lasguns against a monster mash?

Also:

What is the role of high power shots against harlequins?
What is the role of high AP weapons against demons or DE?
And so on...

You design an army with multiple offensive capabilities, because each opponent will be resistant to some of those and vulnerable to something else.
You always try to find yourself with the right tools in a decent quantity no matter the opponent.

Complaining that against opponent X weapon Y isn't effective is a completely moot point.
That weapon is effective against a different opponent.
Good thing that you also brought some weapon Z which is very good against opponent X, so you can now use the ones with weapon Y to support the ones with weapon Z.

Sorry that the 7th edition era of "This weapon profile is good against everything, just spam it" has ended.

Isn't there lore of Marines dying to lasguns and chainswords? We don't know how many lasgun shots are actually shot per turn. I highly doubt they only shoot twice every few minutes or so. If the rounds last one minute, an ak-47 fires at 600 rpm, and if lasguns have a similar rate of fire, 20 guardsmen firing, 12,000 rounds per minute.

Also, why are Marines so much better than Necron Warriors? The issue is that the base infantry of Marines takes so much fire to take down from Guardsmen that they just become unfun to play.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...

Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.

lol

The absolute state of people whining about 2W marines.

Thank God it takes forty guardsmen to kill a 2W marine in melee.

Should be like one hundred tbh.

It's clear we have pretty fundamental disagreements over the design of the game, but there's no need to be rude, is there?

 JNAProductions wrote:
So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

What should their role be?

Firing at scouts?

The point is SM are an elite army, lasguns and any other S3-4 AP- weapons are for cheap chaff, which SM will likely not have. That's why people should bring TAC lists for an healthy game, instead of spamming stuff. Lasguns would be crap against marines but the army should have plenty of weapons to efficiently deal with marines. Against another opponent those lasguns would be better, and maybe the anti elite weapons wouldn't have a real appropriate target.

That's the entire point of TAC lists, they shouldn't be optimized against anyone but also useless against anyone. It should be perfectly fine to have a limited portion of the army that is simply ineffective against most or even all the opponents' units. What is not healthy is having the entire army that is efficient against anything the opponent has.

Besides, are we complaining that lethality should be higher?

Durability of one army being lower relative to the field is not the same as lethality being higher board wide.

Similarly, reducing lethality across the game doesn't mean buffing a single faction to dramatically above where it had been before relative to others.

plus:

--Fundamentally, it has ALWAYS been the case that anti-Marine meant TAC, because Marines or different-Marines were 80% of opponents.

--Back when some weapons were anti-horde and useless against Marines, they were 9/10ths of the time passed over for anti-Marine weapons due to this.

--Nowadays, Marines became so salty about being the default against which all armies were forced to tailor that now we are saying "it is okay if ENTIRE ARMIES are crap against Marines. Silly Guardsman/Chaos Daemon/Necron Warrior should've thought about THAT before picking up puny humans/immortal unlife from beneath reality/immortal machine overlords from beyond the grave, huh??"

-- This of course will not reduce the Marine tears, as they still won't podium (any army that CAN kill Marines will spam the thing that kills Marines and leave the flamers at home). All it does is ruin the fun of the armies that have been designated as "unable to kill Marines".

--This also causes immersion-breaking incongruities with the background, where Marine or different-Marine units are shot with lasguns or even strangled to death by Guardsmen.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
Isn't there lore of Marines dying to lasguns and chainswords? We don't know how many lasgun shots are actually shot per turn. I highly doubt they only shoot twice every few minutes or so. If the rounds last one minute, an ak-47 fires at 600 rpm, and if lasguns have a similar rate of fire, 20 guardsmen firing, 12,000 rounds per minute.

Also, why are Marines so much better than Necron Warriors? The issue is that the base infantry of Marines takes so much fire to take down from Guardsmen that they just become unfun to play.

The point of the special and heavy weapons in a guard squad is supposed to be the ability to engage different targets. Guardsmen equipped with nothing but lasguns have the advantage of "cheap" and the disadvantage of "Cant fight anything but light infantry effectively." I play and have played multiple GEQ armies, and I understand this. If I take my GSC stock, theyre cheap so I can use them to hide on objectives, perform actions, and move block, but the whole squad unbuffed is only going to do one wound to one marine. I can quadruple that damage by giving them a couple of seismic cannons, and I can protect that investment by putting that squad into a transport vehicle. That setup needs some buffs because GSC are quite underpowered at the moment,

The only issue the marine wounds change really caused is the units that were supposed to be able to kill marines that suddenly were not able to kill marines anymore. Howling Banshees? Absolutely a problem. Genestealers? Also a problem especially purestrains.

Necron warriors are less elite than marines because they made necron warriors a less elite unit way back when they changed necrons to include several layers of more elite troops. Necron warriors got changed from "The best of the best the most terrifying warriors evar" back then for the same reason gw makes any change - to make more money. With many more unit options, GW wanted to make sure it took more units to fill out a necron army to a full 2000pts. I had a 2000pt necron army at the time, and wound up with something like a 1500pt necron army which quickly popped back up to 2000pts as the new stuff was really fething cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Durability of one army being lower relative to the field is not the same as lethality being higher board wide.

Similarly, reducing lethality across the game doesn't mean buffing a single faction to dramatically above where it had been before relative to others.

plus:

--Fundamentally, it has ALWAYS been the case that anti-Marine meant TAC, because Marines or different-Marines were 80% of opponents.

--Back when some weapons were anti-horde and useless against Marines, they were 9/10ths of the time passed over for anti-Marine weapons due to this.

--Nowadays, Marines became so salty about being the default against which all armies were forced to tailor that now we are saying "it is okay if ENTIRE ARMIES are crap against Marines. Silly Guardsman/Chaos Daemon/Necron Warrior should've thought about THAT before picking up puny humans/immortal unlife from beneath reality/immortal machine overlords from beyond the grave, huh??"

-- This of course will not reduce the Marine tears, as they still won't podium (any army that CAN kill Marines will spam the thing that kills Marines and leave the flamers at home). All it does is ruin the fun of the armies that have been designated as "unable to kill Marines".

--This also causes immersion-breaking incongruities with the background, where Marine or different-Marine units are shot with lasguns or even strangled to death by Guardsmen.

Holy gak every time I leave this thread it gets sillier. Whole ARMIES unable to kill marines? Oh those poor necron warriors, how will they possibly down the big stwong space marines with their only...strength 5 AP-2 gun? What weapon could they POSSIBLY TAKE?? O woe betide the blootletter, so weak and pathetic in comparison to the unstoppable space marine, why 240pts of them barely manages to muster the strength to kill...284pts of primaris marines in one round of melee combat? What are they to doooo?