Make Power Armour and Bolters Great Again

[Zodd1888]

This is hilarious.

 

I actually play 1kS and thought that Rubrics felt more like a PA Marine should when dealing with swaths of Guard and Cultists.

 

I didn't expect this back and forth.

 

I don't care if the 1kS lost their rule if it's the easiest fix to one of our Astartes dilemmas.

 

Either way, the base line of guard or fire warrior is not important. Bottom line, the Marines need adjustment and my suggestion, though obviously needing refinement, was more of a suggestion to aid against the proliferation on many shots = win.

[Ishagu]

If Marines cost 6 points they'd be on every table in every tournament.

 

The costs are the issue, not so much the rules or stats. Currently the game undervalues cheap and disposable units, and charges too highly for elite stuff. There are exceptions of course, a Knight Castellan for example, but they are not the rule.

 

If you're looking for Astartes that "feel" more like the lore, then Primaris, Death Guard and Thousand Sons have that covered. I can't imagine sweeping rule changes being applied to normal PA that would step on the toes of the above units.

[Zodd1888]

I'll say Primaris feel pretty close, DG feel a little too juicy, and Rubrics feel about right taking costs out of the discussions.

 

That said, Rubrics are a little over-cost as their invulnerable isn't nearly as valuable as Disgustingly Resilient. I've not touched a Primaris so I can only speak to their board presence.

[Vykes]

Death Guard (aside from their slightly lower pace) feel about right, while Rubrics are nice for their power.  The 2 wounds and even 2 base CC attacks of a Primaris feels a little nicer which also help cult troops against standard run of the mill marines (seriously, 1 attack for tacs and CSM, kinda weird). 

[Beams]

 

 

The issue is not ironclad. Marines are hampered by two things: being slighlty overcosted and Marine players taking only minimal Marines. 100 Marines buffed with a captain and lt kills like 42 Guardsmen a turn at 24", Costs 1300 pts and provides 100 3+ wounds and leaves 700 pts for anti tank, but most marine lists I come up against have maybe 30 total models, and get mad when they can't beat my 100 model sisters of battle army, much less a 200 model guard army, because they just don't have the volume of fire.

 

 

Not saying you need a 100 Marines, but taking 15 isn't helping Marines.

-winces a bit- Eeeeeh... I'm one of the sorts that routinely takes 40-60 tac/legion marines in just about every game, then another 10-30 boltgun equivalents ('breacher' plague marines, bolter and chainsword... heh, vets) and it's not exactly that simple as not much is happening in a vacuum. Cadians/vossies with a scrap of cover around a core of long range tanks, mortars, and bullgryns isn't so easy to crack. Not every trooper is in range, and you can take some ungodly direct/indirect fire on the way into that 24" death zone, a zone where if you can fire at them, they can do the same back, with orders and often just as many rerolls. The volume of fire is fine when you get there, and you'll likely clear them out in hand to hand, but unless you can get some serious disruption going, it's tough. The best results I've gotten were with CSM, a Storm Eagle, 19 troopers and 1 lord with mark of slaneesh for cacophony which gets the extra shooing phase. It managed to bolter mulch two squads and combi charge three basilisks. They died pretty quick after that but it still felt pretty good.

 

I've tried taking 100 marines+, it's worth it for the psychological factor of it being 'odd' but it's not immensely practical as you start skimping on the heavy AT resources which are routinely targeted pretty quickly and knocked out (just like we try to do to them).

 

I've done fairly well with mass sisters, and they lack any real strategem or warlord traits. They have clear advantages and disadvantages vs Marines, but suffer from being index.

 

That said, my sisters army and my grey knights army have never had a problem fighting Guardsmen, mostly because I go heavy on bodies. My grey knights struggle vs tanks, but that's a whole different problem.

[Azekai]

The costs are the issue, not so much the rules or stats. Currently the game undervalues cheap and disposable units, and charges too highly for elite stuff. There are exceptions of course, a Knight Castellan for example, but they are not the rule.

Well, yes and no. Stats should be tied to cost, certainly, but I think why some units feel worse than others isn't simply a matter of cost.

 

Rare, elite units have the clear counter in mortal wounds- cheap units, on the other hand, have no direct counter (arguably, morale was meant to be this, but GW still hasn't given LD the weight it deserves). Instead, the response is to shoot the massed units, a lot, but this isn't much of a solution, since volume of fire solves everything.

 

Nerfing cheap T3 bodies would be a great way to make options like marines and terminators look attractive. 

 

[Ishagu]

To be honest hiking the price on cheap infantry would indeed be best for the game.

 

More balance AND less time consuming to play.

[BlackTriton]

To be honest hiking the price on cheap infantry would indeed be best for the game.

 

More balance AND less time consuming to play.

 

Agreed.

Some marine unit should get a "generalist discount" on their point cost.

Just as some very efficient unit get a "specialist tax"

 

If what we want to see is more power armor on the table, a point decrease (while going a long way) would not solve that.

We do not see Tac in Space marine since Scout are cheaper, for largely the same unit, with a special (very valuable) ability.

 - an argument could be made that tac and scout should cost the same point actually. infiltrate is that good an ability -

We do see Assault marine in the form of the BA death Company, where they get special rules and good weapons.

We do see Devastator in a variety of SpaceMarine: Guilliman gunline, DA plasma, they are looking good for the spacewolf. its the most specialized form of power armor and arguably the best because of it.

The point and profile for power armor does not seem to be the problem. What we see is that specialized Power armored profile ARE good. Generalist units are bad across the board. 

 

If what we want is for power armored infantry to be on par with cheaper infantry, it seem to me that there is a number thing to look at:

A lot of basic system favor's cheap infantry : Mortal wounds, board control, Volume of fire > quality, AP system, poor design of the moral phase, low availability of "spill over wounds".

Its way easier to deal with moral for cheap troop than to deal with high AP for marine. I can make my cultist fearless a number of way, but I do not have a stratagem to ignore plasma fire on my tac squad.

 

Another point against more power armor on the table is mobility.

While rather indirect, games are won in the movement phase. Power armor is slow to average with poor transport options. On top, mobility is under valued across the board in the game (and really every game I ever played). 

[Vykes]

 

...

I've done fairly well with mass sisters, and they lack any real strategem or warlord traits. They have clear advantages and disadvantages vs Marines, but suffer from being index.

 

That said, my sisters army and my grey knights army have never had a problem fighting Guardsmen, mostly because I go heavy on bodies. My grey knights struggle vs tanks, but that's a whole different problem.

 

Aye, I tend to do 'so so' with probably 50-50 wins and loses and they also tend to be big skews: big wins, big losses.  With armies like nids and Guard in particular, there can be a very hard line with armies that feature a ton of dirt cheap T3 infantry and still a ton of T7-8 3+ 10+ wound monsters that are hard to crack.  You have to have both, and if they can chew up either portion of your specialists, things tend to go poorly because there's still that skew list problem at play. 

 

I think BlackTriton, Ishagu, and Mileposter are pretty much right (hey, I said it too) the generalists are suffering, not the specialist units.  Tacticals, Devastators, Assault Marines and their spiky equivalent tend to have issues.  Each one tries to be a jack of all trades but the specialists are only marginally more costly and do that job better.  They're costly, they're vulnerable, and they don't output significant damage or benefit from a lot of unique traits in more meaningful ways than their specialist counterparts (reroll 1's for plasma or melta squads means a lot more than rerolling 1's for bolters).  The veterans are decent, the unique units are good, certain traits and strategems will change some of the particulars, but in general those are the ones hurting, not the havoc plasma squads, combi-vets, berserkers, Death Company, etc.  Something is wrong with the lowest rungs of the 'standard' marine dex. 

[Kallas]

One huge issue with single wound elite models is simply that a single attack can kill them. I know that is obvious, but it's important when the comparison is made with the more effective 'chaff' type units (eg, Guardsmen): 1 Tactical Marine = 3 Guardsmen in points, but it takes a minimum of 3 attacks to kill those Guardsmen, versus a minimum of 1 for the Marine. Again, pretty obvious, but it makes a huge difference because those elite models are hugely affected by a minor dip in luck, whereas the chaff can absorb the luck deficiency and keep on trucking.

 

And that resilience issue goes hand in hand with the offensive issues of Marines: simply, that Marines don't actually have much higher output for their cost. A single Marine fires as many shots as a single Guardsmen - it is a better shot (more accurate and higher strength) but not by a huge margin, and that compounds the issue: Marines (and other, similar units) are reliant on their dice behaving. A few poor rolls on your units and you can see a large portion of a force evaporate, or fall to do any real damage. Luck is obviously an intrinsic part of any dice game, but the degree to which it affects different things varies. Marines need better (or at least more stable) luck to be effective, which is obviously something that's hard to actually engineer during a game.

 

Mortal Wounds were mentioned earlier, and that's one issue with my first point (it's more impactful the more expensive the target is). A cost reduction on Marines would help, but it wouldn't solve everything; something needs to happen to give Marines (of all stripes: Primaris are a better baseline for Marines, but they're still mid-tier at best, more realistically they're low mid/bottom tier, like the rest of the Marines) a decent shot of surviving to actually put out decent firepower - more bodies would be ok, but would devalue their lore, and wouldn't fix the core problems.

 

 

We do see Assault marine in the form of the BA death Company, where they get special rules and good weapons.

 

Death Company are significantly different from Assault Marines (ignoring, for a moment, the fact that Assault Marines are hot garbage!) considering that they are better offensively, have a better array of melee weapon options and slightly improved resilience, plus some solid stratagems and synergy. Assault Marines of all flavours are awful; Death Company are a different beast, discounting the fact that they're Elites.

 

A big points discount on Assault Marines (base down to 9/10; with Jump Packs at 11-13) would do wonders, but they still have basically no teeth (in their current state they're worse than the equivalent three Hormagaunts:one JPAM by far - almost as fast, better stratagems/Hive Fleet traits, good synergies, in-built bonuses to their role, points not wasted on pointless BS3+, etc) with a measly 1A plus Chainsword and the ever underwhelming Bolt Pistol.

[Kallas]

You (nobody in particular) keep saying that marines get obliterated on the way in to a horde, and that it not fun/fair/fluffy. There’s not much that can walk up to a gun line and survive the firing squad that ensues. This is why marines have rhinos, drop pods (which no other army has access to in the numbers they can be taken), and land raiders.

 

Sure, gun lines are pretty damn effective at shooting things, and that's not an issue that only Marines face, but Marines pay through the nose for what is essentially a marginal increase in survivability, plus pretty every one and their dog can pack in more than ample MEQ killing power without even thinking about it. The 8th Ed AP system, which I generally think of as a good thing, is fairly harsh for Marines. As I mentioned a few posts above yours, a single shot kills a Marine, but it kills only one Guardsmen (or similar horde-type model). That makes a Plasma Gun fine for just dumping into a horde, if somewhat inefficient, but excellent if the opponent brings any targets of reasonable value.

 

As for transports, yes they're an option but they're also difficult to quantify. Sometimes just sitting in a Rhino will be great, and the Rhino is certainly decent, if somewhat expensive (considering that many other transports are not much more expensive while packing reasonable guns; see Wave Serpents, Razorbacks, Venoms, etc). Razorbacks are solid, which is why tournament Marines armies often pack quite a few in (and they're one of the few platforms for the Marines' premier anti-horde gun: the Twin Assault Cannon).

 

Drop Pods. Urgh. Just...no. Yes, it is a Deep Striking transport, which is cool, but it has compulsory disembarkation (ie, your unit can't shelter in it for a turn), it cannot move once deployed, has non-existent damage output and costs an arm and a leg. Does it have some use? Sure. Is it worthwhile? Not even slightly. It's a huge disappointment. There have been numerous topics that have discussed the Drop Pod, so I won't linger too long, but suffice it to say that it is absolutely not in a good place.

 

Land Raiders are extremely expensive for what they do. They're tougher than Leman Russ and can transport, which is decent, but they're so damn expensive in an already points-intensive army that their inclusion is often impractical. The Phobos is ok, because those Twin Lascannons are solid anti-tank, and it's one of the few Power of the Machine Spirit vehicles in the arsenal, but it really is just so expensive that it's unwieldy.

 

I hear people bemoaning the cost and durability of transports and how they are equally useless. It’s at this point I’m thinking marine fans just want the cake and to eat it too.

 

Marine transports aren't awful, but what they can actually carry is more the issue.

 

GEQ “survive” by having numbers. A marine can shoot, fight, and maneuver more effectively, yet we still want them to have lower cost so they can also have numerical advantages? One of the above posters stated it’s not about the rules and stats, but about point costs, so this point can’t just be angrily shrugged off.

 

A single Marine can shoot and fight better than a single GEQ. Even with a modest points reduction, it would still not be 1-to-1 (and shouldn't be). And that's the crux: a single Marine has to outperform (or perform as effectively) as multiple enemy models, which they almost universally can't (pretty much the only MEQs that can are the outliers, the extreme specialists: Death Guard/Thousand Sons for resilience, Khorne Berserkers/Death Company for melee power, and that's about it for actual Marines).

 

The points issue is that Marines simply don't do much for their points. Reducing their points would mean that they're outnumbered less, certainly, but that would be bringing them into line with what they can actually achieve. It's all well and good saying that a Marine is superior to a Guardsmen, but when they're outgunned and outlasted by their equivalent points in Guardsmen (or Cultists!) then something is definitely wrong. Cost would be one way, and a simple one at that, to make Marines better without tweaking a lot of moving parts.

 

Marines have reliable deep strike delivery systems. heavy weapon squads that have a large variety of weapon options, embedded reroll ability, and above average base accuracy. Walker vehicles that can be delivered via deep strike and can fight in CC or at range equally effectively. Large access to various rerolls and buffs. Bike squads and jump squads.

 

Reliable deep strike delivery is debatable. Drop Pods are bad; units that can deep strike are often bad (Terminators are horribly overcosted/underperform terribly; Assault Marines are a huge trash fire; Vanguard Veterans are ok, but outside of Blood Angels are a coinflip to actually reach melee in the first place; and Drop Pod shooty units aren't especially cost-effective which the Drop Pod compounds even further); and deep striking a Dreadnought requires a Forge World Dreadnought Drop Pod (which can be an issue if a local group, or tournament, doesn't allow or restricts Forge World stuff, which does still happen despite the restriction being mostly unnecessary since it's no longer as simple as FW = More Powerful) which is currently out of production/requires the conversion of one, plus it's still a large points tax (albeit a better one than a standard Drop Pod).

 

Embedded rerolls are ok, but they're still fairly pricey. Captains aren't all that cheap, Lieutenants are ok and Chaplains aren't lighting the world on fire (part of that is due to Marine melee prowess being subpar). Other factions might not necessarily get the full gamut of reroll access, or might have less ubiquitous access, but that reroll potential is one of the few things that Marines can actually do well - also consider that Tactical Marines with access to a Captain are still less efficient, point for point, than their equivalent cost in Guardsmen before the points for the Captain are taken into account! And that's without the Guardsmen having been given orders!

 

As for Dreadnoughts, again they're ok, but they're pretty expensive and die quickly when anti-tank thinks about looking in their direction. The best Dreadnoughts are Forge World (Leviathan, best with Deathwatch for the Deep Strike stratagem alpha strike protection/reactionary positioning), Contemptors and Space Wolf Dreadnoughts with Blizzard Shields, and even all of these are still a little bit subpar, considering their cost and actual effectiveness on the table.

 

Bikes and Jump Packs are really not all that impressive. Scout Bikes are good because they pack a lot of guns, are reasonably cheap and fast; regular Bikes are pretty crap; Attack Bikes are pretty crap; Vanguard Veterans are ok, but tend to get expensive quickly, or are otherwise very glass hammer-like; Assault Marines are, again, awful garbage fires.

 

If you can’t find enjoyment or a successful and competitive combination with all these options, it may be time to either revisit options you haven’t given enough of a chance to or find a different army to play.

 

Edit: I really don’t want to sound harsh, or to poopoo others concerns and complaints. I too have had the shoulder drop in past editions when a cool marine army I ran was just completely ineffective. I just don’t think there’s a fair fix without jamming up other armies and stat lines. I think primaris are the attempted answer, even if it’s not perfect.

 

As an aside, to those wanting change, what statline/point cost cimbined would you propose?

 

 

*Sigh*

Yes, some options might wax and wane a little bit, but it's not like we (the nebulous 'we' of those disenfranchised by the lacklustre Marine Codexes) haven't tried these things. Some things simply don't work particularly well. That's the unfortunate nature of a game with the sheer breadth of models that 40k has: some things are going to get messed up, and there are units in every Codex that are subpar and could do with a little nudge to make them table-worthy (and in some cases, a big overhaul like Grey Knights).

 

There might not be a fix that makes Marines better without making a big kerfuffle and changing a lot of other things, simply. But if that's the case, then there's obviously something rotten in the state Denmark, and then some big changes should be made. Marines aren't some small, singular unit that might be able to, unfortunately, languish in a state of disfavour for a long time (*cough* 3E-6E Dark Eldar...), they're the single most iconic faction of the game, they're the faction that will draw in the most new players, they're an intrinsic part of the setting and have been for decades. They shouldn't languish (disclaimer: I don't think any units or models should languish in disfavour, but there are units that can afford to, Imperial Guard Veteran Squads, for example, they aren't a high priority unit because they can easily be used as other models in the army (such as Special/Heavy Weapons, Scions and Command Squads)).

 

For proposed, entirely off-the-cuff and not-thought-through suggestions:

 - Points-wise, Marines would need to drop either a few points on their base costs, eg, Tactical Marines dropping to 11pts, Veterans dropping to 13pts (and Assault Marines dropping to -46pts  ), or their weapons and dropping a few points to compensate for the increased base costs, eg, Plasma Guns dropping from 13->10pts, Heavy Bolters from 10->8/9pts, etc.

 - Rules-wise, Marines would either need some kind of Battle Forged buff similar to something like All Is Dust (possibly: "Units in an Adeptus Astartes Battle Forged detachment can reroll failed saves against weapons with a Damage value of 1) and/or something like a better Objective Secured rule to represent their shock and awe specialism (particularly over things like Custodes, who are potent but don't operate the same way), similar to how the Imperial Knights Heirloom 'Banner of Macharius Triumphant' grants that Knight the ObSec-style rule but counts as ten models, make Marines count as two models (possibly even make Tacticals and Assaults count as three). And/or something else to bring up their offensive capability: honestly, a simple +1A across the board for Marines would not make them ridiculous. Tacticals and Assaults are utterly laughable in melee, and Veterans would actually become damn good rather than occasionally decent.

 

[Lord_Caerolion]

That's the point though, people are arguing, and statistics does back this up, that point for point, Guard are far more efficient than Marines are, especially once you factor orders in. Guard don't just survive by having numbers, they also outshoot by having numbers. They also earn far more CP by having numbers, giving them rerolls. One marine is better than one guardsman, but Marines lack the ability to scale up that Guard do.

[Vykes]

Always good to take a step back from posting quickly: else I'm sure I would have went into a usual incoherent frothing nerd fit "REEEEEEEE-" -ahem-  Anyway.

 

I'd still say that marines suffer from a few problems, one is kinda unavoidable.  Marines suffer from a tonal dissonance between the fluff and the game that is probably more drastic than that of their counterparts.  It gets people's hopes up when on the tabletop marines are uncomfortably close to stormtroopers scions who are still just regular human kids that swallowed a hefty dose of jingoism.  If marines were as they were fluffwise, they would be horrific and overpowered, just like necrons.  Overpowered doesn't make a fun game (Battlefleet gothic necrons... yaz). 

 

Two, a lot of marine options are there in the same way a six month old steak left in the fridge is 'still there', it's a choice but not an appealing one.  In marines case, the Reserves rules negate even having a drop pod army this edition.  More over, drop pod opportunity cost is huge as it will limit other options like terminator and assault marine deepstrikes as well while also being restricted in mobility by the 9" no-go bubble  and the T1 vs. T2 deployment abilities.  Rhino's only carry a fraction of the units available to marines, Raiders are expensive (Spartans are fine), Assault marines are just... they're not good.  Honestly if they were Veteran Vanguard/Chosen with jump packs for about the same price then yeah, not nearly as painful.  As a bit of an aside, weird as it is, I'm not unhappy with Vanilla or Chaos marines as I just enjoy power armour and don't care about xenos, but would it kill them to add +1 attack to standard marines, or at least a chainsword upgrade option that doesn't replace bolters? 

 

The third is that, more or less, vanilla marines don't get to patch up their problem spots as quickly or easily as many other armies out there.  I mean, Imperial Guard sound like a force that should break pretty easily if you kill their moral, but there's a lot of ways to fix that.  Their advisors fill other rolls well, their specialist troops plug other gaps in their arsenel, and they have strategems and army faction bonuses which are exceptionally good.  Marines lack a lot of little things: any significant indirect fire weapons, for example.  Vanilla marines have decent auras its true, but getting them to really overlap is tough outside of Gulliman or a chapter master.  Chaos close combat abilities rely on fighting Imperial targets and have next to no reroll to wound abilities.  Marines suffer from RNG swings because of the quantity vs. quality thing, and in a lot of cases their generalists are still just expensive generalists that don't live particularly longer than a lot of cheap disposable troops. Half their troop types don't fit into standard transports, and there's not much we can do about improving durability (ponders the ramifications of a strategem for rerolling 1's for armour saves or a 5+ FNP vs. 1 dmg weapons). 

 

*Take it ya didn't read Slave to Darkness, eh? The thing about astartes is that yes, fluffwise, they kinda can wade into a firing line of 'mortals' and overrun them. It's not a foregone conclusion in either direction, but it's definitely not beyond them to flat out across no mans land and butcher a prepared gunline several times their number in short order.  Others might not like it, but it's there in the novels and shown on the posters.  They are sure a lot more than just human special forces to the IG grunts.

[BitsHammer]

What do you all think of giving PA troops the All is Dust rules (+1 save if damage of weapon is 1) and Bolter equivalent weapons (likely among others) a -1 AP to compensate?

 

I realize this would have some significant effects across the game but it hurts the things it should (hordes) and make PA more interesting.

 

Opinions?

Clearly the answer is that we need to build a wall across the Imperium to keep the dirty xenos and filthy heretics out. :P

 

Seriously though, I'd actually start with rebalancing how the saves are costed. Right now Power Armour units are either too expensive, or chaffe saves are too cheap. Neither is a good place for the game in the long run.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Take it ya didn't read Slave to Darkness, eh? The thing about astartes is that yes, fluffwise, they kinda can wade into a firing line of 'mortals' and overrun them. It's not a foregone conclusion in either direction, but it's definitely not beyond them to flat out across no mans land and butcher a prepared gunline several times their number in short order.  Others might not like it, but it's there in the novels and shown on the posters.  They are sure a lot more than just human special forces to the IG grunts.

 

"The Legionnaire that scoffs at a lasgun has not charged across an open field against a hundred of them".

[Vykes]

 

...

 

"The Legionnaire that scoffs at a lasgun has not charged across an open field against a hundred of them".

 

 

"The lesson is this: the only real crime for those of superlative intellect and great prowess is to allow one's self to become shackled by mediocrity."

[Calyptra]

How Marines' lore is represented as compared to other factions, and how competitive they are in the game are two different conversations. I thought this was about the former (I don't have an opinion on the latter), but now I'm genuinely unsure what's being discussed here.

[Vykes]

I'd say that it's kinda both, Calyptra mate.  Which may be why such a broad spectrum of people are dissatisfied with it, and maybe to a degree why it's always such a hot button topic.  People are doubly disappointed, even (Disappointed)² as it were if we count in chaos's marine deficiency on top of the codex lads. 

 

Frankly I'm far less unhappy about marines from the competitive point of view as I am chaos not getting half the toys the loyalists get (especially the Heresy era stash) and have to resort to gribblies and mortals to fill the ranks.  But that's a totally different topic. 

[Beams]

Honestly, I think recosting drop pods would be a better way to handle it. If they were 35 pts again, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, 10 man Marine squads would be dropping in and murdering Guardsmen left and right.

[Slasher956]

Couldnt be asked reading half of this... just want to say

 

sure give 'all is dust' rule to ALL power armoured armys:

 

Sister of Battle

Sisters of Silence

Custodse

Imperial Space Marines - inc DW, SWs etc & Primaris'

Chaos Space Marines

Engierseers (3rd ed fluff had them in power armour)

 

oh wait .... oops seem to have messed up the whole edition here

[BlackTriton]

I see a lot of argument on what is good, what is bad and what could be done.

What I would like to know is what result are you after?

 

more power armor on the table?

parity with other infantry type?

a more competitive codex for tournament?

 

these are completely different issue with vastly different fix.

[Volt]

Whenever I see a thread like this, I think the same three things.

 

First, when players talk about how Space Marines should be able to walk all over other armies because of the lore, I don't think they're very familiar with those other armies' lore.

 

Second, the basis for comparison of Space Marines' power level (and model scale, for that matter) is always and exclusively Imperial Guard. It's assumed that the Guard are pointed and powered correctly, and therefore Marines ought to be adjusted. Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, Craftworlds, Drukhari, Tau, etc are all ignored.

 

As someone else said above, it comes off as entitled. It also comes off as severely myopic. Compared to the rest of the galaxy, Space Marines are not as dangerous as a lot of people seem to think, regardless of what some dubious Black Library novel might have told them. Nor should they be, because "Space Marines curbstomp everything" is not particularly interesting in narrative or game design.

 

And the third thing I think is that it almost certainly isn't worth it for me to post or get involved.

Except they do? Accurate armies would basically have everybody else multiply their model count by 10 in comparison for marine armies, and probably even more-so for Custodes. Orks and Tyranids are hordes that simply throw bodies at the enemy until they either clog the defenses with corpses and achieve victory through sheer attrition or end up losing as they get whittled down. Guard are a give-or-take, as their performance on the field as either a horde or elite force depends on whether or not it's an infantry or mechanized regiment, as there's quite a difference between several hundred Imperial Guardsmen and a dozen or so Leman Russes. Space Marines are obscenely lethal- mere chapters, 900 linemen, are capable of waging planetary campaigns and seizing entire worlds. And as I know where you're going with this, (Dark) Eldar don't stack up against Marines on a peer to peer basis and thus it's become a bit of a running joke how Eldar get eviscerated when going up against Marines. What makes them effective isn't that they're a peer force, it's that their sheer mobility allows them to bug out of bad situations and show up with reinforcements in a literal blink of an eye via the Webway.

 

If we were to make 40k actually accurate, the average marine army on a 2,000 points level would be slightly more numerous than a Custodes army with individual marines having durability comparable to Tyranid Warriors. Space Marines should absolutely curbstomp any other non-elite army if they have the equal number of models because that's the point of an elite force. They accomplish more on a per-man basis than their lessers, and as such will annihilate them on a level playing field. It isn't "bad game design" unless the game designer is an idiot and for some reason puts equal numbers of guardsmen up against marines and wonders why the guard loses. You make it fair by changing the costs like what is already done with elite armies in 40k. The problem is that in 40k, elite armies are hot garbage because "elite" isn't really durable due to new save mechanics and simple point efficiency.

 

Although the idea that marines (or custodes) will ever become accurate on the tabletop is laughable. Marines are GW's cash cow. They aren't going to allow you to field a 30-40 man army of marines for 2,000 points unless they start charging $100 for a box of tacticals. Just look at Primaris, Custodes, or Stormcast. Models are priced based on perceived power in the game, not their actual value.

[chapter master 454]

Taking my turn to breath. I want to chime back in once more...oh boy these are fun...

 

So there are various factors in the game itself that do NOT help. The biggest problem we have to account for is the game itself, I mean the big fat rulebook...well it lost a few pounds...stop fat shaming the rule book! The core of it is they are doing massive fundamental shifts in how special rules work along with almost everything in the game being changed.

 

Modifiers are now a common mechanic (AP rule...which should of just been written so they don't have to clarify what improve means everytime they want a rule to do so!)

 

Re-rolls have been lessened and in a lot of ways nerfed when they were common place.

 

Movement is no longer a mathematical chess game, there is variance to it. We used to have all sorts of calculations due to the "6 inchs to charge".

 

Shooting has in a lot of ways also become a different beast with split firing now standard to everyone and not just long fangs...I don't know who else had it prior to 8th

 

Assault is handled drastically differently and offers some interesting options and ideas (though rarely gets to in my experience)

 

Even how we calculate losses is overhauled drastically in relation to bigger units, with the new stat "Damage".

 

 

We have to look at the game as a whole and see all the changes and how volatile it really is right now. The game is still forming, evidenced by the fact we are having beta rules implemented into the game to attempt to balance it which is AWESOME. I welcome live fixing. The change to smite was nice (and the fact its final version was different from the beta, addressing a core issue with it, was excellent) along with how they fixed the character issue and now they are approaching the issue of the alpha strikes via deep strike (which aren't counterable with any really agency unless you play horde and at that point...well you didn't care anyway) and the over-souping of armies. I believe that since GW were open about the idea of 2 big updates to the rules each year via the FAQ and chapter approved says to me they were SURE themselves there would be things they missed that could cause issues. Come on, the character thing is not something you would expect as "Who would take an army of characters? That wouldn't work", a lot of what they are addressing is the extremes we as the community are able to show them.

 

This is evident in the fact that it seems that as codexes later in the rotation got better. However there has been historic evidence of marines always being first and always falling short later. Whether that is from codexes being written in response to those codexes or the writers getting better as they write more codexes having learned from their mistakes or even possibly a core underlying issue with marines? who knows, I am not saying there is a core issue with marines but as we have discussed there are a million possible targets for what it could be or couldn't be.

 

Within my mind, marines should not be cheapened nor should guard be taxed. Just give marines something to call their own really. However I suppose I should say this here and have had some chance to refine this:

 

Units should pay for their stats and rules, not their options.

Weapons should pay for their stats and rules, not their options (with consideration to availability being the only consideration outside of the weapons stat).

 

Best example of this: Imperial Knights Questoris Class Gallant. So, for all my fellow knights out there doesn't it seem odd that the Gallant is 285 points. The exact same as all the other knights. Remember, this is the points cost of the model itself not including wargear. It costs the same as an unequipped Paladin, Errant, Crusader and Warden. "It is to compensate for the melee only options", that shouldn't happen. The same, in reverse, happened to Devastator Centurions. In this case however, the Gallant pays 285 points, the same points the other knights pay, but for a superior stat line. (+1 attack and WS: 2+) which should be taxed as needed. The Gallant isn't any weaker than a Crusader as there are few shortcomings to the unit in terms of design: Is it fragile? Is it Slow? Does it have low output? No, all 3 of those are set to high, High Durability (T8 with 3+ and 5++ to shooting), High speed (12" movement is extremely fast for something that big. It is faster than a land raider and matches a predator) and the output of damage is extreme (we all know how good Knights are at Tap Dancing).

 

Right now, the game suffers from a lot of units not paying the correct points. This goes for marines as it does for guardsmen. To be honest, in guardsmen I will still stand by the stupid idea of how a weapon can cost differently DEPENDING ON THE MODEL THAT CARRIES IT! If we were still doing points based on the datasheets then that would be fine but if we are going to standardise with a table for weapons and models then everything on those tables now only pay for themselves, not who carries them (and vice versa with models paying for what they carry before they carry it).

This I feel would go long ways in improving the game and marines. Sadly, this idea would indeed cheapen marines and a lot of units outside of horde and thus see games get larger as a result but sadly it would at least give us some balance. Not an ideal solution, not saying it is but it would move us in the right direction.

[Dracos]

I totally see your argument ... and agree with it.

 

 

Which is why I expect Gallants to get a points bump in next Big FAQ.

 

 

 

Against my better judgement I checked out BoLS rumours on Primaris .... OMG talk about irresponsible rumour mongering.

[Ishagu]

Don't be so quick to condemn Gallants for bring too cheap. They are popular and people know them well so they are in the spotlight.

 

Basically every Dark Eldar vehicle and multiple other units are grossly under-priced.

 

For less than the cost of one Gallant a Dark Eldar player can field 33 wounds worth of Ravagers that output 18 shots, each dealing 3 wounds. Not to mention they have Invuls, Fly, Fnp, etc