Why Power Armour troops are mediocre and what can be done?

[Deschenus Maximus]

Indeed, I often see Imperial soup players take some Scouts as their Troops due to the utility they bring. Tacticals? Never.

[Schlitzaf]

A Crusader Squad with Heavy/Special/Special is functionally equivalent to Double Lascannon Devies for about 3 more points and not garbage in melee (and about as good as 4 Heavy Bolter Devies). (9 Attacks vs 5, sense you’d rather pistols/Chain to ward off melee bully units). Also what makes the Crusader Squad good is because is NOT just Heavy/Special/Special.

 

6-4 Man Fire Support clocks in at 145, 9 Points cheaper than a Scout, 40 Points than a Equivalent Tactical. (Taking a Lascannon in that squad is redundant as you’d rather the PowSword (which overall is worth two Marines worth of attacks. 0.44 vs 0.35).

 

While at 13-15 Man Tide Squad comes at 193-215, has 3-5 more wounds, several times the attacks overall, and has the same amount of attacks per point as Vangaurd Veterans for price of one to three more Marines. A Crusader Squad is not just Tactical+ because it has 5 Man MSU. But because it’s 10 Man Fire Support and the 13-15 Man Tide Squads are highly efficient. And on par with elites.

 

Goes back to what I always been saying, seeing Tacticals as just 5 Man MSU is blinding. The fact your immediate reaction to Crusaders are “5 Man Heavy/Special/Special” makes you miss what makes Crusader Squads actually good. Which is on an army building level, they are the Tactical Equivalent because they are highly efficient no matter which setup you choice.

 

While Tacticals are not Crusader Squads, the same principles apply here. Heavy is functionally Equivalent to two Specials. (A Heavy/Lascannon does 1.36 damage vs DoubleSpec/Plasma(Over) doing 1.46 or 0.11 damage more for 3 Points). So a 10 Man Squad which can combat to seperate and better deal with threats (also 3 points cheaper, or almost a PowSword level saving). Is not that different than 2 5 Man with Special/Special.

 

Except you can avoid the issue of taking your good weapons into a danger zone or better response to threads and issues. Combat Squad, charge an enemy unit to lock in combat and to defend your good weapon etc. You focusing on the MSU aspects of Crusaders highlights the issue you are having with Tacticals.

[BitsHammer]

I'm going to back up a couple pages since some questions where brought up when I was attempting my nightly coma (aka trying to sleep).

 

Killing bodies versus points efficiency:

I won't deny points efficiency should be considered when comparing if you should run Unit A versus Unit B but once on the table, the number of casualties a unit can produce (potentially inflicting Battleshock tests) is more important than which one kills the most points in models. One is a tool for tweaking lists for competitive formats (and is usually used more in min-maxing certain aspects than making a TAAC list in my experiance), the other is a tool for winning games.

 

Assumed Charges in Mathhammer:

I presented the charges as a seperate number from the charge distance shooting so the data is there if you want to consider which will kill more at close range without charging.

 

Why All the Guard/Gaunts/Orks/Ect Can Fire/Fight:

Since I wasn't limiting them to the possibility of killing more than ten models you could consider it the output of a130 points of models killing a of a given army. So 130 points of Marines could be firing on a unit of Guard, or split firing on multiple units, like wise three units of Guardsmen could be shooting three different Marine units instead of trying to shoot a single one (or they could have it surrounded and be shooting from all sides like you're playing the old Meatgrinder scenario). Basically any number of models shooting and fighting can be explained so I don't see it as a reason to throw anything out.

 

Mathhammer is a tool to get an idea of how things function without relying on anecdote of lucky die rolls or player skill which can (and does) throw off our perceptions of how good or bad a unit is.

 

Taking Tacticals in a vacuum they punch better than I thought and it seems the problem isn't the tactical Marines themselves, but rather the supporting elements of opposing armies. Marines work just fine, but when the opposing army can spam Chapter Tactics as Orders, or bury your army in strategems every turn, or has ways to outright ignore the penalties of Battleshock (Nids get Synapse, Orks get incredibly high Lds, Guard ignore horde penalities by having the body count of hordes, but running MSU style units that require multiple detachments just to meet normal point levels meaning that even if you Battleshock a unit to death there are at minimum 2-3 more just like it that took no casualties that turn).

 

Basically the comparison with all the bells and whistles stripped off pointed out that to me, Tactical Marines perform as they should on the table, but they're early codex syndrome means that they can't easily counter horde armies who basically where designed to flat out ignore (instead of just mitigate) the penalties for being hordes.

 

Plus you know there's something wrong when FW's Renegades and Heretics, despite being worse than Guardsmen (no orders, random leadership, no detachment bonuses based on faction) are 6ppm instead of 4ppm. If FW looked at GEQs and said they were too cheap (a division whom is known for usually rolling out stuff too cheap and then raising it's points cost later), why the heck are we giving a pass to Guardsmen who are objectively better?

[Schlitzaf]

Can we please stop calling Gaurdsman MSU? They literally cannot choose squad size on infantry beside like Scions, and Conscript. They can only take units of 10.

[BitsHammer]

I wasn't saying they are MSU, just that the way they're forced to build a list has a lot of themes similar to MSU. I'm using it more as an adjective than a noun.

[Deschenus Maximus]

@Schlitzaf: *shrugs* I don't know, maybe if Tacticals could take Scouts and BP/CCW things would be different, but I'd much rather take 2 5-strong squads both with say a combi and a heavy than 1 10-strong with a combi, special and heavy.

 

@Fulkes: The fundamental problem with you approach is that you aren't doing comparative performance. Doing Tacticals vs X is fine, but you need to do Tacticals vs X, Y, and Z and then say Guard vs X, Y and Z to see if Tacticals are really "fine".

[Schlitzaf]

If had a choice i’d do Special/Special or HvyBolter/Special to save Points on a Squad I want to be constantly moving or be in a Razor, so they utilize their specials best once they are in magic range. But that is another discussion.

 

Let’s return to the original discussion, Space Marine TROOPS are bad. That I passionately disagree with, not because Tacticals (and Chaos Marines) are Good (they are in my imho simply acceptable), but because it’s a false statement. Intercessors, Crusader Squads and Grey Hunters are all three fantastic troop choices.*

 

Crusader Squads and Grey Hunters especially are superb. The fact and larger issue is buffing Tacticals would have a knock on effect on Crusaders and Grey Hunters (both of which come with significant downsides) that either render them functionally useless (Battle Company for Crusader Squads is simple example), or break them entirely (See 5th Ed Grey Hunters, with changes to True Grit, and the ‘fix’ that gave them Bolter/Chain/Pistol).

 

Any buff to Tactical (and Chaos Marines) should instead be focused on trying to make them closer to Grey Hunters and Crusaders, but not try to steal their gimmicks. The 10 Man Squad granting CP and changing Combat Squad Strategem to start of any phase be a simple fix. That should be our goal for any fix for Tactical Squads. Bring them to par with Crusaders and Grey Hunters, but not simply by copying their gimmicks.

 

 

*Scouts and Cultists are solid too, but I presume we are focusing on Power Armor. And I don’t enough about Blood Claw Stats

[BitsHammer]

Actually I don't "need" to do anything. Insisting that I constantly need to cough up data to fit your metrics is a little rude and you can just as easily do the work instead of telling me that I'm wrong and that I need to do the work to prove it.

 

This wasn't a comparison between Tactical Marines versus every other unit in the game to determine the most efficient troop choice via mathhammer (I'll leave that to 3++ because that's their bread and butter) but to more see if Tactical Marines truly have the short end of the stick when facing common horde armies when we strip all the supporting elements away.

 

And the fact is that in a straight fight, the outcome I expected, didn't happen. When you pit nearly equivalent points of those hordes at Marines versus Marines at those hordes the Marines aren't killing less models despite throwing less dice. If it weren't for the ways the game has skirted its own balance mechanic for hordes (namely how they have ways of preventing battleshock from working as intended to balance the cheapness of hordes). It's actually because of the battleschock mitigation that I didn't even include a "average run from Battleshock" result in there.

 

Despite this, when all is held equal, Marines kill more opposing models of basically every horde save for Sisters which means the reason Marines are on the short end of the stick isn't the Marines themselves, but all the supporting factors of the armies.

 

Let me lay out a list of some things I feel are more the issue than Tactical Marines combat strength:

• Horde models are too cheap (If FW is increasing points on Guard for balance, it's safe to say that GW needs to do the same. GW constantly underprices hordes and overprices the more elite armies (see Terminators basically every edition from 3-7, or Primaris Marines now) and to fix it we need to bring hordes up in cost and some elites (mostly the multi-wound ones like said Primaris and likely Custodes) need to see some points drops)
• Guard have more flexibility than Space Marines in terms of tactics from turn to turn via Orders. Why are centuries old soldiers less tactically flexible than a guy who was likely only trained on the way enroute to the combat zone?
• Horde mitigation tools (blast weapons) don't scale enough to counter hordes. They're also horribly unreliable. Give us a D3 for every 5 models for the weapons that used to be large blast and a D3 for every 10 models for weapons that used to be small blasts. This means Vindicators would get 2D3 versus a ten man unit of Orks while a Frag Missile would only get D3. We still have to roll to hit, so why make the number of shots basically into an Exorcist tank's firing pattern anyways?
• Battleshock should be mitigated, not ignored (and if it is ignored (like on Poxwalkers) it should be at the cost of the model being higher, or the loss of certain functionality (such as shooting) or both). Reducing the number of casualties of battleshock is fine (so as far as you don't just set it to "can't lose more than one model ever" like some rules have), but ignoring battleshock outright is causing balance issues.
• Rebalance command points. If an army can easily gain twice as many CP as other armies at the same points level then they should be paying twice as much in CP for everything they do (justify it as the cost of resources for maintaining such large numbers if you have to). Likewise the Marine strategems likely need to be re-balanaced since they're apparently too expensive when cheaper versions of the same exact rules are given out to other armies.

Basically if these problems are corrected I feel like the game's balance would be swinging more towards the middle than an extreme that we'd get from turning Marines into Primaris, Primaris into Custodes and Custodes into super Custodes on the mega mushroom from Mario.

[chapter master 454]

Tacticals just need to be tactical. Why are these units disallowed certain weapon options? Tacticals I think at the very least should have 2 attacks base. Then from there allow them access to pistol and chainsword, along with various other options. These units are supposed to be a flex within the army and it does no justice, they are meh at range and meh at melee to the point neither feels good. I think tacticals should have WIDER options for heavy and special weapons, allowing them 1 special AND heavy for every 5 models in the army and then giving a bonus for fielding the full squad like having their own personal CP that can only be used on stratagems that affect that unit only? That way they now have TACTICAL flex for being decent back liners and front liners.

 

Would even push for Assaults to be allowed selection of ANY special weapons (why only blood angels get meltaguns on assaults just annoys me) while devs are fine (though maybe allow them to go up to 6 heavy weapons? Give them a unit heavy weapon buff for having 4+ of the same gun and it varies depending on which one used).

 

We just want tacticals to be a decent unit to take and not 'feels bad man' because tacticals struggle to keep up. No they aren't decent right now because they don't push their role enough. Any good unit doesn't mix weapons heavily and if it does it only mixes 2 weapons, Tacticals only having singleton of Special and Heavy weapons is just ineffective and poor use of points because you get more from devs for heavy weapons and tacticals become better when you use pseudo-special weapon teams.

[Claws and Effect]

@Claws: Outside of here, the majority of competitive players would largely agree that Tacticals are bad to a greater or lesser extent.

But the majority of competitive players is not the same thing as the majority of players overall.

 

Sure, Johnny Tourneylist may very well think Tactical squads are weak. But it doesn't necessarily mean that Bobby Beer&pretzels thinks so too.

 

The Bobbys out there far outnumber the Johnnys. Balancing a game strictly on the opinions of the hyper competitive fraction of its players is usually not a good idea, unless those players make up the majority. I would wager that in this case, they do not.

[Schlitzaf]

If you want a super flexible Tactical Squad play Crusader Squads (and losing Librarians, while having a lackluster tactic (through relic and Strategem are both awesome). Chapter Master for better or worse, Tactical Squads don’t have those options and they shouldn’t get those options.

 

The two units that do get around Tactical Problem have place severe restrictions on army level construction and restrictions. Tacticals as glorified special weapon teams are already good. At that level Grey Hunters and Crusaders innate advantages over Tacticals at 5-6 Man level are basically invisible (its still their however, with Crusaders having Heavy or additional PowSword attack, and Grey Hunters having two additional FrostSwords additional PlasPistol (assuming 6 Man).

 

But Grey and Crusades at 10+ Squad Size are solids despite having the same number of Special/Heavies Tactical Squads. Which means issue cannot be the fact Crusaders can 5 Man MSU or Grey Hunters have extra Plasma and Frost Ax attack. Instead these two units can bring to the field something that allows them to leverage themselves effectively.

 

Tactical Squads need to get something that enables to do so. Without just copying Crusader/GreyHunter. Being able to use combat squading freely at 10 Man, opens up a range tactical possibilities. And just getting free command point at 10 Man. If we incorporated and did your suggestions you would either invalidate GreyHunters/Crusaders or would break them entirely.

[Deschenus Maximus]

@Schlizaf: a bonus CP for 10 Tacticals would absolutely not convince me to switch back from Scouts, unless the SM Stratagem were boosted to the point of being broken. Also, I think saying that Crusaders, Hunters and Intercessors are fantastic is being a bit generous. Crusaders are certainly far ahead of Tacticals but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think they're better than "ok".

 

@Fulkes: I didn't mean to come off as pushy, but when you say something broad like "Tacticals are fine" and use weird parameters to support that, expect that your assertion will be challenged. As for the rest, I certainly think you have a lot of good points in there, but even if hordes were nerfed into oblivion, Tacticals would still be in a bad spot, internally to the SM Codex.

 

@Claws and Effect: Yeah sorry but if we're going to argue about from the point of view of casuals, then let's all stop because its a pointless endeavour. Also, the casual vs. competitive dichotomoty is a false dichotomy. A tight, well balanced ruleset doesn't hurt casuals (in fact, it helps them). 

[BitsHammer]

My definition of "fine" was clearly defined up front: in reference to hordes versus tacticals in terms of who punches harder in terms of killing models per turn alone, Marines win almost completely. It was to filter down the argument of whether the issue of Tacts versus Hordes was centered on the Tacticals themselves, or the rules supporting the respective armies.

 

I have never said that I was doing a complete comparison on which units where the most efficient, nor was I trying to sketch out that problem, but rather filter down if the core unit in question was really the problem alone in the question of the thread, or if it's the balance regarding the hordes.

 

And I've never said "nerf into oblivion". I never said to remove options or rules, just to adjust costs to make the options available more in balance with each other between one army to another.

 

And the reason Scouts will always look better than Tacticals when considering just basic damage potential is that they're cheaper at the cost of durability (see Sisters for the same exact approach, only swapping T for Save between the two). This means you can put more bodies on the table and that ultimately makes them look more attractive since the game is leaning more towards quantity over quality right now.

[Schlitzaf]

Grey Hunters and Crusaders are fantastic, point for point on par with the most efficient units in SM Codexes.

Crusader Tide Squads as point efficient per attack of Chainsword Vangaurd (6 attacks for 24 or 4 Points an attack, vs 4 for attacks for 16 or 4 attacks for 18), and mathmatically equivalent or near equivalent to Devestator with Double Lascannon/Four Heavy Bolters with Lascannon/Plasma/Plasma. The 10 Man Fire Support is most of a Rhino cheaper than its closest equivalent units and cheaper than Scouts w/ Heavy/Special/PowWeapon by 10 Points.

 

Grey Hunters like Crusaders are highly point efficient for attack but can shoot at long. Then 10 Man Squad puts out 15 Bolter, 4 Plasma and 1 PlasmaPistol Shots at 10 Man. And throw out 4 FrostSwords and 16 Melee Attacks. (Curious Grey Hunters pay 3.25 Points per an attack). Company Veterans at 18 Points, Storm/Chain are 180 Points for 40. 1 Plasma equates to about 4 Bolters, and they deal same amount of damage as Company Veterans with Storm/Chain.

 

They are in fact superb, just on a raw mathematical level. (They pay for it by costing 200ish Points vs Tacticals Equivalents coming in the 180-190 range). And so far above their tactical equivalent competition is not even funny. However their advantages over Tacticals only shows up once you get to 10 Men. At 5-6 Special Weapon Teams Tacticals, their Tacticals with one extra gun. Crusaders and Grey Hunters are above and beyond most other tactical equivalents.

 

Intercessors with Chapter Tactics (BA notably, through Ultras and Fist also help here) almost close the gap, but still fall short in comparison to Grey Hunters and Crusaders. There is a reason Black Templars and Space Wolves, often mention they don’t pay tactical/troop tax

[Zodd1888]

Another outside the box thought:

 

Former template weapons (ie. Vindicator Demolisher Cannon) not only do multiple hits (ie. 1d3), but maybe their damage is converted to mortal wounds if the unit is 10+ models? That would make wounds spill over, and I don't often see squads of 10+ in anything but chaff in my meta so I don't know about any other impacts.

 

Opinions or thoughts?

[Claws and Effect]

@Claws and Effect: Yeah sorry but if we're going to argue about from the point of view of casuals, then let's all stop because its a pointless endeavour. Also, the casual vs. competitive dichotomoty is a false dichotomy. A tight, well balanced ruleset doesn't hurt casuals (in fact, it helps them).

You completely missed the point of what I said.

 

I was talking about players in general, and whether the majority felt Tactical Marines are bad.

 

You brought up that the majority of COMPETITIVE players think they are.

 

I simply pointed out that the majority of competitive players is not the same thing as the majority of players.

[Schlitzaf]

Another outside the box thought:

 

Former template weapons (ie. Vindicator Demolisher Cannon) not only do multiple hits (ie. 1d3), but maybe their damage is converted to mortal wounds if the unit is 10+ models? That would make wounds spill over, and I don't often see squads of 10+ in anything but chaff in my meta so I don't know about any other impacts.

 

Opinions or thoughts?

Crusader Squads

Tactical Squads

Marine squads having 10 Men is not terribly uncommon tbh

Necrons

Tau

 

Really I could go on. But if we want to define horde, it’s 20ish models not 10-19.

[BitsHammer]

I'd say 15+ is the realm of hordes, but that's also why I said large blasts should get extra dice for every 5 models while small blasts get one for every 10: because the unit sizes it'd impact would be different.

[Deschenus Maximus]

@Schlizaf: I don't think many people would qualify a Devastator squad with only 2 Lascannons as being terribly efficient, so you kinda lost me there. Also, number of attacks per point vs Vanguards is cool and all but Vanguard can bring those attacks to bear much more easily, which is something that needs to be considered.

 

@Claws and Effect: Ok, and? The vast majority of people thought the earth was flat at some point. That didn't make them right. So saying that most people - when you throw casuals in with competitive types - think Tacticals are fine, that is a statement that is both true and useless at the same time.

[Schlitzaf]

One of the most Devi setups are two squads of five with double or triple heavy. So you have a couple chaff models before you take casualties and lose your 25 point guns. Like is it most raw damage efficiency? Likely no. But on the table it outperforms above and beyond a single 5 Man with 4 Heavies. (Also Signum and Cherub)

 

You should be able to get 10-12 models in (one rank then another rank. Assuming your ‘ranks’ are 4-6 models. If you have one inch base, 2-3 ranks are easy to do)

[Deschenus Maximus]

I can see 4 heavies with 1 or 2 mooks plus the Cherub, sure. But 2 heavies and nothing else? Nope, sorry, would never take that in a list.

[BitsHammer]

Not even in an escalation campaign?

[Deschenus Maximus]

Probably not, no. I would probably avoid lasdevs altogether in such a context.

[Schlitzaf]

You do realize 2 5 Man with Double Heavy and Cherub is functionally as Efficient as 1 6 Man with 4 Heavy and Cherub? Sense you are paying 26 Points for one additional Lascannon shot once per game and another +1 of hit. Which will equate to 1 additional Lascannon over 4-6 turns.

 

Hell you could throw the Cherub into the comparison and the Crusader Squad still comes out nearly equivalent sense it can get into magic and rapid it’s Plasma. But because one a one shot and the other only happen likely once a game I didn’t bother to note (through functionally, the Cherub and Rapid Plasma in this instance are the same with the Cherub having an edge because of Signum).

[Zodd1888]

 

Another outside the box thought:

 

Former template weapons (ie. Vindicator Demolisher Cannon) not only do multiple hits (ie. 1d3), but maybe their damage is converted to mortal wounds if the unit is 10+ models? That would make wounds spill over, and I don't often see squads of 10+ in anything but chaff in my meta so I don't know about any other impacts.

 

Opinions or thoughts?

Crusader Squads

Tactical Squads

Marine squads having 10 Men is not terribly uncommon tbh

Necrons

Tau

 

Really I could go on. But if we want to define horde, it’s 20ish models not 10-19.

True, didn't consider Tau and Necrons. I hardly ever see PA troops in groups of 5+, except berserkers and noise marines.

Maybe 11+, or some kind of on 6+ to hit mechanic.

 

I think the mechanics for a solution is viable though, which just goes to show 8th is a good game system. We just need something to help this situation out, I feel.