Are Plague Marines Competetive?

[Panzer]

Scenario time!

If I have 5 plague marine (85point) in cover, on an objective you need, how many quad-flyrant do you send?

What if is was 21 cultist? (84 point)?

If I remember corectly, they shoot 20 shot at S5 ap-1 each.

So you send 2 of them, to be sure.

 

They shoot 24 shots at S6 AP0 D1 at 18“ hitting on 3+.

Tho they are psyker and if they don't go full ranged (only half the shots) they have some nasty melee attacks as well (4 attacks hitting on 2+ S6 AP-3 D1d3, re-roll failed wound rolls, each wound roll of 6+ is AP-6 instead).

[Panzer]

It’s OK that they are not a competitive, point efficient unit.

I disagree there, but agree with the rest of your post.

[SkimaskMohawk]

@triton I full on agree plaguemarines are a good unit. They're very solid and might be one of the best MEQ units out there; it says a lot that a flyrant needs to dedicate itself fully to killing them. It's just that cultists are great for all of the earlier points, and get even more insane when combined with poxwalkers.

[Checkmate77]

Not discounting any of the facts presented so far regarding the advantages of swarms/hordes in this edition, I am intrigued by Gnosis' idea of putting 40+ marines on the table. 

 

I have to go back and count, but I'm pretty sure I have 70+ PMs at home I have collected over the years.....  The question then becomes not IF they are the most competitive option, but how would I best augment them to give them a CHANCE in the competitive field?

[Gnosis]

In fact someone could do an army with 2 battalion detachments (for a total of 9 command points)

 

2x battalions for +6 command points

 

in total you can get

4 x nurgle deamon princes with wings

8 x 5 man plaguemarine squads with 3 plasmas each. one  rhino every two 5- man unit

 

a beautiful mix of nurgly monster mash and good old fashioned msu...

 

 

I dont know if its going to be any good against the top tier but for sure it will be very annoyng to play against

[SkimaskMohawk]

Blight Launchers with contaminator synergy are better imo if youre not going to have any either source of special weapons.

 

Quick math shows the Blights with synergy do better than overcharged Plasma on every wound tier except against t7. That being said, the armour save difference is probably the deciding factor.

[Gnosis]

Blight Launchers with contaminator synergy are better imo if youre not going to have any either source of special weapons.

 

Quick math shows the Blights with synergy do better than overcharged Plasma on every wound tier except against t7. That being said, the armour save difference is probably the deciding factor.

thats true I agree

I just used the plasma as an example for brainstorming

 

if you try something like that let us know how you did

[SkimaskMohawk]

Wish I had 8 msu ranged squads lol

[Checkmate77]

8 MSU of PMs with 2 BL and PG on Champ is not a problem, pretty sure I have those models.  (have to check my model count but I'm pretty sure I've got the models)

 

Only have 1 DP and only have 3 Rhinos......Maybe some Mephitic Blight Haulers with some foot sloggers?  Would give some Anti-Armor support.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

In fact someone could do an army with 2 battalion detachments (for a total of 9 command points)

 

2x battalions for +6 command points

 

in total you can get

4 x nurgle deamon princes with wings

8 x 5 man plaguemarine squads with 3 plasmas each. one rhino every two 5- man unit

 

a beautiful mix of nurgly monster mash and good old fashioned msu...

 

 

I dont know if its going to be any good against the top tier but for sure it will be very annoyng to play against

I wonder. If half had flails and the other half had blight launchers and you put one of each in the rhino's what would happen. 8 flails is a lot of close combat damage and you could easily get two 5 man squads into combat with a single unit

[Sheesh Mode]

It appears that Death Guard plague marines in competitive play are most efficient when built to support Blight Haulers, Foetid Blight Drones, Blight Lord Terminators, and Nurgle Demons while they engage enemy light and medium infantry, and light vehicles. This means their equipment is reduced to Blight Launchers, Plasma Guns, bolters, and plague knives. With the occasional Bubotic Axe. To be frank, the Blight Launcher appears to be the best weapon Plague Marines have for competitive play. Its range and assault profile alongside Inexorable Advance give a small unit of Plague Marines a surprisingly large threat range. 

Advance the unit to the mid-field and launch blight-rounds into soft targets for maximum effect. 

[Bloody Legionnaire]

I think the particular game mission is going to dictate how effective Plague Marines are. That might be a better question to ask because of all the connotations that go along with "what is competitive." 

I think a problem is so many gamers pay attention to what is being exploited in hyper competitive environments or base their findings solely on "math hammer," instead of getting lots of table time with 'x' units to determine how to effectively play them in any environment. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well ever since they took at out a unit only being able to claim a single objective, it doesn't really matter as much. You can just spread out with cultists and pox and claim objectives now. Msu is also punished by kill points unfortunately; unless your mission is "kill the most enemy models" there's not going to be a mission where plagues shine over cultists

[Prot]

I forget nothing, I am simply demonstrating that for the same point, you can get more value out of plague marine than cultist since being tough has value in its own.

 

 

 

This in a nutshell is why I dislike math hammer so much. It's too one dimensional and I've been playing this game a very, very long time. Some phases of my playing have been very competitive, to mostly hobby, to semi-competitive, and you know the amount of times I look at why I lost first place in a tournament due to 'math hammer' not playing by the rules? A fair amount.  Math hammer, to me, is nothing more than a preliminary metric in assisting with a decision on taking load out A vs load out B. That's it. That's all it's practically good for.

 

In defense of people who really don't play the game, then this is all you have. Well that and other people's experiences. So I guess it has that use as well.

 

The problem with saying "for the same point, you can get more value out of plague marine than cultist since being tough " is the fish bowl this scenario is operating out of.

 

What if I told you I could take that cultist,  force my opponent to shoot at or kill  him, and then transform him into a free model that doesn't have to take a moral test?

 

When I said way back that there is no way a power armoured marine (Plague marine in our case) can compete with the cultist/Poxwalker build I didn't say it because of math hammer. I said it because I worked on lists that I tested that have me over running almost any opponent, forcing him to  do things he doesn't want to, and having a multi unit swath of moral-immune zombies covering 75% of the playing surface, which also happen to be obsec.

 

You can actually tune this to an efficiency level that people don't even want to shoot your low level junk anymore because they can't defend against the impending results. That's crazy stuff. It needs fixing badly in my opinion (game wide).

 

So I stopped playing my lists like this, but I have no doubt in my mind that Plague Marines do not hold a candle to the Poxwalker/Cultist mechanics. Actually I am going to rescind my earlier statement about 'no way Plague Marines can ever compete with the cultist/Poxwalker build". There's one way...... when GW nerfs it.

 

And I would bet quite a bit that GW will nerf this. It will come in the form of recycling limitations, combination of Strategem use with the Poxwalker rule... and/or restricting duplication sizes of squads (I've had 20 man Poxwalker squads numbering 60-100 models). By the way, almost none of what I just said has to do with Toughness values of model in game or the math that may represent.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Math hammer does have its places. As you said in preliminary list building, or in assisting in tough target choices if you're fast enough. My favourite is telling my buddy who likes to complain a lot the actual odds of doing damage compared to his expectations in 30k

[Wolf Lord Loki]

I think the one simple nerf GW could do is say Poxwalkers don't count as ob sec

 

They are brain dead shambles that can be influenced by more powerful characters. They are not hypertrained marines or miltia (well they might have been once....)

Then they still have a place as a hoard but you can just weather it and still score in spite of thsm

[BlackTriton]

 

 

"In defense of people who really don't play the game, then this is all you have. Well that and other people's experiences. So I guess it has that use as well."

 

 

In my case I just really enjoy making Exel table. :)

Also, I think that, as a beginner, I was overestimating my odds a lot, and seeing the actual averages helps in restraining my expectation.

 

I did a lot more simulation than I am willing to admit, and when you crunch numbers like that it looks like cultist, plague marine and regular tactical are actually pretty well balanced.

And they obviously are not.

I am under the impression most of the advantages "chaff" units have come from synergies and interaction with the basic rules of the game. advantages that are not considered in their point cost, but this is far from the scope of this thread.

 

I do hope that the moral mechanic, detachment mechanic and some units wide synergies get a second look at some point in the history of 8ed. then maybe we will see more variety in competitive troop choices.

[DuskRaider]

When people are talking up Poxwalker lists are they even factoring in the character tax you need to make them remotely viable? Because without Typhus and a Blightbringer at the very least they're kinda garbage. Same goes with Cultists who are arguably worse than Conscripts and mostly there to transform into Poxwalkers. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well you're going to have a Blightbringer with a Plague marine list too, and typhus makes up for being a tax with his psychic abilities.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Well you're going to have a Blightbringer with a Plague marine list too, and typhus makes up for being a tax with his psychic abilities.

But does the calculations for Poxwalkers VS plague marines take into account taking typhus and blight bringers

 

Because that would mean you get lots more plague marines

[SkimaskMohawk]

The argument was cultists vs plaguemarines. But even non-buffed, in the same flyrant scenraio, it would kill 4.34 from shooting, 1.32 from smite , 3 from claws and .9 from tail for 9.56 dead pox walkers. Thats less than both plague marines and cultists, with the kicker being that they don't lose any from morale. So yes they're better just on their own

[bozo69pd]

The problem with the hyper competitive spectrum is that you are counting on, expecting to face certain opponents and mission types (ITC usually). If you start using narrative missions, tactical objective cards, etc. you see some crazy random swings and sometimes plague marines turn into a "Wow that unit worked really well in that niche scenario." That is not something you can bring to a tournament though, but it does not make them bad. Just a liability.

 

For example, let us say you play The Relic mission using only plague marine spam with astartes HQ support, and myphitic blight haulers. Your random opponent at the GW shop... is Ork greentide. Wow plague marines all of a sudden have a really good chance at winning!

 

PM are not bad, but they are not competitive.

[DominikB]

The problem with the hyper competitive spectrum is that you are counting on, expecting to face certain opponents and mission types (ITC usually). If you start using narrative missions, tactical objective cards, etc. you see some crazy random swings and sometimes plague marines turn into a "Wow that unit worked really well in that niche scenario." That is not something you can bring to a tournament though, but it does not make them bad. Just a liability.

 

For example, let us say you play The Relic mission using only plague marine spam with astartes HQ support, and myphitic blight haulers. Your random opponent at the GW shop... is Ork greentide. Wow plague marines all of a sudden have a really good chance at winning!

 

PM are not bad, but they are not competitive.

I guess that’s the whole point of the ITC missions, to take away that randomness in the mission, you shouldn’t lose due to a bad draw/match up etc.

 

A lot of them seem to be around killing a unit and holding an objective or two so why heavy hitters with hordes do well

[bozo69pd]

 

I guess that’s the whole point of the ITC missions, to take away that randomness in the mission, you shouldn’t lose due to a bad draw/match up etc.

 

A lot of them seem to be around killing a unit and holding an objective or two so why heavy hitters with hordes do well

 

Exactly. PM are paying points to be all around capable of anything, and durable against most generic stuff. Competitive units are not usually like that though. They are points efficient, and do one job extremely well and that is what they are for.

 

Lately I have been playing some straight maelstrom games with my PM (like 1250 points) and when your opponent looks at his card drawn and is like hmmm... the only unit able to fight over this objective is a few jetbikes... all of a sudden your PM are looking way better all around. They can be pretty good in random situations.

[McElMcNinja]

If you tailor your list around Plague Marines, they can be competitive. If you tailor your list around Poxwalkers/Cultists, they can be competitive. If you tailor your list around daemons, they too can be competitive. It really depends on how much effort you want to put into playing each of them. Some list run them selves and you can sit back and watch, others you have to control more and be more strategic.

As long as you don't try to do everything and focus on one (maybe two) of those, you can really synergies a good list. It is a nice edition to be Death Guard and I am very pleased with it.