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I noticed something just the other day about Age of Sigmar, and it led me to realize something about 40k.

People commonly complain that Chaos Warriors in Age of Sigmar feel like crap, and its pretty easy to see why. A good guy Sigmarine basic trooper that you get out of the new starter box gets a 3+ save, 2 wounds, 2" reach, hits on 3+ wounds on 3+ and gets -1 rend, while a Chaos Warrior basically gets to pick one of those things based on his weapon options: he gets EITHER 2" reach, or -1 rend, or a 3+ save, but then every one of his other stats is less than that.

How does that happen? Why is the good guy just everything the bad guy is +1?

Well, how many different levels of chaos warrior are there? There's chaos warriors, and there's the upgraded, non-battleline (troops) "Chaos Chosen." The same way that CSM have chosen, chaos warriors also have chosen. More offense, more expensive, not troops.

How many kinds of sigmarine are there?

Well, there's Liberators, theyre the basic battleline troop. Then there's sequitors, theyre special liberators where everyone is psychic. Then there's Vanquishers, the special anti-horde troop. And then there's Vindictors, the new special spear troop from the new starter box and they need new stats to differentiate them. And then for elite troopers theres Annihilators, Decimators, Evocators, Protectors, Praetors, Retributors...and that's just the melee stormcast unit types, and they all need SOME kind of difference in their stats to make them have some kind of role.

Most armies in 40k have some kind of troop - say, a Necron Warrior - and some kind of elite version of that troop, with better stats - say, an Immortal.

Space Marines just. keep. getting. more. layers. of. troops. and. elite. troops.

Theres tacticals, intercessors with 3 guns, infiltrators, incursors, reivers, scouts, crusader squads, grey hunter squads, assault intercessors, heavy intercessors, and chaos space marines. All of them need some kind of stat differentiation. And on the level up, you've got to make the following units feel like a meaningful 'upgrade' to the marine base: Sternguard, company vets, wolf guard, bladeguard, honor guard, blade....brothers? the new BT one, DW vets, grey knights, DA veterans, sangunary guard, death company, khorne bezerkers, thousand sons, death guard, noise marines, chosen...theyre all *technically* "Different Factions" but theyre all going to be compared to one another, and with every codex GW is going to have to come up with some 'thing' that makes this space marine splinter group's double special big boys feel like theyre super.

Is there any way out of this? Would people buy new space boys if they were released as just an alternate-version of the same kit? It seems like people like the various 'armor mark' kits, is that true?

I like some phobos units as they are something new, but the original primaris units are just flat out worse than trueson units for wolves.

I would never take intercesors over grey hunters, will choose bloodclaws over assault intercesors, and so on.

Incursors being able to deploy outside the normal zones offers something new and being decent in combat don't really have a downside.

But in general there's a lot of bloat and no need for new units for a good long time.

... I feel like the horus heresy players should chime in. But I totally bought a copy of burning of prospero and betrayal at calth for the heresy marks that have no differentiation, for a word bearers heresy force. I purposefully intend to build them to also be compatible with 40k. Also I wanted to paint a squad of mk III dudes like iron warriors because it seems so natural...

No. It's just a matter of pts.

Guard were better than Custodes during 8th, 2 OP beta versions of vehicle rules made Custodes super strong for a while, but that was just standard FW faff.

Orks are one of the most infantry focused factions, and they’re just now getting their third troops option. It’s not like boyz have a ton of unique wargear options either, or that you can take kommandos as troops in blood axes.

 vict0988 wrote:
No. It's just a matter of pts.

Guard were better than Custodes during 8th, 2 OP beta versions of vehicle rules made Custodes super strong for a while, but that was just standard FW faff.

And yet - are Custodes not about to get themselves some stat inflation because theyre supposed to be the Superest Bestest Most Special Boys and SM got BGV that are literally near-identical statwise?

I bought a ton of Mark III marines who have no rules difference, so I think GW could sell marines without bespoke rules for every unit.

Similarly GW sold Catachans and Cadians and a half dozen metal IG regiments for years with no rules differences at all.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I bought a ton of Mark III marines who have no rules difference, so I think GW could sell marines without bespoke rules for every unit.

Sure, but then what's the point of anything? We could just have paper chits and call it a day.

I would 100% argue that some of the different Primaris variants and the like should be tweaked though. I've long held the belief that giving Power(and Terminator!) Armour a negative modifier(-1) or forcing a reroll on to Wound rolls v low Strength weapons that don't have weird rules like Webbers or the like along with a hefty points bump could be a good way to start making Marines of both stripes feel a bit more strong without overpowering them.

With regards to the Primaris, something similar could easily be adapted to the different variant armor.
Want to run Phobos? Cool! You don't get the perks of having a "full set" if you have the keyword.
Tacitus(the "basic" gear)? You get the perk of having the "full set".
Gravis? "Full set" perk +.
Omnis(Suppressors and Shrike wear this: it's a mixture of Gravis, Tacitus, and Phobos pieces) could give you the same benefit as Tacitus, being an uparmored version of the Phobos set.

Similarly, other armies could be worked into having their own reflections of these kinds of rules.

Similarly GW sold Catachans and Cadians and a half dozen metal IG regiments for years with no rules differences at all.

Not true.

Doctrines codex had meaningful rules differences. Catachans were a 6+ save with a 4+ Cover in Jungle or Forest.

But that whole nonsense is why we are where we are today with Guard, which is to say "dumpsterfire".

 the_scotsman wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
No. It's just a matter of pts.

Guard were better than Custodes during 8th, 2 OP beta versions of vehicle rules made Custodes super strong for a while, but that was just standard FW faff.

And yet - are Custodes not about to get themselves some stat inflation because theyre supposed to be the Superest Bestest Most Special Boys and SM got BGV that are literally near-identical statwise?

Will they cost more pts? I don't know, I didn't design Sigmarines, Cents or Primaris, it might be a fluff or game design issue but it's not a balance issue. Scouts kicked Primaris butt in 8th because of pts, it is all that matters.

Hmm, I don't think the Marine bloat necessarily leads to the power creep. It's probably a matter of Timing and how new profiles actually work.
With Timing I mean when do they release new Marines and adjust other elites. Right now CSM feel like crap because they're still waiting for their upgrade. Eldar elites also have been reduced to chaff because of the stat Upgrades to Marines, while thematically they should be superior or at least on par with most marines. It worked out for nobz and Immortals I'd say, they're comparable to the standard Marine statline.

Comparing the new profiles, yes, I think the gravis Armour went too far. Because it puts those baseline units which can even be a troop choice above anything else in other armies, which is bad from a fluff players point of view. Give them the same statline as standard marines but differentiate them through weapon choices and maybe a minor special rule. Nothing more like Havocs got and even their T bonus was probably unnecessary.
Phobos though? They're just stealth Marines, no problem I think.
Most of the faction specific Marine units you mentioned are just Standard Marines with a little different choice of weapons or some specialty, I think that's okay.

I feel like you're sort of touching on one of the problems with marines and pseudo-marines being a bit over-supported, right? Like, you wouldn't have to worry so much about differentiating the half a dozen different marine troop units plus extra special veteran marines plus super-duper-not-really-marines (custodes) if GW didn't decide that they all warranted unique datasheets or even armies.

I feel like you could feasibly reduce all marine troops down into a handful of datasheets. Something like:
* Normal Marines - includes tacticals, intercessors, and probably grey hunters/blood claws too.

* Sneaky Marines - includes infiltrators, whatever those stabby infiltrators are called (incursors?), and you could probably roll scouts back into this category if you were so inclined.

* And then heavy intercessors because nothing else is quite like them. Although really, would anyone be surprised if these guys got moved to heavy support or elite at some point?

Have 3 datasheets for those three groups. Any wargear or special rules rules worth differentiating the units inside those 3 categories can probably be handled as a wargear and/or chapter tactic option.

Sternguard/vanguard/company vets can all probably be piled into a single datasheet that lets you mix and match wargear and choose from one of several special rules during list creation.

And while I realize the genie is already out of this particular bottle, you could have made custodes be one, two, or three datasheets (infantry, bike, infantry with banner) that can be added to any imperial detachment Inquisitor-style and basically grants morale buffs to those around it. This would be instead of making them an entire army. Obvious downsides of this are obvious, but it would make custodes feel like a really rare sight scattered across the imperium's forces rather than being as "common" as any given astartes chapter. It would also mean that you could get away with having a single extra buff statline in your army rather than worrying about how a million flavors of astartes and their captains compare to custodes and their captains.

Basically, give marines the same amount of differentiation that chaos and xenos factions get. If trueborn are close enough to kabalite warriors to use the same models and basic statline, then surely the same can be said of grey hunters/intercessors and tactical marines.

One of the biggest problems is the fact that firstborn marines have weapon options... if GW made sculpts for primaris that had plasma melta flamers and power weapons, they wouldn’t have had to differentiate their bolters to give marine players an excuse to take them. But they didn’t and the humble Bolter is a piece of junk, and the best thing a bolter boy can be is an ablative wound and a dead guardsmen per turn. Hence all the special rules they keep stacking on them. And i would still rather a plasma gun or flamer.

Do like me and ignore all the Primaris in the codex, and ignore anything not Ultramarine successor. Play only with units that were available in 1995.

Sternguard might be the one exception, although Veteran squads also existed in the 90s. The one morphed into the other.

Regarding your first example, I do think it's worth noting that Age of Sigmar is a bit weird when it comes to infantry, in that it seems to put arbitrary limits on models based on base size.

You can see this even more clearly with heroes. e.g Vampire Lords used to be among the most expensive and powerful Lords in the game - combining incredible fighting prowess with elf-equivalent speed and able to cast as Lv4 wizards. Now every Vampire Lord is a slow, Lv1 wizard with mediocre melee, no vampire powers, and no way to upgrade even to a Lv2 wizard. It seems that the only way to be strong in AoS is to have the largest possible base - whether by gluing yourself to a big monster or just by being massive (e.g. Nagash and that new vampire whose lower half is a . . . dragon?).

I say this because, if I'm remembering correctly, Sigmar Marines (or whatever they're called) are really big for infantry. Thus, they are entitled to extra power over their smaller, Chaos Warrior cousins. This just seems to be the way AoS works. Personally, I think it's stupid but it seems to be the AoS philosophy whether I like it or not.


Returning to your theory, I think the sheer volume of Imperial units might be a factor in that you're trying to squash an awful lot of units into categories of 'elite', 'moar elite', 'really elite', 'the most elite of the elite', and 'elite elite elite elite elite!'. However, I also don't think it's the whole story. After all, it's not as if Marines start at the level of guardsmen or Kabalites and gradually work their way up to the strongest units in the game. Instead, they basically start with some of the most elite troops in the game and just keep going up from there.

Indeed, I think a bigger problem might be having relatively cheap elite units as basic troops. Because when your basic troops are comparable (or, in many cases, superior to) the elites of other armies, it just gets ever more ridiculous as you add additional layers of elites and more elite elites. etc.

FWIW, I think Custodes represent a much better way of handling this as they're a relatively small army in both number of units and units on the table. Custodes troops are elite but they pay through the nose for it. Marines seem to have their cake and eat it, being very elite yet without being substantially more expensive than far less elite/durable troops.

I would still buy them. I don't mind the variations and flexibility, but I don't get why they all need to be their own units and data sheets. Oh wait, not I do, more money to collect.

I really liked the old makeup of marines, you had your elite marines (terminators/vets), troops (tacticals/scouts), fast attack (Assault/Bike), Heavy Support (Devastators.) The model of all of these things was great because they were so flexible that you could essentially do whatever you wanted with them and the kits were (for the most part) all interchangeable. This was a fantastic design and one of the main things that drew me to the Space Marine faction decades ago. Every model could be made to easily look unique even though the kits weren't super advanced by today's standards.

Now every single model type has it's own unit with very few exceptions. Why do we need 3 types of Intercessors? Just have them be a unit and offer to take heavy armor with ONE type of "heavy" weapon swap, or give them CCW for Assault, or be basic. Why do Incursors and Infiltrators have to be different units when they are so similar? Just combining that would take us down to Intercessor, Phobos, and Tactical. Only three, (though TBH I think Scouts should go back there too, from a lore perspective even if balance wise it might not be a great idea to have cheaper Troop Tax for marines.)

 the_scotsman wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
No. It's just a matter of pts.

Guard were better than Custodes during 8th, 2 OP beta versions of vehicle rules made Custodes super strong for a while, but that was just standard FW faff.

And yet - are Custodes not about to get themselves some stat inflation because theyre supposed to be the Superest Bestest Most Special Boys and SM got BGV that are literally near-identical statwise?

Sadly no. It looks like custodes units will have 0 statline changes besides LD ... and thats like, ok dude. Characters look like they'll receive an extra wound and/or attack but not normal units.

 Tawnis wrote:
I would still buy them. I don't mind the variations and flexibility, but I don't get why they all need to be their own units and data sheets. Oh wait, not I do, more money to collect.

I really liked the old makeup of marines, you had your elite marines (terminators/vets), troops (tacticals/scouts), fast attack (Assault/Bike), Heavy Support (Devastators.) The model of all of these things was great because they were so flexible that you could essentially do whatever you wanted with them and the kits were (for the most part) all interchangeable. This was a fantastic design and one of the main things that drew me to the Space Marine faction decades ago. Every model could be made to easily look unique even though the kits weren't super advanced by today's standards.

Now every single model type has it's own unit with very few exceptions. Why do we need 3 types of Intercessors? Just have them be a unit and offer to take heavy armor with ONE type of "heavy" weapon swap, or give them CCW for Assault, or be basic. Why do Incursors and Infiltrators have to be different units when they are so similar? Just combining that would take us down to Intercessor, Phobos, and Tactical. Only three, (though TBH I think Scouts should go back there too, from a lore perspective even if balance wise it might not be a great idea to have cheaper Troop Tax for marines.)

That is... a really sensible solution. And basically what death watch is going to have to do anyways.

 the_scotsman wrote:
I noticed something just the other day about Age of Sigmar, and it led me to realize something about 40k.

People commonly complain that Chaos Warriors in Age of Sigmar feel like crap, and its pretty easy to see why. A good guy Sigmarine basic trooper that you get out of the new starter box gets a 3+ save, 2 wounds, 2" reach, hits on 3+ wounds on 3+ and gets -1 rend, while a Chaos Warrior basically gets to pick one of those things based on his weapon options: he gets EITHER 2" reach, or -1 rend, or a 3+ save, but then every one of his other stats is less than that.

How does that happen? Why is the good guy just everything the bad guy is +1?

Well, how many different levels of chaos warrior are there? There's chaos warriors, and there's the upgraded, non-battleline (troops) "Chaos Chosen." The same way that CSM have chosen, chaos warriors also have chosen. More offense, more expensive, not troops.

How many kinds of sigmarine are there?

Well, there's Liberators, theyre the basic battleline troop. Then there's sequitors, theyre special liberators where everyone is psychic. Then there's Vanquishers, the special anti-horde troop. And then there's Vindictors, the new special spear troop from the new starter box and they need new stats to differentiate them. And then for elite troopers theres Annihilators, Decimators, Evocators, Protectors, Praetors, Retributors...and that's just the melee stormcast unit types, and they all need SOME kind of difference in their stats to make them have some kind of role.

Most armies in 40k have some kind of troop - say, a Necron Warrior - and some kind of elite version of that troop, with better stats - say, an Immortal.

Space Marines just. keep. getting. more. layers. of. troops. and. elite. troops.

Theres tacticals, intercessors with 3 guns, infiltrators, incursors, reivers, scouts, crusader squads, grey hunter squads, assault intercessors, heavy intercessors, and chaos space marines. All of them need some kind of stat differentiation. And on the level up, you've got to make the following units feel like a meaningful 'upgrade' to the marine base: Sternguard, company vets, wolf guard, bladeguard, honor guard, blade....brothers? the new BT one, DW vets, grey knights, DA veterans, sangunary guard, death company, khorne bezerkers, thousand sons, death guard, noise marines, chosen...theyre all *technically* "Different Factions" but theyre all going to be compared to one another, and with every codex GW is going to have to come up with some 'thing' that makes this space marine splinter group's double special big boys feel like theyre super.

Is there any way out of this? Would people buy new space boys if they were released as just an alternate-version of the same kit? It seems like people like the various 'armor mark' kits, is that true?

Chaos warriors are older turned humans with a boon basically where Sigmarines are handpicked heroes and also given a boon but at the same time a special armor my bad another god, SCE's literally have 2 gods powers, yes they should be better. The problem is are the points reflecting that?

Also, the main army will always get the better treatment, sorry but thats how it is.

macluvin wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:
I would still buy them. I don't mind the variations and flexibility, but I don't get why they all need to be their own units and data sheets. Oh wait, not I do, more money to collect.

I really liked the old makeup of marines, you had your elite marines (terminators/vets), troops (tacticals/scouts), fast attack (Assault/Bike), Heavy Support (Devastators.) The model of all of these things was great because they were so flexible that you could essentially do whatever you wanted with them and the kits were (for the most part) all interchangeable. This was a fantastic design and one of the main things that drew me to the Space Marine faction decades ago. Every model could be made to easily look unique even though the kits weren't super advanced by today's standards.

Now every single model type has it's own unit with very few exceptions. Why do we need 3 types of Intercessors? Just have them be a unit and offer to take heavy armor with ONE type of "heavy" weapon swap, or give them CCW for Assault, or be basic. Why do Incursors and Infiltrators have to be different units when they are so similar? Just combining that would take us down to Intercessor, Phobos, and Tactical. Only three, (though TBH I think Scouts should go back there too, from a lore perspective even if balance wise it might not be a great idea to have cheaper Troop Tax for marines.)

That is... a really sensible solution. And basically what death watch is going to have to do anyways.

Yeah. My marine collection is mostly classic firstborn stuff. Dreads, tacticals, assault marines, devastators, etc. I feel my ideal version of 40k is a game where I can take about a thousand points of oldschool marine units and have a good time.

Also, definitely miss the interchangable oldschool kits. As cool as the poses are on newer models, it's a real shame to feel like kitbashing isn't as much of a thing any more.