Codex: Space Marines | Multi-Part Intercessor & Vanguard Vet Teaser | Legends Culling

[Mogger351]

2 minutes ago, Antarius said:

Sorry, but that way of looking at it just doesn't make a lot of sense. Of course it equals a -1 to wound for some units or the change would be meaningless, but that doesn't make it equivalent to a blanket -1 to wound, which would be a much bigger change. There is quite a lot of S3, S6, S7 and S10+ around too, after all.

As for what the buffs actually mean, time will tell. It's definitely going to be a bit weird until more codexes start coming out (which is why I am starting to lean towards indexes being a better solution from a rules perspective, but that's neither here nor there), but I think it's fair to say that Marines should feel better than most other armies non-elites and some of their elites (depending on army and unit of course) and they should pay a points premium for it.

I mean a strength 6 gun is now impacted into terminators and strength 7 was never really considered often due to not hitting the anti-marine breakpoints.

 

If you compare a marine to a guardsman in 10th and don't think it's an elite model by comparison I aren't really sure where to go. Being the best basic infantry at everything apart from custodes wasn't really the aim, they have traditionally been elite due to their armour and being marginally above average skill.

 

Maybe the stop game lethality button needed addressing instead of hitting the stat inflate one.

[Orange Knight]

20 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

You're right, marines were toughness 4 in an age where stats capped at 10. Where a pulse weapon was special because it was strength 5, where a weapon that wounded a marine on a 4 was notably stronger than the creature holding it.

 

But now it's ok to "use the expanded chart" to make a marine toughness 5 and have the rest of it go out the window to make marines feel more powerful. By making everyone else feel weaker.

 

This will almost certainly shrink the none-marine player base if it stays like this, so you're either stuck with mirror matches, or the other armies getting buffed up until it doesnt matter again.

 

I don't think this is happening at all. 

 

Orks are also tougher and stronger, straight out of the gate.

 

I expect Guardsmen, Eldar, Tau will stay at toughness 3, but I also expect that Guard will get even more powerful Tanks, Eldar will be even quicker, and Tau might have expanded capabilities we haven't yet considered (I generally don't like Tau and feel their army needs a big re-think in how it functions).

 

I imagine Sisters will eventually be toughness 4. I don't know if regular bolters will become Str5 because that impacts a lot of things outside of Marines. I suppose you can seperate Astartes Bolters from Human Bolters. Votann will probably become more durable as well.

Edited 8 hours ago by Orange Knight

[Karhedron]

40 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

Also, we already have access to 3 wound, toughness 6 Marines, with Str 5, damage 2 bolters at a low cost. Did they break the meta? No - in fact they were hardly ever taken.

 

Agreed. Was this due to the stats or their abilities? I actually quite like Heavy Intercessors but that is OT. The point is that Marines already had the ability to take an entire army of T5/6 Infantry but it was rarely worthwhile to do so.

 

Where the toughness boost does become slightly more relevant is for faster units like Jump Infantry and those in Transports, particularly in light of the rumour that Primaris will be able to ride Rhinos now. Delivering a swarm of T5 bodies to the midfield quickly might shift the dial a bit, particularly if those bodies are inside a cheap T9 metal bawks that needs to be opened before you can get at the juicy bits inside. This might give Take and Hold armies an edge.

[Mogger351]

8 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

 

I don't think this is happening at all. 

 

Orks are also tougher and stronger, straight out of the gate.

 

I expect Guardsmen, Eldar, Tau will stay at toughness 3, but I also expect that Guard will get even more powerful Tanks, Eldar will be even quicker, and Tau might have expanded capabilities we haven't yet considered (I generally don't like Tau and feel their army needs a big re-think in how it functions).

 

I imagine Sisters will eventually be toughness 4. I don't know if regular bolters will become Str5 because that impacts a lot of things outside of Marines. I suppose you can seperate Astartes Bolters from Human Bolters. Votann will probably become more durable as well.

Guard now need more powerful tanks given line intercessors can hurt them on 5s, it is mathematically slightly stronger now as well in isolation.

 

Eldar getting faster becomes a problem on such small boards if we're talking about a base M9 army. Honestly at a minimum you're looking at tau guns all going up in strength to restore their status quo, not that they haven't been eroded into a horde.

 

Sisters going to t4 is fair and good, makes no difference to the marines, so they'll cop a price rise that does nothing into 50% of the playerbase. Likewise if they don't get s5 bolters they're sat in the feeling weak camp.

 

Votann going to base T6, sure, but most of these either partially undo the "making marines special" that is being defended, or leaves the other factions feeling toothless.

 

I'll leave it there, because as I said, this is a marine heavy board and understandably people will be happy with feeling special, just be ready for a lot more mirror matches.

[Xenith]

Here's the joke - marines will get a point bump at the start of the edition as they get all these new super powers and win tourneys, but as the edition progresses and GW bumps other weapons back to being able to wound marines, they'll get weaker and get point drops so you need to buy more. And we're back to the start.

 

This is that happens when you hire inexperienced videogame designers to balance a game.

[Mogger351]

3 minutes ago, Xenith said:

Here's the joke - marines will get a point bump at the start of the edition as they get all these new super powers and win tourneys, but as the edition progresses and GW bumps other weapons back to being able to wound marines, they'll get weaker and get point drops so you need to buy more. And we're back to the start.

 

This is that happens when you hire inexperienced videogame designers to balance a game.

Yeah this is likely the outcome, then 3w marines next time and so on.

[Antarius]

1 hour ago, Mogger351 said:

Being the best basic infantry at everything apart from custodes wasn't really the aim, they have traditionally been elite due to their armour and being marginally above average skill.

 

Maybe the stop game lethality button needed addressing instead of hitting the stat inflate one.

The latter part I agree with; the codex drip, arms race and stop-start mode of balancing the game is silly. But that's not an entirely new issue or something that is really solvable, as long as that's the business model. I also agree that it would be a lot better if they turned the heat down on a lot of things and made the game less lethal, rather than buff everything until we're back where we started (it remains to be seen if they'll do this, but it's certainly a concern).

The first part may have been true in game terms, but thematically, marines were certainly always meant to be more than "marginally above average" and furthermore, in the game's earlier days, that above average stat line actually meant a whole lot more in game terms too.

If we take a slightly longer view of the issue, Marines have had a completely static statline (and so has most of their weaponry) for most of the game's life and consequently have been hit very hard by the arms race inflation way before the last couple of editions rolled around (and as a consequence they gradually had their points dropped as their stats and armour became increasingly useless, because everyone else apparently needed "delete marine"-guns).
We don't have to go that far back to get to a time where the mainline marine unit tacticals just weren't taken as anything except a minimum size "troops tax" unit, and even then, "good" players usually took two scout squads instead. AFAICT the new mainline marines have been in a similar position until they got special rules to make them pump out a crazy amount of shots and I don't see a lot of people considering them a good unit even now.

 

So yeah, marine stats absolutely needed bumping up, whether the statline was expanded or not. Now that the statline has expanded, there's no reason for marines to be stuck with a pre-expansion statline for the next 25 years. That they should obviously go up in points to reflect that is another matter - and so is our expectation that the balancing will eventually be poorly handled.

Edited 7 hours ago by Antarius

[Mogger351]

18 minutes ago, Antarius said:

The latter part I agree with; the codex drip, arms race and stop-start mode of balancing the game is silly. But that's not an entirely new issue or something that is really solvable, as long as that's the business model. I also agree that it would be a lot better if they turned the heat down on a lot of things and made the game less lethal, rather than buff everything until we're back where we started (it remains to be seen if they'll do this, but it's certainly a concern).

The first part may have been true in game terms, but thematically, marines were certainly always meant to be more than "marginally above average" and furthermore, in the game's earlier days, that above average stat line actually meant a whole lot more in game terms too.

If we take a slightly longer view of the issue, Marines have had a completely static statline (and so has most of their weaponry) for most of the game's life and consequently have been hit very hard by the arms race inflation way before the last couple of editions rolled around (and as a consequence they gradually had their points dropped as their stats and armour became increasingly useless, because everyone else apparently needed "delete marine"-guns).
We don't have to go that far back to get to a time where the mainline marine unit tacticals just weren't taken as anything except a minimum size "troops tax" unit, and even then, "good" players usually took two scout squads instead. AFAICT the new mainline marines have been in a similar position until they got special rules to make them pump out a crazy amount of shots and I don't see a lot of people considering them a good unit even now.

 

So yeah, marine stats absolutely needed bumping up, whether the statline was expanded or not. Now that the statline has expanded, there's no reason for marines to be stuck with a pre-expansion statline for the next 25 years. That they should obviously go up in points to reflect that is another matter - and so is our expectation that the balancing will eventually be poorly handled.

Yeah I largely agree, I expect it'll go back to the status quo with different numbers over the next 3-6 years and I expect GW will completely fudge the balance of this because it's system wide impact.

 

Back in the way back when of 3rd (as far back as my knowledge will go) a marine had above average S/T/I/sv/bs/ws/ld, all by 1 point to the bulk of other infantry, which wasn't as much of a problem as this as other factions hit less frequently, or slower, or didn't save as well. I agree that certainly since 8th, there's an annoying constant drive of people branding their own things "specialists" which must hit as often as a marine does as a minimum, get rerolls and then another rule on top.

 

I'd much rather that get dialled back and leave the weapons where they were in terms of interaction (even if it had different numbers).

 

Honestly the real culprit behind this is corporate cowardice imo. They knew an index edition would cause backlash, it was better to have the big splash of an edition launch and have a messy nasty rollout in the edition, than use good communications and try to build some customer goodwill.

[Orange Knight]

I can't predict how this will pan out, just from the snippets we have.

The Intercessor preview - they are more durable yes, but they have less output at range and are less mobile because they actually have to sit on the objectives. I have to see more of the Codex units and more 11th edition codex books before I can judge if this is "an escalation of the arms race" or a more thematic re-jig of unit profiles.

[Indy Techwisp]

3 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

 

I don't think this is happening at all. 

 

Orks are also tougher and stronger, straight out of the gate.

 

I expect Guardsmen, Eldar, Tau will stay at toughness 3, but I also expect that Guard will get even more powerful Tanks, Eldar will be even quicker, and Tau might have expanded capabilities we haven't yet considered (I generally don't like Tau and feel their army needs a big re-think in how it functions).

 

I imagine Sisters will eventually be toughness 4. I don't know if regular bolters will become Str5 because that impacts a lot of things outside of Marines. I suppose you can seperate Astartes Bolters from Human Bolters. Votann will probably become more durable as well.

 

T'au used to have the somewhat unique status of their basic Infantry gun being good enough to punch through marine armour (tho the move to 2w Marines made this less lethal than it was previously).

We could see T'au get a sweeping change to just punch in shots harder against high toughness Infantry.

[Rhavien]

Is there someone who's proficient with orks in here? How are the codex detachments compared to the old one's from 10th? Was there a lot of change within rules, strats and enhancements? What can marines expect? 

[Rhavien]

Just now, Indy Techwisp said:

 

T'au used to have the somewhat unique status of their basic Infantry gun being good enough to punch through marine armour (tho the move to 2w Marines made this less lethal than it was previously).

We could see T'au get a sweeping change to just punch in shots harder against high toughness Infantry.

The pulse rifle? It never punched through marine armour. As far as I remember it was AP5 back in the all or nothing times and it's even AP- right now? It's outstanding trait was the S5.

[Indy Techwisp]

5 minutes ago, Rhavien said:

The pulse rifle? It never punched through marine armour. As far as I remember it was AP5 back in the all or nothing times and it's even AP- right now? It's outstanding trait was the S5.

 

I worded it awfully.

Yes, their thing was stupid good weapon strength and if all the Marines are going up that might increase as well to match.

[Orange Knight]

I don't want to get off topic regarding the Tau. When I said that I think Tau need a re-think, I was referring to the fact that their army is more one-dimensional than other factions. No psykers, very limited close combat, etc etc.
They are the Xenos mirror of the Guard, but fall far short in terms of character. Necrons, Nids, Orks, Eldar are better realised.

Not sure exactly how I would alter them - perhaps take some ideas from AdMech and introduce a more layer approach to abilities built around commanding Ethereals.

[DarkAddick]

Apologies for being slow but will there be actual codices for the divergent chapters over time or will it be this book plus what’s on the app/website?

[Mogger351]

54 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

I don't want to get off topic regarding the Tau. When I said that I think Tau need a re-think, I was referring to the fact that their army is more one-dimensional than other factions. No psykers, very limited close combat, etc etc.
They are the Xenos mirror of the Guard, but fall far short in terms of character. Necrons, Nids, Orks, Eldar are better realised.

Not sure exactly how I would alter them - perhaps take some ideas from AdMech and introduce a more layer approach to abilities built around commanding Ethereals.

 

I'm not sure how that results in a more coherent end to your posed query though. That just moves the army mechanic from markerlights to aura stacking. It still leaves their melee units weak (even weaker than now due to wounding on 5's), and relying on ranged superiority which is again lessened by the changes.

If you're suggesting a gun-kata method to allow crisis suits to shoot into melee more to allow melee methods (with a corresponding durability buff imo), maybe some more auxillary races to allow psykers and enhance some more synergy between the ranged and melee overlap, that'd be great. I think kroot will need some help now, but if you bump them too much so they can be run as a melee army, their identity is watered down further.

[Orange Knight]

3 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

 

I'm not sure how that results in a more coherent end to your posed query though. That just moves the army mechanic from markerlights to aura stacking. It still leaves their melee units weak (even weaker than now due to wounding on 5's), and relying on ranged superiority which is again lessened by the changes.

If you're suggesting a gun-kata method to allow crisis suits to shoot into melee more to allow melee methods (with a corresponding durability buff imo), maybe some more auxillary races to allow psykers and enhance some more synergy between the ranged and melee overlap, that'd be great. I think kroot will need some help now, but if you bump them too much so they can be run as a melee army, their identity is watered down further.

 

Ethereals have more personality than marker-lights lol.
 

I imagine they could lean into them as characters, add very thematic rule and abilities. Just an idea, nothing more.

[phandaal]

4 hours ago, Xenith said:

Here's the joke - marines will get a point bump at the start of the edition as they get all these new super powers and win tourneys, but as the edition progresses and GW bumps other weapons back to being able to wound marines, they'll get weaker and get point drops so you need to buy more. And we're back to the start.

 

This is that happens when you hire inexperienced videogame designers to balance a game.

 

Also, "we are going to sell fewer Space Marines" is not a line that will go far at HQ. It is hard to see them lasting extremely long as a truly elite army.

[Xenith]

2 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

this is "an escalation of the arms race" or a more thematic re-jig of unit profiles

It can be both 

 

I look at howling banshees, whose schtick forever was being perfect marine killers with power weapons. The move to 2W, bonus T and strats like AoC made them redundant until they were boosted with anti infantry 3+, bonus AP and 2D. 

 

All other anti-elite-infantry weapons will need a buff or point drop to compensate for this. Or as we see, some move to a stupid "devastating wounds but not against non-INFANTRY" as GW uses more and more words and special rules to fix the problems they created.

4 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

Also, "we are going to sell fewer Space Marines" is not a line that will go far at HQ. It is hard to see them lasting extremely long as a truly elite army.

Yea, you can imagine that pitch session at a board meeting - "we're going to make marines elite so people can buy less" probably right up there with " games take too long, let's move the standard back to 1500pts".

[01RTB01]

3 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

Also, "we are going to sell fewer Space Marines" is not a line that will go far at HQ. It is hard to see them lasting extremely long as a truly elite army.

That depends arguably. 

 

Not to turn it into a pricing thread but starting 40k from scratch is expensive. There are so many games out there now that are accessible and significantly cheaper. 

 

An individual buying less marines or otherwise is one thing. They're surely better off with more people buying stuff rather than just fewer buying?

 

I think the fact that combat patrol isn't mentioned in the new codexes is bizarre. Spearhead for AoS is a legitimate way to play the game. I don't understand why 40k has dumped combat patrol by comparison when it's clearly a format that could work. 

 

 

[Brother Carpenter]

Thank god I just heard I dont have a job anymore so am spares all this and i have ample time to spend on my grey pile of firstborn shame. Think ill start with devestators

[Valkyrion]

This is the problem with codex (and edition) release cycle, though I'm not sure there is a really viable alternative.

Orks come next week, Marines a month later, then one a month no doubt until 20+ months later depending on who gets full books or who remains folded in. If it stopped there, and 12th came along in 2030 instead of 2029 then everyone would have 2 years of updated armies and things like this obvious power creep would feel less bad.

 

It seems like its the Codexes themselves that are the problem because the power creep is tied to physical releases, and I know GW aren't going to offer free rules in totality, but perhaps a subscription based codex PDF website that uploads every faction codex upon an edition release could work.

 

So, as an example, on day 1 of 11th edition Codex Space Marines is instantly available with all of the new profiles, detachments and everything, but whatever new releases that are in the pipeline are NOT included until they themselves are released. In this case, there'd be no Captain on Bike datasheet.  Physical books could still come out in line with their intended release. This way the people that just play at home can ignore the subscription and wait for the physical release, but the competitive scene is immediately updated and ready to go. 

 

 

 

[Mogger351]

3 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

This is the problem with codex (and edition) release cycle, though I'm not sure there is a really viable alternative.

Orks come next week, Marines a month later, then one a month no doubt until 20+ months later depending on who gets full books or who remains folded in. If it stopped there, and 12th came along in 2030 instead of 2029 then everyone would have 2 years of updated armies and things like this obvious power creep would feel less bad.

 

It seems like its the Codexes themselves that are the problem because the power creep is tied to physical releases, and I know GW aren't going to offer free rules in totality, but perhaps a subscription based codex PDF website that uploads every faction codex upon an edition release could work.

 

So, as an example, on day 1 of 11th edition Codex Space Marines is instantly available with all of the new profiles, detachments and everything, but whatever new releases that are in the pipeline are NOT included until they themselves are released. In this case, there'd be no Captain on Bike datasheet.  Physical books could still come out in line with their intended release. This way the people that just play at home can ignore the subscription and wait for the physical release, but the competitive scene is immediately updated and ready to go. 

 

 

 

 

They run away from their problems. They've burned customers with the binning of 6 month old armies after making them wait and heard the complaints so they wouldn't index the game despite it clearly needing it. Announcing an index edition would be considered bad/dangerous and they wouldn't want to deal with the backlash.

 

Instead they've opted to let the sales and hype happen and then fumble the changes in a hap-hazard way that will result in feels-bads somewhere for someone, but without the mass vocal outrage. It's also possible to leverage it as a sales tactic, because this is very "we're not selling supporting these kits, but quickly, distraction.... HYPE UP THE NEW STATS! MARINES ARE AWESOME, BUY SOME!".

 

Then as we rotate around the other factions they get a big power boost to drive hype and sales.

What they could do instead is be upfront and honest. Explain that they need to adjust things upfront, but as a result they are making big rules updates and codex will exist as a code to unlock a faction for this edition period and if unlocked they remain unlocked. They could tell us that they will release kits and rules for all armies in more frequent smaller releases over the edition, they could tell us they want to try new game formats and narrative expansions. They could opt to make the edition longer and simple re-release a new starter set halfway through with a v2 rulebook etc. Even with legends, they could upfront explain that they need to shrink SKU range and some models will be phased out, but will be paired with a release to take the sting out etc.

 

The risk of impact to the bottom line via deviation seems to dissuade them from positive honest engagement.

[01RTB01]

Those of us that have played forever aren't the target market though. The main target market is the new kid. This has been affirmed with interviews of ex GW employees/ their podcasts and so on. 

 

You'd never be able to get the data but it'd be interesting to see the difference in purchases of "the new kid(s)" vs the likes of many on here.

 

Is it the vets, noobs, those playing 0-3 years in, 4-6 year in and so that spend the most. 

 

[Valkyrion]

The other side of the financial coin is that if Space Marines are becoming more elite, therefore fewer of them, a box of them may increase in price beyond expected levels.

As we all know, Space Marines are the bread and butter, so going from £40 to £45 or even £50 isn't going to dissuade the new kids from buying them. 

The new Orks are a terrifying indicator of what brand new models are going to cost.