Codex Space Marine Previews

[Subtleknife]

34 minutes ago, Xenith said:

OoM had to go in it's incarnation, it was too strong. 

 

Was it though? SM have been hovering at a 50% win rate. That certainly wouldn't suggest it was too strong to me when combined with the other rules and points costs marines currently have.

 

I think it's a boring rule but I don't think space marines were a particularly strong faction. Without it they are going to need something to stop them falling below that win ratio of around 50 percent that GW is aiming for. 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Subtleknife

[redmapa]

If the rule was too strong then the datasheets need a massive boost because with its current incarnation this "too strong" rule is pushing SM to the unbelievable heights of *checks notes* 51% army with one subfaction. So how can the current OoM be "too strong" but at the same time the army be at best mid tier with most subfactions being sub-45%WR, because you cant have both at the same time.

 

As it stands if OoM was producing too many "feel bad" moments now those same "feel bad" moments will just flow in the other direction as SM will struggle to wound most things without Oath. I personally doubt that GW will somehow find the sweet spot where SM have a meh army rule yet somehow stay where they currently are, 

[Indy Techwisp]

30 minutes ago, redmapa said:

If the rule was too strong then the datasheets need a massive boost because with its current incarnation this "too strong" rule is pushing SM to the unbelievable heights of *checks notes* 51% army with one subfaction. So how can the current OoM be "too strong" but at the same time the army be at best mid tier with most subfactions being sub-45%WR, because you cant have both at the same time.

 

As it stands if OoM was producing too many "feel bad" moments now those same "feel bad" moments will just flow in the other direction as SM will struggle to wound most things without Oath. I personally doubt that GW will somehow find the sweet spot where SM have a meh army rule yet somehow stay where they currently are, 

 

TSons were "too strong" and nerfed into the ground at 54%, so being within the "aimed for" bracket means  all.

[Xenith]

46 minutes ago, Subtleknife said:

Was it though? SM have been hovering at a 50% win rate. That certainly wouldn't suggest it was too strong to me when combined with the other rules and points costs marines currently have.

 

38 minutes ago, redmapa said:

If the rule was too strong then the datasheets need a massive boost because with its current incarnation this "too strong" rule is pushing SM to the unbelievable heights of *checks notes* 51% army with one subfaction. So how can the current OoM be "too strong" but at the same time the army be at best mid tier with most subfactions being sub-45%WR, because you cant have both at the same time.

 

I noted elsewhere even marine players, myself included think it's too strong, and feel bad for using it, never mind what the opponent thinks. A rule that makes both players feel bad is a bad rule, and if marines are only competitive because of that one rule, that's a sure sign it's broken. 

 

Personally, I'd rather have a set of viable datasheets and interesting rules spread across the army that one mega rule that is (and as described by other marine players), a 50/50 cointoss where you win against armies with big dangerous stuff and you lose against armies with MSU where OoM is less effective. 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Xenith

[The Unseen]

39 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

 

I noted elsewhere even marine players, myself included think it's too strong, and feel bad for using it, never mind what the opponent thinks. A rule that makes both players feel bad is a bad rule, and if marines are only competitive because of that one rule, that's a sure sign it's broken. 

 

Personally, I'd rather have a set of viable datasheets and interesting rules spread across the army that one mega rule that is (and as described by other marine players), a 50/50 cointoss where you win against armies with big dangerous stuff and you lose against armies with MSU where OoM is less effective. 

Sure, but what is far more likely with GW current ineptitude is that they pull the rule and turn marines into dudes armed with pillows and then... don't fix it. 

 

Cause the marine index overall needed BUFFS, and then the codex starts with a huge nerf that they *claim* they've adjusted for, but then not shown anything at all that even begins to make up for it. In fact, one of the selling points they talk about is giving old Oath back to a specific Detachment for a round! As if that's cool and not just worse than what it is now.

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

Personally, I'd rather have a set of viable datasheets and interesting rules spread across the army that one mega rule that is (and as described by other marine players), a 50/50 cointoss where you win against armies with big dangerous stuff and you lose against armies with MSU where OoM is less effective. 

 

While I agree with the sentiment, I don't think that is what is happening. If it were the case then the prevalence of Marines would have hit armies like Knights and Custodes hard as these are big-ticket armies. But what we see is that both those armies are consistently out-performing Marines in the meta.

 

While I agree that I would rather have interesting units and rules than relying on OOM, I have not seen anything thus far to convince me that is the case. If Nids is anything to go by, I think most Codex datasheets will be the same as their Index incarnations (give or take a few). That means a nerf to OOM would require a boost in the Detachment rules. So far we can see that GSF and First Company formations are a straight-up downgrade on their Index incarnations as they get nothing new and have a nerfed version of OOM.

 

The Salamander and IF detachments look a bit more promising with +1S to stationary and short-ranged shooting respectively and I expect these to be the competitive choices at first (unless Raven Guard manage to Phobos powerful) Stormlance is fluffy but without any extra hitting power, I don't think it will compare to the other two. The only remaining unknown at this point is the Iron Hands detachment. The strength boost from Sallies and IFs might be enough to offset the nerf to OOM but I can't see them making Marines more powerful. That means 2 Detachments might just about match Index Marines and 4 are downgrades with one still to be revealed.

 

Overall I don't see the Codex doing anything to boost Marines in competitive play and we lose some decent units from the Index like Sniper Scouts. Maybe GW is still going to pull a rabbit out of the hat but I think nerfing OOM was a mistake.

[Redcomet]

Question is if the codex is balanced against the Tyranid one? 

[Kastor Krieg]

Kinda seems now that the Black Templar detachment becomes one of the, if not THE, best one for Marines.

What a time to be alive :D

 

[Fenriwolf]

1 hour ago, The Unseen said:

Sure, but what is far more likely with GW current ineptitude is that they pull the rule and turn marines into dudes armed with pillows and then... don't fix it.

Most likely situation is that + after 4 months they'll turn around and cut points. 

 

Meaning the army will still be bad but you'll field more stuff so it will be ok (in their minds) 

 

P.s: sprinkle in nerfs to whatever units will manage to keep the codex afloat by having broken interactions with the new detachments in those 4 months

Edited September 18, 2023 by Fenriwolf

[Blindhamster]

36 minutes ago, Kastor Krieg said:

Kinda seems now that the Black Templar detachment becomes one of the, if not THE, best one for Marines.

What a time to be alive :D

 

This isn’t news, they’ve been the most overpowered option since 10th in terms of detachment

[Marshal Reinhard]

32 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

This isn’t news, they’ve been the most overpowered option since 10th in terms of detachment

You have to appreciate just how weird that sounds to us. I mean, it should be like that, sure. But we're not used to it 

[redmapa]

After 10+ years of getting absolutely nothing but wet farts on the face I for one Im enjoying getting all this attention and a great detachment, cherry on top of it all is that its not even that broken as we are probably gonna get to 50%WR after the dataslate buffs so its exactly the type of situation I wanted, a good set of rules and nothing too broken instead of being put in bottom of the barrel.

 

So far none of the new detachments seem like fun, maybe the one with the strat to disembark and shoot during the opponent's turn but that doesnt feel Templar to me so whatever the case is in the future I'll probably just keep using Gladius for movement shenanighans and Righteous Crusaders for anything else, its just such a useful detachment that it buffs any playstyle you want which I guess is why I didnt like it at first as it seemed a bit too open ended but you can do so many things with it that I really dont need anything else.

 

I hope Vanguard Veterans get fixed, its a cool unit that currently just sucks for no reason so fingers crossed they show case the new Assault squad and Vanguard Veterans and their rules in an article soon, I got like 30 Assault Interecessors that are about to get a Jump Pack instead of walking around like a bunch of jabronis. 

[Alternis]

3 hours ago, Xenith said:

 

 

I noted elsewhere even marine players, myself included think it's too strong, and feel bad for using it, never mind what the opponent thinks. A rule that makes both players feel bad is a bad rule, and if marines are only competitive because of that one rule, that's a sure sign it's broken. 

 

Personally, I'd rather have a set of viable datasheets and interesting rules spread across the army that one mega rule that is (and as described by other marine players), a 50/50 cointoss where you win against armies with big dangerous stuff and you lose against armies with MSU where OoM is less effective. 

My usual opponent was Necrons, who liked playing blocks of LynchGuard and a Transcendant C’tan with sempiternal with more blocks of Lokhust destroyers (and heavies) 

 

I only ever felt bad using OoM with a big block of 10 desolation, with an apothecary w/ Bolter discipline, without it, I would get steamrolled most games, using reasonable SM list Vs a hard competitive Necron list. 
 

OoM in its current incarnation helped keep SM in this Goldilocks 45-55% zone, never feel bad for using it. 

[Lemondish]

6 hours ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

To be totally honest, these GW previews tend to be actually awful for showing rules off. In recent memory: the CSM Index missed off the Chaos marks explanation, the LI previews seem to do a disservice to the actual rules (as per the leaked rules anyways), some of the Cities of Sigmar previews showed only partial rules and only the most boring bits

 

You'd think for an advertising avenue for the company they'd figure out how to advertise their rules properly

 

The biggest issue is that we are a community that is never, ever, ever happy about anything, ever.

 

Just various degrees of cynicism and disappointment

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

A good preview, I like what I'm seeing. 

 

Personally I'm a big fan of not locking rules to certain chapters. No reason I shouldn't be able to run a tank heavy Raven Guard or a footslogging White Scars. Not that I would ebcause those aren't Imperial Fists, but you get my point. 

[Lemondish]

3 hours ago, Xenith said:

I noted elsewhere even marine players, myself included think it's too strong, and feel bad for using it, never mind what the opponent thinks.

 

Never mind what the numbers say either, I suppose?

[jaxom]

6 hours ago, CCE1981 said:

   Firestorm Assault Force

   -Detachment rule - Close Range Eradication - All ranged weapons gain Assault....even vehicles everyone is Advancing and shooting plus +1 Str within 12" ok this is WAY better than First Company - not very good with melta weaponry

   -Enhancement - War-Tempered Artifice - ehhh, buffs melee, Melee is weak not good enough

    -Stratagem - Burning Vengeance (from the video) - waste of Battle Tactic, A Captain's free stratagem won't proc as he isn't on the board,  can shoot in your opponent's shooting phase so ok, but means jumping out of your protective vehicle, niche, to disembark a low wound vehicle you think is going to die, or if you have a Heavy weapon squad

 

 

+3 Strength will depend on points cost and other options. Put it on Lightning Claws and it can go pretty damn far. Burning Vengeance can be amazing for 1CP if you set it up right. Take Rhino or Impulsor and place it the most annoying place possible to block anti-tank infantry, pop out with an anti-infantry squad. Or just go the easy route: Hellblasters in an Impulsor. Drive it up, it gets shot, pop up with 12 Str 9 2D overcharged shots. Any who die after can still pop off shots, likely against targets within 12" to continue getting the +1 Str bonus.

 

4 hours ago, Subtleknife said:

 

Was it though? SM have been hovering at a 50% win rate. That certainly wouldn't suggest it was too strong to me when combined with the other rules and points costs marines currently have.

 

I think it's a boring rule but I don't think space marines were a particularly strong faction. Without it they are going to need something to stop them falling below that win ratio of around 50 percent that GW is aiming for. 

 

I think the problem is that current OOM is too swingy and too simple for an opponent to plan around. It's either nuking a lynchpin unit (pre-nerf Wraithknight) or 1/4 of someone's army (big Knights) or it's not doing much at all (multiple indirect fire units, phantasm-ed units, units out of LoS in general, GSC and IG units back from the dead, etc). The right combination of detachment and unit rules seems like it may pick up the slack. Assault Str 5 Lethal Hit Aggressor+Biologis or Tor Garaddon combi? Yes, please! Brutalis Dreadnoughts where every ranged weapon also has Assault? Depending on what happens with Vanguard Vets and Assault Squads, the Stormlance detachment is a great way to guarantee they're always getting Hammer of Wrath or Vanguard Assault. Then there's possible interactions with new strats and enhancements. 

 

[Kallas]

1 hour ago, Lemondish said:

Just various degrees of cynicism and disappointment

We learned it from expecting GW to less than dog  and failing to provide even that 

[SkimaskMohawk]

In the rumour thread I said they'd need to compensate OoM with other buffs to units, but in the back of my mind I was thinking that maybe some of the detachment bonuses would be really huge; maybe new OoM and detachment>old OoM.

 

That certainly isn't the case. You get once per game old oath from the 1st company detachment. Gaining assault on weapons is pretty helpful, but the STR integer change is kinda not on a lot of weapons, or heavily circumstantial at best. Hope the datasheets are good! 

[Borbarad]

3 hours ago, Kastor Krieg said:

Kinda seems now that the Black Templar detachment becomes one of the, if not THE, best one for Marines.

What a time to be alive :D

 

The only reason a templar codex exist in the first place is due to their 3rd edition pamphlet rules being excessively powerful (and thus popular).
 

It took 20 odd years but seems like the pendulum swung back. (Un)fortunately this time it won’t take GW too much time to fix them. 

[Cadian Bandstand]

The difficulty is understanding that specific nerfs and buffs in a faction don't tell the whole story. The 50% ish win rate, what's the data based on? how many games? have they already adjusted for all the various opponents factions or is it all games? are they losing consistently against the top factions but doing well against others? will the strong nerfs to the upper factions naturally increase win rates? Apart from the very top and very bottom factions i really dont know how anyone can complain about GW tinkering with rules and say 'well X factions now trash' with any certainty.

 

Anyone moaning who's not done a deep dive into the data should just wait and see.

[Alternis]

11 hours ago, Fenriwolf said:

Most likely situation is that + after 4 months they'll turn around and cut points. 

 

Meaning the army will still be bad but you'll field more stuff so it will be ok (in their minds) 

 

P.s: sprinkle in nerfs to whatever units will manage to keep the codex afloat by having broken interactions with the new detachments in those 4 months

GW need to really and properly address this.

Points cuts are NOT balances, and I will always maintain this.

keep relying on points cuts and you risk turning an army from Elite into Horde (this is basically what’s happened with Deathguard) 

 

They need to start tweaking weapon profiles, just adjusting unit abilities, not just the excruciatingly lazy flex of “oh they are underperforming let’s drop the points cost so they buy more models and it makes them win by extra volume of weak fire” the whole point of why they created the datasheets as they are, with weapons having their own BS/WS rather then it being on the base model was exactly for these reasons, so they could tweak the individual model that’s over/under performing and bring an actual balance.

Instead they are failing to do that and just points change instead, there’s no real balance happening. 
 

Devastating wounds didn’t need to get changed, all they had to do was target Wraithknights and Wraithguard weapons specifically (which they could have done, easily) 

 

The nerf to the free stratagems, didn’t need to happen, they could have just targeted specific units that had way too much codex/index synergy with the rule (SM Captains, Hive Tyrant) but blanket nerfing it actually hurt armies in the lower bracket. 
 

They didn’t need to turn Death Guard into a horde army, they could have just given specific units better saves and more damage mitigation. 
 

Tyrannofex didn’t need a points increase, after they went and nerfed it’s damage mitigation rule, it wasn’t breaking anything in the game.
 

I just find points changes for the majority of the time, is an extremely lazy way to balance the game.
But there are very isolated cases where points changes were very much needed. (looking at the necessary nerf to Desolation, and points buff to sanguinary guard as that was very necessary)

 

[Kastor Krieg]

21 minutes ago, Alternis said:

GW need to really and properly address this.

Points cuts are NOT balances, and I will always maintain this.

keep relying on points cuts and you risk turning an army from Elite into Horde (this is basically what’s happened with Deathguard) 

And Templars, where the Black Tide is once more not only a meme, but a fairly viable way of swamping the table with 100+ power armoured Marines.

[MaximusTL]

honestly a huge part of my, and i would hazard to say a large number of player's, investment in the hobby is tied to the lore. i like marines because they are the elite few, extremely powerful demigods of war. how easily each marine goes down has always harmed my immersion, but it's a necessary one, because lore-accurate marines would be insanely unbalanced. however, these points cuts making marines into a horde army is lame as hell.

I would rather have 30-40ish 3 wound marines with an extra attack on most weapons and 6+ fnp at 35pts each than 100 marines in an army as they are now. it shouldn't be marines average and custodes elite; Marines should be elite and custodes hyper-elite. 16-point plague marines are nuts. 

 

of course, GW can't make marines individually stronger, they need marine armies to be large so people buy more.

Edited September 19, 2023 by MaximusTL

[Kallas]

1 hour ago, Alternis said:

keep relying on points cuts and you risk turning an army from Elite into Horde (this is basically what’s happened with Deathguard) 

This is exactly what happened with Marines in 8th, before they gave them the 2nd wound and commensurate points increase.