Codex: Space Marines 2.0 speculation & discussion

[MajorNese]

 

I dont think we'll be waiting more than whats left of this year for the supplements, so patience! We have a good codex even without any supplement so enjoy that, I certainly have enjoyed all the buffs that have hit Terminators.

 

For me it isn't a matter of enjoyment. I need to know now what units will be most impacted by my super doctrine, warlord traits, relics, psychic discipline, and stratagems so I don't buy and build something that ends up being subpar or even counter productive to my army's fighting style. [...] I don't intend to magnetize baseline Infantry troopers, or know if any of the new items will synergize well at all, so in many cases I'm frozen until I see what the rules are. [...]

 

It's kind of easy for the smurf poster boys to be chill with the whole thing - they aren't waiting 4 to 6 months for the information needed to build their armies to their new ruleset.

This, essentially. The super doctrines make or break any unit or loadout we might be inclined to take - for example anyone who stocked up on the recently improved autobolt rifles might regret it right after the UM doctrine bonus dropped, which made both Rapid Fire and heavy weapons more usable. With the missing 4 super doctrines, entire units may become either awesome or worthless (outclassed by other units/loadouts). Why bother with any new stuff (and invest time and money) when those might just be demoted to shelf decoration in maybe 2 to 4 months?

 

The hype about new stuff definitely wears down. This limbo of just having half a codex and no idea how your own army might work or when things get released just kills any motivation to use said army or work on it. And putting 2/3 of all chapters at an inherent rules disadvantage compared to armies from the same codex seems just bonkers...

[Ishagu]

This has happened before, and much more aggressively than in the most recent codex.

 

Remember how Grav went from the best weapon in the game to one of the worst? People like myself bought multiple model kits just to get more of the weapons.

 

I think people should perhaps halt projects for other chapters until the new supplements are released if this is a worry.

[Xerxus]

They had to preview all of the upcoming units that they wanted to put in the codex. There are likely even more Primaris on the way next year, perhaps the Hellfury unit, that will be on a separate datasheet. Avoiding an overabundance of the supplemental datasheets is nice, but it could all be solved by the introduction of a continually updated digital codex structure. Bring 40k into the 2nd millenium, please.

[Lemondish]

This has happened before, and much more aggressively than in the most recent codex.

 

Remember how Grav went from the best weapon in the game to one of the worst? People like myself bought multiple model kits just to get more of the weapons.

 

I think people should perhaps halt projects for other chapters until the new supplements are released if this is a worry.

Yes, that's what we're doing.

 

The point here, and the one I think you're missing, is that we do not like having to halt projects and so the situation feels bad.

 

GW fully deserves to hear this feedback and brothers on forums like this should be given the chance to explain why this is so disruptive to future army plans and be heard. It downright sucks, yo.

 

They had to preview all of the upcoming units that they wanted to put in the codex. There are likely even more Primaris on the way next year, perhaps the Hellfury unit, that will be on a separate datasheet. Avoiding an overabundance of the supplemental datasheets is nice, but it could all be solved by the introduction of a continually updated digital codex structure. Bring 40k into the 2nd millenium, please.

Hellfuries notwithstanding, the supplement concept does allow for new units to hit the game without requiring the management of separate data sheets provided they're in the relevant book.

 

Some of the rumours I've read very much suggest that this is coming with expanded upgrade sprues that include enough bits to boost a current unit up a new type of Chapter specific squad. Take with a massive grain of salt because as awesome as they sounds (and as often as we've asked for it), I'm not convinced.

 

There's always Wednesday for the hope of more news, though.

[PiñaColada]

If GW at least threw up either the new models or the next two supplements on preview yesterday I feel like they could've allieviated some worries.

By the way, not sure if this is considered off-topic but since this is a codex 2.0 discussion I'll ask here. If I understand correctly the general concensus seem to be that eliminators are better off having the sergeant helping his two buddies rather than all three of them firing. Can anyone help me with the math, either by actually doing it or explaining how to do it to someone who hasn't activated that part of the brain for a couple of years, in regards to Salamanders eliminators with las fusils.

 

Basically is it more efficient (in regards to wounds caused, not weighted for points) to have the sergeant forgoing his shooting when firing at;
a T7 vehicle with no modifiers, with -1 to hit, with -2 to hit,

a T8 vehicle with no modifiers, with -1 to hit, with -2 to hit,

a T9 vehicle with no modifiers, with -1 to hit, with -2 to hit,

 

A T9 with -2 is probably almost impossible to actually encounter but being forced to a -1 for moving could certainly be an issue.

[General Strike]

I just quickly did a lazy mathhammer for you. 2 las fusils with the sgt giving the bonus and a Captain do .68 wounds to a knight, and the three firing without the bonus and a Captain do .78 for regular guys. That is a good base line for it. Salamanders will make it go up, but I feel that 3 shots is better against a Knight.

[Bluflash]

I'll pitch in and suggest the Bolt Rifles, even against tougher targets. 2 Shots hitting on 2's wounding on 4's, and doing a mortal on 5+ in addition means they can still drop meaningful damage on tough targets. I brought 9 last friday, and they landed 5 wounds (3 mortal, 2 normal) on a dreadknight in a turn with a nearby Captain and Master Artisans rerolls.

[Guest Triszin]

Whatever they are holding for Nova, I hope is good.

 

The release schedule has me scratching my head

[quasistellar]

Maybe more primaris chapter specific characters? That’s about the only thing I can see that could justify holding off the release of more space marine stuff.

 

All I know is it’s kinda unbearable waiting for that Iron Father and I’ve stopped buying anything until I know how to fill out my Iron Hands.

[Biscuittzz]

My gripe with the release is generally the same as everyone else: I don't know what I want to get until I see how to construct a fluffy but semi-viable army.

 

One of the biggest problems of 8th so far is that the some codexes are already invalidated/ imbalanced by the time of the next release. GW had problems keeping on top of balance when they had multiple releases in a six month window. I can't imagine struggling to complete a single release in 6 months will help the cause. It's like Blizzard releasing a new WoW expansion which you can technically play your chosen class from the start but you can't play using any special abilities, talent tree etc until half a year later.

 

If GW are spreading the release to ease the load on our wallets, they should probably look at their pricing structure for kits in the first place.

[Lemondish]

I just quickly did a lazy mathhammer for you. 2 las fusils with the sgt giving the bonus and a Captain do .68 wounds to a knight, and the three firing without the bonus and a Captain do .78 for regular guys. That is a good base line for it. Salamanders will make it go up, but I feel that 3 shots is better against a Knight.

 

That's not what I'm getting. Odd. I'm probably wrong, but I'm seeing 0.864 wounds with the Sergeant buff. 

[Xerxus]

A simple way of doing the math is this: Going from a 3+ to a 2+ to hit increases the frequency of hits by 25%. Going from a 4+ to a 3+ to wound increases the frequency of wounds by ~33%. These are compounded, increasing the frequency of wounding hits when firing at a T8 target by ~67%. The squad goes from 3 to 2 shots in total, but each shot is ~67% more effective. The final result is that the squad is putting out 11% more wounding hits on average against a knight. Rerolling 1s to hit or to wound does not change the relative increase in efficiency.

[crazyterran]

Right now my biggest problem is I want to put three hqs in every list, You got Captains and LTs as practically required, and then Cassius is so good for his price tag...

[PiñaColada]

Alright, thanks everyone who's chipping in with the math here. It still seems like having 2 fusils and a cheaper sergeant is more efficient, although slightly less cool IMO so might magnetise the sergeant loadout.. Should be easy if I'm giving him a pistol to hold and just have the main gun slung over the shoulder.

 

@Xerxus So the full rerolls on a single person doesn't change the relative stats between them, even though they're effectively hitting and wounding on different numbers? You wrote reroll ones but master artisan is anything so I'm not sure if that alters anything..

[Lemondish]

A simple way of doing the math is this: Going from a 3+ to a 2+ to hit increases the frequency of hits by 25%. Going from a 4+ to a 3+ to wound increases the frequency of wounds by ~33%. These are compounded, increasing the frequency of wounding hits when firing at a T8 target by ~67%. The squad goes from 3 to 2 shots in total, but each shot is ~67% more effective. The final result is that the squad is putting out 11% more wounding hits on average against a knight. Rerolling 1s to hit or to wound does not change the relative increase in efficiency.

 

That's a really helpful way to look at it - thank you!

[Ishagu]

Las Fusils are great but they aren't Knight killers.

 

Their target should be vehicles without invuls and various t7 units or below.

[mertbl]

Playing around with list building. Can I take a relic from the standard marine book and then use gifts of the khan(white scar successor) to take a 2nd relic?

[Shadow Captain Vyper]

 

This has happened before, and much more aggressively than in the most recent codex.

 

Remember how Grav went from the best weapon in the game to one of the worst? People like myself bought multiple model kits just to get more of the weapons.

 

I think people should perhaps halt projects for other chapters until the new supplements are released if this is a worry.

Yes, that's what we're doing.

 

The point here, and the one I think you're missing, is that we do not like having to halt projects and so the situation feels bad.

 

GW fully deserves to hear this feedback and brothers on forums like this should be given the chance to explain why this is so disruptive to future army plans and be heard. It downright sucks, yo.

 

They had to preview all of the upcoming units that they wanted to put in the codex. There are likely even more Primaris on the way next year, perhaps the Hellfury unit, that will be on a separate datasheet. Avoiding an overabundance of the supplemental datasheets is nice, but it could all be solved by the introduction of a continually updated digital codex structure. Bring 40k into the 2nd millenium, please.

Hellfuries notwithstanding, the supplement concept does allow for new units to hit the game without requiring the management of separate data sheets provided they're in the relevant book.

 

Some of the rumours I've read very much suggest that this is coming with expanded upgrade sprues that include enough bits to boost a current unit up a new type of Chapter specific squad. Take with a massive grain of salt because as awesome as they sounds (and as often as we've asked for it), I'm not convinced.

 

There's always Wednesday for the hope of more news, though.

 

 

To be honest, I think we can anticipate (and even expect) a few things to continue with the Primaris range:

1. As more "chambers" (To use an AoS term) are unlocked, relative power level of the cohesive force will increase. This will be the result of two things: Filling clear gaps/weaknesses in the range and introduction of increasing more powerful units (Primaris Jump/Bike HQs for example). Each time this happens, constituent pieces from prior "chambers" will become less-efficient choices, resulting in the "arms race" of competitive players needing to buy more miniatures. Gating the content this way ensures we as the consumer don't get over-saturated with product, and it ensures the seller - GW - achieve maximum penetration with each new release. 
2. With the new Codex model, this means we can expect a new Core/Vanilla book every year (at a minimum) or two years (at a maximum), to integrate these new "chamber" releases to the core range. 
3. I am anticipating them, once all core "chambers" have been released, they will circle back around and revisit the whole range and offer a refresh/update for each of the First Founding chapters, giving them each a handful of unique units (either via full kit or upgrade sprue). This will trigger a the release of a new Supplement for each Chapter revisited. I initially thought these units were going to come with the initial Supplement releases now, but in having seen the timeline and the way they are dragging it out, I realize now that was naive. 

The real question is this: Do we, as consumers of the product, want to have a continual stream of product to be buying/assembling/painting while our respective armies are always evolving, or does the idea of "Completing" a project hold value? I expect that most enjoy the concept of the latter, but we are actually living in a timeline where the former is reality.

 

 

Alright, thanks everyone who's chipping in with the math here. It still seems like having 2 fusils and a cheaper sergeant is more efficient, although slightly less cool IMO so might magnetise the sergeant loadout.. Should be easy if I'm giving him a pistol to hold and just have the main gun slung over the shoulder.

 

@Xerxus So the full rerolls on a single person doesn't change the relative stats between them, even though they're effectively hitting and wounding on different numbers? You wrote reroll ones but master artisan is anything so I'm not sure if that alters anything..

 

It's important to remember that the moment one of your eliminators dies this entire relationship is tossed to the wind. For this reason I will be avoiding the Instigator on the Sergeant altogether and just going for 3x Bolt Rifles.

[crazyterran]

Playing around with list building. Can I take a relic from the standard marine book and then use gifts of the khan(white scar successor) to take a 2nd relic?

 

Gifts of the Khan/Gifts from Macragge don't give an extra Relic, they just let you pick from the White Scars/Ultramarines relic table when you are a successor. So if you wanted a gift of the Khan as a second relic, you'd have to use Relics of the Chapter and Gifts of the Khan for 2cp as a successor. 

[PiñaColada]

Okay so I ended up trying to do my own math, which was both a hilarious strain on the old noggin' and absolutely no guarantee that I managed to do it correctly. So take this with a grain of salt people.

 

The parameters were; Eliminators with las fusils and Master Artisan rerolls (no captain or lieutenant). In which scenarios would it be more efficient to have all three firing rather than the sergeant buffing the rest of the squad? The number below indicate number of wounding hits, not damage. So multiply that by three assuming there would be no armour save.

 

                        Sgt. buffing     3 shooters

 

T7                           1.64             1.67

T7  -1  to hit            1.42             1.33

T7  -2  to hit            1.15             0.93

 

T8                           1.42             1.33

T8  -1  to hit            1.23             1.06

T8  -2  to hit            1                  0.76

 

T9                           1.15             0.93

T9  -1  to hit            1                  0.76

T9  -2  to hit            0.81             0.53

 

[RandomMarine]

Las Fusils are great but they aren't Knight killers.

 

Their target should be vehicles without invuls and various t7 units or below.

Couldn't agree more they'll make a mess of just about all IG and SM vehicle's which are a good 85% of all the vehicles I face when including chaos and GSC

[mertbl]

Wow. I didnt catch that.

 

 

 

Playing around with list building. Can I take a relic from the standard marine book and then use gifts of the khan(white scar successor) to take a 2nd relic?

Gifts of the Khan/Gifts from Macragge don't give an extra Relic, they just let you pick from the White Scars/Ultramarines relic table when you are a successor. So if you wanted a gift of the Khan as a second relic, you'd have to use Relics of the Chapter and Gifts of the Khan for 2cp as a successor.

[CCE1981]

Wow. I didnt catch that.

 

 

 

 

Playing around with list building. Can I take a relic from the standard marine book and then use gifts of the khan(white scar successor) to take a 2nd relic?

Gifts of the Khan/Gifts from Macragge don't give an extra Relic, they just let you pick from the White Scars/Ultramarines relic table when you are a successor. So if you wanted a gift of the Khan as a second relic, you'd have to use Relics of the Chapter and Gifts of the Khan for 2cp as a successor.

Just Gifts of the Khan or Honored by Macragge your free relic for 1 CP. Unless you really want a second Relic.

[MegaVolt87]

 

[sNIP]

To be honest, I think we can anticipate (and even expect) a few things to continue with the Primaris range:

1. As more "chambers" (To use an AoS term) are unlocked, relative power level of the cohesive force will increase. This will be the result of two things: Filling clear gaps/weaknesses in the range and introduction of increasing more powerful units (Primaris Jump/Bike HQs for example). Each time this happens, constituent pieces from prior "chambers" will become less-efficient choices, resulting in the "arms race" of competitive players needing to buy more miniatures. Gating the content this way ensures we as the consumer don't get over-saturated with product, and it ensures the seller - GW - achieve maximum penetration with each new release. 
2. With the new Codex model, this means we can expect a new Core/Vanilla book every year (at a minimum) or two years (at a maximum), to integrate these new "chamber" releases to the core range. 
3. I am anticipating them, once all core "chambers" have been released, they will circle back around and revisit the whole range and offer a refresh/update for each of the First Founding chapters, giving them each a handful of unique units (either via full kit or upgrade sprue). This will trigger a the release of a new Supplement for each Chapter revisited. I initially thought these units were going to come with the initial Supplement releases now, but in having seen the timeline and the way they are dragging it out, I realize now that was naive. 

The real question is this: Do we, as consumers of the product, want to have a continual stream of product to be buying/assembling/painting while our respective armies are always evolving, or does the idea of "Completing" a project hold value? I expect that most enjoy the concept of the latter, but we are actually living in a timeline where the former is reality.

[sNIP]

 

Yeah I largely agree with this reasoning. I don't mind an evolving faction because it freshens it up and if it wasn't I would end up with 2-3+ of everything anyways eventually. With the re-work I am happy with how the initial primaris are, new executioner and the cheaper repulsor alleviated the lack of AT and a budget transport for mobility, even if its on MSU unit sizes. Phobos releases don't fit my play style, so I am happy to miss them and wait for the next "chamber" to release- hopefully Gravis armored options. 

[mertbl]

I really like teeth of terra, the chaplain relic and the white scars banner. Gotta make some choices...

 

 

Wow. I didnt catch that.

 

 

 

 

Playing around with list building. Can I take a relic from the standard marine book and then use gifts of the khan(white scar successor) to take a 2nd relic?

Gifts of the Khan/Gifts from Macragge don't give an extra Relic, they just let you pick from the White Scars/Ultramarines relic table when you are a successor. So if you wanted a gift of the Khan as a second relic, you'd have to use Relics of the Chapter and Gifts of the Khan for 2cp as a successor.

Just Gifts of the Khan or Honored by Macragge your free relic for 1 CP. Unless you really want a second Relic.