"Fixing" the Space Marine Codex

[Ishagu]

16 points a Terminator isn't unreasonable.

Would make them 30 points with wargear.

 

Ork Meganobz are 35 points but have 3 wounds, 3/4 attacks each, base str5

[Subtleknife]

I agree with the previous post. I really think GW missed a trick by keeping strength and toughness so compressed. They really should have decompressed it in order to create room for niche units etc. For instance, guard could reman str 3, catachan str 4 on the charge and marines could be 6. It is rediculous that an unaugmented human is represented at the same strength as a genetic engineered monster

[Ishagu]

I think we need to accept that in general the game is very streamlined in terms of unit stats, it's why things aren't greatly different. This isn't actually a bad thing as it keeps things quick an simple. This isn't a skirmish game but a war-game that encompasses bigger battles with jets, tanks, monsters etc. Too much variation and detail would grind the game down, or be open to abuses without meticulous balancing.

 

Most of the juicy rules come from the various stratagems, and unfortunately this codex has none lol. 

[Subtleknife]

Im not sure with the new way in which wound rolls etc are decided it would have an impact on the streamlining of the game. But we would need 9th to happen for any change as a codex or chapter approved wont be enough

[justicarius6]

Been lurking for a couple weeks following this. In hindsight, many of the codices have talked about marines swelling in numbers. BA have almost as many scouts as an entire chapter at the end of DoB. Ultramarines have the 11 co. Now as well. It is not a stretch to have more Marines on the board thanks to cost reductions of 2-3 ppm.

 

With regards to other things I do think there is a general consensus that legacy marines should be +1 wound/attack and primaris should be +1wound.

 

I do like those few changes. I think parabellum has it in the right direction, as do several of you other gents. BA are only slightly better in only a couple areas, but are in just a tough of a spot.

Marines absolutely should get +1 attack at the minimum. Let's face it, when a basic standard ork is more effective in close combat than a space marine things have gone very very wrong.

[Sloeberjong]

I think we need to accept that in general the game is very streamlined in terms of unit stats, it's why things aren't greatly different. This isn't actually a bad thing as it keeps things quick an simple. This isn't a skirmish game but a war-game that encompasses bigger battles with jets, tanks, monsters etc. Too much variation and detail would grind the game down, or be open to abuses without meticulous balancing.

 

Most of the juicy rules come from the various stratagems, and unfortunately this codex has none lol. 

 

That's what "Epic" is for. This is a skirmish game with individual models having stats and not units as a whole. If we have to accept this than we should also accept the state of the game and codexes as they are and not suggest any improvements whatsoever. Now, I'm not too bothered by it all anyway since I don't play in a competitive environment but I do suggest whatever I see that could use improvement.

 

I understand GW doesn't want to change anything radical, but a bigger difference between T, W, S and A (or saves for that matter) would not be a bad thing. I'd even go as far as saying that the turns should be thrown out and use the Necromunda system with a greater emphasis on the leadership capabilities of characters. Or maybe the KT system. Alternating actions do make for a more interesting game as a whole IMO. I know Wh40k right now is the accepted way to play and I will use it as is, but the whole point of this thread is to make suggestions to improve SM so that's what I do. I don't think a bigger difference in stats will lead to problems since the rule is "equal", "more than" or "double+". It's pretty streamlined already.

 

In addition to my previous post I forgot to mention more interesting strategems and extend chapter tactics to all units.

[Lemondish]

Seems to be so easy to get off on that "how to fix 40k" tangent rather than addressing space marines. Haven't seen a compelling argument yet that it's impossible to do the latter without the former.

 

What I do expect is that any changes will be subtle, yet far reaching, and will be initially criticized as not going far enough but will ultimately work out well.

[Ishagu]

 

 

I think we need to accept that in general the game is very streamlined in terms of unit stats, it's why things aren't greatly different. This isn't actually a bad thing as it keeps things quick an simple. This isn't a skirmish game but a war-game that encompasses bigger battles with jets, tanks, monsters etc. Too much variation and detail would grind the game down, or be open to abuses without meticulous balancing.

 

Most of the juicy rules come from the various stratagems, and unfortunately this codex has none lol.

That's what "Epic" is for. This is a skirmish game with individual models having stats and not units as a whole. If we have to accept this than we should also accept the state of the game and codexes as they are and not suggest any improvements whatsoever. Now, I'm not too bothered by it all anyway since I don't play in a competitive environment but I do suggest whatever I see that could use improvement.

 

I understand GW doesn't want to change anything radical, but a bigger difference between T, W, S and A (or saves for that matter) would not be a bad thing. I'd even go as far as saying that the turns should be thrown out and use the Necromunda system with a greater emphasis on the leadership capabilities of characters. Or maybe the KT system. Alternating actions do make for a more interesting game as a whole IMO. I know Wh40k right now is the accepted way to play and I will use it as is, but the whole point of this thread is to make suggestions to improve SM so that's what I do. I don't think a bigger difference in stats will lead to problems since the rule is "equal", "more than" or "double+". It's pretty streamlined already.

 

In addition to my previous post I forgot to mention more interesting strategems and extend chapter tactics to all units.

But 40k has evolved a LOT. A Regular game has shades of Apocalypse from a few years ago. I remember when an army typically comprised of two squads of Marines, a Captain, one Predator and a few Terminators.

 

We can't be micro managing when an army could easily consist of 150 infantry models and 6 - 10 Tanks.

[Beta galactosidase]

For instance, guard could reman str 3, catachan str 4 on the charge and marines could be 6. It is rediculous that an unaugmented human is represented at the same strength as a genetic engineered monster

Comparing stats doesn’t seem to be very significant. Srength values are never compared head to head in the game rules. Instead what you need to know from a strength value is will it wound a guardsman reliably more often than half the time? Yes, 2/3 is pretty reliable. Is it strong enough that an Ork isn’t well protected? Yes, the notoriously tough Orks are not well protected, marines wound them on4+. They never have an arm wrestling competition with a catachan, so it’s not important that they have the same strength.

 

 

Seems to be so easy to get off on that "how to fix 40k" tangent rather than addressing space marines. Haven't seen a compelling argument yet that it's impossible to do the latter without the former.

Yes; you’d like to be able to play with better marines next week,and have everyone play roughly the same armies without having to totally update their armies and their rulebooks and how to play the game.

 

One of the most important ways that marines can be gotten right is that almost half of any chapter is small infantry fireteams, if you count 44 tactical squads and 50 sternguard/terminators. Yet there’s nothing in the rules that says if you want to have a marine with a plasma gun or a missile launcher to function well when they’re close to the enemy, they need four other guys around them with comparably crap weapons to protect them. No, there’s no reason at all in the game rules for a tactical squad to be built the way it is, and yet unlike unlike every other faction with their mass catapults, mass gauss, or mass cc attacks, infantry fire teams are the four-square foundation of a marine army. Seems like for marines to be good something needs to be done either to the marine coded or the core rules to change that.

[justicarius6]

At the very end of Rogue Trader, they made Marines T4 and made their power armor 3+ (it used to be T3 and 4+) because the other races had gotten too powerful around them. What GW really needs is to let someone who really loves SM write their rules and do them justice.

Exactly. They've allowed the basic Space Marine to slide further and further into obscurity with each edition.

[Ratherdashing]

While I think Marines can be made "good enough" with simple (Wite Out-able) changes, I'd say the issue of what bolter Marines are actually for goes back to the core rules. Imperium armies have troops composed of mostly basic weapons with one or two special or heavy weapons because that's how we've come to think fire teams look like. Probably a throw back to historical wargames. But basic weapons have an identity crisis. You can make a reasonable choice between an assault cannon and a lascannon based on what you want them to do. But if your basic weapons on basic troops exist to "kill infantry" (or specifically, kill hordes, kill elites, etc) than they will always win or lose on a ppm basis to heavy/special weapons. Whichever one loses has no reason to exist.

 

So if not killiness, what do basic troops and basic weapons exist to do? Holding objectives is a good start. Past editions forced you to take basic troops, and because those troops often required a certain number of them to wield basic weapons, one could imagine that those regular guys have to be there because someone has to carry the supplies, set up the bivouac, stenograph for the lieutenant, etc. Command Points would be a good way to illustrate this if they were generated solely by troops: the guys with bolters handle your logistics and it's easier to pass orders down the line if your army isn't made up of a bunch of specialists, hot shots, and snowflakes who aren't designed to work as cogs in a machine as well as the Bolter Boys are.

 

The problem comes with armies whose very identity breaks this mold. Eldar are a dying race without the manpower to give anyone a "basic" weapon--everyone has to be a specialist with the maximum effectiveness they can get. This is a necessary way to keep Eldar from bring Skinny Space Marines or just another horde. But of one faction has to take basic weapons and another doesn't, why would you take the basic weapons?

 

I don't have an answer beyond the suggestion to go back to requiring troops, which, again, isn't really enough. But there is a problem when I can choose to have an army made up entirely of devastators or captains or whatever. If I'm choosing between tacticals and devastators solely based on killing power per point, devastators should win. If not, then there'd be no reason to take them--killing is what they exist to do. Better to think of something *else* for basic troops to do and make them the best at that.

[Slasher956]

you mean like having objective secured? 1 trooper model outnumbers every non troop model to take an objective (or hold it)

 

Or how about getting more that 1 CP for your formation?  you need at least 3 troops to meet the requirements.

 

 

So to answer Ratherdashing the answer is more objective based scenarios & higher cost on strats (and a cut down on CP farming) so people want to take more troops to get more CP at the start of the game

 

EDIT - incidently ... the increase in basic troopers will increase the usablity of basic troopers so as to counter them meaning it'll be just as cost effective to take (for example) 2 basic troopers as 1 trooper with a heavy weapon.

[Ratherdashing]

you mean like having objective secured? 1 trooper model outnumbers every non troop model to take an objective (or hold it)

 

Or how about getting more that 1 CP for your formation? you need at least 3 troops to meet the requirements.

 

 

So to answer Ratherdashing the answer is more objective based scenarios & higher cost on strats (and a cut down on CP farming) so people want to take more troops to get more CP at the start of the game

In a perfect world, I'd say go back to "only troops can hold objectives at all", so that no one has to option to just say, "well I'll take nothing but killy units and just make sure I kill everything off the objective first" but that just hands an advantage to the factions with high firepower on their troops.

 

I don't know if this is just a USA thing, but it seems like TOs (for more casual tourneys and campaigns at least) have a tendency to either skip objectives entirely to "simplify things" or to come up with oh-so-clever ways to get victory points by killing units or winning melees or other various objectives that should be stuff you want to do anyway. So this is a local problem that GW can't do anything about, but it's still worth saying that if objectives are a way to balance troops choices, than players need to start seeing objectives as a vital part of the game instead of a distraction from a game about killing.

 

CP is a great way to incentivize troops provided GW makes the easy and necessary change to cause detachments to provide CP that can only be used by that codex. I think it would go a long way to making tacticals feel more important, at least verses armies that can make AM batteries. Won't help verses nonImperium armies, but it's a start.

[Beta galactosidase]

But of one faction has to take basic weapons and another doesn't, why would you take the basic weapons?

 

I don't have an answer beyond the suggestion to go back to requiring troops, which, again, isn't really enough. But there is a problem when I can choose to have an army made up entirely of devastators or captains or whatever. If I'm choosing between tacticals and devastators solely based on killing power per point, devastators should win. If not, then there'd be no reason to take them--killing is what they exist to do. Better to think of something *else* for basic troops to do and make them the best at that.

This has always been something I cared about. I think the points of basic weapons are to give cover fire that lets you live faster in the face of enemy fire and lets the primary weapons in the unit shoot better. They are effectively anti-pinning weapons. Like, if you had to do reactive snap fire to defend your squad with heavy bolters, you would run out of ammunition before the end of the fight, because the rounds are bigger and fire faster but since you’re snap firing they’re used inefficiently.

 

Fantasy used to have “march” moves you could use if you were far away from the enemy and people would send cheap and fast march-blockers to slow down the enemy from getting out of their deployment zone. Basic weapons should be counter march blocking measures.

[Panzer]

Bolter don't need to be better than special weapons. Bolter just need to be good enough to not feel like you're gimping yourself by taking Tactical Marines. If you want more firepower there are always veterans and devastator marines but Bolter should be good enough to provide a solid basis for your army.

[autek mor]

trouble is SMs are the poster boys so get the first dex of an edition, there for every other faction has a goal post to equal or beat.... on top of being the vanilla approach to rules (eg eldar tear up the movement part of the rules, necrons the if your dead remove from the game part, guard with multiples to a choice (inf platoons, tank sqns etc )etc etc)

 

If they where the 3rd or 4th dex & had a rules brake mechanic that was their thing then they would be easier to up power

 

true indeed the first codex for a new edition of the game does run the risk of getting weak quicky if the designers use it as a test for the books to follow but look how many marine books have come out since the vanilla dex? blood angels, dark angels, grey knights, deathwatch and space wolves and they still haven't addressed the glaring issues which they have had more than enough time to address through chapter approved because we really wanted power level only VDR landraiders, FAQs and even issues of white dwarf if need be.

[Ishagu]

 

 

trouble is SMs are the poster boys so get the first dex of an edition, there for every other faction has a goal post to equal or beat.... on top of being the vanilla approach to rules (eg eldar tear up the movement part of the rules, necrons the if your dead remove from the game part, guard with multiples to a choice (inf platoons, tank sqns etc )etc etc)

 

If they where the 3rd or 4th dex & had a rules brake mechanic that was their thing then they would be easier to up power

true indeed the first codex for a new edition of the game does run the risk of getting weak quicky if the designers use it as a test for the books to follow but look how many marine books have come out since the vanilla dex? blood angels, dark angels, grey knights, deathwatch and space wolves and they still haven't addressed the glaring issues which they have had more than enough time to address through chapter approved because we really wanted power level only VDR landraiders, FAQs and even issues of white dwarf if need be.

I actually think all Astartes books were written close to each other and just spread out as releases.

[autek mor]

 

 

trouble is SMs are the poster boys so get the first dex of an edition, there for every other faction has a goal post to equal or beat.... on top of being the vanilla approach to rules (eg eldar tear up the movement part of the rules, necrons the if your dead remove from the game part, guard with multiples to a choice (inf platoons, tank sqns etc )etc etc)

 

If they where the 3rd or 4th dex & had a rules brake mechanic that was their thing then they would be easier to up power

true indeed the first codex for a new edition of the game does run the risk of getting weak quicky if the designers use it as a test for the books to follow but look how many marine books have come out since the vanilla dex? blood angels, dark angels, grey knights, deathwatch and space wolves and they still haven't addressed the glaring issues which they have had more than enough time to address through chapter approved because we really wanted power level only VDR landraiders, FAQs and even issues of white dwarf if need be.

I actually think all Astartes books were written close to each other and just spread out as releases.

 

 

i can believe that. some of the books felt rushed in terms of content and units. the wulfen dreadnought for example, such a wasted opportunity to make a fun and effective unit.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Me too Ishagu.

[Tamiel]

Bolters and chainswords need to be good. They're the icons of Space Marines.

When I think Astartes, I think bolter and chainsword. I don't think "plasmaguns and lascannons".

[Varizel]

Honestly i felt the price point for Space Marines is fair for 13 ppm (I remember them costing 18 ppm with no frag and krak and terminator honor sarge). The problem from what i saw was the support element/pricing of that marine consisting the weapons and transport. They could have made Drop Pod have a special rule preventing to charge after disembarking, but allows it to deploy 6 inch off an enemy. Heck that would make flamers and melta workable again. Bolters too man, they could just say ... heeeey at half range these suckas are -1AP, and just left it like that. They could also up the Attacks for all normal marines by 1 and left PM and TS as normal attack 1 cuz they are slow and whatnot. But for the love of the Emperor, they really need to lower the price of the heavies, specials and transports..... and especially damn LANDSPEEDERS. Who in the hell in GW think LS should costs 100 ptsish for their most famous in lore incarnations (Assault Cannon Tornadoes, and Typhoons) and then misses 1/2 of the time.

 

If the primaris is made as tough dudes. at the very least make the normal marines hit hard.

 

My 2 cents .

[lythari]

Another random thought while supposedly working:

 

Sergeants get +1 wound like eldar exarchs

[Dont-Be-Haten]

 

That is not true about the competitiveness of SM. IMO the codex written by Graham McNeil was hands down the best. Remember when you could run 5 man las/plas tactical squads and terminators could take two heavy weapons per five ? Assault cannons were the weapon of choice and terminators rocked.

 

 

I never played 4th edition so wouldn't know. I used the 2 assault cannon terminators in 5th ed (then stopped because assault terminators were so much better) and still have the 5 man 1 special 1 heavy tacticals to this day. My 8th ed rapid fire 2 cataphracti Death Guard terminators are better and fluffier than my 2 assault cannon ones ever were.

 

But tactical squads being the best when you didn't actually use 10 man ones is telling. Its not the removal of the AP5 that made bolters sub par if Space Marines were always about "the more non-bolters the better". I was just as put off the marine rules by guys in 4th and 5th ed talking about keeping their tacticals in rhinos all game and firing the non-bolter weapons out of the firepoints as I am by playing with them in 8th ed (where i still do and for some stupid reason haven't given up on).

 

 

What GW really needs is to let someone who really loves SM write their rules and do them justice.

 

They did that he was called Matt Ward, except somehow his Ultramarines codex was his weakest one.

 

The Codex Marines weren't bad. They just fell by the wayside because Codex creep happened, and 5th edition was the shift edition. What I mean is, 5th edition was built more for tournament players and the internet took off with the hyper competitive max-min lists. This is where we see the rise in youtube, 40kblogs, etc. If you didn't play 40k competitively then Codex Marines were actually quite cool and had a lot of solid abilities that could go toe-to-toe with other armies. 

 

Drop pod assaults were still very strong, and you could start with your entire army off the board to counter deployment. The down side was if you took a lot of scouts you could counter your opponent's Null Deployment and pre-game table them. Even marines could do this with scouts having both infiltrate and scout movement. 

 

Matt Ward (when we still had authors) actually wrote fairly balanced codices when they played against one another* the problems were the books were written and published at a snails pace and codex creep was so much worse than it is today.

 

On a side note about Rhinos, It's always been a thing, Why wouldn't you want to keep a Devastator squad well protected in a near un-killable tank that would last almost an entire game, and Crew Shaken/Stunned was the only things you had to worry about on occasion. Remember Armour 11 meant Str 4 couldn't harm them, and glances didn't mean anything back in those days.

 

So it came down to statistics. Why do I want to lose 1 in 3 guys to 3 wounds, when I could keep them in a vehicle that was immune to small arms fire (Which is how tanks should be) to get them where they need to go and then do stuff? The option for Rhinos was better then. 

 

The game has never been perfect, but I would like to see some of the things 5th edition did well incorporated back into the game, but I digress. The biggest problems we face today are over-costed units based on the meta scene. A Storm Raven shouldn't cost as much as a Knight now unless they bump up its Toughness to at least 8, or reduce its price. The same goes for several other units across all of the Adeptus Astartes, but at the same time from the onset of 8th the goal was to make games shorter, by default that made everything more killable, Except now we have broken stratagems that allow units to return after you kill them. Nothing is worse than finally killing a knight only to have the opponent spend 3 CP for it to get back up. 

 

There are core problems with 40k, and I agree with a lot of people that reducing the ppm of marines isn't a true fix, but it is a good start. I too feel like there needs to be some type of shift for marines. An example might be bringing Rhino Chassis up to T8 and leaving them at current points, or add in war gear options such as improved armor which adds +1 Toughness +2 Wounds for x amount of points.

 

As far as troop choices goes there isn't much else that marines need outside of +1 attack, +1 wound for MEQ and +1 wound for PEQ. The Adeptus Astartes are suffering from several co-morbidities, it isn't one thing. 

[Slasher956]

 

. Nothing is worse than finally killing a knight only to have the opponent spend 3 CP for it to get back up. 

 

...tangent time.... why cant this be like the craftworlds pheonix gem.... where it happens when you lose the last damage point ... BUT you then still take any left over damage from the attack that 'killed you'

 

OR errata it so that you roll a die for every wound and on a 6+ you get it back?  (so I knight would roll 24D6... & on average get back up with 4 wounds )

 

 

edit - on topic - one issue with changing Rhinos is the knock on effect for none SMs (Sisters of Battle, sisters of Silence etc).... although that could be fixed by removing the Rhino from the sisters list & selling the old FW converion pack that can fit on the Rhinos to turn them into repressors.

[GreyCrow]

The truth is in 3 scary parts.

 

1) Laws of statistics screw the Marines over. They just lack the volume of fire to reliably output damage due to small model count. And because they rely on randomness for survivability, any variance from average on the saves is felt really really hard.

 

2) They lack either teeth or toughness for the cost. They have extremely unreliable weapons. Bolters are pop guns, lascannons are either blasting through stuff like cheese or barely scratch the surface. More random outcome on a very small number of dice rolls don’t help either.

 

3) They lack proper army design in the current edition. Marines are from the 2nd Edition skirmish style with low model count and bigger output of their iconic weapons.

They were designed as Solid Heavy Infantry supported by very niche vehicle specialists.

Current rule set does not support this design anymore.

 

More modern armies have been designed as armies with very clear strategic roles for each unit category and unit types.

On the other hand, the Marines design is mostly tactical, like each unit is some sort of special forces squads primarily geared to fight against small infantry numbers.

They would mostly rely on infiltration tactics to put pressure on key critical objectives and limit their engagement to forces they can overcome, rather than frontline duties.

 

They would basically not engaged except against isolated targets which they would be able to overwhelm with surprise tactics and not giving any opportunity for the enemy to engage back.

 

Current factional design has just no place in the current meta, sadly.

The closest thing to an ‘operational’ engagement would be Heavy Mechanized Troops, a force mostly consisting of Tanks of a small enough profile they can take cover, with a few Rhino/Razorback mounted small squads to secure objectives and deal with firefights.

Other builds just don’t work with the current rule set and pricing model.