CA won’t help SM

[SydonianDragoon404]

Mortal wound spam devastators and crimson fist hellblasters with the vigilis detachment, calling it right here.

[Dracos]

Mortal wound spam devastators and crimson fist hellblasters with the vigilis detachment, calling it right here.

 

Let's please keep Vigilis discussions in their own threads. :)

 

Nice to see wargear drops helping Tacticals and other units. Centurions still seem over costed but maybe I'm wrong there.

 

How in the world did Intercessors drop a point and Hellblaster and Reivers did not? Baseline in exactly same for Hellblasters and the Reivers? Well, like a lot of OldMarines, they seem to sort of kind of serve a purpose.  I wouldn't use them over other options unless I was playing all Primaris.

 

I appreciate the Repulsor point drop but I want a Humvee not a Bradley or Stryker ;)

[Lemondish]

Words of wisdom Lemondish

 

What we actually need like UnkyHamHam said is a proper objective study on what competitive lists we can build.

 

I have a feeling that this will be vastly different from the headcannon of many of us about what we would like to be competitive.

We already see that, too. Nobody likes the MW spam list Reece used that relied mostly on scouts and Devastators alongside Guilliman. It isn't what they like to see from marines.

[Kallas]

So... Not all units should be competitive? Is that the gist of what you're saying GreyCrow?!

 

What is competitive might be different from should be competitive; but that doesn't mean that stuff shouldn't be competitive...

[Dracos]

i think GC line of thought is once you discover what works objectively, then you can start working at pointing out what needs upgraded and why. 

 

My concern is none of it matters until how the underlying mechanics in 8th edition work for power armor and bolters is addressed. Which is going to be a bear in a d6 based system. There just isn't enough room in the math to differentiate between Custodes, Astartes, Orks, Guard, etc on a sliding scale that reflects the narrative.

 

Stratagems and Chapter Tactics are our best chance but Space Marines need an advocate at GW as devoted to them as Phil Kelley id to the Eldar. Hopefully next year someone will step up wit a true love for Marines new and old. 

[Trevak Dal]

Or Phil Kelly needs to go. That would be great.

[Lemondish]

i think GC line of thought is once you discover what works objectively, then you can start working at pointing out what needs upgraded and why. 

 

My concern is none of it matters until how the underlying mechanics in 8th edition work for power armor and bolters is addressed. Which is going to be a bear in a d6 based system. There just isn't enough room in the math to differentiate between Custodes, Astartes, Orks, Guard, etc on a sliding scale that reflects the narrative.

 

Stratagems and Chapter Tactics are our best chance but Space Marines need an advocate at GW as devoted to them as Phil Kelley id to the Eldar. Hopefully next year someone will step up wit a true love for Marines new and old. 

 

I disagree. But what I'm going to say is not what people want to hear. 

 

The solution will come from expanding the bottom. Guard and their equivalent should have probably started at S2/T2. Catachan hits out at S3. Power armoured Sororitas hit S3 T3. Marines S4/T4. Custodes S5/T5. Sprinkle in your heretical shenanigans where they land currently. 

 

But since that would require a change to not Marines, folks probably wouldn't be very happy about it. 

[Trevak Dal]

You think that would be more likely or for them to switch the d6 system for say, a d10 system?

 

Just curious which would require less work and maybe be better.

[Panzer]

 

i think GC line of thought is once you discover what works objectively, then you can start working at pointing out what needs upgraded and why. 

 

My concern is none of it matters until how the underlying mechanics in 8th edition work for power armor and bolters is addressed. Which is going to be a bear in a d6 based system. There just isn't enough room in the math to differentiate between Custodes, Astartes, Orks, Guard, etc on a sliding scale that reflects the narrative.

 

Stratagems and Chapter Tactics are our best chance but Space Marines need an advocate at GW as devoted to them as Phil Kelley id to the Eldar. Hopefully next year someone will step up wit a true love for Marines new and old. 

 

I disagree. But what I'm going to say is not what people want to hear. 

 

The solution will come from expanding the bottom. Guard and their equivalent should have probably started at S2/T2. Catachan hits out at S3. Power armoured Sororitas hit S3 T3. Marines S4/T4. Custodes S5/T5. Sprinkle in your heretical shenanigans where they land currently. 

 

But since that would require a change to not Marines, folks probably wouldn't be very happy about it. 

 

 

We could just go the other way instead. Keep Guardsmen at S3/T3 and Catachans at S4 but give Marines S5/T5 and Custodes more. If needed then tanks could get higher stats as well depending on where you want to see Marines compared to actual tanks.

[Lemondish]

You think that would be more likely or for them to switch the d6 system for say, a d10 system?

 

Just curious which would require less work and maybe be better.

I think the approachability of the d6 system will remain forever, no question in my mind about that.

 

Honestly, the biggest change I'd expect is a move towards the alternating activation and expanded cover rules of Kill Team.

 

Making shooting less accurate for cheap marine killers has essentially the same effect as making marines tougher. CA didn't really do either, but they allow you to bring more boys and more toys - and that ain't nothing.

[GreyCrow]

I work with stats a lot, d10 won't make things different.

 

There will be more granularity but a ton of unneeded steps in between.

 

In the end, you'll have 10% increments instead of 16.7% increments. It still won't change the fact that you need a :cusston of dice to get any form of predictibility in statistics.

 

@Kallas : Actually I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying every unit is competitive. Only when it's proper role is understood and it is played following the principles of reason rather than internal desires.

 

I know because I've played Assault Marines a lot. They've been looked at subpar for many editions. They're subpar because people want them to do things that the ruleset does not allow them to do.

For some reason, or GW's marketing, people picture them as absolutely murder machines with jump packs that can beat Khorne Berzerkers 1 on 1 because of Space Marine plot armor and snowflakiness.

 

Assault Marines are what they are : a Tactical Squad you can deep strike, and an efficient speedbump to sacrifice to slow objective capture. Nothing else, nothing more.

 

There are jump pack murder machines in the codex, it's called Vanguard Vets.

 

As players we have 2 choices :

- Keep trying to do what we would love to see happen and see it fail, time and time again, and get bitter because our headcannon does not translate to the table

- Look at things objectively like Dracos said, empower ourselves through learning and knowledge of what the warp is actually going on, and then wreck over the Alien and Heretic as we are supposed to

 

We're Astartes players, not Eldars. We're not here to complain or brood about everything that happens to irritate us. We're here to deal with it, like Space Marines and men.

[The Unseen]

Assault marines are seen as subpar for the same exact reason tacticals are, except their also somehow worse, because unless your BA, assault marines can't even pack worthwhile special weapons.

So they hit like a naked tactical squad, (2 bolter shots+1 cc attack vs 1 bolt pistol shot+2 cc attacks), die like a naked tactical squad, and aren't giving you (useful amounts of) CP cause their a fast attack choice, while also costing more.

Their gain in native mobilty doesn't mean much when you accomplish nothing when you get there, I'd rather pay 70 for the rhino and gain the extra survivability on top of the mobility, especially after the fly nerf.

So it's not because I expect assault marines to set the world on fire and then I'm dissapointed everytime, (that award goes to 8th editions pathetic version of the Death Company) it's that they fail at literally everything.

Like, by math and everything.

And you can't get much more "reason" than straight math.

 

There is no "super secret" strategy that will make marines good that people just "aren't willing to see", other than jank lists like the Gman+Devs+Snipers for mortal wound bull:cuss that Reece played or something. Not exactly a list that says "look at my marine army"

It might do ok, but why aren't you just playing Tau at that point?

[GreyCrow]

@Unseen: Why going personal about this? 

 

It's not because you can't see any value in Assault Marines that they are objectively worthless. Ever considered that you might not have found a use for them yet?

 

If you prefer to spend points on Rhinos, that's a fair point. Play your way, Rhinos are good and easy to play, a very solid addition to armies.

 

Tell you what, I'm not all talk. I'm willing to get off my Thunderhawk and get down on Vassal (since you're halfway accross the world) and show first hand that you can be competitive with Assault Marines.

We can even stream this for other brothers to make their mind up. I'm sure some of them will love to be able to find out how to play their favoured units effectively :)

[Panzer]

@Unseen: Why going personal about this? 

 

It's not because you can't see any value in Assault Marines that they are objectively worthless. Ever considered that you might not have found a use for them yet?

 

If you prefer to spend points on Rhinos, that's a fair point. Play your way, Rhinos are good and easy to play, a very solid addition to armies.

 

Tell you what, I'm not all talk. I'm willing to get off my Thunderhawk and get down on Vassal (since you're halfway accross the world) and show first hand that you can be competitive with Assault Marines.

We can even stream this for other brothers to make their mind up. I'm sure some of them will love to be able to find out how to play their favoured units effectively

 

Let me say it like this ... it's extremely unlikely that theres a tactical revolution to be found for a unit when the vast majority of competetive player all agree on there being none. You say they aren't worthless but don't prove it but on the other hand we have lots of proof that they don't work. It's the same as people pointing at single tournaments where a GK list won and go "Look! GK are competetive after all! You all just can't play!". No actually it's worse since there is no example of how Assault Marines did something worthwhile as of yet. ;)

[GreyCrow]

@sfPanzer : I agree with you, I offered to prove it live on Vassal!

[The Unseen]

@sfPanzer : I agree with you, I offered to prove it live on Vassal!

If I was comfortable playing vassal, I would take you up on that.

I should probably try and play on vassal, I work nights, so on my days off I'm up probably perfect time to get games in with people across the pod, lol.

 

And didn't mean to make it quite so personal, was meant more jokingly than it reads, my bad.

 

But I mean, what do Assault Marines do that another unit can't do better and probably cheaper? Internally to the marine dex I mean.

I agree it's not fair to compare to every possible unit, just limiting it to vanilla marine dex.

 

Even just internally, their entirely outshone by tacticals in rhinos, vanguard vets with double chainswords, company vets for jump packs+special weapons, scout bikes for mobile chaff clearence+melee, etc.

 

More on topic, I mostly agree with OP, chapter approved did little to improve marines overall.

A few "meh" units may have gotten cheap enough to be solidly average, and some weapon choices became more viable, like meltas.

That's about it.

[GreyCrow]

No worries, I like the banter! ;)

 

One examples of what Assault Marines provide that few other units provide :

At 2000 pts, the ability to drop 60 of them on one side of the board Turn 2, confuse Objective scoring from non Objective Secured units. Tangle up non fly units to silence guns, etc.

 

With Raven Guard Chapter Tactics, you can even move these 60 of them turn 1 to completely delay and slow down the enemy.

 

They will die. Every single Assault Marine will die. That's what they've been bred for.

To kill 60 Assault Marines in a single turn, you need 162 plasma shots from Marines (no overload). Assuming that all these plasmas are in Rapid Fire range, that's 1,215 pts invested in Plasma Guns.

 

That's expensive to deal with 60 pesky Assault Marines.

 

At 2000 pts, a single unit of Assault Marine is worthless. At 1000 pts even. 10 Assault Marines are efficient at 300pts, not more. You need to scale up.

 

Marines were never meant to be competitive with 1 unit of each, with a cool variety or creativity sparkled in.

 

Games Workshop's goal as a business is to sell you tons of plastic. Of course they design their games ruleset to sell you a lot of models.

 

___

 

I understand that spam lists may not be what you 'like' to see, but that's objectively what this game is about.

 

The only armies that you can afford to run effectively without spam are Knights and Custodes.

 

Funnily enough, nobody has trouble when seeing spam daemon armies, spam Eldar armies or spam Necrons, or even spam Guard or spam Sisters. When it comes to Marines, everybody has a philosophical problem with this.

That's because everybody is confused by GW's statement that the Battle Company is the blueprint of what you should play to be competitive.

 

They just want to sell you guys models. The Battle Company was competitive in 2nd edition when you could onl yhave the points for 35 Marines model on the table. You had to make calls and prioritize units.

 

Mass is how the game is designed to be played.

[Trevak Dal]

I've made good use out of raptors (chaos assault marines) by taking a unit of chaos marines in a rhino, a 5 man unit of raptors per rhino x3 to have them gang up on units.

 

My first army was Tau, so I try to approach things very combined arms ish. Just now able to fight better.

[The Unseen]

It's not the spam there that find distasteful (bum dum tish, I'll be here all week) but the fact that other units do it better.

 

That tactic works alright, until you run up against somebody who deployed scouts/screens way out turn 1, and suddenly your dropping basically in your own deployment zone...

On turn 2.

Which is really bad.

Against horde or cc guard, you won't be taking those objectives, because catachan guard outshoot, outfight, and outscore you, for less points.

You basically just auto lose that matchup against someone competent.

And against say ultras or against a lot of fly units, it's bad.

You charged me?

Alright, I fall back and keep shooting, at a -1.

Because assault marines hit like wet noodles, so you aren't killing enough to really dampen their gameplan.

Against khorne zerkers, you just fed them a bunch of power armor that barely fights back to murder, they appreciate that.

Against knights, they just shoot the scary stuff, then stomp your assault marines to death because they aren't threatening, and then step over you and keep going.

Etc.

 

Now, compare that same tactic, but using say, scout bikers.

Their around the same durability for the price, but can't be blocked by scouts since they have 14" movement, and they can he contributing turn 1.

And instead of bolt pistols, they have twin bolters AND shotguns, along with a respectable 2 attacks per bike thanks to their combat blades.

Their sergeants can take combi weapons too.

That's a unit with the same basic role (mobile, irritating objective holders, with chaff clearence potential) even in the same force org chart, that's just better in all respects. (They MIGHT be easier to kill per point spent vs overcharged plasma, I'm not sure, but I'm at work and can't sit down and actually check. If they are, it isn't by a lot)

 

Or a different slot but otherwise almost identical, Vanguard vets are just better.

Their small points increase per model (which is now even less of a difference I think) is well worth the massively increased cc damage, even if you don't buy them any extra weapons at all.

Their still cheap enough to spam, but now they actually hurt when they attack something, making them much better distractions and/or follow ups if their ignored.

[Kallas]

Further: 60 Assault Marines is (post-CA) 900pts. It's half your army as throwaway units (by your own intentions) that don't actually kill much of anything.

 

The 1100pts left have a lot of work to do, and Marines have very few actually efficient units to do it with and they're generally on the more expensive side.

 

Simply, Assault Marines aren't efficient or effective at anything. If you want a flexible melee horde, go with a huge pile of Grey Hunters: they've exactly as many melee attacks, Bolters on top, and they're cheaper base/can have Rhinos/Razorbacks (one of our best units) for mobility/resilience/firepower. For 900pts you can have three AssBacks and 42 Grey Hunters. That's more attacks total (42*4=128+42/64 Bolters, plus the Assault Cannons, vs 120+60 BP), have the vehicles for additional resilience (they can camp inside, or use them to absorb overwatch). They have less overall mobility, but enough to be decent.

 

Or you can just go full horde with 69 Grey Hunters. No Jump Packs, but ObSec instead.

 

And that's not even touching on the Vanguard problem, which The Unseen mentioned - Vanguard are just Assaults+1 for a minimal cost increase.

 

 

NB: Bear in mind that in Matched Play you can actual only take 30 Assaults, as they're not Troops so they can only have 3 Datasheets.

[GreyCrow]

@Kallas : Matched play is beta rules, up to tournament organizers. Unless CA set them in stone yet.

 

It's not set in stone, nor is it final.

 

If you're looking for killy, then go shooty. Melee is meant for objective play and board control. That doesn't make assault marines bad, just different from what you want to achieve. ;)

 

I have extensive experiences with jump packs in Marines list, I know what I'm talking about, and always open to prove it on Vassal or the table with a swift ass whooping! :D

[arigatous]

As a guy with a degree in statistics, I fully agree with GreyCrow. Overall numbers don't come just from the raw strength of the army. There are a lot of factors to be considered, from "What kind of players choose army X" to "how skilled the player should be to play army X".

 

Speaking of strategy it is of course easier to play with the list which dominates one phase completely and is strong at one other phase. E.g. Daemons, Eldar, Guard, Knights. At the same time a skilled player can do wonders with the balanced lists with a lot of synergy, but... in the tournament environment it is very hard to play such armies. You need to play 5-6 games in a row with the strict time limit which doesn't really allow to think carefully. So it's of course a lot easier to build the list within 1.5 phases and a couple of combos to make 90% of actions without turning the brain on :)

 

Marines are exactly an example of such a balanced army which is centered around characters and units synergy and has a bit of everything - movement, casting, shooting, combat and denial. Not exactly the tournament style army. That also could be a reason for lower ratings.

[Kallas]

I've been using a reasonably balanced/spammy army based around Grey Hunters (who are basically Assault/Tacticals rolled in to one) in transports. It's not to the degree of GreyCrow's insane amount of Assault Marines, but it's been doing well (aside from a recent experiment on an iteration that went horribly awry) - the issue with it is that the Grey Hunters don't actually do all that much, and they're more efficient than Assault Marines.

 

It's the Razorbacks and Characters that carry the list: the basic Space Marines aren't worth their weight in plastic.

[Aurica]

 

Speaking of strategy it is of course easier to play with the list which dominates one phase completely and is strong at one other phase. E.g. Daemons, Eldar, Guard, Knights. At the same time a skilled player can do wonders with the balanced lists with a lot of synergy, but... in the tournament environment it is very hard to play such armies. You need to play 5-6 games in a row with the strict time limit which doesn't really allow to think carefully. So it's of course a lot easier to build the list within 1.5 phases and a couple of combos to make 90% of actions without turning the brain on

 

Marines are exactly an example of such a balanced army which is centered around characters and units synergy and has a bit of everything - movement, casting, shooting, combat and denial. Not exactly the tournament style army. That also could be a reason for lower ratings.

 

So basically Space Marines are just more challenging to play due to all the moving parts and not having much specialization at all...

[arigatous]

Besides, I see several changes which could make some further competitive difference. E.g. Thunderfire Cannon is _much_ cheaper now and it's denial ability is totally awesome. Next, if you will include the Cannon, you have a free Techmarine, which in turn allows you to further capitalize on the new price of Servitors. Now to leverage that four units...

...

... now we accidentally have a very unique Astartes soup (don't forget that you can also build an Adeptus Astartes Detachment of different Chapters if needed - say, DA psyker, SW priest, Emperor's Champion in a Supreme Command Detachment ) which is using non-typical combos to create sudden threats which come completely unexpected for your opponent.