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I've been experimenting with 1500 point all infantry Space Marines lists. One is all Primaris Space Marines, the other is all Classic Space Marines.

The classic list has 60 models in it - Three 10-man Tac squads (with Las, Plas, & Combi-Plas) and three 10-man Dev squads (4x ML, 4x HB, & 4x PC). The Primaris army has 45 models in it - Two 10-man Intercessor squads (9 Bolt Rifles each), two 10-man Hellblaster squads (10 Plasma Incinerators), and one 5-man Reiver squad (4 Bolt Carbines).

On the face of it, it would seem that the 60-man classic Marine army is more durable due to the higher model count. But raw model count doesn't tell the whole story. While the 60-man classic Space Marines army has 60 wounds, those 45 Primaris models have between them 90 wounds. That's 50% more wounds, which translates roughly to 50% more durability.

The other side of that coin, however, is play style. The classic Space Marines list is 100% gunline. It will be taking advantage of cover as much as possible, which will in turn slightly improve its over-all durability. The Primaris Marines want to be in rapid fire range which means they will have to expose themselves to enemy fire more, and increase their risk of being charged and tied up, which decreases their over all durability.

What do you guys say to this? Which list has an advantage?

phydaux wrote:
I've been experimenting with 1500 point all infantry Space Marines lists. One is all Primaris Space Marines, the other is all Classic Space Marines.

The classic list has 60 models in it - Three 10-man Tac squads (with Las, Plas, & Combi-Plas) and three 10-man Dev squads (4x ML, 4x HB, & 4x PC). The Primaris army has 45 models in it - Two 10-man Intercessor squads (9 Bolt Rifles each), two 10-man Hellblaster squads (10 Plasma Incinerators), and one 5-man Reiver squad (4 Bolt Carbines).

On the face of it, it would seem that the 60-man classic Marine army is more durable due to the higher model count. But raw model count doesn't tell the whole story. While the 60-man classic Space Marines army has 60 wounds, those 45 Primaris models have between them 90 wounds. That's 50% more wounds, which translates roughly to 50% more durability.

The other side of that coin, however, is play style. The classic Space Marines list is 100% gunline. It will be taking advantage of cover as much as possible, which will in turn slightly improve its over-all durability. The Primaris Marines want to be in rapid fire range which means they will have to expose themselves to enemy fire more, and increase their risk of being charged and tied up, which decreases their over all durability.

What do you guys say to this? Which list has an advantage?

Classic. Primaris in most situations suffer from the classic issue of 2 wounds, 3+ save...Which pretty much gets negated by overcharged plasma, or equivelents. You will see that weapon a LOT more than you'd think against Primaris. In fact, when I know I am going against Primaris, I basically always try to bring some form of 2 flat damage weapons. Plasma just happens to be the easiest to spam. So yes, it is more durable against 1 damage guns...Literally anything above 1 damage starts to even the odds considerably.

I play a classic power armor swarm, and a major advantage of the classics is their generous array of weapons options. Imo, more bodies and more options trumps wounds in this case. Not to mention more deployment options via transports. It's a much more customizeable and flexible force.

Primaris marines (and terminators) suffer badly from the plethora of multi damage weapons out there. I don’t have Primaris myself, but I’ve tried running Terminators several times and it’s usually not pretty.

To compound the problem Primaris don’t have remotely cost effective transports.

Your specific lists may favor the Primaris slightly; those hellblasters are nasty. Your regular marine have weapon load outs that more effective as an all comers type of list.

You forgot that game has tons of D2 weapons like overcharged plasma with rerolls that GW gives out like candy that makes survivability boost less. W1 models laugh at multi damage weapons. W2 hates those.

Also it doesn't account for OTHER things like more models=more board control. And which one shoots more? Often enough more models=more attacks.

And more models, less death of one hurts your ability to shoot and control board.

In many cases, I'd agree that two wounds is generally better, and that 90 wounds is preferred over 60 - but as other guys have stated, it also means a Lascannon will delete one wound vs. a classic marine, and will delete two wounds vs. Primaris. So it would be heavily dependent on who you are playing against and what kind of weaponry they're fielding.

Also fewer models generally means fewer close combat attacks, and less shooting...both of which would heavily balance out the advantage of additional wounds, etc. Way too much math to call one an advantage over the other. I would argue you'd probably want a mix. I've been surprised how many people overlook a 5-7 man Tactical Squad sitting in cover, tossing out the occasional lascannon shot...a very cheap and robust unit.

I would love to see the Batrep of a match like this!

It has been alluded to, but you also need to consider the effects of firepower...which army shoots/attacks more and at what quality? Grey Knights have always had the classic dilemma of this with terminators vs strike squads: terminators are just over twice the points but 4x as durable against AP0...and have half the shooting attacks and 3/4 of the melee attacks. And of course that durability edge drops when multi damage and low AP weapons get involved.

Primaris benefit from compounding defense modifiers more than classic. The oft-cited example of overcharged plasma ruining a Primaris' day should take into account -1 to hit, as a competitive Primaris list will always be RG, or if they're feeling fluffy, IH. You need to leverage survivability, and plasma overheating on 1s and 2s sure counts. Then we're back to standard plasma, and an intercessor taking twice the firepower to drop than a tac. Alternatively, IH gives an intercessor a 1/3 chance of surviving an overcharged plasma shot, which is a huge deal. The difference that IH CT makes for a tac being shot by the same profile is, by contrast, negligible.

Then there's DW, but that's a different kettle of fish!

 Elbows wrote:
In many cases, I'd agree that two wounds is generally better, and that 90 wounds is preferred over 60 - but as other guys have stated, it also means a Lascannon will delete one wound vs. a classic marine, and will delete two wounds vs. Primaris. So it would be heavily dependent on who you are playing against and what kind of weaponry they're fielding.

Also fewer models generally means fewer close combat attacks, and less shooting...both of which would heavily balance out the advantage of additional wounds, etc. Way too much math to call one an advantage over the other. I would argue you'd probably want a mix. I've been surprised how many people overlook a 5-7 man Tactical Squad sitting in cover, tossing out the occasional lascannon shot...a very cheap and robust unit.

It's not even lascannon you really should worry. After all 1/6 times it's equal vs basic marine and 2/3 times extra killing power is wasted.

It's the flat D2 weapons you need to be worried. And Imperium has plasma by the bucketloads with rerolls like candies. Eldar has plenty of those and tau as well. That's the primaris killing stuff. No wasted damage(so cheaper guns for the purpose) and kills primaris in one shot.

Both my marine and Tau lists heavily feature D2&D3 weapons, blame mass invulnerable saves and necro shields meaning flat high shot lower damage output is more reliable than peaky/spike D6 damage output. Stormcannon arrays, Anvilis Autocannons, Heavy Burstcannons and plasma flamers are just more consistent against a variety of target than D6 weapons.
That they murder primaris is a fringe benifit.

An interesting experiment. To me the best advantage with normal marines is the options for transports. But as two infantry gun line armies pitted against each other my bet would be the primaris with all their ap -1 guns. The damage potentiall would initially drop slower for the classic marines until you reach their special and heavy weapons.

I think as 10 man squads are used here, morale casualties could have a significant impact.

Not sure who would really win though.

Good point about 10 strong squads. why theoryhammer something that's not going to happen? 5 strong squads with combi weapon for sergeants. That helps with firepower for old marines.

For theoryhammer i think you just want plasma cannons on devastators. D3 2damage shots at 36" is a primaris murdering machine. With signum and cherub you boost them even more.

Overheating on a 1or a 2? No need to whittle down the chaff after all! If we're speccing these guys out as we see fit, then any primaris that isn't running RG is a primaris with SIA.

 grouchoben wrote:
Overheating on a 1or a 2? No need to whittle down the chaff after all! If we're speccing these guys out as we see fit, then any primaris that isn't running RG is a primaris with SIA.

You'd be surprised at how little they overheat with a chapter master around. I've dropped them in via pods (-1 to hit) and they come through remarkably well. About 1 in 12 die, if I recall.

You could just buy Grav instead. It's a few more points but at 4 shots and d3 wounds it works just as well without risking overheat. The Plasma cannons just do that clean 2 damage.

IMO Primaris really do suffer from the overall counter meta weapon choice also being good against them as a bi-product. Primaris marines essentially have to footslog which leads them incredibly vulnerable to getting eaten alive by weapons that are perfect for wiping them out. IMO Primaris will never be viable until they get a cheaper, cost effective transport or if you use them as a deepstriking deathwatch force. I've yet to field test them in this role, but deepstriking up to three squads via strats and relics could have them land a niche.

 Insectum7 wrote:
For theoryhammer i think you just want plasma cannons on devastators. D3 2damage shots at 36" is a primaris murdering machine. With signum and cherub you boost them even more.

To be honest I was going on the assumption that you'd buy four boxes of Devastators and make due with what's in the box. That's why the Tac squads get LCs and the Devs get HBs, MLs & PCs.

phydaux wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
For theoryhammer i think you just want plasma cannons on devastators. D3 2damage shots at 36" is a primaris murdering machine. With signum and cherub you boost them even more.

To be honest I was going on the assumption that you'd buy four boxes of Devastators and make due with what's in the box. That's why the Tac squads get LCs and the Devs get HBs, MLs & PCs.

Four boxes of Devs is 8 Plasma Cannons and 8 Grav Cannons, 4 cherubs and 4 dudes with signums. Hardly a reason to go any further with your heavy weapon options for this excercise.

When I bought my Devastator box set all those years ago it came with one Missile Launcher, one Lascannon, one Heavy Bolter and one Multi-Melta. And one arm pointing a finger.

Current box is two of each heavy weapon, and is one of the most useful kits sold, imo.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Overheating on a 1or a 2? No need to whittle down the chaff after all! If we're speccing these guys out as we see fit, then any primaris that isn't running RG is a primaris with SIA.

You'd be surprised at how little they overheat with a chapter master around. I've dropped them in via pods (-1 to hit) and they come through remarkably well. About 1 in 12 die, if I recall.

You could just buy Grav instead. It's a few more points but at 4 shots and d3 wounds it works just as well without risking overheat. The Plasma cannons just do that clean 2 damage.

Here's my amateur math breakdown of this exchange. I may have got something wrong, but it seems to come out something like this:

Chapter master gives you 8 hits and 1.7 deaths, shooting 12 plasma, I think. So you're killing 6 and losing probably 2 with your 6 Devs, which is okay (I guess?) but not the apocalypse it is often presented as.

Grav falls off because youre wounding on 3s and 1/3 of the time your damage isn't dropping the intercessor, but you're right, you're doubling your shots... Overall, it looks like your 24 grav would kill 6.6 RG intercessors, so definitely the better option against intercessors if you can manage the range, you're right.

But 6 grav devs and a sarg cost 259pts. If I spend that much on assault hellblasters, and assume the same CM as you did, you're looking at 7 dead RG marines, no overheats, on an assault weapon platform that can manage its range much better than the grav. It's a wash: whoever fires first, wins. In that situation, my money's on the assault weapons, not the heavies, but really too close to call...

Given those lists, and assuming roughly equal players and no hilarious dice god silliness, I'd give the nod to classic marines. First turn is big though. Whether the hellblasters get to shoot or not before taking a lot of heat is a big factor, but even if they're well hidden, losing a bunch of intercessors before they do anything isn't a great start for the primaris either.

If classic gets first turn, I'd throw the odds at 80-20 in their favor. If primaris gets first turn, I'd call it a closer 50/50 game. Various missions, terrain, and deployments could also change up the odds a bit, but that's my guesstimation.

You know what's not fun with Primaris? Having railsides wipe 3 of you right off the bat plus another 3 mortal wounds from 4 area codes away. At least with Manlette Marines the Rail Damage is wasted.