Firstborn changes we'd like to see in the next Codex Space Marines

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Slave to Darkness said:

My mate is an Afghan veteran, I have never joined the forces, I have a higher pain threshold than he does. Being a vet shouldnt make you tougher, veteran status should be shown in another way, like skills and upgrades, otherwise why do Guard vets not rock 2 wounds? 

Space marine veterans aren’t remotely defined the same way as modern veterans…

a space marine veteran has likely seen hundreds of battles over a several decades at least. Modern veterans just join the military and get the title. Don’t try to conflate the two.

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, Slave to Darkness said:

My mate is an Afghan veteran, I have never joined the forces, I have a higher pain threshold than he does. Being a vet shouldnt make you tougher, veteran status should be shown in another way, like skills and upgrades, otherwise why do Guard vets not rock 2 wounds? 

A fair points. Elite units with 3 wounds seem to be due to the armour rather than the wearer. Terminator Armour gives +1W to whoever wears it while BGVs wear modified armour that is half way between Tacticus and Gravis

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, Karhedron said:

A fair points. Elite units with 3 wounds seem to be due to the armour rather than the wearer. Terminator Armour gives +1W to whoever wears it while BGVs wear modified armour that is half way between Tacticus and Gravis

Or it’s just a game mechanic simply to create noticeable differences between types of units since there’s no real reason for a captain to have 6W 

[Emperor Ming]

Some extra survivability maybe

Since marines have gotten their extra wounds, quite a lot of weapons have been made d2. Sometimes its like well Whats the point then

Specialist marines like TS and DG seem to be way above even some of the best loyalist chapters, due to very good special rules, cheap infantry that's sometimes immune to morale and some that even come back to life backed  up by decent tanks, casters that are combat monsters and god knows what else

I don't even know how they could could bring loyalist marines up to that standard

 

[Blindhamster]

I thought the consensus was already that for the most part firstborn units were better than primaris ones anyway? Believe the most meta-relevant units are all firstborn currently? 
 

I assume stuff like the land raider will be updated to match the chaos rules, which was a notable improvement. So something to look forward to for some there. The repulsor is bad from a gameplay perspective these days as is, no idea how that could be resolved. 
 

what if firstborn units all had the ability to switch doctrines once per game? Representing their more flexible nature? That would be kinda cool. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

7 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

I thought the consensus was already that for the most part firstborn units were better than primaris ones anyway? Believe the most meta-relevant units are all firstborn currently? 
 

I assume stuff like the land raider will be updated to match the chaos rules, which was a notable improvement. So something to look forward to for some there. The repulsor is bad from a gameplay perspective these days as is, no idea how that could be resolved. 
 

what if firstborn units all had the ability to switch doctrines once per game? Representing their more flexible nature? That would be kinda cool. 

Aren’t the meta fb units ones that simply haven’t had a primaris equivalent show up yet?

 

[Blindhamster]

21 minutes ago, Kallas said:

Sorry, but did you actually read my post?.

Yes. I was responding specifically to the last bit, where you talked about wanting firstborn to be equal to primaris. 
 

I’m avoiding the topic of replacements, no good will come of continuing that conversation 

[Kallas]

20 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

Yes. I was responding specifically to the last bit, where you talked about wanting firstborn to be equal to primaris. 
I’m avoiding the topic of replacements, no good will come of continuing that conversation 

Ok, that's fair enough.

For equal units, yeah, they kind of are. Some Firstborn units are better, some Primaris units are better. Most of that is because GW's balancing is pretty random, but at least there are some happy little accidents 

[Captain Idaho]

Moving back on topic, away from requests to drop Firstborn which started a whole off topic mess...

It's an interesting point about the roles of Firstborn vs Primaris. How flexible should Firstborn be in comparison to Primaris and can that be reflected in the rules?

Primaris units are very mono-role whereas the Firstborn units are very much customisable. This flexibility is often too expensive to be worthwhile, but how can that be addressed in game to make things work more usefully?

It certainly is a case the most effective units are Devastators, Vanguard, Terminators, Redemptors and then various Troops choices in competitive consideration, so how can the other Firstborn elements be elevated in relevance?

I was thinking Tactical Marines could get the Death Guard treatment, with a big discount on some weapons:

• Plasma Gun, melta gun, flamer all free

• Heavy Bolters free, Missile Launchers 5pts, Grave Cannon, Lascannons and Multi-melta 10pts.

Then we can add a rule to Marines that they can perform actions and still fire, or the Strategum for them costs zero points?

This last one makes them slightly more relevant with a cheaper Heavy weapon too.

[Blindhamster]

I think the idea of marine troop choices in general being able to perform an action and still shoot would be very in keeping - would be somewhat reflective of how marines work in kill team too

And yeah, I actually think tactical marines should cost a tiny bit more (1 point) per model but then make all upgrades free. Even better would be if you didn’t have to specify which thing you have for games till the deployment to represent them always having the right tool.

[Captain Idaho]

Only reason I wouldn't say all upgrades for free is because it means a Heavy Bolter is never better than a Grav Cannon, a Multi-melta is always better than a Lascannon etc.

I too think all Marine Troops choices should be able to perform actions and still shoot, but I didn't want to take it off topic.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Captain Idaho

[Kallas]

8 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

It's an interesting point about the roles of Firstborn vs Primaris. How flexible should Firstborn be in comparison to Primaris and can that be reflected in the rules?

Primaris units are very mono-role whereas the Firstborn units are very much customisable. This flexibility is often too expensive to be worthwhile, but how can that be addressed in game to make things work more usefully?

It certainly is a case the most effective units are Devastators, Vanguard, Terminators, Redemptors and then various Troops choices in competitive consideration, so how can the other Firstborn elements be elevated in relevance?

What makes these units effective? The ability to be equipped for a specific task: Multi-melta Devastators are good because they can focus on being the best at anti-tank as possible within their options. Now, they can shift to, say, anti-infantry, but this is often less efficient because there are other units that can fill that role roughly as well (eg, Aggressors, general Marine anti-infantry being abundant).

I do think your suggestion of making weapon options more balanced would be a good approach. Assault Marines (and equivalents) got a lot more interesting when they dropped the cost of most/all of their upgrades; whereas Tacticals (and their equivalents) didn't get these option cost reductions and so we see the same things (ie, no upgrades or only the best ones).

Things like Plasma, Melta, Grav and Flamers really need to have due consideration put into their pricing - Flamers aren't worth very much to a random Tactical Marine because a BS3+ Bolter is roughly as effective for no cost and can be fired from a longer range anyway, meaning a barebones unit is better off than one with a Flamer. Grav is another example, because it costs the same as Melta and Plasma but sits right in the middle being as good as neither.

So for Tacticals, I wouldn't say all Special weapons should be free, as this just promotes taking the best option, so something more like:

1. Flamers free (they are niche, being short ranged and functionally just an auto-hitting Bolter)
2. Grav Guns at +2pts (they're mediocre in pretty much every regard, but being quite cheap and adding a little bit of extra punch would be viable; alternatively, make them 24" Assault 2 and they're immediately a lot more of an interesting choice)
3. Plasma Guns at +5-+7pts (they're good all-rounders, but Tacticals need to stay relatively low cost to be attractive options compared to the more powerful specialists like Devastators, Hellblasters, etc)
4. Melta Guns at +7-10pts (they're the most powerful but also limited in range and volume of fire, so cost could stay on the lower end to compensate)
5. Heavy Bolters should be free; also Missile Launchers (in their current form) too, as neither profile is actually good (Frag is just a two Bolters strapped together with a longer range - not very appealing - and Krak is a poor man's Lascannon which is already a poor man's [insert other race's anti-tank weapon here])
6. Grav Cannon is solid, though bringing it down to say +5-8pts wouldn't hurt. It doesn't suffer from the Grav Gun's problems quite as much.
7. Plasma Cannon should definitely drop to +5pts at most. The low volume of shots really hurts it when compared to the other anti-tank weapons and the Grav Cannon.
8. Lascannon should be +5-8pts at most. The Lascannon profile has really depreciated since the start of 8th and now sits at a very mediocre position.
9. Multi-melta is the premier anti-tank option and should be around +12-15pts. Having multiple Tactical Squads with Multi-meltas would be a strong choice if they weren't so expensive, but they also shouldn't be so cheap as to make the other Heavy weapons redundant. A 12pt Multi-melta Tac squad, as an example, will pack in a good bite for not too expensive a cost.

Generally, though, we need a good points reevaluation across the entire Marine board - there are many options that are similar but costs make one stand out clearly above the others. This is kind of the problem when everything has such similar statlines, I guess.

[Slave to Darkness]

19 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Space marine veterans aren’t remotely defined the same way as modern veterans…

a space marine veteran has likely seen hundreds of battles over a several decades at least. Modern veterans just join the military and get the title. Don’t try to conflate the two.

True but having seen many battles doesnt make you tougher, you just keep your head down, pay attention to potential sniper spots and dont stand in front of enemies waving a sword about in the middle of a gunfight. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, Slave to Darkness said:

True but having seen many battles doesnt make you tougher, you just keep your head down, pay attention to potential sniper spots and dont stand in front of enemies waving a sword about in the middle of a gunfight. 

If you’ve been shot a bunch before you get tougher.

you go to a boxing gym and get rocked once and you probably won’t be able to continue fighting, but after a few years of training you can probably eat big shots and fight on no problem.

the human body is pretty adaptable, and likely to get tougher the more you get injured assuming it’s not a catastrophic injury.

 

all that being said, this is all just poor justification of game mechanics to create Differences to make units better than others.

here's another real world example. was recently talking to an ammy muay thai fighter. in one fight his oppoent ended up bouncing off the ropes into a knee, that landed on his sternum while he was rushing forward. fractured his sternum, but he kept going and finished the fight. thats something veteran fighters can do, that others cannot. most new fighters probably would have been immediately dropped by that kind of an injury

Edited July 30, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven