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Aecus Decimus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
"My guys are supposed to be good at X so they should still only need to hit on a 4+ at worst. I don't care that its a d10 now, they're meant to be skilled soldiers and at least as good as a marine" - logical outcome of adding more values, just more for people to want to ignore.

That's a valid point. We could probably get most of the benefits of a D10 system if we just acknowledged that marines aren't as good as the fanboys think and made them BS/WS 4+ like they should be, leaving room for elite units to get better stats without needing a bunch of rules bloat to add re-rolls and modifiers.

Wow it is almost like there should be a scaling comparative weapon skill stat/chart to represent differences between units CC abilities....


Perhaps in your version we use a D10 for a 1-10 spread instead of a D6.

Dudeface wrote:
I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.

No, they just get to be BS/WS 4+ like the average troops they are. Guardsmen are BS/WS 4+, marines are BS/WS 4+, basic eldar troops are BS/WS 4+, etc. Conscripts are BS/WS 5+, orks and tyranid hordes are BS 5+/WS 4+. Tau are BS 4+/WS 5+. Elite units like guard veterans, crisis suits, space marine captains, etc, get BS/WS 3+ as appropriate for their specialization. Setting basic troops back to BS/WS 4+ leaves room for both cannon fodder hordes at 5+ and elites at 3+ without needing a pile of rules bloat to give them modifiers and re-rolls.

And ork players can ask for BS 4+ all they want but it's still a really stupid request that they should not get.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.

No, they just get to be BS/WS 4+ like the average troops they are. Guardsmen are BS/WS 4+, marines are BS/WS 4+, basic eldar troops are BS/WS 4+, etc. Conscripts are BS/WS 5+, orks and tyranid hordes are BS 5+/WS 4+. Tau are BS 4+/WS 5+. Elite units like guard veterans, crisis suits, space marine captains, etc, get BS/WS 3+ as appropriate for their specialization. Setting basic troops back to BS/WS 4+ leaves room for both cannon fodder hordes at 5+ and elites at 3+ without needing a pile of rules bloat to give them modifiers and re-rolls.

And ork players can ask for BS 4+ all they want but it's still a really stupid request that they should not get.

But, marines are supposed to be "elite" compared to a base human, or if you prefer the alternative, guardsmen are cannon fodder compared to a marine. Being line infantry doesn't mean they're all equally capable. If you're suggesting a base human is as skilled a fighter as an ork boy I can't help.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.

No, they just get to be BS/WS 4+ like the average troops they are. Guardsmen are BS/WS 4+, marines are BS/WS 4+, basic eldar troops are BS/WS 4+, etc. Conscripts are BS/WS 5+, orks and tyranid hordes are BS 5+/WS 4+. Tau are BS 4+/WS 5+. Elite units like guard veterans, crisis suits, space marine captains, etc, get BS/WS 3+ as appropriate for their specialization. Setting basic troops back to BS/WS 4+ leaves room for both cannon fodder hordes at 5+ and elites at 3+ without needing a pile of rules bloat to give them modifiers and re-rolls.

And ork players can ask for BS 4+ all they want but it's still a really stupid request that they should not get.

The idea that a basic Guardsman and a Space Marines are just as skilled has literally never been the case. I have no idea why you think you need to reduce every 3+ WS/BS in order to reset the balance of the game. That wasn't the case in previous editions and the difference between elites and non-elites felt meaningful.

The biggest problem in the current ruleset is the sheer number of re-rolls and other bonuses every army can generate, which ends up making the difference between elite and non-elite much smaller than it should be, especially when combined with the absence of proper morale rules.

To this day, I still haven't played a single game of 9th edition. If 10th edition drops next summer, it's concievable that I will never end up playing 9th. Which sounds kind of ridiculous to be honest.

But I suppose that's GW Modus Operandi. Just keep printing books that become useless in 3 years. What a joke

 tauist wrote:
To this day, I still haven't played a single game of 9th edition. If 10th edition drops next summer, it's concievable that I will never end up playing 9th. Which sounds kind of ridiculous to be honest.

But I suppose that's GW Modus Operandi. Just keep printing books that become useless in 3 years. What a joke

To be fair I got 5(?) Years out of my chaos marine codex. Good or bad as that may be.

I am at the point where I am tired of 9th, so need 10th.

But I honestly don’t think it will be more than a redo of 9th as GW won’t want to do another 8th remake edition.

One thing that GW could consider is giving elite units the same stats as normal units and the ability to reroll a single roll of a natural "1". That is to say that if you roll more than one "1" then you only get to reroll one die. Officers could grant the same benefit so that if an officer was in range of an elite unit you could reroll two of your "1"s. The super elite officers may grant the ability to reroll one die regardless of the value rolled.

That may lead to the use of more MSUs but then you're giving up slots and manpower.

I don't think a D10 system or a D100 system would add anything to 40k for the reasons outlined. Its very hard to see how a unit needing 7s or 8s to go the next step would be desirable to play.

The issue with "bad odds" is that you just end up having to push things from the other end if you aren't just going to end up with "bad unit".

Hence "haha Ork shooting hits on 5s"/"okay then, for the same points, they have to have twice (or 3 times with a -1) as many shots as a faction hitting on 3s". So you inflict approximately the same "damage" for your points.

Functionally it would change almost nothing to give them BS3+ and half the shots. Unless you think there's something especially fluffy about the physical act of Ork players rolling a KFC bargain bucket worth of dice every shooting phase. Or is Ork shooting "meant" to be especially vulnerable to -1 to hit? I don't think so, its just the way it falls out.

The same applies to assault. "We'll give this unit mediocre melee attack probability... but to get it to the acceptable level, we'll give each model 4+ attacks". I don't think its the greatest design decision.

====
If I was to push 10th in the spirit of 9th, it would be to add a lot more actions.

I feel with GW its basically impossible to know what (if any) design principles they have - but I feel actions were incorporated into 9th to give extra dimensionality. I.E. Your unit can do an action, which will hopefully get you objective points and so win the game, or give you an advantage next turn etc - or it can go kill stuff. But GW very quickly abandoned that, and now its basically considered inevitable that you should manage to do both.

But basically I'd look to reduce lethality and increase decision making. (Tbh I think this is sort of how Pro-games break out, but trying to push it down the skill tree.) But it may just not be possible to have a game of move and counter-move when its IGOUGO and wraps up in 5 turns.

Just copy HH 2.0 core

Tyel wrote:
I don't think a D10 system or a D100 system would add anything to 40k for the reasons outlined. Its very hard to see how a unit needing 7s or 8s to go the next step would be desirable to play.

The issue with "bad odds" is that you just end up having to push things from the other end if you aren't just going to end up with "bad unit".

Hence "haha Ork shooting hits on 5s"/"okay then, for the same points, they have to have twice (or 3 times with a -1) as many shots as a faction hitting on 3s". So you inflict approximately the same "damage" for your points.

Functionally it would change almost nothing to give them BS3+ and half the shots. Unless you think there's something especially fluffy about the physical act of Ork players rolling a KFC bargain bucket worth of dice every shooting phase. Or is Ork shooting "meant" to be especially vulnerable to -1 to hit? I don't think so, its just the way it falls out.

The same applies to assault. "We'll give this unit mediocre melee attack probability... but to get it to the acceptable level, we'll give each model 4+ attacks". I don't think its the greatest design decision.

This was actually discussed way back in the 3rd edition rulebook which explained that the number of shots a weapon had was not a direct representation of how many it fired at once. It used the example of the Assault Cannon (then Assault 4), which would obviously fire far more than 4 shots at any one time. However, the designers explained that it made far more sense to have 4 shots that hit on 3s than to have 16 shots that needed 6s to hit.

It seemed a very sensible design philosophy.

Alas, it also seems to have been abandoned.

I'm a big advocate for making swarmy units as impotent on the board as they are in the fluff, but with free respawns. A unit of guardsmen, termagants, etc that dies 'respawns' into reserves at full strength, no strings attached. I have played narrative scenarios with mechanics like that and they have always been quite enjoyable, at least in my experience.

 Mezmorki wrote:
If 10th is a full reset, I wonder if it will be closer to the new Horus Heresy Ruleset - which is honesty pretty solid.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Just copy HH 2.0 core

I'd laugh so hard I'd cough blood if we go full circle back to 7th and people start praising it as "the best edition of 40k ever!"

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.

No, they just get to be BS/WS 4+ like the average troops they are. Guardsmen are BS/WS 4+, marines are BS/WS 4+, basic eldar troops are BS/WS 4+, etc. Conscripts are BS/WS 5+, orks and tyranid hordes are BS 5+/WS 4+. Tau are BS 4+/WS 5+. Elite units like guard veterans, crisis suits, space marine captains, etc, get BS/WS 3+ as appropriate for their specialization. Setting basic troops back to BS/WS 4+ leaves room for both cannon fodder hordes at 5+ and elites at 3+ without needing a pile of rules bloat to give them modifiers and re-rolls.

And ork players can ask for BS 4+ all they want but it's still a really stupid request that they should not get.

Lol. Average troops? Maybe in rt but fluff has "bit" evolved. Maybe read background from books younger than from 1990? No way in any fluff they are described as average. And fyi you saying they are average doesn't mean they are. Gw is authority and they consistently describe as elite so you are flat wrong.

I'm in the "making people play 7th edition is a war crime" camp - and tbh, after reasonable hype for HH 2.0, I was very quickly reminded of just how bad that ruleset was. So going back to that would - for me at least - be insane.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm a big advocate for making swarmy units as impotent on the board as they are in the fluff, but with free respawns. A unit of guardsmen, termagants, etc that dies 'respawns' into reserves at full strength, no strings attached. I have played narrative scenarios with mechanics like that and they have always been quite enjoyable, at least in my experience.

It sounds interesting - but my immediate un-tested view is... does it make a big difference?
I mean if I kill your unit on turn 2, you get to bring it on to the table turn 3. It can then try to get towards the objectives turn 4? I guess that's interesting in a way late game - but it just feels like the game is still probably decided by that point.

tneva82 wrote:
Lol. Average troops? Maybe in rt but fluff has "bit" evolved. Maybe read background from books younger than from 1990? No way in any fluff they are described as average. And fyi you saying they are average doesn't mean they are. Gw is authority and they consistently describe as elite so you are flat wrong.

Yes, average. Marines are elite relative to normal humans but so is everyone else in 40k. Guardsmen are special forces badasses with auto-hitting laser rifles. Eldar have hundreds of years of training for their basic troops. Tau have advanced technology and AI that lets them shoot like an aim botting and wall hacking COD player. Etc. Marines are average among the elites no matter how much their worst fanboys insist that they're the only elites and all those NPC factions are inferior, marines can have BS/WS 4+ like everyone else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
Hence "haha Ork shooting hits on 5s"/"okay then, for the same points, they have to have twice (or 3 times with a -1) as many shots as a faction hitting on 3s". So you inflict approximately the same "damage" for your points.

But the premise of "must be equal" is wrong. Orks should suck at shooting, period. They should not get the same damage per points as other factions because they're a melee-focused faction. They should have the same number of shots as everyone else with a lower hit rate, just like Tau have a much lower hit rate on melee attacks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:
The biggest problem in the current ruleset is the sheer number of re-rolls and other bonuses every army can generate, which ends up making the difference between elite and non-elite much smaller than it should be, especially when combined with the absence of proper morale rules.

Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to so that means everyone else has to be at least BS/WS 3+ unless they're a pure horde army. And if everyone's basic troops are at 3+ then 2+ is the only remaining number, and you have to give that to the best characters. That means that if you want to have a unit be "more elite" the only way to do it is to add more re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and such. There's no room left to do those things purely by stat increases.

OTOH if marines are BS/WS 4+ that means everyone else's basic troops can also be brought down to that level. Now you have 4+ as standard, 3+ as elite (veterans, crisis suits, etc), 5+ for cannon fodder (conscripts), and 2+ for a handful of super-elite special characters. You don't need rules bloat just to represent that a terminator squad is more elite than a tactical squad, you can do it purely by giving them WS 3+.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to

Odd, I remember the 3rd ed rulebook ousting that the game was based around the average human, who was 4+/4+ which represented an average professional soldier.

so that means everyone else has to be at least BS/WS 3+ unless they're a pure horde army.

Why does it? I'm on record stating that the entire game pushing for higher hit rates is a dumb idea.

And if everyone's basic troops are at 3+ then 2+ is the only remaining number, and you have to give that to the best characters. That means that if you want to have a unit be "more elite" the only way to do it is to add more re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and such. There's no room left to do those things purely by stat increases.

Agreed, although I'm not sure that's entirely true or necessary. Especially if everyone could accept the entire game doesn't need to hit on a 3+.

OTOH if marines are BS/WS 4+ that means everyone else's basic troops can also be brought down to that level. Now you have 4+ as standard, 3+ as elite (veterans, crisis suits, etc), 5+ for cannon fodder (conscripts), and 2+ for a handful of super-elite special characters. You don't need rules bloat just to represent that a terminator squad is more elite than a tactical squad, you can do it purely by giving them WS 3+.

OK, why is a storm trooper bs 3+ compared to a guardsman at 4+? It's a combination of superior training and equipment. Who has the better training and equipment, the marine, the stormtropper, or the guardsman? As a hint, I wrote those in order.

I honestly get the impression your a guard player with an axe to grind at this point.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Hence "haha Ork shooting hits on 5s"/"okay then, for the same points, they have to have twice (or 3 times with a -1) as many shots as a faction hitting on 3s". So you inflict approximately the same "damage" for your points.

But the premise of "must be equal" is wrong. Orks should suck at shooting, period. They should not get the same damage per points as other factions because they're a melee-focused faction. They should have the same number of shots as everyone else with a lower hit rate, just like Tau have a much lower hit rate on melee attacks.

Orks have the Big Mek with SAG, Burna Boys, Snazzwagons, Boosta-Blastas, Scrapjets, Squigbuggies, all four fliers, Flash Gitz, Gunwagons, Lootas, Mek Guns, and one of the Nauts as shooty units.

A decent amount of them are mixed units-but some like Mek Guns and Lootas? Those are shooting units. Period. Why should an Orkish shooting unit be worse, point for point, than a Marine shooting unit?

Aecus Decimus wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Lol. Average troops? Maybe in rt but fluff has "bit" evolved. Maybe read background from books younger than from 1990? No way in any fluff they are described as average. And fyi you saying they are average doesn't mean they are. Gw is authority and they consistently describe as elite so you are flat wrong.

Yes, average. Marines are elite relative to normal humans but so is everyone else in 40k. Guardsmen are special forces badasses with auto-hitting laser rifles. Eldar have hundreds of years of training for their basic troops. Tau have advanced technology and AI that lets them shoot like an aim botting and wall hacking COD player. Etc. Marines are average among the elites no matter how much their worst fanboys insist that they're the only elites and all those NPC factions are inferior, marines can have BS/WS 4+ like everyone else.

That's false in both lore and rules. Marines have consistently been described as superior to the basic troops of most of the other armies, most specifically Guard as a baseline human soldier is what they are usually compared to. Tau have consistently been described as having biological reasons for their poorer BS as another example.

Not sure what the utter rubbish about SM fanboys is all about either. Pretty sure most players, including SM ones, would acknowledge SM are often the equivalent of other army's actual elites (not the units you describe as being elite).

[quote=Aecus Decimus 807366 11446480 null

Slipspace wrote:
The biggest problem in the current ruleset is the sheer number of re-rolls and other bonuses every army can generate, which ends up making the difference between elite and non-elite much smaller than it should be, especially when combined with the absence of proper morale rules.

Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to so that means everyone else has to be at least BS/WS 3+ unless they're a pure horde army. And if everyone's basic troops are at 3+ then 2+ is the only remaining number, and you have to give that to the best characters. That means that if you want to have a unit be "more elite" the only way to do it is to add more re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and such. There's no room left to do those things purely by stat increases.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:
If 10th is a full reset, I wonder if it will be closer to the new Horus Heresy Ruleset - which is honesty pretty solid.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
Just copy HH 2.0 core

I'd laugh so hard I'd cough blood if we go full circle back to 7th and people start praising it as "the best edition of 40k ever!"

Yeah, I'd laugh too......while doing cartwheels in my yard. Playing HH 2.0 reminded me just how much better those old-school rules are compared to the boring, gamey mess that 8th/9th edition has been. Time for 40k to go back to being an actual WARgame, instead of something attempting to pretend to be one.

Edit: Oh, and to answer the question in the OP: For a lot of people, it's a desire to see the end of 9th, and hopefully something better.

Racerguy180 wrote:
D10 and adding a zero to all current points costs would do wonders....

No. D10's are not necessary, more granularity is not necessary. Better written rules are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm a big advocate for making swarmy units as impotent on the board as they are in the fluff, but with free respawns. A unit of guardsmen, termagants, etc that dies 'respawns' into reserves at full strength, no strings attached. I have played narrative scenarios with mechanics like that and they have always been quite enjoyable, at least in my experience.

I'm a bigger fan of making aliens, traitors, etc as dangerous as they should be, even if Astartes are elite. The game shouldn't exist solely to support Astartes' players power fantasy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
But the premise of "must be equal" is wrong. Orks should suck at shooting, period. They should not get the same damage per points as other factions because they're a melee-focused faction. They should have the same number of shots as everyone else with a lower hit rate, just like Tau have a much lower hit rate on melee attacks.

Orks seem to have a lot of fluff and codex space put into giving them interested guns. Far more than Tau have for melee weapons. Almost like they're not a melee army...

What it comes down to is orks should probably be 4+/4+. The problem, that you haven't acknowledged here, is that most orks don't point-for-point kill things in melee either.

Dudeface wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to

Odd, I remember the 3rd ed rulebook ousting that the game was based around the average human, who was 4+/4+ which represented an average professional soldier.

Ah yes, because that one guardsman in one army definitely represents the average, whilst the Marines that outnumber them 500 to 1 are merely outliers.

Dudeface wrote:
Odd, I remember the 3rd ed rulebook ousting that the game was based around the average human, who was 4+/4+ which represented an average professional soldier.

Maybe that was valid back in 3rd but that's ancient history now. In the current edition BS/WS 3+ is average and space marines are the textbook definition of the average faction.

Why does it? I'm on record stating that the entire game pushing for higher hit rates is a dumb idea.

Because pretty much every other faction has at least as much of an argument as marines for being elite and the game shouldn't pander to marine fanboys who want to treat every other faction as mere NPCs for marines to slaughter.

OK, why is a storm trooper bs 3+ compared to a guardsman at 4+? It's a combination of superior training and equipment. Who has the better training and equipment, the marine, the stormtropper, or the guardsman? As a hint, I wrote those in order.

Because storm troopers are the elite 1% of the elite 1%. Tactical marines and basic guardsmen are normal troops and get BS/WS 4+. Terminators are elite melee units and get WS 3+. Storm troopers are elite shooting units and get BS 3+.

And equipment is not BS/WS. A marine has BS/WS 4+ because he is an average trained soldier. His superior equipment is already represented by a bolter and power armor having better stats than a lasgun and flak armor, the marine shouldn't get double credit for those things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why should an Orkish shooting unit be worse, point for point, than a Marine shooting unit?

For the same reason that a hypothetical Tau melee unit should be worse point for point than a khorne melee unit. Orks are a melee army and their fluff makes it very clear that they are poor shots that care more about making lots of noise and explosions than hitting a target.

If you want to say that an Ork shooting unit should have more melee capability than a Tau shooting unit, and therefore should pay more on the whole, I could get behind that. Orks, outside of Grots, love to fight in melee. Likewise, a Tau melee unit that has more shooting than an Orkish melee unit, should pay more for that. Take Kroot-they're decent in melee, but still have decent shooting. As compared to a Choppa/Slugga Boy, who has no shooting worth talking about. All else being equal, decent shooting plus decent melee should cost more than just decent melee.

But if you have two equal units, they should cost the same.

 JNAProductions wrote:
But if you have two equal units, they should cost the same.

Why? The whole point of having factions with different strengths and weaknesses is that not all factions are capable of being good at every role. If every army covers every role with equal point efficiency then you reduce faction differences to mere aesthetics.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
But if you have two equal units, they should cost the same.

Why? The whole point of having factions with different strengths and weaknesses is that not all factions are capable of being good at every role. If every army covers every role with equal point efficiency then you reduce faction differences to mere aesthetics.

If all Tau units have decent shooting-even their melee units-as compared to Orks, where all units have decent melee-even their shooting units-you still have different faction playstyles.

Intentionally making units bad is not good game design.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Intentionally making units bad is not good game design.

Why? The point is that you have to work with your faction's weaknesses and overcome them, not have a guarantee that no matter what you pick you always have equal efficiency. A Tau player should have very poor melee options and have to choose between investing in inefficient options or going without melee entirely and hoping that weakness doesn't cost them the game. The option should be there if you really want it but you should be discouraged from taking it and certainly discouraged from ever spamming it. If a Tau melee unit is also decent at shooting and a point-efficient choice as a whole then you're encouraged to take it and you break the faction identity that Tau are supposed to be absolutely pathetic at melee.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Intentionally making units bad is not good game design.

Why? The point is that you have to work with your faction's weaknesses and overcome them, not have a guarantee that no matter what you pick you always have equal efficiency. A Tau player should have very poor melee options and have to choose between investing in inefficient options or going without melee entirely and hoping that weakness doesn't cost them the game. The option should be there if you really want it but you should be discouraged from taking it and certainly discouraged from ever spamming it. If a Tau melee unit is also decent at shooting and a point-efficient choice as a whole then you're encouraged to take it and you break the faction identity that Tau are supposed to be absolutely pathetic at melee.

So don't give Tau a good melee unit? Give them, at best, a platypus unit that's decent at melee, but also pays for good shooting or mobility or durability or multiples from that?
Related to that, what should Marines be weak at? What's their faction focus, and what's their weaknesses?

 JNAProductions wrote:
So don't give Tau a good melee unit? Give them, at best, a platypus unit that's decent at melee, but also pays for good shooting or mobility or durability or multiples from that?

But then you're still encouraged to take that unit because you can add melee capability to your list while still contributing to the shooting plan and maintaining the overall point efficiency of your army. The only way this accomplishes the faction identity goal is to make the multi-role unit overpay for its multiple abilities, at which point you have an inefficient unit that is no better than just making a pure melee unit with poor efficiency.

Related to that, what should Marines be weak at? What's their faction focus, and what's their weaknesses?

Marines should be weak at specialization. Their units should all be reasonably good at most roles but never the best at anything. High floor, low ceiling.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So don't give Tau a good melee unit? Give them, at best, a platypus unit that's decent at melee, but also pays for good shooting or mobility or durability or multiples from that?

But then you're still encouraged to take that unit because you can add melee capability to your list while still contributing to the shooting plan and maintaining the overall point efficiency of your army. The only way this accomplishes the faction identity goal is to make the multi-role unit overpay for its multiple abilities, at which point you have an inefficient unit that is no better than just making a pure melee unit with poor efficiency.

Related to that, what should Marines be weak at? What's their faction focus, and what's their weaknesses?

Marines should be weak at specialization. Their units should all be reasonably good at most roles but never the best at anything. High floor, low ceiling.

But then you're still encouraged to take Marines because you can add any capability to your list, while still contributing to the rest of your plan and maintaining the overall point efficiency of your army. The only way to make them balanced is to make them overpay for their multiple abilities, at which point you have an inefficient unit.