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Vatsetis 806411 11426323 wrote:

Well marines are both unkillable and can kill everything... So when a marine tries to kill a marine, the setting resets (IE implodes).

Right now a space marine armed with a bolter is less efficient at killing any target then a lasgun armed with IG. Yet nothing has exploded yet.

T6 2+ model, like a Custodes Biker.

Intercessor does, with no buffs and at 30”, 4/27 damage for 20 Points (assuming the normal bolt rifle) or .0074 Damage Per Point.
Guardsman does, with no buffs outside Hammer of the Emperor and at 24”, 1/27 damage for 6 points, or .0062 Damage Per Point.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Spoiler:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Because I feel like it should take more than one or two dudes to reliably pew pew a marine out of the fight.

Er, I get not liking the possibility of a random Commissar one-shotting a Marine, but even when Marines were W1 it took an entire squad of Guardsmen all rapid firing within 12" to average killing a single Marine (with still a ~35% chance of doing nothing at all).

The situation now is that you need two squads rapid firing or four squads not-rapid-firing to kill one W2 Marine, hence why we have escalatory buffs like FRFSRF straight-up doubling fire output, and HotE throwing out mortal wounds as a kludge fix.

And even then, you roll an absolute gakload of dice for not a lot to happen. Discounting HotE, it takes an average of ~61 dice rolls between both players to resolve the shooting of a basic Infantry Squad under FRFSRF, with the average end result of a single model being removed from the table- exactly as it was with W1 Marines, except it takes longer to get there.

Yeah, I'd like to know what Wyldhunt feels is the "appropriate" amount of Lagun shots here.

You know, 10 lasguns killing one dude does seem about right. I'll have to reconsider my stance. The second wound still "feels right" on the marine side of things, but I do want the humble lasgunners to be relevant.

Cool.

My follow up question is how many Marines (firing bolters) should it take to kill a Marine?

My gut says 3ish, and my sloppy math says that intercessors are in roughly the right spot for that. If we ignore AoC, that is.

Shooting: 3 intercessors = 3 bolters = 6 shots = 4 hits = 2 wounds at AP-1 = 1 unsaved wound.
Melee: 3 charging intercessors = 9 attacks = 6 hits = 3 wounds at AP 0 = 1 unsaved wound.
So 3 intercessors kill about 1 marine in a single turn.

Tacticals do a bit worse due to their lower number of melee attacks and the lack of AP on their bolters but presumably bump their performance up a bit if you factor in a special weapon. Personally, I like the idea of just giving tac marines intercessor stats and merging the datasheets together (basically giving intercessors access to special weapons). So a 5-man squad with 3 bolt rifles and two special weapons (sergeant and special weapon guy) would kill 1 marine plus whatever the special weapon guys do. I'm too lazy to crunch more numbers, but I think a plasmagunner plus a power sword intercessor sergeant kill something like 4ish guys between their shooting and melee? Less if they're rocking meltas instead of plasma and less than that if they went for flamers or didn't take a power sword on the sergeant or something.

My gut says that's about right, and as we all know, my gut is the best possible authority on how to balance 40k.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Spoiler:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Because I feel like it should take more than one or two dudes to reliably pew pew a marine out of the fight.

Er, I get not liking the possibility of a random Commissar one-shotting a Marine, but even when Marines were W1 it took an entire squad of Guardsmen all rapid firing within 12" to average killing a single Marine (with still a ~35% chance of doing nothing at all).

The situation now is that you need two squads rapid firing or four squads not-rapid-firing to kill one W2 Marine, hence why we have escalatory buffs like FRFSRF straight-up doubling fire output, and HotE throwing out mortal wounds as a kludge fix.

And even then, you roll an absolute gakload of dice for not a lot to happen. Discounting HotE, it takes an average of ~61 dice rolls between both players to resolve the shooting of a basic Infantry Squad under FRFSRF, with the average end result of a single model being removed from the table- exactly as it was with W1 Marines, except it takes longer to get there.

Yeah, I'd like to know what Wyldhunt feels is the "appropriate" amount of Lagun shots here.

You know, 10 lasguns killing one dude does seem about right. I'll have to reconsider my stance. The second wound still "feels right" on the marine side of things, but I do want the humble lasgunners to be relevant.

Cool.

My follow up question is how many Marines (firing bolters) should it take to kill a Marine?

My gut says 3ish, and my sloppy math says that intercessors are in roughly the right spot for that. If we ignore AoC, that is.

Shooting: 3 intercessors = 3 bolters = 6 shots = 4 hits = 2 wounds at AP-1 = 1 unsaved wound.
Melee: 3 charging intercessors = 9 attacks = 6 hits = 3 wounds at AP 0 = 1 unsaved wound.
So 3 intercessors kill about 1 marine in a single turn.

Tacticals do a bit worse due to their lower number of melee attacks and the lack of AP on their bolters but presumably bump their performance up a bit if you factor in a special weapon. Personally, I like the idea of just giving tac marines intercessor stats and merging the datasheets together (basically giving intercessors access to special weapons). So a 5-man squad with 3 bolt rifles and two special weapons (sergeant and special weapon guy) would kill 1 marine plus whatever the special weapon guys do. I'm too lazy to crunch more numbers, but I think a plasmagunner plus a power sword intercessor sergeant kill something like 4ish guys between their shooting and melee? Less if they're rocking meltas instead of plasma and less than that if they went for flamers or didn't take a power sword on the sergeant or something.

My gut says that's about right, and as we all know, my gut is the best possible authority on how to balance 40k.

^Ok, nice. I think 3 Marines to kill a Marine is a reasonable place to be. But of course you're now looking at a 1W Marine and getting rid of AoC. So how do we feel about that?

The other relationship would be to look at how well the Marines kill the GEQ in return. With the AP-1 Bolter a squad of 5 Marines get 3.68 kills, Rapid Firing. Under the old AP system you'd be looking at 4.43 (which feels more appropriate to me). Or you could just give the GEQ a 6+ save instead (which was actually their 2nd edition save.)

Edit: Incidentally I ran the numbers for 2nd edition and got about the same numbers.
GEQ @ MEQ 10x.5x.333x.5 = .83w (Lasguns had AP-1, but only Space Marines could Rapid Fire, Lasguns only shot once)
MEQ @ MEQ 3x2x.666x.5x.5=.999w
MEQ @ GEQ 5x2x.666x.666= 4.4w

And here's 3rd-7th:
GEQ @ MEQ 10x2x.5x.333x.333 = 1.1w
MEQ @ MEQ 3x2x.666x.5x.333=.665w
MEQ @ GEQ 5x2x.666x.666= 4.4w

Edit2:
Oh yeah, gentle reminder that it takes fuggin 9 Marines to kill a Marine right now. Even Intercessors because of AoC. 9x2x.666x.5x.333=1.99w.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Edit2:
Oh yeah, gentle reminder that it takes fuggin 9 Marines to kill a Marine right now. Even Intercessors because of AoC. 9x2x.666x.5x.333=1.99w.

I guess it's going to be a long war.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Oh yeah, gentle reminder that it takes fuggin 9 Marines to kill a Marine right now. Even Intercessors because of AoC. 9x2x.666x.5x.333=1.99w.

Your math is wrong. You need to include the re-roll to hit, re-roll to wound, +1 to hit, +1 to wound, automatic wounds on 6s to hit, -2 AP on 6s to wound, exploding 6s to hit, additional -2 AP, and at least one use of the shoot twice stratagem. Once you account for all that one marine kills nine marines per turn.

This just highlights the problem with 40k: the lack of lethality. Base stats alone are a hilarious slap fight where units can stand in the open trading fire and never kill each other within a full 5-turn game, so to actually have anything die you have to pile on layer after layer after layer of buffs. And then once you add some "bespoke" defensive special rules you need to pile on even more offensive special rules to make up for it, in an ever-increasing arms race until it finally reaches a point where the game isn't playable anymore. What GW needs to do is dump 90% of the special rules and make the basic stat lines work properly.

The thing is if Marines are meant to be relatively tough then they must also be relatively pillowfisted to compensate in a balanced game - since its all relative to the points. In which case you'd expect Marine on Marine fights to trade at a lower exchange rate than something more front forward - like say a Guardian on Guardian fight. (I'd also flag up that - marines are almost certainly getting more attacks in the future (cos CSM), and are meant to be a combined shooting/assaulting unit, in a way say guardians are not so much.)

Then "tough but low damage unit" meeting "fragile but high damage unit" should both counter each other out, and trade somewhere in the middle.

If something has top tier offense and defense for the points - i.e. relative to everything else in the game - then its inevitably going to be overpowered. The meta generally consists of locating such units - in combinations such that you also have a lot of movement capabilities so you can control the table and score/deny objectives.

Tyel wrote:
If something has top tier offense and defense for the points - i.e. relative to everything else in the game - then its inevitably going to be overpowered.

So... just fire their cost into the sky then? You get top tier offense, top tier defense, decent mobility, and 10 dudes for ~500 points.

 AtoMaki wrote:
So... just fire their cost into the sky then? You get top tier offense, top tier defense, decent mobility, and 10 dudes for ~500 points.

No because the tier of your offense and defense is relative to the points of everything else.

Take say a tactical marine. He's so-so at 18 points.
Lets make him 9 points instead.
Now he's ludicrously hard to kill - and has solid damage out.
By contrast lets make him 40 points.
Now he's fragile - and has a complete joke of damage output.

One to one a Custodian Guard has a better stat line than a Marine. But this alone doesn't matter. The tier value is in how much you are paying for those stats.
Do it another way. Grots have a terrible stat line. But if they were 1 point per model, they'd have top tier offense and possibly the best defense in the game.

I really don't think it works that way. Wether or not your statline is particularly lethal or tanky is determined by your statline and accompanying special rules.

Grots could be free and their stats are still terrible. The only value they bring are bodies on the table and whatever you can do with just having a model existing within the ruleset.

You wanna talk about stats creep take a look at the new dakka boat of Votann. Thing has guns for days, a Tau Rail Cannon, and any unsaved wounds spill over, so it kills 5 Space marines on average. Not counting it's plethora of essentially HBs. Yeah, and it's 250ish points. And it's got transport capacity. Thankfully it doesn't have fly, or psyker abilities as well. This is stat creep. Forget the guard.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You wanna talk about stats creep take a look at the new dakka boat of Votann. Thing has guns for days, a Tau Rail Cannon, and any unsaved wounds spill over, so it kills 5 Space marines on average. Not counting it's plethora of essentially HBs. Yeah, and it's 250ish points. And it's got transport capacity. Thankfully it doesn't have fly, or psyker abilities as well. This is stat creep. Forget the guard.

Bit of an error there, it only spills-over on a 6 to wound, but there's a Strat allowing you to automatically wound on a 6. Yeah it's pretty obscene how on top of that, you can't reroll wounds and it gets Armour of Contempt...because...reasons...

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You wanna talk about stats creep take a look at the new dakka boat of Votann. Thing has guns for days, a Tau Rail Cannon, and any unsaved wounds spill over, so it kills 5 Space marines on average. Not counting it's plethora of essentially HBs. Yeah, and it's 250ish points. And it's got transport capacity. Thankfully it doesn't have fly, or psyker abilities as well. This is stat creep. Forget the guard.

True and after looking over the leak book for hours, and how I feel about other big tanks (most are over costed), I honestly think the big tank (Thunderkyn) is fine, the issue with the army will be that they are heavily a Rock, Paper, Scissor armor, you will almost certainly be able to handle them or you wont. I dont think armies like Marines, Tau, Custodes, Knights will be able to at all, but CWE, Quins, DE, Daemons, Tsons, and Guard will be able to. I do feel their troops and a couple wargear options are too cheap though. +1-2pts ont he troops and some options here and there +5pts and now the army has 2-3 less units over all and will feel a little better.

Their weakness is MWs, Speed, and Melee, oh also anti-tanky units (they all are T4-6, can be T5-7, but if you can ignore toughness with MWs, powers, and auto wounds you are good to go).

Votann = Tau 2 electric f#*k-you-a-loo

 Amishprn86 wrote:


Their weakness is MWs, Speed, and Melee, oh also anti-tanky units (they all are T4-6, can be T5-7, but if you can ignore toughness with MWs, powers, and auto wounds you are good to go).

I don't know auto wounding on a +4, as long as you put 3 tokens on a unit, doesn't seem like being weak to melee. They maybe can be overloaded by a melee only army, but there aren't many of those running around right now. The votan are resilient , with flat army invs their version of mini AoC. The limiting factor they have is the cost of the army, which is only a limiting factor to some players.

Thank GW their psykers don't have to broken psychic powers, because then there would be a problem.

Yeah I think Squats main weakness is going to be M5, always advance 3 and, at least from my glance through, no option to advance and charge.

Certainly by DE standards that's incredibly slow - with consequently limited scope to determine the board state.

Pioneers and vehicles are likely therefore going to be quite important.

Most Squat weapons are only Ap 1 or 2. That is a significant weakness in a world full of AoC.

 Ordana wrote:
Most Squat weapons are only Ap 1 or 2. That is a significant weakness in a world full of AoC.

It's only a weakness if they're really paying for it to begin with, whereas the codex was written as if for free.

Racerguy180 wrote:
Votann = Tau 2 electric f#*k-you-a-loo

Someone make this man the governor of DAKKA!!

a_typical_hero wrote:
I really don't think it works that way. Wether or not your statline is particularly lethal or tanky is determined by your statline and accompanying special rules.

Grots could be free and their stats are still terrible. The only value they bring are bodies on the table and whatever you can do with just having a model existing within the ruleset.

Yes and no. A stat line and rules on it's own are fairly meaningless. The stat line needs to be considered in relation to other stat lines. Most comparisons around stat lines talk about what an equivalent amount of points can do as it's the fairest measure we have.

Which is "more tanky" a literal Lehman Russ Tank, T8 2+ sv, 12 wounds for 135 points, or a minimum squad of Custodian Guard with spears, T5 3W each, 2+4++5+++, for 150. Strats aside, the Custodes will outlive the tank the majority of the time. But we are ignoring the blind spot of this comparison: what is shooting at us?

Until the 9th edition came along, we didn't have to worry about wounds spilling over past the first injured model. Now, a magna rail cannon can kill the squad of Custodes in a single shot. There is no more "stat lines equate to value". Everything can be easily deleted in a matter of seconds.

JakeSiren wrote:
Yes and no. A stat line and rules on it's own are fairly meaningless. The stat line needs to be considered in relation to other stat lines. Most comparisons around stat lines talk about what an equivalent amount of points can do as it's the fairest measure we have.

I would say this is rather called "efficiency" and not "lethality". Assault 5 S10 AP-5 D10 is super lethal. Make it cost 5000 points and it is inefficient.

Its just gonna get worse and worse until GW realizes that the power creep they created primarily because of the Rending AP system for ranged screwed everything. The worst part is people are still going to pretend that its not the core issue of the problem, but it really is.

I'm still waiting for them to put in making your opponent reroll successful hits/wounds/saves.

Huge untapped design space.

Perhaps GW is achieving exactly (or near) what they want... AoC is a very un elegant rule... But 40k haa never been elegant.

 Blndmage wrote:
I'm still waiting for them to put in making your opponent reroll successful hits/wounds/saves.

Huge untapped design space.

I mean, yeah, but just because its untapped does not mean its a good untapped area.

I think its a real shame GW did not utilized what HH did with rending earlier, and capitilze on things like rending(x) and breaching (x) and adding in another rule that was like <Some rule>(x) that on a roll of x or more turned the weapon into AP3

I'm still of the opinion that the problem is less the AP and more GW''s cramming legacy stat lines on a new AP system plus the inevitable power creep.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Its just gonna get worse and worse until GW realizes that the power creep they created primarily because of the Rending AP system for ranged screwed everything. The worst part is people are still going to pretend that its not the core issue of the problem, but it really is.

What? Compared to older editions where they started throwing AP2 on everything?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Its just gonna get worse and worse until GW realizes that the power creep they created primarily because of the Rending AP system for ranged screwed everything. The worst part is people are still going to pretend that its not the core issue of the problem, but it really is.

What? Compared to older editions where they started throwing AP2 on everything?

Pretty sure that they were more comparing it to this:

Backspacehacker wrote:I think its a real shame GW did not utilized what HH did with rending earlier, and capitilze on things like rending(x) and breaching (x) and adding in another rule that was like <Some rule>(x) that on a roll of x or more turned the weapon into AP3

Which works better than either, IMHO.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Its just gonna get worse and worse until GW realizes that the power creep they created primarily because of the Rending AP system for ranged screwed everything. The worst part is people are still going to pretend that its not the core issue of the problem, but it really is.

I'm pretty sure GW realizes and AoC existing is kind of proof of that. Same with the new Daemon saves.
GW knows it created a lot of problems. The issue is they can not fix them without doing a full stat rebalance of everything and if management doesn't want to sign off on that there is nothing the writers can do but keep introducing new rules to mitigate the issue while also perpetuating it because new armies need to atleast match old armies in output.

My hope is for a reset in 10th, or else its going to get a whole lot more stupid.