The Power Armoured Troops thread, take 2: possible fixes

[Deschenus Maximus]

Ok, starting over fresh from the other thread. As I was saying, we have a consensus that Tactical Squads are a bit lackluster, though we do not necessarily agree to the extent to which this is true, or the causes of this state of affairs. In an attempt to be positive, I've listed some of the suggestions that could help give our most iconic squad a bit of a hand up. I propose folks list these in the order of which they would like to see them implemented. That way, we can see if we can agree on some sort of way forward,

 

The suggestions were:

-Allow Tactical Marines to purchase a close combat weapon.

-Points decrease.

-Stats boost (+1 wound, primarily)

-Improve bolters

-Give +1 CP for every 10-strong Tactical Squad.

-Allow Tactical Squads to use Stratagem at a reduced CP cost.

-Have special Tactical-specific Stratagems

-Allow Tacticals to get a special and a heavy even at 5-strong (Crusaders get to pick a heavy AND a power weapong/fist, Grey Hunters get 2 specials at 5-strong).

 

[Schlitzaf]

Desc for Clarity sake Templars give Pow/Special/Special/Heavy?

[Deschenus Maximus]

Yes. Instead of combi, special, heavy OR combi, special, power weapon, you could have combi, special, heavy AND power weapon.

[Schlitzaf]

And Chaos Marines will be able to Heavy/Heavy and Special/Special at 5 Man too?

[Captain Idaho]

A nice positive follow up to intense discussion. I like it.

 

I don't like min-maxing. I don't like the 2 weapons in a 5 man unit (Combis not withstanding as it's Sergeant gear).

 

Likewise I don't like turning Tactical Marines into assault Marines.

 

Changing gear affects multitudes of Codex books therefore I don't advocate that.

 

As such I like the Stratagems route. Full 10 man squads grant an additional CP, whilst the usable Stratagems in Codex Space Marines is revamped and extended. A discount of -1 CP for each Stratagems for Tactical Marines is probably necessary.

[Deschenus Maximus]

@Schlitzaf: Yes.

[Schlitzaf]

I think Desc, just to get dead horse out of way; What is the End Goal? (In this theoretical world) Because Points efficiency Comparisons will never be perfect. And we can see here and go about the math, using straight KillHammer and Incorperation of Geometry etc. What is our goal?

 

The point before we got back to Guardmam v Marines efficiency is that we should bring Power Armored Troops Units to par with Crusaders and Grey Hunters. Without just copying and pasting their respective gimmicks. Chaos Marines and Tacticals are the ones who need it the most. What Gimmicks could be given?

 

Words; CP one I think is a solid. If we desperately wanted return of MSU would help but wouldn’t fix the core discrepancy between the units. (And I’d rather that if we gave everyone full MSU. Crusader Squads could take Heavy or PowWeapon, Special or PowWeapon, PowWeapon, and Sgt Equipment)

Edited January 16, 2018 by Schlitzaf

[Deschenus Maximus]

Well we can't seem to agree on how much help the Tacs need in total, so focusing on solutions seems more productive.

[Schlitzaf]

Well we can't seem to agree on how much help the Tacs need in total, so focusing on solutions seems more productive.

m

 

I think I edited after you posted. But if we do MSU things I’d like to see Crusader Squad able to take (4) PowWeapons. While I think unlikely to ever happen. It’s a mechanic I’d want. And being able to replace our Pistols for our PowWeapons instead of Chainswords too. I think the three most worthwhile suggestions

 

Return of MSU*

CP at 10 Man for Tacticals Only (Chaos Marines get something else, third Heavy/Special?)

 

*If we do return of MSU all Tactical Equivalents could get CP at 10+

Edited January 16, 2018 by Schlitzaf

[Deschenus Maximus]

A nice positive follow up to intense discussion. I like it.

 

I don't like min-maxing. I don't like the 2 weapons in a 5 man unit (Combis not withstanding as it's Sergeant gear).

 

Likewise I don't like turning Tactical Marines into assault Marines.

 

Changing gear affects multitudes of Codex books therefore I don't advocate that.

 

As such I like the Stratagems route. Full 10 man squads grant an additional CP, whilst the usable Stratagems in Codex Space Marines is revamped and extended. A discount of -1 CP for each Stratagems for Tactical Marines is probably necessary.

 

Just a point or two, for consideration going forward:

-The Tactical vs Assault Squad dilemma would need to be resolved by also looking at Assault Squads, admittedly.

-I don't think it's a huge deal to FAQ bolters across several books. A bit of a pain, perhaps, but GW made their bed with that one when they decided not to do a central armoury anymore.

 

[totgeboren]

I would like to see bolter-marines being a bit more powerful/useful, and it would be interesting to see what would happen if Marines of all flavours were allowed to fire bolters, the bolter-part of combi-weapons/bolters, storm bolters and bolt pistols twice every shooting phase?

 

At first it sounds like it would be way to powerful, but when you think about it, few use those weapons for anything other than pot shots. They don't even really work as anti-infantry weapons due to there being so few shots. The core marine squads (Tacs,Assault/Devastator) are all about the special/heavy weapons, and sometimes Sgts/Champions with special close combat weapons. The base dudes should really contribute more than just being ablative wounds.

 

My inspiration for this of course comes from FW, there their double-tapping gives you enough firepower to actually do something meaningful with squads of 'just' bolter-dudes.

 

+1 CP for full 10-man squads (as i suggested at the start of the previous thread) is something that might or might not be necessary if the base dudes got double firepower. It would at least reward marine armies for having a core of Tacticals/CSM squads as their base, instead of min squads of Scouts/Cultists which is the much better solution now.

Note that it is better because they achieve the same thing as standard marines on the table, and also makes it easier to field more detachments that give CP to the army. 

[Deschenus Maximus]

Words; CP one I think is a solid. If we desperately wanted return of MSU would help but wouldn’t fix the core discrepancy between the units. (And I’d rather that if we gave everyone full MSU. Crusader Squads could take Heavy or PowWeapon, Special or PowWeapon, PowWeapon, and Sgt Equipment)

Yeah that's fine, I think.

[Wargamer]

Okay, so I have not done exhaustive lists on everything yet (and might not), but some preliminary sums point to a rather troubling observation - that point for point, the Imperial Guard is just flat-out better than Space Marines.

 

Of course, for that declaration I'm not factoring in loss rates - I'm just pointing out that if you want something to die, the most point-effective way is to spam lasguns, not bolters.

 

Interesting aside, heavy bolters are actually our most points-efficient way to kill other Space Marines as well.

 

Let me amuse myself with a spreadsheet for half an hour and maybe I can make a productive post. :P

[Deschenus Maximus]

Okay, so I have not done exhaustive lists on everything yet (and might not), but some preliminary sums point to a rather troubling observation - that point for point, the Imperial Guard is just flat-out better than Space Marines.

 

Of course, for that declaration I'm not factoring in loss rates - I'm just pointing out that if you want something to die, the most point-effective way is to spam lasguns, not bolters.

 

Interesting aside, heavy bolters are actually our most points-efficient way to kill other Space Marines as well.

 

Let me amuse myself with a spreadsheet for half an hour and maybe I can make a productive post.

 

Wargamer, let's not get into that again. It killed the previous thread. Also, I had run the Tactical vs Guardsman math over at 3++ a long time ago. It's all there if you want to see it.

 

Now, let's focus on solutions.

[totgeboren]

 

Now, let's focus on solutions.

 

 

Did you miss mine? It is after all the solution FW used to make legion era squads of bolter-dudes work...

[Deschenus Maximus]

No I didn't miss it. I just didn't have anything to say about it.

[Captain Idaho]

Probably worth pointing out that if you want to give any sort of feedback to GW with the hope of any implementation, I'd suggest less is more.

 

Bear in mind that a long list of changes is just going to seen like a rant and roundly it ignored. A couple careful and subtle changes (Not unlike what I suggested but not limited to of course) will have greater influence. Changes they'll require several total Codex rewrites might not!

[totgeboren]

Mkay. Doing some more quick maths on it, I think a straight up double-shooting might be a bit to powerful. It would likely need to be counter-balanced by the same rule FW uses, which is to disallow the unit from firing their bolter weapons the next round if they use their double-tap ability.

Still, this would allow Tacticals to do some powerful hit-and-reallocate (double-shoot, next round advance to where needed, then shoot double and so on), really being a highly tactical unit that has the tools to shore up any battleline.

 

Hmmm... I rather like the FW rule for bolter-dudes more now that I think about it. Too bad HH is dead in my area.

Edited January 16, 2018 by totgeboren

[Wargamer]

 

Wargamer, let's not get into that again. It killed the previous thread. Also, I had run the Tactical vs Guardsman math over at 3++ a long time ago. It's all there if you want to see it.

 

Now, let's focus on solutions.

 

No, I think what killed the last thread was the thick-headed idea that feelings trumped evidence.

 

Numbers matter because this is ultimately a game of numbers. Raw spreadsheet data doesn't accurately map the tabletop, but instead of "herp derp numbers don't work like that!" you can actually do the calculations and see where the numbers might be misleading.

 

So how about we do look at the numbers and try to get a feel for what's going on here? Because already there's a very clear message coming through; Space Marines are inferior to Guardsmen in damage output, and the only advantage of bringing Marines if if you lack the space for Guardsmen.

[kombatwombat]

My takeaway from the previous thread (which I actually found fascinating, but then as an engineer I’m mathematically minded so I can see why other people would get bored by the particular rabbit hole that thread took a nosedive into) was not that Marines need more firepower - they seem to perform pretty ok when they’re attacking something. Where they really seemed lacking was when something was attacking them - they simply can’t take a punch like an expensive elite model (in power armour, no less) should be able to.

 

So if we’re going to suggest fixes for them, I’m going to advocate we suggest fixes related to improving their durability, not their firepower. If you improve their firepower you push them further and further into glass cannon territory, which seems just plain wrong for Space Marines.

 

The best solution in my opinion? As I’ve been advocating, give all Marines the +1 W/A of the Primaris Marines along with a small price bump. It seems to solve both the fluff and crunch issues.

 

I think Cap Idaho has the right of it, though - that would require too much of a rewrite for GW to even look at it. We should focus on simpler changes. I don’t think we can rely on Stratagems though - Marines burn through CP too quickly as is.

 

How about something like the All Is Dust rule - +1 to Armour Saves against single Damage weapons? You’d have to give 1kSons something else for their gimmick but it seems like a solid start down the right path.

[Captain Idaho]

 

Wargamer, let's not get into that again. It killed the previous thread. Also, I had run the Tactical vs Guardsman math over at 3++ a long time ago. It's all there if you want to see it.

 

Now, let's focus on solutions.

 

No, I think what killed the last thread was the thick-headed idea that feelings trumped evidence.

 

Numbers matter because this is ultimately a game of numbers. Raw spreadsheet data doesn't accurately map the tabletop, but instead of "herp derp numbers don't work like that!" you can actually do the calculations and see where the numbers might be misleading.

 

So how about we do look at the numbers and try to get a feel for what's going on here? Because already there's a very clear message coming through; Space Marines are inferior to Guardsmen in damage output, and the only advantage of bringing Marines if if you lack the space for Guardsmen.

=][= Please stop your personal attacks and inflammatory posts. This is the last friendly mod warning =][=

[Wargamer]

To further prove my point, here's a table:

 

For some reason I can't post tables or links to tables here, but I have the "Mathhammer" in my misc gallery.

 

This compares 180 points of Primaris with Bolt Rifles to 182 points of Bolter-armed Space Marines and 180 points of Lasgun armed Guardsmen.

 

The first block is how many wounds you expect that block to inflict against Guard, Tau Firewarriors, Orks, Space Marines, Terminators and "Dreadnoughts".

Looking at those numbers, you see that Primaris are better against Marines, Terminators and Dreadnoughts, while Marines are better against Guard, Tau and Orks. Guardsmen are better at both for raw kills.

 

Second block of the table is "points per wound", or how many points you have to spend on models to inflict a wound. Again, same pattern.

 

Last block is how many physical models that represents. This is where Guard look a bit silly on the extreme end, needing to cram 36 models into firing range to inflict a single wound on a Terminator or Dreadnought... but that of course assumes everyone fires a single shot. In rapid fire range, these model counts drop in half (or if you prefer, the damage inflicted doubles).

 

So in terms of inflicting single wounds, the Guard aren't taking up an unreasonable amount of space, especially when you remember they're on smaller bases than Space Marines... so long as we're ignoring that 40 man blob needed to wound a Terminator.

 

But I want to try something here... another block of tables. I want to take our 180 point blobs and shoot them, then see what kind of firepower they can put back into the field.

 

For some reason I can't post tables or links to tables here, but I have the "Mathhammer" in my misc gallery.

 

Now I've added an extra row way over at the end, so I want to explain what this table is doing.

 

Here, I'm shooting each group with each group. This is how many wounds our 180 (or 182) points of troops inflict on each category after taking fire from a Primaris squad, a Marine Bolter squad or a Guardsmen squad. In each case, our test unit was hit by the 180 points of fire.

 

The outlook is clear; all three groups suffered the most when bombarded by lasfire in terms of performance drop. And yes, I reduced the wounds Primaris take by half because they have 2 wounds each. I know you can't have .2 of a model firing, but since there's a chance the model could be alive or dead this is a variance I'd like you to just roll with.

 

But this table is telling us something else important here - that the three squads are about equal in terms of their damage output even after coming under fire from an equivalent unit. The Guard fare better under light arms because a few dead bodies don't hurt their output much, and Primaris fare well under light fire because they have 2 wounds each so essentially ignore every odd numbered wound.

 

When the buckets of dice come out, Guard start to degrade the fastest... but Marines are consistently behind every time. Chipping a single Marine away hurts them a lot more than chipping a wound off the Guard Blob or Primaris.

 

Now obviously, if you can use a D2+ weapon then Primaris are in all kinds of bad shape, but looking purely in terms of small arms infantry, I think we can now call it - Marines are objectively the worst choice. Bring Primaris, or bring Guardsmen instead.

 

There. Now feel free to make informed decisions.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Wargamer

[Schlitzaf]

Last I am gonna mention this because I don’t to derail, how are all Gaurdsman being able to shoot. If we have 10 Man Marines side by side. And 24” Away from enemy deployment. If you measure 24” from a Marine T1 their is only 10” space where to deploy an model that is still within enemy deployment. That means if the models at 24.1 even if they move 6” closer to an enemy are still 18.1 in away (because they must move diagonally that is an impossibility). And even if Tacticals move 6” closer (sense going straight not diagonal that is impossible) they still be 12.1 away. Meaning even if they can Rapid. It won’t be till turn 2 and one Squad is already murdered. At which point is 20 Gaurdsman vs 9 Marines. And the Marines win.

 

Space on table simply doesn’t allow for 30 Gaurdsman to Rapid Before T2. And because 10 of those 30 Gaurdsman are dead while only one Marine is. The Marines then just win.

[Wargamer]

That doesn't matter. It could be three squads firing at three squads, or it could be half as many models in rapid fire range.

 

The point is to demonstrate that, point for point, Guard are better. Your missing the big picture because you're busy looking at the frame. The big unit sizes were chosen to make the numbers more understandable, but it'd be just as true if we had 2 Primaris, 3 Marines and 9 Guardsmen put against each other.

[Zodd1888]

Alright, we need to keep guard out of this discussion I think. We've got the facts from the previous topic on why specifically Tacticals are mediocre inferior option (ie. Cost, coverage, and killing potential to their role).

 

We should, as others have said, discuss each of the adjustments to identify which will result in the greatest positive impact, while reducing the negative, changes to the existing meta.

 

Which adjustment do we want to start with?