Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 vipoid wrote:
I know it's probably not the point you're making but there's an additional issue in that AP tends to yield diminishing returns. IOW, making basic bolters AP-1 is far more impactful than having Thousand Sons bolters go from AP-2 to AP-3.

Considering that the last SM opponent I played against had Salamanders, I'm going to more or less disagree with you there.
But... fair point

 carldooley wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I know it's probably not the point you're making but there's an additional issue in that AP tends to yield diminishing returns. IOW, making basic bolters AP-1 is far more impactful than having Thousand Sons bolters go from AP-2 to AP-3.

Considering that the last SM opponent I played against had Salamanders, I'm going to more or less disagree with you there.
But... fair point

The first point of AP that does SOMETHING is what matters the most.

Going from a 2+ to a 3+ (whether you need AP-1, -2, or -3 to get there!) doubles your damage.
Going from a 3+ to a 4+ increases it by 50%.
And each further number is less.

Karol wrote:

kroots are run in 10 man squads, in 10th that is considered a horde unit.

no lol, 11+ is a horde unit (full blast)

 carldooley wrote:

'Space Marines no longer hit like they used to. Let's make their bog standard weapons more deadly.'

Seems incredibly strange that a marine has AP-1 from their chainsword and their rocket propelled firearm is AP0.

Even at 15 points, the old BT codex Crusader Squads, tactical marines weren't worth it with their current statline. AP-1 on bolt weapons would certainly help. Look at CSM now 12 points with the same statline minus the 2 wounds, are barely viable. They're basically just better Battle Sisters which no-one really takes in any number either.

AP creep and the sheer amount of dice and quality attacks make virtually all non custode or specific defensive stacked infantry feel absolutely useless.

My Orkz hit t5, awesome! but they absolutely still die in DROVES!

Im not opposed to bolters being ap 1, but marines would need to lose doctrines in return since ap 2 standard bolters would be very silly

I mean, it’s only AP2 for 1 or 2 turns. I don’t think it’s that game changing. No-one is complaining about AP-2 bolt rifles.

Orks also need buffs.

The CSM release will tell us what will happen to bolters.

Spoletta wrote:
The CSM release will tell us what will happen to bolters.

We’ve already seen their statline. Still AP0. Lol

Marines troops need more durability, not more firepower.

The game is already far too killy, no need to add the bolters to the party.

The Deer Hunter wrote:
Marines troops need more durability, not more firepower.

The game is already far too killy, no need to add the bolters to the party.

They gave them the durability then spent 2 years taking it away via increasing everone elses killyness. Marines have neither again. Also bolters =/= marines

11th ed. Basic marine 3W and t5. 6 months later, basic gun of other factions becomes str 6 D3 or str 5 D2 with possibility to cause MW

If marines get more durability then marine players would immediately start complaining that their weapons can't kill opponent's marines efficiently enough, so they need to be buffed. Then players using other armies would ask for the same thing, and so on...

Well they would complain if scoring and winning required to kill stuff. It is like having supposed strong melee units, but you are moving with the speed of a turtle.
And marines even if their best state, when all other armies did not have 9th ed books, aside for necron and their weak codex, were still losing to Harlequins, Custodes and Orks. Pre 9th codex, pre buffs and nerfs to marines.

I think that getting transhuman as a power armor rule, a lot of marines player will quit complaining about bolter

Dudeface wrote:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
Marines troops need more durability, not more firepower.

The game is already far too killy, no need to add the bolters to the party.

They gave them the durability then spent 2 years taking it away via increasing everone elses killyness.

Which is exactly what needed to happen, although it's still probably in the wrong areas.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
Marines troops need more durability, not more firepower.

The game is already far too killy, no need to add the bolters to the party.

They gave them the durability then spent 2 years taking it away via increasing everone elses killyness.

Which is exactly what needed to happen, although it's still probably in the wrong areas.

Definitely. I've no idea why they decided tanks need to vanish under AT weapons and one-rounding Knights was a goal, but... they're lampshading it too often for it not to be intentional:

WarCom wrote:Much like the T’au Empire’s mighty Stormsurge, this main gun can punch through an Imperial Knight in one go (with a bit of help from Lady Luck), while anything smaller is inevitably reduced to a twisted ruin. It has a respectable rate of fire, so even squadrons of lighter vehicles are at risk of annihilation – something we have a sneaky feeling the Tyranids learned from fighting Speed Mobs in the Octarian War.

The Deer Hunter wrote:
I think that getting transhuman as a power armor rule, a lot of marines player will quit complaining about bolter

DAs have it always on on their termintors, blade guard etc. And they are not faring that much better, then other marines. At some point when the saturation of fire power is ultra high, to survive one would really need a ++3 inv, that ignores rules that say they ignore taking inv saves. Probably with re-rolls.

But I can imagine in 14th ed. Basic primaris marines running around with the , no more ethen 3 wounds lost per phase, if the wounds and weapon damage keep scaling up each edition.

I would much prefer most things go to a 5+ save, maybe they can pull this off in 10th edition, and bolters wont need a buff to make the marines feel substantial on the battlefield, even primaris marine bolters tho are super underwhelming imo.

Lets keep in mind many standard infantry has been given a 4+ save when previously had a 5+ save.

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
AP creep and the sheer amount of dice and quality attacks make virtually all non custode or specific defensive stacked infantry feel absolutely useless.

My Orkz hit t5, awesome! but they absolutely still die in DROVES!

Im not opposed to bolters being ap 1, but marines would need to lose doctrines in return since ap 2 standard bolters would be very silly

No, you need to be specific about this. Your T5 Ork boyz are now LESS durable point for point before you even consider things going to AP-1 or -2 or anything else for that matter.

To kill 6 Boyz last edition took 21.6 Bolter shots last edition. In a mob of 30 you lost 6 boyz for a grand total of 42pts dead.

To kill 6 Boyz THIS edition takes 32.4 Bolter shots. But here is the kicker, in that same mob of 30 you then lose 1 to morale and a further 4 more to Attrition. Congrats you lost 11boyz not 6 and instead of it being 42pts its now 99pts. So it takes about 50% more bolter shots to kill the same number of boyz, but in doing so they managed to up the dmg to more than 100% higher in terms of points lost. But yeah, lets totally start handing out S5 and AP-1 to everything

SemperMortis wrote:

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
AP creep and the sheer amount of dice and quality attacks make virtually all non custode or specific defensive stacked infantry feel absolutely useless.

My Orkz hit t5, awesome! but they absolutely still die in DROVES!

Im not opposed to bolters being ap 1, but marines would need to lose doctrines in return since ap 2 standard bolters would be very silly

No, you need to be specific about this. Your T5 Ork boyz are now LESS durable point for point before you even consider things going to AP-1 or -2 or anything else for that matter.

To kill 6 Boyz last edition took 21.6 Bolter shots last edition. In a mob of 30 you lost 6 boyz for a grand total of 42pts dead.

To kill 6 Boyz THIS edition takes 32.4 Bolter shots. But here is the kicker, in that same mob of 30 you then lose 1 to morale and a further 4 more to Attrition. Congrats you lost 11boyz not 6 and instead of it being 42pts its now 99pts. So it takes about 50% more bolter shots to kill the same number of boyz, but in doing so they managed to up the dmg to more than 100% higher in terms of points lost. But yeah, lets totally start handing out S5 and AP-1 to everything

To be fair thats the fault of the core rules being bad with handling morale. There's tons of stuff you can take from previous editions to make LD matter more, like firing at outside the closest target (which was in 4th, and to contrary to what many people think, I think it was a brilliant rule) or inflicting pinning effects of some kind. But no, now morale is dudes run away. It's lame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
AP creep and the sheer amount of dice and quality attacks make virtually all non custode or specific defensive stacked infantry feel absolutely useless.

My Orkz hit t5, awesome! but they absolutely still die in DROVES!

Im not opposed to bolters being ap 1, but marines would need to lose doctrines in return since ap 2 standard bolters would be very silly

Consolidation of unit profiles would help this for Marines. Tactical Marine options need to be rolled into the Intercessor profile. That said for less lethality I've been a fan of taking away 6" of range for their guns.

Yeah, I don't get the proliferation of 30" range with the assumption that boards will be smaller. That's just a flat out dumb choice for a game that supposedly wants people to charge in with swords rather than hang out in gun lines.

Karol wrote:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
I think that getting transhuman as a power armor rule, a lot of marines player will quit complaining about bolter

DAs have it always on on their termintors, blade guard etc. And they are not faring that much better, then other marines. At some point when the saturation of fire power is ultra high, to survive one would really need a ++3 inv, that ignores rules that say they ignore taking inv saves. Probably with re-rolls.

But I can imagine in 14th ed. Basic primaris marines running around with the , no more ethen 3 wounds lost per phase, if the wounds and weapon damage keep scaling up each edition.

Obviously it would not be sufficient, SMs lack of good weapons, aside from melta.
AP-1 bolter is not what is needed, while more durability army wide is a necessary starting point.
Then a lot of units that now have been forgotten, such as Predator, Storm Raven, Land Raider, Centurion and others, have to be brought in line with the latest codexes, reworking point costs and weapons’ profiles.

The Deer Hunter wrote:

Obviously it would not be sufficient, SMs lack of good weapons, aside from melta.
AP-1 bolter is not what is needed, while more durability army wide is a necessary starting point.
Then a lot of units that now have been forgotten, such as Predator, Storm Raven, Land Raider, Centurion and others, have to be brought in line with the latest codexes, reworking point costs and weapons’ profiles.

Power Creep personified right here.

Marines got a 2nd wound specifically to address durability issues that Marine players constantly complained about. They didn't like all the D1 weapons killing Marines on bad rolls. Now your basic Marine is 2 wounds, he went up a WHOPPING 3pts for that 100% increase in durability against D1 weapons. And here we have another player saying "We need more durability!" Yes..but not. The reason the game is so lethal right now is because Marines became stupidly OP for their points cost which meant the meta had to adjust to dealing with relatively cheap 2 wound infantry. And because the game is called "Warhammer 40k" not "Space Marine Bolter porn" every other faction wanted buffs to deal with the new meta which in turn resulted in higher dmg output against everything which in turn makes a Marine player say things like "MOAR DURABILITY!". It actually mirrors the Inflation in the world right now. "we printed a bunch of money which devalued the currency and made inflation ridiculous! QUICK PRINT MOAR MONEY!"

But lets stick to the threads main point. Go ahead, give Marines AP-1 on their bolters. I expect my Orkz to go to BS4, and my Shootas to go to Assault 5 S5 AP-1 in order to compete

LOL imagine thinking W2 Marines are OP

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
Marines troops need more durability, not more firepower.

The game is already far too killy, no need to add the bolters to the party.

They gave them the durability then spent 2 years taking it away via increasing everone elses killyness.

Which is exactly what needed to happen, although it's still probably in the wrong areas.

If you immediately render the increased durability null, why increase it? You're going to have to explain this to me unless it's a "they never should have been 2w" stance.

Dudeface 804013 11337940 wrote:

If you immediately render the increased durability null, why increase it? You're going to have to explain this to me unless it's a "they never should have been 2w" stance.

When marines make up a large, if not the largest chunk, of stuff you sell. You wouldn't want people to stop buying them. Specially as you don't have a garentee that another army will be just as popular. Being +1 to W, and being the first books out, give the illusion that this time playing the most popular army is going to be fun. this generates both interest in people that played with marine models before and generates sells of new models. You wouldn't want to start the edition with DE, followed by Ad Mecha, rest of the Eldar and tau, because you are risking that your core audiance aka marine buyers, are going to be as happy and as prone to buy new stuff as their csm playing cousins.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Deer Hunter 804013 11337763 wrote:

Obviously it would not be sufficient, SMs lack of good weapons, aside from melta.
AP-1 bolter is not what is needed, while more durability army wide is a necessary starting point.
Then a lot of units that now have been forgotten, such as Predator, Storm Raven, Land Raider, Centurion and others, have to be brought in line with the latest codexes, reworking point costs and weapons’ profiles.

I am not sure Marine players would be very happy if their armies were suppose to be made out of squadrons of tanks, squadrons of speeders and as few marines as possible. CSM have something like that and it is not making them happy, or the army popular.

IMO a lot of stuff can't be fixed with stuff, same as a lot of stuff can't be saved with surface style changes GW makes in CA and WD. For every fex spam WD list, there is ton of CAs and WD Inari codex, which didn't change stuff for the better. In dreams one could of course hope for a total game reset. Making the game more skirmish style with fewer models, and more indepth rules. Or quite the opposite where infantry models have more in common with wound counters then single separate models orgenised in units. But I don't think that is how GW works. 10th will come, it will be kind of a like 9th. We will probably get something that requires buying more stuff, maybe faction terrain, maybe spells that are models or something similar. But we will enter it with "old" 9th ed books, with the last 9th ed books being kind of a 10th books.

It would of course be nice, if GW decided to waste, from their point of view, some money get an in house design group, which somehow doesn't go in to imidiate conflict with the old guard, and review core game mechanic and tenants. Then concentrate not on , in the end unimportant, -1AP on bolters or similar rules, but core design questions. Ones like how army X is suppose to be played. Because sometimes it is funny , in the slavic way of thinking what can be funny, to see how an ork buggy become the basic ork army unit.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
LOL imagine thinking W2 Marines are OP

You mean they weren't OP in 8th edition when John Lennon placed in the top 8 at LVO in 2020 with not 1 not 2 but 40 intercessors? Weird, I could have sworn he did insanely well with that build in 2020 at LVO....anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooops, my mistake, Richard Siegler had a similar build with 40 Intercessors in it as well


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh! And Boris Michev ran 20 of them in 4 squads of 5. Can't forget Boris.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
SO yeah...I mean, besides those 2 guys who ran 40 intercessors and finished in the top 8 at LVO yeah totally not OP and definitely not a reason why the game meta shifted to D2 weapons with decent AP.

* Obligatory post that several other Marine players finished in the top 8 and were running 15-20 2 wound troops as well.

Aside for a meme razorback/flyers+G-man list for most of 8th ed marines were a bad army, and primaris were borderline unplayable. They got "good" when their wave of 2.0 books came out.
Before that no one took primaris, tacticals etc but rather 15 scouts, and that is why we have scouts in elite now.

Saying that marines were OP, at the end of an edition, and then their new 9th books, combined with the pre book nerfs to PA supplements, eldar in general were good for a short time in w40k history.

Look how marine lists, the few that are being run, look like right now. They spam elite melee units and trade pices with minimal troops. And if they take any it is the forward deployment guys.

Karol wrote:
Aside for a meme razorback/flyers+G-man list for most of 8th ed marines were a bad army, and primaris were borderline unplayable. They got "good" when their wave of 2.0 books came out.
Before that no one took primaris, tacticals etc but rather 15 scouts, and that is why we have scouts in elite now.

Saying that marines were OP, at the end of an edition, and then their new 9th books, combined with the pre book nerfs to PA supplements, eldar in general were good for a short time in w40k history.

Look how marine lists, the few that are being run, look like right now. They spam elite melee units and trade pices with minimal troops. And if they take any it is the forward deployment guys.

Look at how many D2+ weapons are running around right now. Look at how much AP is flying around the table. GO back just 2 editions, to 7th, which was in no way shape or form balanced. But even then we had AP as relatively rare. Now its literally everywhere, so yeah Marines aren't going to do well since a big portion of their cost is tied up in 2 3+ wounds which aren't worth as much anymore thanks to the power curve going dramatically up.

And again, Marines are THE MOST POPULAR ARMY IN THE GAME! so, if you change their profile or make them more durable, the game will adjust fire to target them again since they are the most common statline in the game.

SemperMortis wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
LOL imagine thinking W2 Marines are OP

You mean they weren't OP in 8th edition when John Lennon placed in the top 8 at LVO in 2020 with not 1 not 2 but 40 intercessors? Weird, I could have sworn he did insanely well with that build in 2020 at LVO....anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooops, my mistake, Richard Siegler had a similar build with 40 Intercessors in it as well


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh! And Boris Michev ran 20 of them in 4 squads of 5. Can't forget Boris.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
SO yeah...I mean, besides those 2 guys who ran 40 intercessors and finished in the top 8 at LVO yeah totally not OP and definitely not a reason why the game meta shifted to D2 weapons with decent AP.

* Obligatory post that several other Marine players finished in the top 8 and were running 15-20 2 wound troops as well.

Tyranids with their garbage 6th edition codex topped before but I'm guessing you didn't bat an eye to that when it happened as you decided to cherry pick a couple of examples out of how many?