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

[Bloody Legionnaire]

I agree with what many of others in this thread have said.. It's probably too early to tell if GW "jumped the shark" and I definitely agree that this probably sets a bad precedent going forward. All this "marines are super good" talk is kind of a slap in the face because my primary and first 40k army are Space Wolves and they've been trash-tastic since 5th/6th edition. I'm really concerned that SWs, DAs, BAs, just aren't going to receive the same level of love, because that's been the trend GW has been on for a while when it comes to our non-codex compliant chapters. It's weird being slightly more optimistic about what GW could end up doing for the Chaos armies I play over my loyalist army. It's really funny reading all the different posts claiming how good primaris or "nu-marines" are compared to loyalist marines or csm.. Primaris don't mean crap for my SWs as it stands. 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Bloody Legionnaire

[jaxom]

I originally had this in a separate thread because it doesn't touch on stratagems (which seem to be a larger issue regarding sharp-jumping), but if you haven't already seen it and are interesting, here's the numbers for the change to eighth edition and then the introduction of combat doctrines:

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/359147-a-different-look-at-combat-doctrines-warning-chart-heavy/

 

It does support the "slap in the face" to all non-C:SM power armor armies.

[mughi3]

Hey all, just giving you a heads up, test #1 is done

 

2k game of nids VS salamanders in 8th- with no command points, no stratagems and no doctrines.

 

I just got home, it's after 5am here and I am going to get some sleep before I tackle this report.

 

I will leave you with this preview-it was brutal, it was NOT one sided and the margin of victory was razor thin

 

Until later-

[mughi3]

So to begin-

I thought i was going to be playing against iron hands, since this is the favored faction of the person i was supposed to have the game with. especially given all the hype and nerfing given to them since the release of thier supliment. however he decided to break out his tyranids instead(he nad one more unit of gaunts to add to this pic). he ran tyranofexs, swarm lord w/guard, fyrant, gaunts, warriors, gene stealers, broodlord, and venomthropes

 

As he was a bit negative about how his marines would fair without cp/strat combos, effectively declaring (and reminding me throughout the game) how disadvantaged he was. as i was playing salamanders (i have been playing them since 5th ed so this is not a fad thing) and had the benefit of the single dice per unit re-roll to hit and wound.

 

I proxied a few units to make up a single vanguard formation since CP was not an issue-tech marine on a bike w/beamer, jum capt w/storm shield thunder hammer, hell blasters, eliminators, inceptors, venerable dreadnoughts, storm hawk, and storm eagle ROC

 

Since this is an overview of playing streamlined i am just going to sum up the overall battle and then look at the game effects.

The first turn went to me, i spent most of it on the swarm lord, venomthropes, and turanofexes, he spent his shooting at the dreads and flyers while tying up the infantry with guants.

 

My inceptors eliminated the genestealers then i spent the rest of the time working on killing the big things. the swarmlord& broodlord made short work of the inceptors, capt got the brood lord and was smited by the swarmlord. the techmarine went down to the flyrant and he kept my infantry tied up so that eventhough they were making a run for one objective when the game ended with the dice roll at the bottom of 5 he still held 2 of the 3, had it gone one more turn i likely would have tied at minimum as i killed both his tyrants, and venomthropes at the bottom of 5 leaving him with 1 wounded tyranofex, 5 warriors in 2 units and a partial squad of guants to my 2 flyers (wounded but both still on full profile), 2 hellblasters, 2 venerable dreads.

So generally a good game without any one sided fights

 

Afterthoughts.

my opponent lamented alot about no CP even though he won through battlefield tactics. disparaging the salamander mastercrafted re-rolls. at the top of 3 when he failed his test to advance the swarmlord and then charge the inceptors via psyker sillyness he declared the game was "over" and he had already lost because he could not use a CP re-roll. but we played on to see what would happen. there were a few mistakes that probably cost me a bit-like forgetting to shoot with pistols in CC with the hellblasters/eliminators but overall the game went alot faster without concern for CP farming or special combos. allowing me to play what i wanted and not what i had to play to maximise strats.

I have a revamped list ready with a bit more close combat capability but i am not sure when i will get the next test game in since the genestealer cult play tester will not be in next week. but i will be back with a report when that happens.

 

The armies-

 

 

 

 

the table-

 

 

 

 

The battle-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

End game picture-

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by mughi3

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Meh even your opponent didn’t enjoy the game.

[mughi3]

It was a test, and he came in into this battle with a pre-conceived notion that it doesn't work without all the CP/stratagem spam that has been introduced into the game (and he likes to debate everything not just in games). this is a move back to 8th when it first dropped and looked to be moving into a more streamlined direction.

 

He is one of those players who started in 6th ed and likes the power gaming (even though he admits some of the rules are pretty stupid), He often pokes fun at the fact that I like 5th edition better than 8th. So his "fun" level is hard to measure when the decision about gameplay is made before the test even happens.

 

His biggest problem seems to be that some armies in 8th like marines gain the benefits of character re-roll bubble effects and other factions like his nids don't have a similar mechanic.

[MegaVolt87]

Meh even your opponent didn’t enjoy the game.

 

Yeah I don't blame him, when at a minimum half the stratagems should be army/faction/ unit rules. Can't really axe stratagems until the relevant ones are rolled back in as special rules. 

[mughi3]

I don't see how you can when you come into a test with a pre conceived opinion that turns out to not even be a factor. he complained because he could not powergame but still pulled off a victory. I've known other players who had the same attitude prior to 8th. they copied tournament winning lists and when they were not winning by turn 3 they would give up unless you coaxed them into continuing the game(that they then often times won).

 

 

It is at the core of what the game is-a strategy game of tabletop combat, not a game of deck building combos that ignore tabletop game rules.

 

removing core mechanics for one force VS another or removing the need to roll dice in a game that relies on dice rolling to create chance is bad game design especially when you are given literal books full of options to do just that.

 

In fact in the next test I think I will forgo the salamander chapter specific master crafted rules to test the point.

 

So far I am seeing the game as better without CP/stratagems as it is faster, less focused on farming and tends to move away from power gaming meta created by them.

[Panzer]

Playing without Stratagems this edition is just silly. That's like playing without the Psychic phase. It's a core concept of how armies get designed and lots of the flavour for factions got outsourced as Stratagems instead of special rules or additional wargear. Without Stratagems Primaris wouldn't even have Veterans (and Blood Angels Primaris no Deathcompany) at the moment.

 

If you think combining different Stratagems to gain an advantage is superior to combining different units to gain an advantage in form of having a stronger list then that's really just your personal opinion. There's nothing inherently worse about one or the other.

Also forgoing Stratagems shouldn't make games faster unless you don't know your rules and have to think about what to use for 5 minutes everytime and possibly look them up to. If anything using Stratagems efficiently should speed up games as they help you to get to the opponent, deal more damage, etc.

 

It seems you just don't want to play the same game as others. That's fine. Just don't try to sell it as the better way to play 8th edition, because at this point you aren't playing 8th edition anymore.

Edited December 2, 2019 by sfPanzer

[mughi3]

you are playing 8th as it was first released go back in this topic and look at the previous conversations the entire point of this test was to counter the bloat of stratagems, power gaming CP spam that forces people to take certain units because they HAVE TO, as a direct replacement for the formation bloat in 7th edition.

 

An example from previous pages

 

The game can almost feel like a TCG to a point, sometimes.

 

You move this squad here, fire at that unit there and then oh-noes! You've activated my trap card! And now I spend this many CPs so that this squad here does this, and this many CPs so that it hits you with that, and then as I wound you I spend another few CPs so that this thing happens and blah blah blah.

 

I once had a fight at 1000 points against a guard list with a double batallion that supported a line of artillery tanks, that could burn 8cp in one turn to shoot me off the board. It was insane. And had a double combo for orders with made him do about a dozen orders a turn.

 

And then I found the list is template. As in, you could find people discussing it the way people discuss putting together a M:tG card deck.

 

The whole layer of CP economy to the game is fun on paper... But it does make it all feel a bit TCG-y at times, and can seriously break the game. Same as it could happen with the formations on 7th ed. (Most of all towards the end, when it felt like GW just didn't give a censored.gif anymore, and were releasing formations that were just insane).

Edited December 2, 2019 by mughi3

[Servant of Dante]

I’d much rather go back and play 7th edition than play 8th without stratagems. The game feels bland enough even with them a lot of the time to me :D

 

Like sfPanzer said, a lot of army flavor got shunted into stratagems this edition.

Edited December 2, 2019 by Servant of Dante

[Ciler]

I for one appreciate the feedback on that experiment.

[BitsHammer]

Even at yhe start of 8th every army had access to some strats (the three in the core rulebook) so it's not like cutting them out of the game is a more pure experiance. If anything it pushes the game to benefit the army with the best core rules over their opponent.

[Tyriks]

My group has been playing without stratagems to help teach a few new players the basics, and it is dreadfully boring.  The game typically feels much more lopsided in favor of whoever has the biggest guns and a lot of units feel like they're missing something.  We have all been chomping at the bit to get stratagems back.  If they put more of those flavorful rules back onto the unit datasheets, it'd be a different story, but it really makes some armies just plain dull.

[infyrana]

It is at the core of what the game is-a strategy game of tabletop combat, not a game of deck building combos that ignore tabletop game rules.

 

 

I've only just come across this thread and haven't read it all yet, but your recent experiment and sentiment is kinda interesting.  I've been quite curious just how much dice rolling there is now with a fully functional cp heavy re-roll everything army list, how this compares to the game when I started in 3rd edition.  Watching battle report videos - the CP and re-rolling almost feels like a full swing combo deck in a magic card game.

 

It would be nice to see the armies being about the units, weaponry, composition and movement, and not who has the biggest auras or largest CP count.  Have you done a streamlined match with Oldmarines versus Numarines?

[Ishagu]

Strats are just rules with a resource cost. To remove them is to lessen the game.

[mughi3]

Well when we get around to it the battle with the genestealer cults we will probably do a game of each, one with the full monty and one streamlined to compare the difference.

 

the hardest part for the test is dealing with the fact people have become accustomed to so many stratagems and CP farming. it took the new marine supplements (as this topic started) to see how far it has gone over the shark for people to notice. Also the reason why the hands got nerfed into oblivion within what 3 days of the official release?

 

There was a reason why formations became a problem in 7th and in 8th it isn't the fluff based stratagems you are all on about that are the problems like the salamanders "strength of the primarch" which is a throwback to 3rd edition where they were initiative 3 but added +1 strength to represent the high gravity their homeworld. it is the ones that do game breaking things like remove the element of chance. or give units a performance boost beyond what they should be able to do by normal rules.

 

The end result leads to armies being built to farm command points, as has become glaringly obvious from tourney reports, to power up the army in question.

 

 

Have you done a streamlined match with Oldmarines versus Numarines?

had not thought about that one actually Edited December 3, 2019 by mughi3

[Aothaine]

 

Have you seen the 5th edition era movie marine rules?

IE if the TT rules reflected how marines are represented in novels. basic bolters are 36" Strength 6 assault 4 w/rending (meaning a basic bolter can potentially pen AV 14) and basic marines start out at 100 points each.

 

Yup. It was years and years ago though. I honestly like the primaris rules better. 

[mughi3]

Just a quick update

 

we did our fist test of the genestealer cults VS salamanders without CP/stratagems. since it was the first time to try out the army my buddy is going to tweak the list a bit and try it again as he noticed a few build ideas he could do better.

 

 

My dice rolling when it came to armor saves were rolling really hot so this is a bit of an outlier, but a few highlights.

 

He ran a bike heavy list with rock crushers, ridge runners, a bunch of the elite characters as well as a patriarch along with those hybrid units with rock hammers.

 

taking psychic control over my stormhawk to try and shoot down my storm eagle was a neat trick to deal with my air power. once again I made almost all my saves so it didn't turn out as well as it should have for him. the rock hammers were especialluy effective against my vehicles as well as the ridge runners with mortars doing work against my infantry. it was generally a fun game with the odd dice rolls that seamed to defy the averages ( he shot me 20 times in one roll and hit with 4 on a to hit of 4+ >_< ),

 

my list was a double vanguard

 

part 1

tech on a bike w/beamer, venerable hellfire dreads (3), eliminator squad-bolt snipers (3), storm eagle ROC

 

Part 2

jump capt w/hammer and shield, ironclad dreads hurricane/chainfist/HF (3), hellblaster squad (10), stormhawk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

If the plan is to play the game with out command points why wouldn't you use the old FOC? The vanguard detachment rules are balanced by giving you less CP than you would receive for a battalion. Is there some other reason to take troops with your design?

[Closet Skeleton]

 

the hardest part for the test is dealing with the fact people have become accustomed to so many stratagems and CP farming. it took the new marine supplements (as this topic started) to see how far it has gone over the shark for people to notice. Also the reason why the hands got nerfed into oblivion within what 3 days of the official release?

 

 

Most of the Iron Hands nerf was to a special character and a relic, not to stratagems. Iron Hands stratagems aren't that great.

 

CP farming means taking more troops choices. I don't see how that's supposed to be ruining the list building experience.

[mughi3]

If the plan is to play the game with out command points why wouldn't you use the old FOC? The vanguard detachment rules are balanced by giving you less CP than you would receive for a battalion. Is there some other reason to take troops with your design?

Actually the plan was to play the models and army you wanted to play not the one you HAD to play to farm CP/stratagems. relying on TT tactics instead of deck building combos. returning to the streamline play like how 8th was when it was first released.

 

I've been playing a 6 dreadnought list since 5th edition when the badab war books came out that let me take dread talons as troops. this is just the latest incarnation of that list for 8th.

 

30K is far more friendly to the original FOC for options than 8th since there are so many good options available for things designated "troops".

Edited December 17, 2019 by mughi3

[Ciler]

Or you could, you know, just play open games which is exactly supposed to be this : play the models you like, no or limited stratagems, no detachments...

[Son of Sacrifice]

I feel like the narrative game mode could really use some attention from GW. I'm not a competitive player, but I do play ITC missions as personally I quite enjoy the system. At this point I am tired of the arms race though. GW should work at giving us a viable alternative to matched play.

[Panzer]

I feel like the narrative game mode could really use some attention from GW. I'm not a competitive player, but I do play ITC missions as personally I quite enjoy the system. At this point I am tired of the arms race though. GW should work at giving us a viable alternative to matched play.

 

Well that's quite a difficult topic. What do you think makes it not a viable alternative? What would you want GW to change without turning it into Matched Play? It's already mostly the same with some few exceptions like being able to cast the same psyker power multiple times, use the same Stratagem multiple times, summon units without paying points for it and its own set of missions.