In 8th, Are marines the wrong baseline?

[Panzer]

It's comments such as a flat no without explanation shows why most people shouldn't be into game design.

/sign

[Skaorn]

And no one can see that adding more variance to a system will make it even harder to "balance" from a company that hasn't done a decent job at it for multiple editions.

[Captain Idaho]

It's not random variance. It's a tool to allow the game developers the flexibility to have a meaningful statlines and water between some units and races without breaking the system. Flexibility in the rules actually aides games design.

 

An alternative would be quantifying "small arms" that suffer a -1 to wound against vehicles and Power Armour (and whatever) etc so Marines could receive a benefit despite having a T4.

[Jarl Caldersson]

I would enjoy and have been a fan of greater stat ranges and even dices. (Hey if dice are too expensive get a dice roller app). The reason for this was when I saw Catachan in 8th be as strong as a Space Marine. Also the movement distance, a SM which is known to run at great speed moves only as fast as a (probably malnutrition) human. Same goes for the Eldar and their whole "move so fast the human eye has difficulty tracking them".

[Volt]

It's not random variance. It's a tool to allow the game developers the flexibility to have a meaningful statlines and water between some units and races without breaking the system. Flexibility in the rules actually aides games design.

 

An alternative would be quantifying "small arms" that suffer a -1 to wound against vehicles and Power Armour (and whatever) etc so Marines could receive a benefit despite having a T4.

It's more ideal to simply buff marine toughness, or give them a layered save like death guard than to start adding rules bloat which makes it harder to keep track of stuff. The real issue here is that the changes that would be ideal for fluff and balance would be bad for GW's wallet, as smaller armies would be fielded due to points adjustments. In response they'd probably jack marine prices up to be comparable to Custodes, which are the kind of low-model elite army we're talking about when increasing marine stats. 

[Captain Idaho]

How is it rules bloat to change the system so a Marine has a higher toughness, weapons have different strengths and the like, but giving Marines layered toughness like Disgustingly Resilient or +1 toughness isn't rules bloat?

[Volt]

How is it rules bloat to change the system so a Marine has a higher toughness, weapons have different strengths and the like, but giving Marines layered toughness like Disgustingly Resilient or +1 toughness isn't rules bloat?

I was calling the small arms rule rules bloat. 

[Captain Idaho]

Arguably it is but I'd contend the following:

 

1) It's necessary for game balance.

 

2) It's an additional rule that DOESN'T slow the game down.

[Plaguecaster]

Necessary for Marine players you mean I'm sure non marine player would find it highly unfair and anything but balanced

 

Yeah it's all good saying all small arms shouldn't affect marines as much but what actually would be considered small arms then? would it only be lasguns or would all bolters etc be affected as well hopefully not as bolters should be able to wound marines since all the fluff shows it as such plus there is Ork shootas too as well but the again don't forget that Tau weapons should be excempt from the rule too since their pulse weapons are actually stronger than bolters. Then you got Eldar weapons which care very little about how tough a marine is

 

 

Yeah so absolutely nothing would actually change apart from only making a couple of faction's units useless against marines, all it will do is make armies change so they just spam mass amounts of high S weapons with decent ap modifiers so it doesn't matter crap if marines have become almost immune to small arms fire they will still be overcosted with barely any synergy and drop like flies

[Schlitzaf]

Clearly Las/Auto and actual Gaurdsman (and their flavor equivalents) need to be STR 2. (Not Toughness 2. Just strength 2).

[Wargamer]

I honestly still don't see any reason to buff Marines much at all. Maybe a slightly better gun, but as it stands the current model provides a rather pleasing spread of mechanics.

 

Marines gain "elite" status in 8th the way "elite" units gained their status in older editions of Fantasy - by narrow degrees, not colossal strides.

 

Small Arms wound Marines on 5+ / 4+. Anti-infantry weapons wound them on 3+, and even some anti-tank guns still only get 3+ to wound against them. By contrast, the "heavy" small arms wound GEQ on 3+, the bigger anti-infantry guns wound on 2+, and every anti-tank weapon wounds on 2+ as well.

 

Marines, even in the open, are resistant to small arms and even anti-infantry weapons. When in Cover, they can even stand up quite well to some anti-tank fire. GEQ don't stand up to much of anything.

 

Marines can be relied upon to hurt pretty much anything - wounding most infantry on at worst a 4+, and only the heaviest of tanks and biggest of monsters need a 5+ to wound. GEQ need 6+ against any reasonably sized monster or even just an armoured vehicle.

 

Finally, Marines are pretty resistant to Morale, which is an often overlooked perk.

 

Marines are elite. It's just that people aren't setting their expectations properly. I find it really quite satisfying to see a player debate whether to overcharge plasma in order to get that 2+ to wound against a Marine squad, especially when the choice backfires - either by melting his own troops, or he chooses not to overcharge and rolls a bucketload of 2s to wound. For all that people suggest we should have a D10 or D12 or D20 system for 40K, it seems to me the current system has found a nice little niche. What would be the alternative to our current "equal / different / double" mechanic? D10 but with a +/-1 modifier per point of difference?

 

You know what? I'm tired but I'm in the mood to crunch numbers because I enjoy that for some reason. Here's some comparative values for you to look at:

 

Old Odds - S[x] vs T4:

S1-2: 16.6% wound chance.

S3: 33.3% wound chance.

S4: 50% wound chance.

S5: 66.7% wound chance.

S6-10: 88.3% wound chance.

 

Half the possible strength values in the game wounded on 2+. This is not a healthy value spread - it's way too clustered at one end.

8th Edition Master Race Odds - S[x] vs T4:

S1-2: 16.6% wound chance.

S3: 33.3% wound chance.

S4: 50% wound chance.

S5-7: 66.7% wound chance.

S8: 88.3% wound chance.

Okay, the low to mid end hasn't changed, but the high end has! You've got two entire strength bands now that are less effective than they used to be - thereby making Marines tougher by extension. This actually creates something of a perverse incentive when list building, as unless you've got some Dreadnoughts or Gravis Primaris to shoot at, or the weapon in question has superior AP to compensate, you're actually better either going for bulk S5 or skipping to S8+ weapons instead.

When did this ever happen in earlier Editions? When was it ever better to fire the heavy bolter over the assault cannon? There's some interesting things going on here, if you stop to look.

 

D10 odds - S[x] vs T6:

I'm using T6 because of Dark Heresy, which is a D10 / D100 system and puts the Toughness Bonus of an unaugmented human at around 3 or 4. So if 4 is a really nails human, 5 would be a tough alien, and 6 is a Space Marine - this gives the granulation some people here seemed to want. If you disagree with my value choice, feel free to argue.

S1-2: 2+ / 90% chance to wound.

S3: 3+ / 80% chance to wound.

S4: 4+ / 70% chance to wound.

S5: 5+ / 60% chance to wound.

S6: 6+ / 50% chance to wound.

S7: 7+ / 40% chance to wound.

S8: 8+ / 30% chance to wound.

S9: 9+ / 20% chance to wound.

S10: 10+ / 10% chance to wound.

Okay, it's at least nicely spread out I suppose... but has it really made that big of a difference? Enough to be worth the effort of moving to a whole new dice system and having to totally rework the entire game roster? And moreover, do you really want a game system where big, crazy stuff like Knights are even harder to injure with chip damage, and have even more chance of wounding you? Using this model, a Knight is almost certainly going to be T10 with a S10 main gun - that's 2+ to wound on everything S6 or less, which includes your Space Marines. One of the things I liked about 8th is the power of chip damage - there's something really thrilling about seeing people desperately hurling splinter rifles into a Knight Armiger to pick away at those last few wounds and blow it sky high!

This uniform D10 line also harkens back to a problem highlighted earlier - there's no deeper strategy at play. Unless you are getting something amazing as a trade-off, like insane AP or a bucket of dice, you're always better off picking the stronger weapon. There's no dynamic where a weapon designed to liquefy infantry turns out to have a gimped effectiveness against super-soldiers, because it's going to get that +10% hit chance.

If you do want to avoid the extremes where the odds of success feel too low, you can probably cap the rolls at 3+ and 9+, but you're not going to get something as simple and intuitive as "equal / different / double" like we have now. Not unless you're capping your rolls so heavily that you've rendered the whole move to D10 largely pointless...

[Skaorn]

It's not random variance. It's a tool to allow the game developers the flexibility to have a meaningful statlines and water between some units and races without breaking the system. Flexibility in the rules actually aides games design.

An alternative would be quantifying "small arms" that suffer a -1 to wound against vehicles and Power Armour (and whatever) etc so Marines could receive a benefit despite having a T4.

You expect GW to be able to handle balancing that, though? They haven't done a good job of it so far and keep running into similar problems over and over again. They could do a lot of things, like change to a system like Warmahordes (Accuracy vs Defense, then weapon power vs toughness+armor), but it doesn't mean they will do it well.

[Deathwalker]

 

It's not random variance. It's a tool to allow the game developers the flexibility to have a meaningful statlines and water between some units and races without breaking the system. Flexibility in the rules actually aides games design.

An alternative would be quantifying "small arms" that suffer a -1 to wound against vehicles and Power Armour (and whatever) etc so Marines could receive a benefit despite having a T4.

You expect GW to be able to handle balancing that, though? They haven't done a good job of it so far and keep running into similar problems over and over again. They could do a lot of things, like change to a system like Warmahordes (Accuracy vs Defense, then weapon power vs toughness+armor), but it doesn't mean they will do it well.

 

Nope, I expect the players to do that for them, and so do they.

[Captain Idaho]

I'm out. The negativity is dragging me down in this thread. All people can do is dispute any idea someone else says but are unable to offer anything constructive themselves.

[Deathwalker]

I'm out. The negativity is dragging me down in this thread. All people can do is dispute any idea someone else says but are unable to offer anything constructive themselves.

I don't want you out, you give up, you get a worse game.

GW has spent 30 years putting balance onto the tournament scene, not themselves, and they DESERVE to be called on that.

Now that they are actually using that data?

Then let's actually talk about it.

GW is like Bethesda, we hang on because we love the games or settings, but none of us are really happy about it, and the mod community fixes stuff. for Bethesda, and GW.

 

That's not being negative, that's being realistic.

 

People don't like your points?

Fine.

You have every right to express them, and they can rebut them.

People should just rebut the -points made- however, not their side issues.

The fact I have not played 40k for 14 years because of kids does not mean "I know nothing" because previous to that, I played it for 16 years, which is longer than most players have even played -period-..

You know what that experience is in a rules environment?

Irrelevant,

If a 12 year old kid makes a better point within the rules, then lets run with it.

Keep an open mind, and remember a disagreement with a point is not a  personal slash.

[Panzer]

The real issue here is that the changes that would be ideal for fluff and balance would be bad for GW's wallet, as smaller armies would be fielded due to points adjustments. In response they'd probably jack marine prices up to be comparable to Custodes, which are the kind of low-model elite army we're talking about when increasing marine stats. 

 

I guess that's the main problem, yeah.

 

 

I'm out. The negativity is dragging me down in this thread. All people can do is dispute any idea someone else says but are unable to offer anything constructive themselves.

 

Same. I gave up on posting here a while ago but was still following. I think I'll drop that as well, it's really not a very constructive thread.

[Deathwalker]

Let's all give up and accept sub-par crap.

I'll leave my new DW, intercessors and other models in their film boxes, GW got their cash, so who cares.

Same reason I still have around 10 "soldiers of the Empire"  16 man boxes in my cupboard, no one wanted to challenge GW.

 

SF and Cap Idaho, I think the point of this WAS to be constructive,, it just did not stay that way

[Panzer]

 

SF and Cap Idaho, I think the point of this WAS to be constructive,, it just did not stay that way

 

Yeah no doubt about that.

[Volt]

Although this does raise the question again; why do we, as a community, purely rely upon GW instead of spreading mutually agreed upon homebrew rules. There's no reason why the 40k community has to slave itself to the constant slog of poorly written editions pumped out by GW when the community is perfectly capable of just creating its own rulebook. This site is stuck in an Oroboros cycle of constant complaining of how X GW rules don't fit Y, with us in the end simply voicing complaints that will never be heard by GW, never addressed by GW, and never cared about by the GW staff. Thus, without action, the discussion is ultimately pointless and worthless as it is the bandying of mere words that never achieve anything besides expressing our individual level of saltiness regarding the rules.

 

Why the gak don't we break that cycle and do something for once?

[Leif Bearclaw]

It's the 'mutually agreed on' thing. That's harder than herding cats, even in a small group (though all groups of course, vary, and it's easier to get more minor things accepted like detachment limits than massive rule reworks). Then there's the assumption that people are always playing in self contained groups. Pick and games? Play at a GW rather than local club? Want to go to events? Want to play with people who go to events? House rules and the like are of no use to a good proportion of players.

[Wargamer]

Although this does raise the question again; why do we, as a community, purely rely upon GW instead of spreading mutually agreed upon homebrew rules. There's no reason why the 40k community has to slave itself to the constant slog of poorly written editions pumped out by GW when the community is perfectly capable of just creating its own rulebook. This site is stuck in an Oroboros cycle of constant complaining of how X GW rules don't fit Y, with us in the end simply voicing complaints that will never be heard by GW, never addressed by GW, and never cared about by the GW staff. Thus, without action, the discussion is ultimately pointless and worthless as it is the bandying of mere words that never achieve anything besides expressing our individual level of saltiness regarding the rules.

 

Why the gak don't we break that cycle and do something for once?

Because I've already seen people actively trying to avoid FAQ changes to turn-1 deep strike. We can't even get people to play by the official rules, so how are we going to get people to play with house rules?

[Bryan Blaire]

Why the gak don't we break that cycle and do something for once?

As I said before in this thread: because everyone has different viewpoints on what is right and wrong - some people want minimal rules and minimal dice rolls, while others still pine for the days of Rogue Trader and 2nd Edition, when games of 40 Marines per side could take 5-6 hours, you had cards and counters and templates and various other things to keep track of, and it was considered enjoyable (I’ll raise my hand for that one). Others have disagreements about how various weapons are “best portrayed”, or the same about Chapter Traits, or how rules work or should be interpreted. And in the end, everyone else’s ideas are inevitably sub-par to the great majority of other people on the forum, much less the Internet.

 

If a group of devoted fans like the DA forum can’t have 30 or so truly dedicated people willing to post pages of discussion for a single point about theme for the Chapter/Unforgiven and never really come to a truly accepted “design document” that they end up working on a Fandex for three years and the official one actually comes out before much was ever decided, how realistic is it to think that the forum here could come up with “solutions” to an entire rules-set that everyone would accept? We’ve already seen people decrying proposals as “screwing my army” before things were even tested to see if they’d work.

 

And that’s before you even get into rules portability problems.

 

It’s funny that the Bethesda thing was brought up - I don’t have any numbers except anecdotal stuff, but for computer game mods, I’d bet that less than 10% of the mods made for any game ever become “universal” where practically everyone uses the same one, and that’s for little things, like loot indicators. It was an issue that was run into with Neverwinter Nights back when it was worked on - when someone released a Mod set, inevitably you’d have five to ten more Mods created just to adjoin that one Mod to another 10 Mods that different people used. It became extremely unwieldy, and which mods were joined to what for a good game experience were rarely universal.

 

The only “universal standard” that most people can agree to is the official rules. Look at the divisions it causes when people bring up using GW’s suggestions regarding army configuration allowances for tournaments. Some people will hold things sacred as if word from the highest of beings, while others will never accept what someone else says, seeking their own version of better.

 

Heck, even in this thread, different people hold different views of what the concept of “baseline” should be, and are sticking to their guns.

 

Game design is an art, not a science (no matter how much math and scientific principals might be applied at various junctures within it), and like all art, it is subjective and can mean and “speak to” different things for different people. That’s why there are so many different types of games, and even sports, throughout the world, and so many different types of people that play and/or compete within them.

[Chaplain Killmer]

The interesting thing to me about the 8th edition that we got the broadest marine test field ever. You got:

 

Basic Marine as we had it already - nothing to fancy but with a bit of a higher resiliance against weapons with strength 6-7 if i am right that were the weapons that caused the most tears (Plasmaguns and Starcannons anyone?) in the last editions they wounded on 2 and allowed no save. Now they wound only on 3 if i got my rules right.

 

The Aggressors with a +1 to T and +1 wound? but slower

 

The Primaris with +1 Wound new weapon variants

 

Terminators with +1 Wound and Armorsave but slower

 

Centurions with +1 Wound, Armorsave and Toughness S too?

 

As you can see GW is actually listening and offered a broad selection of options that we were discussing before. Ok not all of them are fancy but its nice to see that they are working on the marines massively... same goes for the Dreadnoughts too btw. if you check them all out and include FW variants.

 

So to me the Marines is still and always was the baseline - but they are offering a lot of flavours now - sure pointwise ist maybe a way to go - but if you look at all these troop types they are actually giving our feedback a go - just go back to older powerarmor discussions.

[Panzer]

It's just that something "official" is more accepted because otherwise many get the thought "why should we use random person X rules instead of mine". Everyone playing largely the same game with accepted rules is very important to build community. The closest thing to "official fan rules" is tournament house rules like ITC and I don't think it'll get any closer.

Just look at Warhammer Fantasy. Despite it having lots of fans and the AoS release having such a negative impact at first the 9th Age fan rules and community is extremely small compared to the official AoS rules playing community.

[Bryan Blaire]

It's just that something "official" is more accepted because otherwise many get the thought "why should we use random person X rules instead of mine".

That’s what’s funny about this: people wouldn’t lower themselves to use “random person X’s rules”, but immediately accept every single thing written in the BRB as gospel because they paid for it, even if the expectation is that at least some of the rules are going to be dreck and are written by “random person Y” at GW that you may never even have heard of.

 

The closest thing to "official fan rules" is tournament house rules like ITC and I don't think it'll get any closer.

But why should we use “Random Person J, K, and L’s Tournament Rules? Seriously, I had my store’s set of tournament rules back in 3rd Edition, what inherently makes ITC’s rules better than ones created by people who actually know the regular players in the tournament scene in their store?