Have they "jumped the shark" with the Marine Dex(s) power?

[Morticon]

"It's our time to shine" is a phrase I often hear now-a-days.  
Marines have been in a relatively poor space since the start of 8th - barring one or two arguably dull Gulliman builds.

 

The new set of codicies have brought with it some exceptional changes and reinvigorated marine play and play styles, opening up some amazing options that we haven't had for years. 

Yet, while the argument that marines have been weaker for a while and now "deserve" their time in the sun' is an understandable one, it's a pretty narrow-minded and arguably self-serving one that doesn't have the greatest implication for the game as a whole - so let's take that one as a given and add some new thoughts and considerations to the discussion of the advent of a very new level of marine power. 
 

A power that has now come at an odd cost. 

 

With Ultramarines and White Scars, the combination of strong relics, powers and traits have been synergized so well with AMAZING stratagems.  This has been further buffed by the Doctrine and "uber-doctrine" abilities that all marines get - the combination of the aforementioned changes with these doctrines arguably pushing them from "strong" to "top tier".  This was exemplfied in the London GT, and even in a local ITC GT here in China where a player essentially took a near identical list he had taken in the last GT, and came 2nd  (up from a middling performance). 

 

But then came Iron Hands....

 

Now, for starters the combo's here seem off the charts.

Everyone has seen the Iron Hands craziness by now - the (almost literally) unkillable dreadnoughts  being the biggest offenders- but beyond this, the synergies available just seem so skewed.  

For me, the IH (successor or otherwise) uber-doctrines are by far the best.  Reroll ones of heavies, no move and shoot penalty and the basic doctrine bonus of -1 AP makes for some incredible firepower.  Add to the fact that we can grab Stealthy and Artisans for this combo and we have mobile heavy marine shooting like we've never seen. 

Because IH are only the 3rd/4th codex to be released, they're the most notable so far - because of that, I don't intend, nor want this to be an IH pile-on- it's a broader marine codex concern and question.  

 

So, the question is a general marine one - have GW gone too far? Is it too much? 

 

What is the feeling in your area and what are your gaming groups talking about?  Because I'm in multiple social groups on different continents, and they're ALL ablaze with concern like i've never seen.

[Marshal Loss]

Unfortunately due to personal circumstances (moving continents) I haven't gotten a game in yet against the new marines, so I can't comment from personal experience on whether the SM book(s) are too powerful. I can say though, without equivocation, that people are concerned in every group I am a member of. This in itself means little, but as tournament results begin to filter in and more and more people are exposed to them in the context of their local gaming groups, we will be able to discern with more surety whether they've gone too far in terms of raw power. At this stage it is simply too early to render a responsible verdict imo; after all, we don't even have every supplement out in the open yet. That being said, my gut feeling as a CSM player is that if I play mono-Chaos against mono-marines I'm going to get annihilated, so you & others are justified in your concern.

 

I will say this though: I do think these changes bode well for the game in the long run. Not particularly because of their power boost, but because of the introduction of doctrines, a sizeable new range of stratagems, an extensive supplements for major chapters, and characters being introduced for said non-smurf chapters - there is a streak of ingenuity to some of these changes and I'd love to see them implemented in various forms for other factions in the game. An ambitious set of changes is bound to run into some problems (and I totally get why people are questioning GW's sanity over some of these IH rules), and perhaps an optimistic way of looking at it is that this is a temporary bump in the road that presages good things for other factions, spiky and alien alike.* That may stray into the parochial territory you note at the beginning of your post but I get the feeling that other books will follow over the next year that will redress the balance somewhat. Time will tell.

 

*I'll likely be more pessimistic once I start getting my head caved in by Iron Hands

Edited September 24, 2019 by Marshal Loss

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

It's great if all you want is to kill things. With the new 40k, kill things you shall.

 

But as a war game. When nothing survives long on the field, I dont see how a war game can be played.

[The Unseen]

I think people are over-reacting mostly.

Most of those amazing strats are expensive in CP, and the unit's they work on don't generate any.

 

You can't run a CP battery without losing the doctrines, so your either limited to very few impactfull strats, or your doctrine.

 

And yeah, they can make 1 dread nearly unkillable each turn, but you can just...

shoot other stuff.

Even a leviathan, by far the worst case scenario, you shoot at it to make him pop the strat, then you shoot other stuff instead. A single leviathan is not going to take on your whole list.

 

The iron hands death ball is also fairly immobile, since they want to stick around the new character for the heals+invuln and someone packing the ironstone, if they move to say, score objectives, they lose a lot of their durability buffs.

 

Playing against them is going to be like playing against knights.

Focus fire down something, hunker down in cover, and try to outscore them on objectives.

 

Are marines good now?

Absolutely.

But I wouldn't start throwing around OP or jumped the shark till they at least win a few major tournaments.

 

But if any of the new chapters are OP, it is going to be iron hands. The ironstone is pretty nuts for a vehicle gunline, it might even make people *gasp* bring anti tank fire that isn't just more overcharged plasma.

You need Dd6 or D3 to really put damage on them, D2 won't cut it.

[redmapa]

I love that now that SM are top tier everyone seems to jump the gun and get worried about the meta yet Eldar has been top tier for all of the edition and access to -3 to hit flyers and no one was wondering if it was "too much" or if GW jumped the gun. Im going to enjoy being top tier, maybe I'll show those Tau some modicum of what it felt like to play my army in 6th/7th agains their double firing Riptides and BS2 Overwatch.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

Me over here running Blood Angels and Word Bearers, waiting to be actually good with modern SM and CSM post-updates

[Gederas]

Me over here running Blood Angels and Word Bearers, waiting to be actually good with modern SM and CSM post-updates

I hear you brother. I'm looking at my Dark Angels, Deathwatch and Chaos (Night Lords, World Eaters, Death Guard) and feel left out.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Until every codex is out I wouldn't say there is a shark jumping act. Sure the Codex is powerful in the current environment but when the meta stabilises who knows?

That's the problem with sequential launches instead of simultaneous, where every codex is compared to the predecessors and we have to wait until they are all out to get the big picture.

 

In any case, even if any shark was jumped, it wasn't the first time and it won't be the last.

I'm just glad it's a Marine Codex and one of the underdogs to boot.

[Panzer]

I'd rather say judging whether the Marine Codex is too strong or not is jumping the shark. Just wait and observe how everything evolves. I don't have enough hands to count how often people thought something is broken at release just to realise afterwards it's not that broken after all.

If Marines end up being on the top tables all the time even after the next few Codexes got released then we can judge them as being too strong. If they are just competing with Eldar and T'au and whatnot then they are in a perfectly fine spot. ^^

[Special Officer Doofy]

The positive aspect I took from the new SM supplements were army wide rules that affect all units in the codex and the bonus to mono faction armies. I think this was a brilliant idea because it gives incentive to not pick and choose the best 'imperial' units across multiple factions and will get people to use units they might have not otherwise. And having army wide rules now that apply to vehicles as well is nice.

 

With all that said, I am a CSM player (death guard) and have yet to play against a new SM supplement army but I've seen bat reps and heard from word of mouth that they are 'over powered'. I was under the impression that usually when a new codex comes out and new models that the team has some extra love compared to the rest but it's only temporary until future codex's come out that are better.

 

So maybe they are too good, for now. But any complaints from someone like me would almost be pure jealousy. I would love if a basic csm lord or defiler in my deathguard got disgustingly resilient or my plague burst crawlers get move and fire heavy with no penalty like my troops and brutes. And a army wide bonus for being mono death guard. My only complaint will be how long it takes for them to scale up some of the competition like CSM. I'm sure they will but when? If it takes 9 months or more that's a long time to balance a game and make me not want to play a SM player haha.

[mughi3]

the history of 40K power creep

 

.3rd-5th edition-the shiny new codexes have the best rules

 

.6th and 7th edition-super formations that break the core rules of the game

 

.8th stratagems (and to a lesser extent-warlord traits) en mass

 

 

I built several marine lists at the very beginning for 8th that performed just fine, granted I am not a tourney player but I had armies that were pretty tough.

 

One of the guys at the shop has the horus heresy books so we have been playing that and I find it is much better than standard 7th, since FW basically removed all the 7th edition formation spam and replaced it with normal units that are worth taking.

[Closet Skeleton]

.6th and 7th edition-super formations that break the core rules of the game

 

6th didn't really have power creep it was so short.

[Slasher956]

Heres me (and a few others) sat looking at the wet fish our beta 'dex (sisters) was and wonder how its going to translate to a 'full' codex....

 

the beta dex was power level down on the index lists, which in turn where power down to SMs v2... and as the sisters are the next full codex to be released (Nov) we will see if the SMs are a chance to shine (unlucky everyone else) or power creep.

 

ie will sisters stand a chance - if you head down to the sisters sub forum the general feeling is nope, we will get the beta dex tarted up in looks and thats about it.

[Ishagu]

I think that if you take away some of the Iron Hands rules combos, as well as that new Salamanders stratagems, there is nothing wrong with the new Astartes beyond them being a very strong codex (about time too!).

 

There cannot, and must not, be a sub 350 point unit that a 6k Warlord Titan is not guaranteed to destroy.

You've all seen the math hammer article from Goonhammer about the Iron Hands leviathan I assume? A Taunar supremacy suit needs 3 turns to bring it down, and this doesn't account for repairs.

I've actually trialed this unit out and my results in real game situations are the same. I couldn't bring it down with a Castellan Knight!

 

The character Dreadnought spam is equally problematic. Imagine an obnoxious gunline that you literally can't even shoot back at - very toxic for the game.

 

The Salamanders stratagem, although thematic, is also broken unless some addendums are added. As it stands I can hide a unit out of LoS or use a character to make large swathes of infantry immune to shooting. This needs to be looked at by GW.

 

 

Beyond these obvious problems I see nothing that the meta won't be able to handle. There's nothing wrong with a powerful Codex, but there are definite issues and combinations that are open to significant abuse.

[Panzer]

There cannot, and must not, be a sub 350 point unit that a 6k Warlord Titan is not guaranteed to destroy.

You've all seen the math hammer article from Goonhammer about the Iron Hands leviathan I assume? A Taunar supremacy suit needs 3 turns to bring it down, and this doesn't account for repairs.

I've actually trialed this unit out and my results in real game situations are the same. I couldn't bring it down with a Castellan Knight!

 

 

I dunno, I'd rather say there's no need to be able to destroy every unit. It's fine if some units stay until the game ends. Especially big models and even more so if they have a degrading profile.

[MARK0SIAN]

Heres me (and a few others) sat looking at the wet fish our beta 'dex (sisters) was and wonder how its going to translate to a 'full' codex....

 

the beta dex was power level down on the index lists, which in turn where power down to SMs v2... and as the sisters are the next full codex to be released (Nov) we will see if the SMs are a chance to shine (unlucky everyone else) or power creep.

 

ie will sisters stand a chance - if you head down to the sisters sub forum the general feeling is nope, we will get the beta dex tarted up in looks and thats about it.

This SM codex actually makes me cautiously optimistic about the sisters dex. Prior to it’s release, I was expecting the new SM codex to be just like the chaos marine one with just new units added and no real improvements. I even posted somewhere here how I thought GW just didn’t get how bad marines were and how much help they needed.

 

Then they released this SM codex and it’s actually really good, a big improvement on what went before. It seems like they have learnt a lot of lessons about what armies need in 8th. Hopefully the writers had enough time for this translate to the new sisters dex :)

[Ishagu]

Invulnerable units are bad for the game. They were toxic in 7th edition and would be toxic now.

 

Remember we arent talking about a character here who's looking to get into combat, but a high damage-output ranged unit that can clear our vehicles and infantry alike.

[Panzer]

Invulnerable units that just roll the enemys army and spread over half the table are bad for the game. Semi-invulnerable units that can be outmaneuvered are perfectly fine imo.

 

However that presumes the game changing a bit more to not blasting your opponents army away turn 1-2 and instead concentrating on the movement phase and scoring objectives.

Edited September 24, 2019 by sfPanzer

[Ishagu]

Oh definitely, the game is about movement as much as ever.

 

Good things the Iron Hands are actually very mobile..

[Slasher956]

 

This SM codex actually makes me cautiously optimistic about the sisters dex. Prior to it’s release, I was expecting the new SM codex to be just like the chaos marine one with just new units added and no real improvements. I even posted somewhere here how I thought GW just didn’t get how bad marines were and how much help they needed.

 

Then they released this SM codex and it’s actually really good, a big improvement on what went before. It seems like they have learnt a lot of lessons about what armies need in 8th. Hopefully the writers had enough time for this translate to the new sisters dex

 

 

I'd like to be optimistic ... but GW have a history of released a couple of good 'dexs followed by a duff one... and we've had zero indication, even hints that we're getting anything more than the beta dex (units wise) and (as I've mentioned else where) GW arent mentioning Canoness Veridyn in the get a few models and get started early part of the BSB..... 

 

I'll be getting the dex when it goes on pre-order (dont tell the wife!) but not expecting much.....

[NatBrannigan]

Iron Hands are certainly a bit much... The moving and shooting Heavy weapons on top of everything else does it for me. It's an army that's a very durable castle, but then it's mobile as well. There's just far too much going on there compared to even other Chapters, and the worst thing is that the combos at fault are blindingly obvious to the point where you wonder why the author wasn't asked to dial it down a bit.

 

But the Marine Dex on it's own I think is great. Strong but not obnoxious, and most of the supplements seem to be adding a bit of flavour only. The IH one is the outlier.

[Panzer]

and the worst thing is that the combos at fault are blindingly obvious to the point where you wonder why the author wasn't asked to dial it down a bit.

 

 

Because GW rules-writers, and apparently their playtesters as well, only view those rules in a vacuum (or in case of playtesters get only part of the rules?) instead of trying to stack them like smart people do.

[WarriorFish]

I love that now that SM are top tier everyone seems to jump the gun and get worried about the meta yet Eldar has been top tier for all of the edition and access to -3 to hit flyers and no one was wondering if it was "too much" or if GW jumped the gun. Im going to enjoy being top tier, maybe I'll show those Tau some modicum of what it felt like to play my army in 6th/7th agains their double firing Riptides and BS2 Overwatch.

Agreed that this is not a feature of 8th. Codex creep isn't new. Deathstars aren't new. Powerful combos, etc etc... The only thing new here is that C:SM is the subject codex How many times have we seen a fresh Marine codex out the door only to see it creeped into oblivion a few codices down the line? It's premature to sound any death knells methinks.

 

That's not to say there aren't problems and this doesn't change the meta a lot, but I feel the reaction is somewhat exaggerated (Internet being the Internet and all). The core issue is of course always codex creep, but as mentioned until we see more books we don't know how it'll pan out - I think the real issue is the popularity of Marines. This means any army that's lacklustre currently suddenly finds this a more pressing issue, as having uphill games every so often compared to regularly is like night and day, especially given that many players don't get that many games in over a year

 

Until GW realign with corresponding updates it's going to create some difficulties, we can hope that GW's usual approach is more nuanced. Most of us will agree that we don't want our codex to be more powerful than C:SM - the same power is what is desired (as much as is humanly possible, given the variables)

 

Just like the strange and mysterious increase of Iron Hands chapters - nothing new under the sun as the saying goes

[Dark Shepherd]

 

 

and the worst thing is that the combos at fault are blindingly obvious to the point where you wonder why the author wasn't asked to dial it down a bit.

 

Because GW rules-writers, and apparently their playtesters as well, only view those rules in a vacuum (or in case of playtesters get only part of the rules?) instead of trying to stack them like smart people do.

It might change now with movements in the studios but Id be surprised if they used Leviathans in any of the IH playtesting, especially inhouse

[Marshal Rohr]

Marine Codexes reset the codex cycle. Everything after this will be using the new marine codex as a baseline of abilities/types of armies they try to create.