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 catbarf wrote:
My Genestealers are W2 so I'm not sure I can accept 'only Marines got better stats' at face value.

Calgar gained 1T, lost 2W (and his ability to halve incoming damage), picked up a 4+++ that'll be nearly impossible to use on your own terms, and lost some conditional attacks

Tiggy lost a wound, gained an attack, and lost the conditionals.

Cassius lost 1T, gained 2A, and lost the conditionals.

Telion the sniper did the same only with Wounds and attacks.

Your generic Indomitus Storm (Relic) Shield cap: Evened out of T and W (only because he's got a Relic Shield) gained an attack, lost a 4+++ vs mortals and his situational attacks and gained some use once REALLY conditionals...

The Generic Gravis Cap: Gained +1MV, +1T, lost 1W, and their chainsword ginsu build which was of dubious popularity.

The Primaris Chap: lost 1W, gained 1A,

The Firstborn Tech Marine? Lost 1W, gained 1A.

I'm not sure I'd accept Marines got better stats at all. They seem to have traded a point here for a point there usually but not always/necessarily of equivalent value. The sniper Telion probably would rather have the wounds than a bunch of basic combat blade attacks. But its not unheard of for some folks to hate one faction more than they like being honest, whether its anti-Marine, or anti-Eldar, or what have you.

Terminators went to T5.
Gravis to T6.

Dudeface wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Enjoy the break.

You don't have to be so flippant when people see their armies going through the ringer.

Why? It's actually a very grounded and mature post where they've realised they dislike it so choose not to participate in something they won't enjoy.

As opposed to complaining that the minis they paid good money for are now less useful? I'm guessing you're one of those people who think customers are such rotten entities that they have no right to complain to the glorious corporate overlords?

 JNAProductions wrote:
Terminators went to T5.
Gravis to T6.

Yeah, that's why I also tried to include non-Gravis/Terminator stuff who appear to have done some wounds for attacks shuffle.

 catbarf wrote:
My Genestealers are W2 so I'm not sure I can accept 'only Marines got better stats' at face value.

To be fair, a lot of stats have been shuffled around, but the seemingly inexorable crawl of Marines into higher comparative stats continues its slow march. What usually seems to happen is that adjustments will be made from edition to edition (sometimes small, but sometimes large like adding an extra wound to Marines), but whatever formerly comparable xenos unit, even if they get an upgrade, it won't be commensurate to whatever the Marines get. (Marines getting 2W while Orks get T5 a little later is an example there), or the game will change and xenos units will be left behind, (the classic example is Shuriken Catapults vs. Bolters from 3rd through the present). Little adjustments over the years that eventually result in net-benefits for Marines.

It's not "only Marines get better stats". It's more like, over time the net result of all changes favors Marines in terms of represented general power level.

I don't mind if Marines get stronger over time, provided their points reflect that in comparison to the weaker armies. I don't have enough data to verify that's what happens, though, as I don't play Marines myself, and have only played 2nd/3rd and 9th.

Hecate wrote:
I don't mind if Marines get stronger over time, provided their points reflect that in comparison to the weaker armies. I don't have enough data to verify that's what happens, though, as I don't play Marines myself, and have only played 2nd/3rd and 9th.

^And this is an all-too-common response.

It changes the dynamic of the setting. It's not about balance and points, but about the relationships between power level representation of the lore. It robs Marine-opposition of some of it's cool factor when Pheonix Lords, who are millenia-old immortal champions of the Eldar are only T3 compared to the Gravis Captains T6, or when Mariens are fielding battle-line troops that are nearly the size of Tyranid Warriors and starting to rock comparable stats.

I mean, I get what you're saying. Lore is being modified in-game, and it's no longer what a lot of players started with. Other armies being less awesome in-game than their fluff says they should be, in comparison to Marines who shouldn't be so powerful. I do understand that viewpoint.

But I understand the "is the game balanced enough to still be fun?" viewpoint too. I like the lore of 40k. I like a fun game more. So if stats/lore changes over the years, I'm okay with it if it's still a fun game. Just personal opinion. I understand the alternative viewpoint. I still value gameplay more than lore-appropriateness, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ideally it'd be both, which I think was your view too. But I still prefer gameplay over lore.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Hecate wrote:
I don't mind if Marines get stronger over time, provided their points reflect that in comparison to the weaker armies. I don't have enough data to verify that's what happens, though, as I don't play Marines myself, and have only played 2nd/3rd and 9th.

^And this is an all-too-common response.

It changes the dynamic of the setting. It's not about balance and points, but about the relationships between power level representation of the lore. It robs Marine-opposition of some of it's cool factor when Pheonix Lords, who are millenia-old immortal champions of the Eldar are only T3 compared to the Gravis Captains T6, or when Mariens are fielding battle-line troops that are nearly the size of Tyranid Warriors and starting to rock comparable stats.

So should Marines go back to being T3 then? Sure, most players never played back when they had that toughness but if you're going to argue for reverting stat changes we should go back to the start.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Hecate wrote:
I don't mind if Marines get stronger over time, provided their points reflect that in comparison to the weaker armies. I don't have enough data to verify that's what happens, though, as I don't play Marines myself, and have only played 2nd/3rd and 9th.

^And this is an all-too-common response.

It changes the dynamic of the setting. It's not about balance and points, but about the relationships between power level representation of the lore. It robs Marine-opposition of some of it's cool factor when Pheonix Lords, who are millenia-old immortal champions of the Eldar are only T3 compared to the Gravis Captains T6, or when Mariens are fielding battle-line troops that are nearly the size of Tyranid Warriors and starting to rock comparable stats.

So should Marines go back to being T3 then? Sure, most players never played back when they had that toughness but if you're going to argue for reverting stat changes we should go back to the start.

I found marines worked well enough at T3 with a 4+ save, they were what they were then meant to be, humans with better training and equipment and some cybernetic enhancements of various sorts but not supermen

the move to make them both supermen and at the same time be the 'baseline' is screwing a lot of things up. when 40k started the baseline was a normal human, most stats at 3, psych stats at 7, 1w and 1 attack, 5 points with everything else scaled from them.

didn't always work but you knew the baseline

now they need to scrap the d6 system, I'd go d12 as they roll nicely, maybe put a normal human at "4", stick a marine at "5" and have space to go down in a meaningful way while still having the top end for better stuff

think also the SvT relationship needs adjusting, currently S8 is basically twice as good as S4, when actually all S8 should mean is "better than S7 by enough to matter and worse than S9 by enough to matter"

leopard wrote:
I found marines worked well enough at T3 with a 4+ save, they were what they were then meant to be, humans with better training and equipment and some cybernetic enhancements of various sorts but not supermen

the move to make them both supermen and at the same time be the 'baseline' is screwing a lot of things up. when 40k started the baseline was a normal human, most stats at 3, psych stats at 7, 1w and 1 attack, 5 points with everything else scaled from them.

didn't always work but you knew the baseline

now they need to scrap the d6 system, I'd go d12 as they roll nicely, maybe put a normal human at "4", stick a marine at "5" and have space to go down in a meaningful way while still having the top end for better stuff

think also the SvT relationship needs adjusting, currently S8 is basically twice as good as S4, when actually all S8 should mean is "better than S7 by enough to matter and worse than S9 by enough to matter"

90% or more of the player base has never played a game where the baseline Marine was T4 with a 3+ save, I don't think many people would support going back to being guardsmen.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Hecate wrote:
I don't mind if Marines get stronger over time, provided their points reflect that in comparison to the weaker armies. I don't have enough data to verify that's what happens, though, as I don't play Marines myself, and have only played 2nd/3rd and 9th.

^And this is an all-too-common response.

It changes the dynamic of the setting. It's not about balance and points, but about the relationships between power level representation of the lore. It robs Marine-opposition of some of it's cool factor when Pheonix Lords, who are millenia-old immortal champions of the Eldar are only T3 compared to the Gravis Captains T6, or when Mariens are fielding battle-line troops that are nearly the size of Tyranid Warriors and starting to rock comparable stats.

So should Marines go back to being T3 then? Sure, most players never played back when they had that toughness but if you're going to argue for reverting stat changes we should go back to the start.

^Good one. your logic is strong. . .

not.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Hecate wrote:
I don't mind if Marines get stronger over time, provided their points reflect that in comparison to the weaker armies. I don't have enough data to verify that's what happens, though, as I don't play Marines myself, and have only played 2nd/3rd and 9th.

^And this is an all-too-common response.

It changes the dynamic of the setting. It's not about balance and points, but about the relationships between power level representation of the lore. It robs Marine-opposition of some of it's cool factor when Pheonix Lords, who are millenia-old immortal champions of the Eldar are only T3 compared to the Gravis Captains T6, or when Mariens are fielding battle-line troops that are nearly the size of Tyranid Warriors and starting to rock comparable stats.

So should Marines go back to being T3 then? Sure, most players never played back when they had that toughness but if you're going to argue for reverting stat changes we should go back to the start.

^Good one. your logic is strong. . .

not.

So you're only opposed to some types of stat inflation (likely based on the state of the game and its lore when you first started playing).

He's referring to the changes that Phoenix Lords have suffered. Those occurred between the change from 9th to 10th, and have nothing to do with the distant history of 1st Edition T3 Marines, so his points are are both recent and relevant.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

leopard wrote:
I found marines worked well enough at T3 with a 4+ save, they were what they were then meant to be, humans with better training and equipment and some cybernetic enhancements of various sorts but not supermen

the move to make them both supermen and at the same time be the 'baseline' is screwing a lot of things up. when 40k started the baseline was a normal human, most stats at 3, psych stats at 7, 1w and 1 attack, 5 points with everything else scaled from them.

didn't always work but you knew the baseline

now they need to scrap the d6 system, I'd go d12 as they roll nicely, maybe put a normal human at "4", stick a marine at "5" and have space to go down in a meaningful way while still having the top end for better stuff

think also the SvT relationship needs adjusting, currently S8 is basically twice as good as S4, when actually all S8 should mean is "better than S7 by enough to matter and worse than S9 by enough to matter"

90% or more of the player base has never played a game where the baseline Marine was T4 with a 3+ save, I don't think many people would support going back to being guardsmen.

To be fair, a good number of people raging about numbers now being different numbers also haven't played any of the last editions either - according to their own posts in other threads.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
He's referring to the changes that Phoenix Lords have suffered. Those occurred between the change from 9th to 10th, and have nothing to do with the distant history of 1st Edition T3 Marines, so his points are are both recent and relevant.

Eldar and Pheonix Lords both seem like they're going to do fine in 10th edition. I don't see any reason for the complaints.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

leopard wrote:
I found marines worked well enough at T3 with a 4+ save, they were what they were then meant to be, humans with better training and equipment and some cybernetic enhancements of various sorts but not supermen

the move to make them both supermen and at the same time be the 'baseline' is screwing a lot of things up. when 40k started the baseline was a normal human, most stats at 3, psych stats at 7, 1w and 1 attack, 5 points with everything else scaled from them.

didn't always work but you knew the baseline

now they need to scrap the d6 system, I'd go d12 as they roll nicely, maybe put a normal human at "4", stick a marine at "5" and have space to go down in a meaningful way while still having the top end for better stuff

think also the SvT relationship needs adjusting, currently S8 is basically twice as good as S4, when actually all S8 should mean is "better than S7 by enough to matter and worse than S9 by enough to matter"

90% or more of the player base has never played a game where the baseline Marine was T4 with a 3+ save, I don't think many people would support going back to being guardsmen.

To be fair, a good number of people raging about numbers now being different numbers also haven't played any of the last editions either - according to their own posts in other threads.

I think being angry about stuff is it's own hobby at this point. I get we can't play the game until today, but what a lot of wasted energy all round.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

leopard wrote:
I found marines worked well enough at T3 with a 4+ save, they were what they were then meant to be, humans with better training and equipment and some cybernetic enhancements of various sorts but not supermen

the move to make them both supermen and at the same time be the 'baseline' is screwing a lot of things up. when 40k started the baseline was a normal human, most stats at 3, psych stats at 7, 1w and 1 attack, 5 points with everything else scaled from them.

didn't always work but you knew the baseline

now they need to scrap the d6 system, I'd go d12 as they roll nicely, maybe put a normal human at "4", stick a marine at "5" and have space to go down in a meaningful way while still having the top end for better stuff

think also the SvT relationship needs adjusting, currently S8 is basically twice as good as S4, when actually all S8 should mean is "better than S7 by enough to matter and worse than S9 by enough to matter"

90% or more of the player base has never played a game where the baseline Marine was T4 with a 3+ save, I don't think many people would support going back to being guardsmen.

don't have a problem with it, my point is that marines cannot really be both the 'baseline' against which all the rest are scaled, and also considered to be "elite", it needs a rethink that GW see no commercial reason to do as people will keep buying crap rules to use nice models, as noted before this is 10th edition, it should be damned near perfet, that it isn't is a clear sign it never will be

leopard wrote:
I don't have a problem with it, my point is that marines cannot really be both the 'baseline' against which all the rest are scaled, and also considered to be "elite", it needs a rethink that GW see no commercial reason to do as people will keep buying crap rules to use nice models, as noted before this is 10th edition, it should be damned near perfet, that it isn't is a clear sign it never will be

Why should we care what the baseline is? As long as it doesn't hurt the gameplay nobody should care if a marine is T4 2W 3+ or T6 5W 2+.

leopard wrote:
...my point is that marines cannot really be both the 'baseline' against which all the rest are scaled, and also considered to be "elite"

Why not? You can totally set the baseline as an elite profile, with things being stronger or weaker than that.

 Trickstick wrote:

leopard wrote:
...my point is that marines cannot really be both the 'baseline' against which all the rest are scaled, and also considered to be "elite"

Why not? You can totally set the baseline as an elite profile, with things being stronger or weaker than that.

The whole point of being elite is that you are not baseline. If you are baseline then you are not elite. Things better (and supposedly rarer) than you are elite. Tho I guess you can just fluff it however you want and if enough people believe it then it becomes the truth or something along those lines. Crazier things have happened.

Baseline is just a point you define that you measure other things from. You can have an elite profile as your baseline, if you want to tailor the experience around how things interact with elite units.

The issue with Marines isn't really their "eliteness" - the problem is that they are meant to be a relatively tough, easy to play army.

The problem is that if a unit isn't good into "Marines" its probably just a bad unit - because MEQ make up about half the playerbase so you'll constantly be running into that stat line.

So this creates this cycle where Marines get tougher. But then the rest of the game has to grow more lethal to catch up. So Marines get tougher still. Until the game catches up again etc. Enter 9th and just about every unit in the game is a glass cannon that expects to kill and be killed by everything else.

But we can see that now. If mass Gravis for instance becomes meta, everyone will have to bring units that can crack T6. The units that can't will be discarded. Until GW buffs them so they can cope. But then Gravis will appear too fragile so will need T8 and round and round we go.

 Trickstick wrote:
Baseline is just a point you define that you measure other things from. You can have an elite profile as your baseline, if you want to tailor the experience around how things interact with elite units.

Whelp, sure, we can also handwave it with corpospeak like "we want to tailor the experience around how things interact with elite units".

Tyel wrote:
The issue with Marines isn't really their "eliteness" - the problem is that they are meant to be a relatively tough, easy to play army.

The problem is that if a unit isn't good into "Marines" its probably just a bad unit - because MEQ make up about half the playerbase so you'll constantly be running into that stat line.

So this creates this cycle where Marines get tougher. But then the rest of the game has to grow more lethal to catch up. So Marines get tougher still. Until the game catches up again etc. Enter 9th and just about every unit in the game is a glass cannon that expects to kill and be killed by everything else.

But we can see that now. If mass Gravis for instance becomes meta, everyone will have to bring units that can crack T6. The units that can't will be discarded. Until GW buffs them so they can cope. But then Gravis will appear too fragile so will need T8 and round and round we go.

I'm looking forward to T matching the MK of the armor

The baseline in this case isn't being used in the sense of "arbitrary point against which one measures"; I think Insectum means 'baseline' as in 'baseline assumption'.

The designers and players both assume that Marines are the most popular and most played army. This leads to an awkward situation where the designers try to make them appeal to many people, and the players tend to either tailor specifically against them or simply play them outright.

This baseline assumption (that Marines are the most common army) is incongruous with Marines being elite in the lore, and causes weird disjunctions like the whole "plasma is rare and arcane, one of the few weapons able to deal with the single space marine a human will see in their lifetime" vs. "plasma on every tank and squad for the hordes of Space Marines this army has to chew through in two of every three games"

Tyel wrote:
The issue with Marines isn't really their "eliteness" - the problem is that they are meant to be a relatively tough, easy to play army.

The problem is that if a unit isn't good into "Marines" its probably just a bad unit - because MEQ make up about half the playerbase so you'll constantly be running into that stat line.

So this creates this cycle where Marines get tougher. But then the rest of the game has to grow more lethal to catch up. So Marines get tougher still. Until the game catches up again etc. Enter 9th and just about every unit in the game is a glass cannon that expects to kill and be killed by everything else.

But we can see that now. If mass Gravis for instance becomes meta, everyone will have to bring units that can crack T6. The units that can't will be discarded. Until GW buffs them so they can cope. But then Gravis will appear too fragile so will need T8 and round and round we go.

I think the toughness spread keeps that from being a problem. Cracking T6 / T7 models requires some relatively strong and low shot weapons, which means more room for hordes.

Eldar may not have seen stat increases, but they look to be the army with the most options to have reactive movement.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The issue with Marines isn't really their "eliteness" - the problem is that they are meant to be a relatively tough, easy to play army.

The problem is that if a unit isn't good into "Marines" its probably just a bad unit - because MEQ make up about half the playerbase so you'll constantly be running into that stat line.

So this creates this cycle where Marines get tougher. But then the rest of the game has to grow more lethal to catch up. So Marines get tougher still. Until the game catches up again etc. Enter 9th and just about every unit in the game is a glass cannon that expects to kill and be killed by everything else.

But we can see that now. If mass Gravis for instance becomes meta, everyone will have to bring units that can crack T6. The units that can't will be discarded. Until GW buffs them so they can cope. But then Gravis will appear too fragile so will need T8 and round and round we go.

I think the toughness spread keeps that from being a problem. Cracking T6 / T7 models requires some relatively strong and low shot weapons, which means more room for hordes.

So, as someone who plans to face a crapton of this shiny new Gravis in 10th edition, I'm really looking into options to counter them nowadays. As it turns out, stuff that counters Gravis well also happen to be Blast arty and other high-STR horde removers (Manticore, LRBT). Go figure.

T6/7 is exactly the same as T5 for many armies.

Shooting your basic S4 gun, you won't even notice. A lot of special/heavy weapons won't notice in the other direction- they'll still wound on 3s either way.

There's a very specific list of guns where it matters, and for a lot of armies it begins and ends with heavy bolters (or equivalents). With a few special exceptions (like assault cans/onslaught gats for marines), the rest are niche weapons you probably won't be using anyway.

 AtoMaki wrote:
So, as someone who plans to face a crapton of this shiny new Gravis in 10th edition, I'm really looking into options to counter them nowadays. As it turns out, stuff that counters Gravis well also happen to be Blast arty and other high-STR horde removers (Manticore, LRBT). Go figure.

A Manticore kills 2 Gravis, 1 Termies, and 4 to 5 IS in cover. A BC is 0.8, 0.4, and 3 respectively.

Gravis are 110, Termies are 200, and 20 IS are 130. Manticore is 105. It will take it almost all game for a Manticore to clear a single IS squad and less into Gravis. Termies lock them out - not enough AP.