In 8th, Are marines the wrong baseline?

[The Unseen]

 

Thing is, I'd chose a Scion over a marine any day.

 

More special weapons per squad, in built delivery, orders. They ARE better than Marines.

Only in some situations. Scions are horrid objective holders. They die a lot quicker than Marines, and are harder to put into a list than Marines, since they only get their singular chatter tactic if they have their own detachment

They actually don't die much faster.

Of course on a 1 to 1 basis, a marine is tougher, but you aren't comparing 1 to 1 in 40k, your comparing 27 pts for 3 scions and 26 for 2 marines.

On a points effeciency prespective 9 pts for T3 4+ save is damn close to the same as 13 pts for T4 3+ save.

Tacticals are ~30% more effecient when taking small arms fire than scions, but against over-charged plasma, tacticals are around 20% less effeciently durable, and both those numbers get a lot worse if your taking vet marines of any variety, when your looking at closer to a 3 to 1 ratio of scions to marines.

 

Marines pull ahead in cover, but with 8th, cover isn't always an option, nor will every objective let you be in cover and hold it at the same time.

 

Scions don't actually care about their own "tactic" all that much, it's just keeping the rest of the lists tactic that matters, as orders are so much better than chapter tactics it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

 

And scions damage output vastly outweighs tacticals with bolters, a hot shot las for 9 pts is just BETTER than a bolter for 13 in most cases, much less when you factor in FRFSRF.

When you add in the fact that scions have an inbuilt delivery system, can take more plasma per unit and per point spent, and has access to the insanity that is 8th edition guard orders, they are objectively better.

 

At least scions pay reasonable prices for their special weapons, unlike the rest of the guard codex. Scions are really let down primarily by not being in rapid fire range for their hot shots the turn they land, and if you give them plasma the opponent isn't going to let them shoot twice. Everyone just sees "cheap bs3+ bodies that have native deep strike and can carry multiple plasma guns per 5 men" and stops caring about anything else after that. Not so much scions fault as it is plasma being too strong.

 

As much as I dislike agreeing with Ishagu on anything, he's right here.

Scions do "elite infantry" substantially better than Marines do in general at the moment.

[Beams]

 

 

Thing is, I'd chose a Scion over a marine any day.

 

More special weapons per squad, in built delivery, orders. They ARE better than Marines.

Only in some situations. Scions are horrid objective holders. They die a lot quicker than Marines, and are harder to put into a list than Marines, since they only get their singular chatter tactic if they have their own detachment

They actually don't die much faster.

Of course on a 1 to 1 basis, a marine is tougher, but you aren't comparing 1 to 1 in 40k, your comparing 27 pts for 3 scions and 26 for 2 marines.

On a points effeciency prespective 9 pts for T3 4+ save is damn close to the same as 13 pts for T4 3+ save.

Tacticals are ~30% more effecient when taking small arms fire than scions, but against over-charged plasma, tacticals are around 20% less effeciently durable, and both those numbers get a lot worse if your taking vet marines of any variety, when your looking at closer to a 3 to 1 ratio of scions to marines.

 

Marines pull ahead in cover, but with 8th, cover isn't always an option, nor will every objective let you be in cover and hold it at the same time.

 

Scions don't actually care about their own "tactic" all that much, it's just keeping the rest of the lists tactic that matters, as orders are so much better than chapter tactics it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

 

And scions damage output vastly outweighs tacticals with bolters, a hot shot las for 9 pts is just BETTER than a bolter for 13 in most cases, much less when you factor in FRFSRF.

When you add in the fact that scions have an inbuilt delivery system, can take more plasma per unit and per point spent, and has access to the insanity that is 8th edition guard orders, they are objectively better.

 

At least scions pay reasonable prices for their special weapons, unlike the rest of the guard codex. Scions are really let down primarily by not being in rapid fire range for their hot shots the turn they land, and if you give them plasma the opponent isn't going to let them shoot twice. Everyone just sees "cheap bs3+ bodies that have native deep strike and can carry multiple plasma guns per 5 men" and stops caring about anything else after that. Not so much scions fault as it is plasma being too strong.

 

As much as I dislike agreeing with Ishagu on anything, he's right here.

Scions do "elite infantry" substantially better than Marines do in general at the moment.

 

When Scions deepstrike, they get a single Hot Shot Shot, since 9.001 is still greater than 9 inches.

And you only get 3 officers max for scions now, making it especially hard for you to have enough orders in enough places for that. And you still need to factor in the 45 points for scion officer to give that order, especially since he doesn't get a weapon if you want a command rod.

 

And Marines are way more durable vs. small arms (bolters, lasguns, and their variants and equivalents) than Scions are. Especially if you factor that Scion's don't always get chapter traits, and when they do, theirs isn't amazing, where Space Marines can freely choose, and can get some very good ones, especially Raven Guard or Iron Hands to further increase their durability, or Imperial Fists which I know people hate on, but I've always relied heavily on cover, and there are a few armies that get cover as their chapter tactic, so it's helpful there.

 

Which isn't to say that Scions aren't more worth their 9 pts than marines their 12 pts, just that saying "Plasma Guns are everywhere" isn't a full argument, since if your opponent is specifically using their plasma guns that cost more than a marine to kill a marine, it seems like overkill. Maybe you need more marines?

[Chaplain Killmer]

To the original question of the topic, there is a section about point values in the Rogue Trade book. There the baseline statline is the human. It might not be 100% acurate but the basics of the section is still true and I even  think to remember that the base marine was 12 pts back then. 

[TheTrans]

So have been playing a lot of Bolt Action recently and I think the point costings are done well (within reason), but they have the benefit of just dealing with single flat lines. Where 40k runs into :cuss is there is so many stats that can be costed, BA has 2 stats for units and a couple of negatives to hits.

So for instance a veteran trooper in BA has a morale of 10 and only gets killed on a 5+, he costs 13pts. A regular trooper has a morale of 9 and gets killed on a 4+, he has morale of 9. Boom easy,...not many stats to play with there.

Now you go to 40k.

I think we could easily bust out a standard human cost (lets call it 10pts for easiness) and certain 'upgrades' cost more yeah. But the problem is adding +1 armour to a T3 W1 Sv 5+  guardsman shouldn't cost anywhere near as much as say adding +1 Armour to T4 W2 Sv3+ primaris. The primaris will gain so much more for possibly stopping a wound etc, and he can make better use of it to.

 

Now we would have to make like a sliding scale (that would probably go hyperbolic on some stats) for the costing of extras on any of the baseline stats... that would be the hard part.

Then of course you have the quantifiable costs of abilities/traits/special rules etc. Again Disgustingly resilient while good on a pox walker, becomes bent on mortarion etc...

Maybe someone who is much better at excel than I could make a formula that jumps around and does all of that stuff, but then we run into the issue of "how much should a single positive to Toughness cost before we get kicked in the teeth with it going up or down based on wounds etc haha

That sliding scale again :P

Would love to see a logical sort of formula for creating dudes for 40k, I'd also love 40k to be well balanced, and have alternating activations..but hey... that is a whole different kettle of fish. 

[utilityzero]

I honestly don't see how 40k is better than it was in 7th. Exepct models keep getting better.

[Morticon]

I honestly don't see how 40k is better than it was in 7th. Exepct models keep getting better.

 

I dont want to be that guy, but I think the system of 7th was incredible.  I still maintain it's the best there has been. 

 

I do however feel the system of detachments and formations and massive lag between codexes "broke" the system. 

 

But, as a core....i thought incredible.  Maybe start a new thread on that discussion. Would be interesting to chat about.  

[Lord_Caerolion]

I definitely think the core rules of 7th were amazing, and that formations/detachments weren't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, done well, they could have proved amazing. The issue was the unevenness of the strength of the various books, with some armies getting amazing bonuses, and others having such clunky formations as to prove worthless, or for negligible benefits.

 

So far I think the potential benefits of 8th have been massively missed opportunity. They opened up the statlines above 10, but kept everything the same for absolutely no reason. In an edition truly taking advantage of the opened stat blocks, Marines absolutely shouldn't be the baseline, they should be the elite soldiers they're supposed to be. In the current "everything the same except we'll give the old Strength D weapons a Strength of 16 or so", then they're the same generalists they always have been.

[utilityzero]

Yeah. Having stat lines above 10 but making everything hurt everything was an odd decision.

 

And the detachments system from 8th is just as bad 7th's.

[TheTrans]

Yeah I feel it was the uneven-ness of detachments that killed it and adding D weapons probably caused some silly issues too.

Like there was the death rider detachment that just allowed a death Rider HQ and FA Compulsory instead of Troops and allowed death riders to hold objectives. I think those detachments where great. It was the 'take 3 riptides with no 'tax' units and they all get better' where the prooblem ones. 

[SickSix]

I think as long as troops are just seen as a tax for some armies, Marines will always be average to sub-par becuase they are never fighting other troops choices. And if they are, it's probably super cheap hordes that the opponent can just swamp you with and not care.

 

I haven't played much 40k compared to most, but rarely do I see troop on troop fights. So comparing marines to other troops is kind of pointless if they never fight eachother.

 

Again, I am probably the least experienced gamer in this thread so my perspective could be complete crap.

 

I agree 7th was awesome until free formations broke it.

[Deathwalker]

In many ways, it's not about troops being a "troops" choice, but the standard weapons of many armies held by troops.

A S4 WEAPON is a 50/50 on the T scale, a shuriken catapult has less range (but you can move with it better with faster moving troops), but is also S4, but has special rules to make it break Armour as well and it is equipped by cheaper models more capable of being able to use it efficiently (roll more dice)

There are  3 stages to doing anything, Hit, wound and save, and if T4 Sv 3+ is your baseline, then your baseline should not be considerably more expensive than the line that is 16% less "effective"

Terminators with +1 Wound and save should be about 2-4 points more expensive than a marine, or perhaps 2 more than a primaris as their only stat functional difference is a +1 save (big deal)

The decision to make so many weapons S4 however removes the value of T4.

This is why T5 custodes get away with 30 man armies, by forcing raw dice rolls

[Beams]

In many ways, it's not about troops being a "troops" choice, but the standard weapons of many armies held by troops.

A S4 WEAPON is a 50/50 on the T scale, a shuriken catapult has less range (but you can move with it better with faster moving troops), but is also S4, but has special rules to make it break Armour as well and it is equipped by cheaper models more capable of being able to use it efficiently (roll more dice)

There are 3 stages to doing anything, Hit, wound and save, and if T4 Sv 3+ is your baseline, then your baseline should not be considerably more expensive than the line that is 16% less "effective"

Terminators with +1 Wound and save should be about 2-4 points more expensive than a marine, or perhaps 2 more than a primaris as their only stat functional difference is a +1 save (big deal)

The decision to make so many weapons S4 however removes the value of T4.

This is why T5 custodes get away with 30 man armies, by forcing raw dice rolls

+1 save and +1 wound are a huge deal.

That's not 16% in survivability that's a 16% on a single die, which has a major effect on your multiple dice results.

 

Run yourself a quick experiment, and see how much more survivable your Terminators are then Marines. Terminators don't need to be 30 pts, but they definitely shouldn't be 15-19 like your 2-4 pts suggests. Especially with deepstrike! At 15 pts, save 2+ and 2 wounds with deepstrike, you would take nothing but terminators to hold objectives.

[Schlitzaf]

For clarity sake thing about saves and modifies.

The biggest deal mechanically is 3+ to 2+. I.e you reduce your casualty rate by 50%. The least relavent to 6+ to 5+ your casualty rate is only decreased by 20%.

 

5+ to 4+ is also minor as it reduces casualty intake by 25%. 4+ to 3+ sees a casualty reduction of 33%! Or to show this in over words

 

Let’s assume 12 wounds

6+ save models- 10 Dead (Squad Destroyed)

5+ save models- 8 Dead (Destroyed by Battleshock)

4+ save models- 6 Dead (Squads will live through morale but rendered ineffective)

3+ save models - 4 Dead (Squad suffers no further casualties but is depleted)

2+ save models - 2 Dead (Squad is tactically unaffected)

 

Each interval only has two wounds reduce, but at the higher stages the wound reduction is negligible as Squad is still wiped or rendered tacitally ineffective. The difference of 6 and 4 is the difference of failed battleshock on LD7 and losing two more guys. Even marines assuming average will lose another guy from battleshock. Where Gaurd are reduced to a single model or wiped. At 4 or less casualties battleshock is ignorable. Your unlikely to impossible to fail. In terms of lose intake, gaining from 3+ to 2+ means your only losing half of what you had lost otherwise. Where going from 5+ to 4+ the squad still likely dead. If you Curious for 6 wounds just divided above results by 2. Same principle would apply;

Longstory short- a the difference between Marines in cover v Gaurd in cover favors the marines this edition espacially compared to previous ones. Additionally +1 save for better save models are more impactful or perhaps less impactful (because their existence means it harder for the saving model to die, whose death will impact the game where its survival maintains a current game state) then +1 save on 6+/5+ save models

[The Unseen]

Except just assuming 12 wounds with no ap heavily skews your thinking in favor of armor saves, especially since you aren't considering points costs.

 

Make those 12 bolter wounds 3 plasma wounds, and suddenly your still losing 2 2+ save models, or 3 of everything else.

A 5 man 3+ save squad losing 3 models is crippled, or will be very shortly.

3 dead 5+ models means nothing except for maybe an additional battleshock casualty.

 

And even so, what's funny is 2 2+ save models are often more expensive than 10 5+ save ones.

So your comparison doesn't even work there.

 

Marines in cover vs guardsmen in cover is literally the only example in the game were a 3+ save unit is more efficient at soaking small arms than the 5+ save one, way to cherry pick your examples.

Every other time it's better to have more bodies, even if marines dropped to 11 pts and were suddenly on-par for durability against small arms, they'd still be worse against anything with an AP mod.

And AP mods are everywhere, and battleshock is a joke this edition just like morale was previously.

Every army that fields large-ish units has a way to mitigate or outright ignore it.

[Schlitzaf]

Only horde army that has actual mitigation is Tyranids. Orks if your clever you can deal with mob rule easily enough

[The Unseen]

Umm...

Lots of armies have mitigation.

Orks with mob rule, guard with Valhallans trait and relic pistol both, marines with ATSKNF, etc.

Plus any Imperial army can ally in Inquisitors for aura of LD9.

 

And I don't see how it's easy to work around when the ork player gets to pull casualties from wherever he wants.

 

Nids are one of the few outright immune armies. Poxwalkers too.

 

Fact is, bodies rule this edition.

 

Linked somewhere in this thread is 3 linked articles about why tacticals suck, even accounting for morale, they still die faster.

[Deathwalker]

 

In many ways, it's not about troops being a "troops" choice, but the standard weapons of many armies held by troops.

A S4 WEAPON is a 50/50 on the T scale, a shuriken catapult has less range (but you can move with it better with faster moving troops), but is also S4, but has special rules to make it break Armour as well and it is equipped by cheaper models more capable of being able to use it efficiently (roll more dice)

There are 3 stages to doing anything, Hit, wound and save, and if T4 Sv 3+ is your baseline, then your baseline should not be considerably more expensive than the line that is 16% less "effective"

Terminators with +1 Wound and save should be about 2-4 points more expensive than a marine, or perhaps 2 more than a primaris as their only stat functional difference is a +1 save (big deal)

The decision to make so many weapons S4 however removes the value of T4.

This is why T5 custodes get away with 30 man armies, by forcing raw dice rolls

+1 save and +1 wound are a huge deal.

That's not 16% in survivability that's a 16% on a single die, which has a major effect on your multiple dice results.

 

Run yourself a quick experiment, and see how much more survivable your Terminators are then Marines. Terminators don't need to be 30 pts, but they definitely shouldn't be 15-19 like your 2-4 pts suggests. Especially with deepstrike! At 15 pts, save 2+ and 2 wounds with deepstrike, you would take nothing but terminators to hold objectives.

 

For 40 points you get a terminator with 2 wounds, for 40 points you get a 10 wounds of IG. I'm not buying the "two wounds is huge" argument in the slightest. Expand that out to a actual  vanilla terminator squad for 192 points I get  almost 5 units of guard that have 50 wounds in comparison to your 10. You get 20 shots, I get 50. (or 40/100 in RF range).

This is a tangent to the point I was trying to make however, which is, if T4 is a baseline "worth" something, it is countered by the sheer volume of S4 weapons (or better) on cheaper troops.

Plus add the other bonuses horde armies get in terms of CP's (such as for the cost of your 5 terminators filling 1 elite slot I can field a whole IG battalion with points to spare and more than 3 times the wounds.

 

Additional: This is why I outright agree with other people in this thread that when GW opened up the cap of 10 for stats to essentially unlimited, they missed a HUGE opportunity by still thinking inside the cap of 10 for the vast majority of the games design.

[Ishagu]

Lol, a Terminator is definitely not worth 10 Guardsmen.

 

I do feel these issues can be solved with point adjustments, still. If a Terminator cost 15 point with wargear they'd be the best infantry unit in the game, hands down, but this isn't what I propose.

If a Guardsman cost 8 points, a Scion 11, a Marine 11 etc then the game would certainly be more fair.

[Beams]

Wow, it's funny. It's almost like I said terminators *should* be cheaper, just not 15-19 pts. Huh.

[Deathwalker]

It's like there is sarcasm, but it's misplaced, huh....

My point was about the uselessness of T4 in a world where most weapons are S4, and your claim of 2 wounds being a "vast improvement" are false as for the same points cost, I can get more shots and more wounds in a system that heavily favours "buckets 'o' dice"

 

Lets do it a different way.

What should the points cost be for this MODEL

WS 4+ BS 4+ S:3 T:3 A:5 W:5 AV: 5+ LD:7. It comes equipped with a rapid fire 5 range 24"  S:3 weapon.

It also has no  single shot can do more than one wound to it.

That's 20 points of guard squished into one model.

Would you take 2 of them, or one terminator?

If the answer is 2 of the squished guard, you know your point's system is busted.

 

This is not an attack against any of my fellow fraters, merely pointing out that the point system, as it stands is busted as all hell and the alternative of Power Level, well, that's even more busted.  

[Panzer]

Except that it's not the points system that's at fault here. It's the points given to specific units.

[Deathwalker]

Except that it's not the points system that's at fault here. It's the points given to specific units.

Same thing brother SF, just a different way of saying it.

An Ogryn is more survivable than a terminator, and costs 10 points less per model because it's T5 makes most small arms less efficient than the non modifier to saves from bolters.

 

My -ONLY- point here is, stats should be just, stats, ignore the gun, or the hand weapon, just deal with the stats -FIRST-

Sure, massage the weapon cost based on the stats of the model using them, or special rules, but if you screw the basic setup of what WS, or BS or Wounds are, you have already skewed the base concept of your rules

[Panzer]

 

Except that it's not the points system that's at fault here. It's the points given to specific units.

Same thing brother SF, just a different way of saying it.

An Ogryn is more survivable than a terminator, and costs 10 points less per model because it's T5 makes most small arms less efficient than the non modifier to saves from bolters.

 

 

Not really. Saying the points system is at fault is saying that it can never be done right no matter what a unit is costed. I'm saying it can be done right if the unit is costed correctly.

 

Also that's not even true.

A Terminator is more survivable. It takes 27 Lasgun shots to kill an Ogryn and 72 to kill a Terminator. 27 Bolter shots for the Ogryn, 48 for the Terminator. 14.4 Heavy Bolter shots for the Ogryn, 18 for the Terminator. 4.5 overcharged Plasma shots for the Ogryn, 3.6 for the Terminator.

If we take the point difference into account then a Terminator is still more efficient against Lasguns and Bolter, almost as efficient against Heavy Bolter and worse against overcharged Plasma (which was kinda obvious in the first place).

[Venerable Jazzman]

I've just read through all 10 pages of this (hey, it's Friday, and it's lunchtime, and it's been a long week :D) and I think what we're missing is that 40k has never been about one on one stats, it's a game about units. What's the point in costing an individual Tactical Marine, when you're fielding him with 8 other guys and a Sergeant? Or one Ork, when there's another 18 Orks and Nob standing with him.

 

How about looking at the wounds, firepower and attacks of the unit as a whole, and making sure that's costed effectively against other whole units?

So that my 200pts has the same chance of beating your 200pts as your 200pts has of beating mine.

It doesn't have to mean homogeneity though - I might decide to chop yours into tiny pieces, you might decide to nuke mine from orbit, or mini-nuke it then chop the survivors into tiny pieces.

 

Also going back a few pages re play-testing - you don't need to physically play 10,000 games to see which units are out of whack. You can load all the points into a computer and run those 10,000, or millions, or billions of variations and get statistically usable results, and then tweak them and re-run them until you've sorted the anomalies and levelled the values out.

Sports websites run simulations to find the greatest team ever ( https://fivethirtyeight.com/page/3/?s=ELO ), and the methodology is well established, so there's no reason why it couldn't be used on 40k.

[Deathwalker]

 

 

Except that it's not the points system that's at fault here. It's the points given to specific units.

Same thing brother SF, just a different way of saying it.

An Ogryn is more survivable than a terminator, and costs 10 points less per model because it's T5 makes most small arms less efficient than the non modifier to saves from bolters.

 

 

Not really. Saying the points system is at fault is saying that it can never be done right no matter what a unit is costed. I'm saying it can be done right if the unit is costed correctly.

 

Also that's not even true.

A Terminator is more survivable. It takes 27 Lasgun shots to kill an Ogryn and 72 to kill a Terminator. 27 Bolter shots for the Ogryn, 48 for the Terminator. 14.4 Heavy Bolter shots for the Ogryn, 18 for the Terminator. 4.5 overcharged Plasma shots for the Ogryn, 3.6 for the Terminator.

If we take the point difference into account then a Terminator is still more efficient against Lasguns and Bolter, almost as efficient against Heavy Bolter and worse against overcharged Plasma (which was kinda obvious in the first place).

 

I'm not saying it CAN'T be done right, just that it is not done right ATM, I agree with you 100% on that.

 

Also, when have you -ever- played a game of 40k that went by mathematical probability? :P