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It is also a scale issue, the game has grown to include way more tanks and heavy artillery and even super heavy vehicles.

Even lore wise Marine's durability is mostly limited to resistance against small firearms, not anti-tank weaponry. And I would say the tabletop is actually quite lore accurate when it comes to what happens to a Space Marine squad that finds themselves staring down the barrel of an Exocrine's bio-plasmic cannon: they die

I mean. Yeah, that and the fact they seemed to have been the ''And they shall know no downsides'' faction, both in fictions and to a lesser extend, the TT (immunities to a few things that other factions had to deal with)

There's a reason a lot of the game stats =/= real lore comes from the Space Marine player side, from what I gathered, it seemed even more obvious with SM2 and Boltgun, there seems very little acknowledgement that those aren't lore accurate in favor of gameplay.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Technically marines are now even more resistant to lasguns than they used to be.

It's still 50/33/33, but now with 2 wounds it takes 36 lasgun shots to kill a marine.

They've moved to require more special weapons in the armies, with the standard rifle being an incidental attack. Or special detachment rules or strategems that change the probabilities.

The game now needs these add ons to make whole squads viable. Lasguns gaining lethal hits in one guard detachment changes the wound probability.

I don't know. Is that more of a survivability issue, or a game scale/points issue? I feel like taking down a couple marines a turn with lasguns and then having your special weapons be the workhorses in that matchup is fine. Especially if lasguns are reasonably effective against, say, a gaunt horde. The issue is when there are 50-100 marine bodies that you have to get through that you really feel the pressure to lean into special weapons. But if you're only up against, say, 20 marines, killing a couple marines a turn with all your lasguns might be alright.

It's an issue because 2W Marines mean that most small-arms aren't worth the paper they're printed on considering they're inefficient and ineffective against the most ubiquitous infantry in the entire game.

If Marine armies predominantly consisted of guardsmen with just a small number of Marines at the centre, it would be fine. But when most armies have no guard-equivalent models, then firing small-arms just turns into a time-wasting mechanic.

 vipoid wrote:

It's an issue because 2W Marines mean that most small-arms aren't worth the paper they're printed on considering they're inefficient and ineffective against the most ubiquitous infantry in the entire game.

If Marine armies predominantly consisted of guardsmen with just a small number of Marines at the centre, it would be fine. But when most armies have no guard-equivalent models, then firing small-arms just turns into a time-wasting mechanic.

What's more ridiculous is we can remove the "lesser troops" from the analysis and just look at Marines themselves. How long does it take a Marine to kill a Marine?

Boltgun/Fists: .66x.5x.33 = .1 so 20 shots/attacks to kill a Marine. So it takes 10 Tactical Marines rapid firing with Boltguns to down a Marine, or Or 10 Tactical Marines to subdue one Marine in close combat. Does that make any sense?

Marines should have never gone to two wounds. The game should have been re-tuned to make 1w Marines work well.

in the end, the underlying problem is that the game is supposed to be fair and every army balanced. But Marines and most 'smart' 40k armies would never fight fair, nor is that any modern military's strategy.

Marines aren't survivable when their enemy is balanced, which is precisely why their greatest weapon is as a force multiplier applied to very specific locations/enemy forces.

The anti marine guns are over represented in armies because of the players, not the setting. 99% of all guard squads would be equipped with grenade launchers, heavy bolters and flamers. Their support weapons will all be anti-ork weapons.

Which is why a marine army sent to chastise a rebellious guard commander is likely to demolish them - they aren't going to be equipped with that many anti marine guns.


Marines are caught between a few contradictory forces of GW's own making:

They shouldn't really be an army in their own right, but a detachment deployed alongside the guard to target specific locations on the battlefield before pulling out. Marines shouldn't stick around to die in pointless last stands. That's what the guard are for.

If the army is mostly guard, then the meta shifts to anti guard weapons and marines become more survivable by default.

Every army is designed to be balanced but also up to some player choice, so every army by default maximises anti marine weapons due to their ubiquity.

Every army has its own version of survivability - orks and nids use numbers, so the counter is high shot weapons. Eldar... should be using movement, but I've yet to see them not die in droves so unsure, marines toughness so you go for higher hitting weapons. Fewer numbers is balanced by proportionally fewer weapons that can threaten them.

GW would either have to create different points costs for units depending on the enemy they face - reapers more expensive against marines, less against orks, or prevent you optimising your unit load outs to be explicitly anti marine.

The problem with the latter one is that marines fight each other so much that they have to be able to kill them, which is where the marine toughness vs marine lethality treadmill comes in.


I do not expect GW to ever fix these, because the solutions are not profit positive.

That's true, the narrative can skew the perception of Marines.

 vipoid wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Technically marines are now even more resistant to lasguns than they used to be.

It's still 50/33/33, but now with 2 wounds it takes 36 lasgun shots to kill a marine.

They've moved to require more special weapons in the armies, with the standard rifle being an incidental attack. Or special detachment rules or strategems that change the probabilities.

The game now needs these add ons to make whole squads viable. Lasguns gaining lethal hits in one guard detachment changes the wound probability.

I don't know. Is that more of a survivability issue, or a game scale/points issue? I feel like taking down a couple marines a turn with lasguns and then having your special weapons be the workhorses in that matchup is fine. Especially if lasguns are reasonably effective against, say, a gaunt horde. The issue is when there are 50-100 marine bodies that you have to get through that you really feel the pressure to lean into special weapons. But if you're only up against, say, 20 marines, killing a couple marines a turn with all your lasguns might be alright.

It's an issue because 2W Marines mean that most small-arms aren't worth the paper they're printed on considering they're inefficient and ineffective against the most ubiquitous infantry in the entire game.

If Marine armies predominantly consisted of guardsmen with just a small number of Marines at the centre, it would be fine. But when most armies have no guard-equivalent models, then firing small-arms just turns into a time-wasting mechanic.

This is the difference between "the game" and "the meta" in literally every table top game out there. The game as its designed holistically isn't the same as the subset of the game that players encounter on the table. The first order meta is always what is effective against the average, but what actually breaks the game is usually something that beats that first order meta that the playerbase entrenches themselves in. What's in the game and what's on the table is the primary reason developers don't get it right until after its in players' hands.

 Hellebore wrote:

The anti marine guns are over represented in armies because of the players, not the setting. 99% of all guard squads would be equipped with grenade launchers, heavy bolters and flamers. Their support weapons will all be anti-ork weapons.

Minor point, but this is actually not true. In the 3rd or 4th ed Guard dex it lists "favored weapons" alongside various examples of Regiments, and some regiments feature Plasmaguns as a "favored weapon."

I think it depended on what the local forges were good at producing, largely.

I do like the idea of a 40K game where Marines are elite units for the Imperial army list. It'd be a really interesting thing to see play out.

Protagonists always roll 6s.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

The anti marine guns are over represented in armies because of the players, not the setting. 99% of all guard squads would be equipped with grenade launchers, heavy bolters and flamers. Their support weapons will all be anti-ork weapons.

Minor point, but this is actually not true. In the 3rd or 4th ed Guard dex it lists "favored weapons" alongside various examples of Regiments, and some regiments feature Plasmaguns as a "favored weapon."

80% then. Plasma is also supposed to be relatively rare, even if some regiments favour it. iirc a meltagun would be more common than a plasma gun, which is far less effective at killing marines from range. I would imagine though that even those regiments with favoured weapons would change them if they encountered a different enemy.

That's another factor that the game can't illustrate - the shifting gear of war. A plasma favoured regiment might find itself up against orks, instead of heavier armoured enemies they'd normally be deployed against (you would imagine...) so the first few battles would be inefficient because of those guns. But they'd get resupplied from their stores and pull out the flamers etc instead, so the latter battles would be different. That might happen in reverse, but the anti marine guns tend to be rarer in general, so it would be harder for an anti ork guard regiment to resupply comprehensively to kill marines if they came up against them.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
While you're not wrong...

A.) I don't particularly want/need marines to get treated as punching bags left and right. They're allowed to be scary, highly competent threats. The problem comes when the scary, highly competent threats from *other factions* get diminished to make the marines look cool. A battle between marines and some aspect warriors should cost both sides a lot of lives.

B.) Thematically, I've kind of headcanon'd that "protagonism" might actually be a supernatural force at work in-universe. As in the primarchs literally had in-universe plot armor and general "protagonism" powers, and some of that rubbed off on their sons. Similar to how phoenix lords canonically bend fate around themselves, I could see astartes having some sort of low-key fate manipulation powers that frequently let them pull off stunts or endure damage they frankly shouldn't be able to. Sort of akin to the less flashy miracles of sororitas.

I figure there are two extremes. The people who think Tactical Marine #9959203 of the Generic Marine Chapter is Marneus Calgar level powerful - the story is about Heroic Dude Marine because Heroic Dude Marine is going to have both the skills, and the fate/luck to be in the place to do the thing that makes him Heroic. The flipside of that coin are the people who want to tell you Delta Force are just average because they're not Chuck Norris.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

The anti marine guns are over represented in armies because of the players, not the setting. 99% of all guard squads would be equipped with grenade launchers, heavy bolters and flamers. Their support weapons will all be anti-ork weapons.

Minor point, but this is actually not true. In the 3rd or 4th ed Guard dex it lists "favored weapons" alongside various examples of Regiments, and some regiments feature Plasmaguns as a "favored weapon."

80% then. Plasma is also supposed to be relatively rare, even if some regiments favour it. iirc a meltagun would be more common than a plasma gun, which is far less effective at killing marines from range. I would imagine though that even those regiments with favoured weapons would change them if they encountered a different enemy.

That's another factor that the game can't illustrate - the shifting gear of war. A plasma favoured regiment might find itself up against orks, instead of heavier armoured enemies they'd normally be deployed against (you would imagine...) so the first few battles would be inefficient because of those guns. But they'd get resupplied from their stores and pull out the flamers etc instead, so the latter battles would be different. That might happen in reverse, but the anti marine guns tend to be rarer in general, so it would be harder for an anti ork guard regiment to resupply comprehensively to kill marines if they came up against them.

I think the weapon swapping is one solution, but Imaybe a more realistic notion is that the regiment doesn't switch its weapons out because they've already been fighting against orks with their plasma guns for hundreds of years. The doctrines they may have adopted might be architected to assume other units woukd do the flame work instead, like Sentinels with heavy flamers, Hellhounds, or just take a different route entirely and favor taking more heavy weapons platoons with heavy bolters than your average regiment.

A thought occurs. On the difference between Imperial Astartes, and Chaos Astartes.

Typically, due to their deployment preference and expertise, one doesn’t often get the chance to load lump with appropriate weapons when fighting Imperial Astartes. They favour incredibly rapid strikes, aiming to annihilate anything in the mission area, before making themselves scarce, or at least moving on rapidly down your line.

This necessitates them striking against already deployed troops and equipment, and with a speed which makes reinforcing that specific area unlikely.

Chaos Astartes though fight differently. Their tactics (use of Cultists, summoning Daemons) is more the combined arms of the Great Crusade, with many elements of the available forces acting more or less in concert. And for a more sustained period. Sieges, invasions, piracy etc.

So one could load up on Plasma and other weapons pretty decent at slaying Astartes. But you can’t realistically 3rd Ed Min-Man Jeenyus your forces, as you leave yourself then comparatively poorly equipped against the hordes of Cultists and that.

The idea of a handful of SMs being able to absolutely demolish a defensive line of (for relatability's sake) guardsmen is pretty awesome. When you assume they have almost flawless marksmanship with every single round within say a 200m range, are functionally immune to anything smaller than a light anti-tank cannon round, have advanced coms/intel and don't fatigue or slow down. You can see why against an unprepared enemy they'd just cause a complete rout. Let alone without having a Whirlwind in support, which let's be honest should be firing a cluster of tactical nuke size explosives or somesuch. It's a bit funny to think of SMs as basically walking auto-turrets but that's functionally what they are. Imagine how terrifying it would be to have 10ft of armour walking, aiming and firing repeatedly to almost perfect effect nonstop.

The Astartes film really shows how it should be, though you do have to think that any enemy prepared for the marines would have AT weapons ready and poised to strike. 99 weapons/crew destroyed is worth if it to end a single SM.

As for Lore and the presence of high threat weapons among the foe?

That’s where any Astartes training and equipment comes in handy. Whilst not represented on the board, that power armour is doing more than just protecting. It’s identifying and categorising threats. It’s working out potential firing solutions. It’s delivering data and analysis of said data at a rate a mere smelly hooman couldn’t do much with.

But an Astartes? They’d have the weapons identified, and where possible* a firing solution on the bearer(s) in a very short space of time. Plasma Gunner is all fine and well until they’ve no face, chest, limbs etc.

*Not always going to be possible, of course. But just knowing it’s there, combined with a Marines’ reactions and training helps mitigate its presence, as even if you can’t remove it as a threat straight away, you can use the same information to stay out of likely line of fire and that.

The Space Marines remind me of the way Jedi are handled in the Star Wars franchise.

Some are the ultimate badasses, able to mow through legions of enemies without breaking a sweat, and others (see Attack of the Clones) die quickly to show how dangerous the situation is (aka to show how more badass our heroes are).

The same works in space marine stories.

 RustyNumber wrote:
The idea of a handful of SMs being able to absolutely demolish a defensive line of (for relatability's sake) guardsmen is pretty awesome. When you assume they have almost flawless marksmanship with every single round within say a 200m range, are functionally immune to anything smaller than a light anti-tank cannon round, have advanced coms/intel and don't fatigue or slow down. You can see why against an unprepared enemy they'd just cause a complete rout. Let alone without having a Whirlwind in support, which let's be honest should be firing a cluster of tactical nuke size explosives or somesuch. It's a bit funny to think of SMs as basically walking auto-turrets but that's functionally what they are. Imagine how terrifying it would be to have 10ft of armour walking, aiming and firing repeatedly to almost perfect effect nonstop.

To be honest, that level of invulnerability makes me less interested in SMs, rather than more interested.

 RustyNumber wrote:
The idea of a handful of SMs being able to absolutely demolish a defensive line of (for relatability's sake) guardsmen is pretty awesome. When you assume they have almost flawless marksmanship with every single round within say a 200m range, are functionally immune to anything smaller than a light anti-tank cannon round, have advanced coms/intel and don't fatigue or slow down. You can see why against an unprepared enemy they'd just cause a complete rout. Let alone without having a Whirlwind in support, which let's be honest should be firing a cluster of tactical nuke size explosives or somesuch. It's a bit funny to think of SMs as basically walking auto-turrets but that's functionally what they are. Imagine how terrifying it would be to have 10ft of armour walking, aiming and firing repeatedly to almost perfect effect nonstop.

So basically Necrons. Because Necrons are also supposed to be an immovable legion of metal that fire their weapons with incredibly accuracy and efficiency.

What marines are supposed to be are shock troops that hit key personnel and installations deep in enemy territory and then withdraw before the enemy can retaliate with enough force to take them down. It's just that GW also tries to make them like Imperial Guard and have them fight enemies en masse on open ground. Which would be fine if it weren't for the fact that they are, you know, supposed to be incredibly rare and hard to replace.
Necrons can get away with doing that because they can't be permanently killed unless you blow up their planet wide tomb complex. Marines don't have that luxury.

GW should have really given them chapter serf auxiliary forces when they expanded the game from a skirmish level to a company level game. I think that's where most of the disconnect comes from. The game was a lot smaller in RT and 2nd ed, iirc.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
against the hordes of Cultists and that.

That's what lasguns are for.

 vipoid wrote:

 RustyNumber wrote:
The idea of a handful of SMs being able to absolutely demolish a defensive line of (for relatability's sake) guardsmen is pretty awesome. When you assume they have almost flawless marksmanship with every single round within say a 200m range, are functionally immune to anything smaller than a light anti-tank cannon round, have advanced coms/intel and don't fatigue or slow down. You can see why against an unprepared enemy they'd just cause a complete rout. Let alone without having a Whirlwind in support, which let's be honest should be firing a cluster of tactical nuke size explosives or somesuch. It's a bit funny to think of SMs as basically walking auto-turrets but that's functionally what they are. Imagine how terrifying it would be to have 10ft of armour walking, aiming and firing repeatedly to almost perfect effect nonstop.

To be honest, that level of invulnerability makes me less interested in SMs, rather than more interested.

They don't have any more or less invulnerability than any one/thing else as a protagonist. That scene is going to show up in one way or another all the time anyway. Its the "baseline setter". When the protagonist is "elite" they chew through the "chaff" to reset the "danger zone" expecations. When the Protagonist is a normal dude, its in there to hype the heroism levels of a "mere mortal" fighting with the gods as some chaos space marines, or lictors, or whatever else just snuff NPCs in blink of an eye.

There’s also raw experience.

The life of an Astartes, from the moment they’re accepted as a candidate, is little but training and action. Outside of a spectacular death in combat, they seem to be functionally immortal. Indeed whilst Dante is noted as being incredibly old, I’m not aware of an Astartes dying from old age.

But even for comparatively young Astartes? Say, 50-60 years old? They’ve training and experience far in advance of the vast majority of the Imperial Guard. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Does it make Veteran Guardsman look like absolute noobs and weekend warriors? Not as such I’d say. But comparatively, the difference is going to be appreciable. What is a desperate but winnable situation for a Veteran Guardsman, by their nature and preference, is Just Another Tuesday for a Marine.

 vipoid wrote:

 RustyNumber wrote:
The idea of a handful of SMs being able to absolutely demolish a defensive line of (for relatability's sake) guardsmen is pretty awesome. When you assume they have almost flawless marksmanship with every single round within say a 200m range, are functionally immune to anything smaller than a light anti-tank cannon round, have advanced coms/intel and don't fatigue or slow down. You can see why against an unprepared enemy they'd just cause a complete rout. Let alone without having a Whirlwind in support, which let's be honest should be firing a cluster of tactical nuke size explosives or somesuch. It's a bit funny to think of SMs as basically walking auto-turrets but that's functionally what they are. Imagine how terrifying it would be to have 10ft of armour walking, aiming and firing repeatedly to almost perfect effect nonstop.

To be honest, that level of invulnerability makes me less interested in SMs, rather than more interested.

Agree.

The interesting thing about the Astartes animation is that it'l makes the Astarts look like amazing badasses, but without them actually being as nuts as some want to believe. Five Astartes board a ship, rarely fight more than a handful of low quality defenders at a time, and then struggle to take out some low level psykers. And then some warp artifact eats them. The Astartes look great doing it, and show their profficiency in combat against lesser foes, but they're not actually tanking any serious firepower or fighting serious threats.

In the Astartes animation they are also figthing cultists, and poorly equipped ones while at it. Poor people cultists and rebels are both an extremely common enemy for SM in the lore, and so utterly irrelevant they barely have TT representation.

Every playable race in the game has better weapons than lasguns. Ork Shootas? better than lasguns. Eldar Catapults? better than lasguns? Tyranid Fleshborers? better than lasguns.

So the whole "they are impervious to lasguns and modern firearms", while cool on paper, pretty much irrelevant against any other playable faction, even before said faction starts bringing their actual big guns.

And at least, going by some quotes from novels, it's more a high degree of protection, rather than outright immunity.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 RustyNumber wrote:
The idea of a handful of SMs being able to absolutely demolish a defensive line of (for relatability's sake) guardsmen is pretty awesome. When you assume they have almost flawless marksmanship with every single round within say a 200m range, are functionally immune to anything smaller than a light anti-tank cannon round, have advanced coms/intel and don't fatigue or slow down. You can see why against an unprepared enemy they'd just cause a complete rout. Let alone without having a Whirlwind in support, which let's be honest should be firing a cluster of tactical nuke size explosives or somesuch. It's a bit funny to think of SMs as basically walking auto-turrets but that's functionally what they are. Imagine how terrifying it would be to have 10ft of armour walking, aiming and firing repeatedly to almost perfect effect nonstop.

To be honest, that level of invulnerability makes me less interested in SMs, rather than more interested.

Agree.

The interesting thing about the Astartes animation is that it'l makes the Astarts look like amazing badasses, but without them actually being as nuts as some want to believe. Five Astartes board a ship, rarely fight more than a handful of low quality defenders at a time, and then struggle to take out some low level psykers. And then some warp artifact eats them. The Astartes look great doing it, and show their profficiency in combat against lesser foes, but they're not actually tanking any serious firepower or fighting serious threats.

They also use actual tactics and cover instead of Leeroy Jenkins their way through enemy kill zones.
Space Marines are more interesting when they act like highly trained soldiers and try not to get shot as opposed to be being T-800 knockoffs. Leave that to the Necrons.

It's why I found Secret Level to be a bit boring, because all it is is 4 Marines slowly walking in a straight line out in the open while ridiculous numbers of trash mobs throw themselves at them.

It’s all degrees.

As you say, Marines are more than just Big Huge Splungers. That they can quite happily run through a household wall, doesn’t mean that’s all they’re capable of.

Indeed, given Power Armour and Black Carapace allow the Marine to act as if he’s running around in just his pants, to see that put to use whilst using cover is visually going to be more terrifying than just plodding forward with methodical, measured violence.

It needs the combination of the two. The Terminator effect, just wading trough incoming fire is cool. The Predator effect, using your skills and environment to avoid incoming fire is cool. To combine the two? Now that’s something I want to see!

In fact, that could make Combat Squads work on screen. One doing the Terminator, the other being a bit sneakier, even if it involves the sneakier ones eventually just barging through a wall to surprise the enemy.

I'm not sure they could run through a brick wall, some thin, badly made brick walls maybe but there's plenty of brick walls that can survive an impact from a car, and I don't think a space marine is going to be able to transfer as much force as a car.

Especially if they were made of cinderblocks or something.

I think smashing through a wall is more Carnifex level of force.

I dunno. We know they can maintain a running speed of 35-45mph. And like your regular human, doesn’t need an especially long run up to hit top speed.

Then, apply that force across their fist (I’m assuming they’d punch first), and the body to follow, and no, they’re not going anything built to military specifications, but bricks and mortar or similar?

They’re fast, they’re heavy, and unlike a car, have at least the opportunity and ability to concentrate the initial impact across a much smaller area.

As ever I’d be interested if anyone can offer a calculation, whether it supports my claim or not.

A car can go much faster than 45MPH.
A space marine is apparently 1000kg which is still lighter than a car, which can be 1400kg to 2000kg
Knowing that Force = Mass times Acceleration if a car traveling at 90MPH and weighing at 1400kg can't break a brick wall, then a Space Marine running at 45MPH and weighting at 1000kg definitely wouldn't be able to cool-aid man his way through it.

Even if he punched the wall first (thereby applying more pressure on impact) he would still just be able to make a sizeable dent. Even if he manages to punch through he'd have to destroy the rest of the wall which would slow him down.
He'd be better off just asking a Centurion or Dread to do it, as the Centurions come with Drills (iirc) and Dreads are much larger and stronger than marines.