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

[jimbo1701]

My thoughts for what they’re worth. 
 

- inevitable move of firstborn stuff to legends but good to see there will be ongoing support. 
- sad to see some more recent releases go to legends / proxy, doesn’t bode well for other units such as reivers going forwards. I notice the atv wasn’t on there. 
- nice to see the new models - intercessor kit finally appears done as it should have been in the first place. Hoping for claw options on vanguard still. 
- rule changes are nice. More elite armies, all bolters having ap1 etc all welcome changes. 

[Griefbringer]

The concecpt of Officially Legendary Proxies sounds curiously amusing to me ("Look, my proxies are officially more legendary than your proxies - says right here").

 

And you are not limited to using the Legendary Proxies at stores, clubs and campaigns - you can also use them at home!

[Master Sheol]

1 hour ago, Mogger351 said:

So this is actually my issue with this editions marine release wave.

 

Thus far there is:

- Intercessors the 2nd

- Captain who is awful close to the 8th ed captain

- Librarian again

- Jump chaplain - scores a point

- Not-Heavy-Intercessor-Eradicators with bolters

- The bigger speeder they replaced the old one with, but smaller

- Jump intercessors with minimal bling

- New bikes, which are the same as the old bikes, but they lean over

- Ancient number 6 I think it is

- Bike captain, aka the minor conversion

 

It's all very bland and uninspired so far. In an editions time if someone asked what was in the launch box, it will be a fuzzy memory and the marine release wave is a bit meh.

 

This is then compounded by some iconic stuff *not* being in the codex any more.

 

Intercessors updated in look and normalized in options... i agree with you... they are just fixing the laziness of original design and craziness of the original loadout
Captain with shield... I agree with you cause the 8th edition one is better looking
Librarian... I agree with you cause we already have one on foot in tacticus and we needed a jump pack/bike/gravis one

Jump chaplain... this is the best one and it's only in armageddon box for now
Eradicator with heavy bolters... i agree they are useless having heavy intercessors and it would be better having them with other heavy weapons (loadouts in the primaris range really need to be rationalized)

The new LS... they are replacing the original two seat LS and now we have two size of a-grav skimmers and it's good but they need to make a multipart one with a better datasheet with basic loadout (like the third edition one) and adding weapons if you want
Vanguard Veterans have not only blign but all also power weapons, storm shields, thunder hammers...
New bikes ahave weapon options now... we were stuck with the monopose ones from 8th edition launch box

Another ancient on foot when we need ancient on bike or in gravis? i agree with you that is useless... lucky enough it is only in armageddon launch box

Bike captain... yes it's "only a conversion" but they needed to make a model cause with the "no model no rules" law they have now it was out from the codex

So it's a mixed bag really with the managing of Proxy and legend to make things even worse...
Only good thing ti that Rhino and LR survived so we can hope we will have not only new ones in 1/2 years but also we can hope for the return of rhino based veichles (it will be in 12th/13th edition though)
the worst part is proxy cause the proxy unit dont have their own datasheet so they are gone forever from shop and rules... We dont have a tactical or devastator datasheet in legends so we can only use them as proxy and we lost the chance to have special and heavy weapons in the batleline (excluding heavy bolter in heavy intercessors) and access to weapons like Plasma cannons, grav cannons and lascannon in infantry units...

 

GW made a mess with the primaris and firtborn lines and now we will face some edtions of units appearing and disappearing until we can only hope they will make a codex that doesnt look it's written by a schizoid person.

I have my ideas to make all decent

1- characters should get all armour options if they stick with this thing that you can only attacha witha  unit of the same armour type (so we need tacticus, gravis, phobos - attach to scouts too-, terminator, bike, jump). it is a HUGE thing to do cause we have a lot of character types: captain, lieutenant, librarian, ancient, apothecary, chaplain, techmarine, company champion

2- intercessors can stay with grenade launchers only but we need a better hellblaster unit that includes all the special weapons (plasma, melta, flamers, ecc) similar to special weapons units of HH.hellblasters will be the only name that will merge infernus unit into them. desolator squads must go and better missile launchers should be on eradicators.
3- Heavy intercessors are not so useful, better put all the heavy weapons on eradicators and make them devastator like unit (so the melta version only with multi meltas and melòta rifles go on hellblasters). Agressors and inceptors and supressors are pretty useless and they can go.

4- Invader must go and make a sidecar/trike version of the outrider bike instead with more weapon options too (heavy bolter, multimelta, and so on)

5- LS should start from the basic only one weapon loadout and then he can buy additional weapons (tornado and thpyoon style) and make the LS storm back
6- remake of rhino and LR and most of the rhino based tanks (AA versions are not so good so they can delete them or make a single one istead of two). razorback should have access to more weapon types on its turret. bye to impulsor, gladiator and repulsor

7- some new flyers that don't look like they are from a saturday morning cartoon

8- phobos units normalized around only two units. elimninators with only sniper rifles and 3-6 unit and infiltrator and incursors merged into a single unit with a double profile bolt gun and the paired combat blades from the incursors. reivers are useless and they can go.

9- fire turret can go

10- veteran units (including termies) are good as they are and they can stay all of them

11- all sergeants from all units must have weapon options if the thing is useful for them. hellblasters sergeants with a power weapon can be good. eradicator or eliminator sergeant with power weapon not so much.

12- basically tacticus is the main armour and should cover most of the roles (line infantry, assault infantry, bikers, veichle crew, and so on) gravis should be the heavy weapon platform only, phobos the one for explorers/snipers. omnis can go to hell.

13- all the new weapons with stupid names must go. we need a plasma rifle not a plasma incinerator, a plasma cannon not a macro plòasma incinerator, a assault cannon not a onslaught gatling cannon. this is grimdark not a saturday morning  cartoon.

 

but i am not a game designer so this is only my opinion

 

Edited Tuesday at 08:38 AM by Master Sheol

[Bouargh]

11 hours ago, Crimson Longinus said:

 

It has been clear from the moment the image of the first primaris leaked that the old style marines would be done for. It actually took longer than I expected.

 

 

Indeed, but even like that, I can't help feeling like a fistful of nails is driven into my firstborns' coffins every time a SM codex is released... Yet all of that was fully predictible.

 

So what now? As a next step, should I go rogue and pretend these old models of mine follow Astral claws and CSM rules? Or should I complete the transition of these miniatures toward HH?... An opened question I will probably not solve as I still can keep on playing with former Ed rule sets... But HH is a more likely option.

[Mazer Rackham]

14 minutes ago, Griefbringer said:

And you are not limited to using the Legendary Proxies at stores, clubs and campaigns - you can also use them at home!

 

Good old, GW. So thoughtful, so generous. 

 

Here's a little shanty I was moved to write:

 

Herp, derp, herpy-durr;

My 3D Printer go brr, brr, brr;

You can call me a pirate;

But I'll call you a cur;

My 3D printer go brr, brrr, brrrrr..!

 

Yarr! 

Edited Tuesday at 08:33 AM by Mazer Rackham
Yarr!

[Karhedron]

5 hours ago, BadgersinHills said:

I hope Space Marine armies become more elite with fewer minis on the table. The rules changes look interesting, though am wary about power creep this early in the edition unless they reflect it in the points. 

 

Orks seem to have picked up a points hike so I am sure Marines will too. My guess is 5 Intercessors will clock in at around 100 points now but we will have to wait and see.

[Rhavien]

13 minutes ago, Rowland said:

So from a newcomers perspective what is the baseline?  Surely it’s the Imperial troops (HDF). I assume not all forces will get up graded (although didn’t Ork boys get something?)

 so does this mean GW will sell fewer SM to a buyer looking for a2000 point army?  I guess with price hikes and maybe supply issues in future this is a fair reason.

I don't see GW counting in 2K armies. Either you want to expand your collection further to add some variety to your list building, or you want to try something new and start another faction if you are hooked to the hobby. My guess is that there are very few cases where ppl build one 2K army and stay at that point or leave the hobby afterwards. That's what the new shinies or rules shakeups are for. To keep you buying more.

 

--- another topic---

 

 

Regarding the vanguard vets:

I'm curious how the van vets from the Armageddon box will stay viable against the clearly superior shield build? Will it be a point upgrade? At least now I know that my already converted van vets can stay as they are.

[Karhedron]

1 minute ago, Rhavien said:

Regarding the vanguard vets:

I'm curious how the van vets from the Armageddon box will stay viable against the clearly superior shield build? Will it be a point upgrade? At least now I know that my already converted van vets can stay as they are.

 

My guess is shields will cost extra. One thing I noticed though is that they specified Combat Shields (rather than Storm Shields) so I am guessing only a 5++. Will you be able to run Combat Shield + Pistol + CCW though?

[Bouargh]

5 hours ago, BadgersinHills said:

I hope Space Marine armies become more elite with fewer minis on the table. The rules changes look interesting, though am wary about power creep this early in the edition unless they reflect it in the points. 

 

Indeed, yet it still means that all the Meta (I hate that word...) will be shaked deeply (probably). Updgrading T en S on Marines means that more or less 50% of the armies played are directly affected. A buffer will be that when marines play against other marines, the effect of these changes will probably be limited. But against more fragile stuff such as space elves, hummies or skitarii... I guess we have a shiny new series of balance dataslates to be expected soon. This 11th Ed is looking as looking like lesser and esser to an intermediate refresh. 

 

On the otherside, the conspiration addict in me thinks that it may also explain why Hastarii were released and why the laserlance on the Dragon knights can now be seen as a weapon of choice... 

 

59 minutes ago, Rowland said:

So from a newcomers perspective what is the baseline?  Surely it’s the Imperial troops (HDF). I assume not all forces will get up graded (although didn’t Ork boys get something?)

 so does this mean GW will sell fewer SM to a buyer looking for a2000 point army?  I guess with price hikes and maybe supply issues in future this is a fair reason.

 

I will be provocative here: there is none. Or rather, it looks like it is as such as the rules updates are falling as rain on Mawsynram (supposed to be the wettest place on earth) - which would be useless in a math driven design using a baseline and a statistical eval of the profiles.

Should we get a baseline, IMHO, it should be the grot. It will define the worse case or almost (gaunts may be in competition with grots maybe) and set the floor point value reference.

 

In the very first Ed it was the SM and the Ork with a little hue making the former stronger on some stats and the latter on some others, but with a very thin distinction. 

[JeffJedi]

8 minutes ago, Rhavien said:

 

Regarding the vanguard vets:

I'm curious how the van vets from the Armageddon box will stay viable against the clearly superior shield build? Will it be a point upgrade? At least now I know that my already converted van vets can stay as they are.

Clearly they are off to Legends next. ;)

[Karhedron]

2 hours ago, Burni said:

I’ve liked Primaris since their introduction but the Devastator squad is one of the greatest in all of 40k. I had a box of RTB01 and a single blister of the metal heavy weapons team, and have loved them ever since. 
 

Really sad to see it go without a true replacement.

 

Yeah, same here. And having to count them as Desolators rather than getting a proper Legends entry is doubly rough. I guess it is because Devastators still filled a couple of valuable niches. The quad Lascannon build in particularly remained viable (even competitive) right up to the end. Now Marines don't have a long-ranged anti-tank option for infantry units. You either have to run Eradicators and get them in close or invest in tanks of your own to kill enemy tanks at a distance.

[Tastyfish]

Also just now wondering, with the tactical squad now gone from the battlefields of the 42nd Millennium, the Age of Darkness is now exploring the post-Codex era of the Age of Strife. I wonder if we are going to see them resurface there?

[Mogger351]

21 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

Orks seem to have picked up a points hike so I am sure Marines will too. My guess is 5 Intercessors will clock in at around 100 points now but we will have to wait and see.

I'm not so sure it's that simple.

 

Against knights for example they're twice as likely to wound with a d2 shot and now able to cap an objective whilst doing so. The defensive change matters less, but thats one angle that's hard to price.

 

Simultaneously into say tau, they're again able to 2-3 shot crisis suits and would them on 4s, so a big jump in output, they then start taking less damage from plasma, pulse, flamer and fusion weapons in return. So against tau they might well warrant more than that increase.

 

There keeps being a lot of talk about the legends models and how useful the units are, but not much discussion what it means for the everyone else.

[Orange Knight]

19 minutes ago, JeffJedi said:

Clearly they are off to Legends next. ;)

 

Depends how good the shields are, and depends how much they cost.

It might be better to run large, cheap squads. Remains to be seen

 

Edit:

As for other armies becoming stronger. This might not be the case. If Marines are going up in cost, GW might simply want them to be more distinctive from the baseline human, tau and eldar armies.
I imagine Votann and Sisters will be T4, due to their power armour.

Edited Tuesday at 09:14 AM by Orange Knight

[jimbo1701]

4 minutes ago, Tastyfish said:

Also just now wondering, with the tactical squad now gone from the battlefields of the 42nd Millennium, the Age of Darkness is now exploring the post-Codex era of the Age of Strife. I wonder if we are going to see them resurface there?

Valrak spoke of a scouring tie in model range - I don’t recall if this was speculation or based on his rumour sources though. Perfect way to reintroduce the classic marine army structure with updated Aquila armour. 

[Orange Knight]

Legendary proxies is a fate worse than Legends.

It's just the deletion of that unit within the rules of the game.

[Magos Takatus]

Apart from the okay looking models the only thing I really consider positive here is that if GW decided to scale creep space marines into light vehicles then at least it leaves some space to distinguish heavier than baseline troops like Skitarii with T4 to represent that 1/3 of their body is made of metal. However, until every army gets their codex updated marines are going to be insufferable. Layer in the buffs they inevitably get and I bet Knights players will have to think twice about leaving models too close to Intercessors. If the basic bolt rifle can get up to Str6 D2 then heavy bolt rifles are probably going to end up cutting down War Walkers and Killa Kans without issue, and every 10-man  squad of marines is going to be a boss encounter.

 

Even if the new rules come with an increase in points I am feeling a bit tired of every other army just feeling like target practice for marines players. I just hope Aeldari get their 3-shot Starcannons back now.

 

It feels like a couple of editions ago marines went to 2 wounds as standard and now they get +1T and their guns get +1Str +1Damage. Give it another couple of editions and they will be T8, 4 wounds and get the titanic keyword. 

 

As for the Legends stuff, my condolences. Getting your toys taken away always sucks. Some of my Legends models don't even have Legends rules anymore in 11th. I have to look to New Recruit to use a 490 point Skathatch Wraithknight because everything other than Titans have been stripped out of Eldar Legends in the app. Having Suppressors counting as Inceptors is a pretty poor fit and it feels insane that the Hammerfall Bunker is being removed already. I think they need to periodically update Legends datasheets even if they don't re-balance them as regularly as mainline units. Many players consider it a graveyard for abandoned datasheets because a lot of the time GW treats it exactly like that. If Legends datasheets aren't updated to include new keywords for a new edition then old Legends datasheets are useless and you might as well just create your own house rules for units from scratch and circumvent Legends entirely.

 

Apologies for this very negative sounding post but considering the state of support for old models and every new edition giving space marines another BS reason to power creep their way out of everyone else's grasp I am tired. People often complain that 40k forces don't look like armies anymore but I can hardly blame people when small arms are getting pointed at T5, 2W and 3+ save models with And They Shall Know No Armour Modifiers layered on top. No wonder people load up on tanks and mechs and stuff, most armies' infantry-based heavy weapons don't feel that heavy anymore.

[Mogger351]

27 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

 

Depends how good the shields are, and depends how much they cost.

It might be better to run large, cheap squads. Remains to be seen

 

Edit:

As for other armies becoming stronger. This might not be the case. If Marines are going up in cost, GW might simply want them to be more distinctive from the baseline human, tau and eldar armies.
I imagine Votann and Sisters will be T4, due to their power armour.

 

You need to do something to the none-meq though because unless the game is set to make them all hordes with pea shooters, this is a problem. A pulse weapon back 8 editions ago was special because it was longer range and stronger than a bolter. Wounding marines on a 3+ from afar but being made of paper in melee was the entire design ethos for tau infantry.

 

Where is that now?

[Magos Takatus]

3 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

 

You need to do something to the none-meq though because unless the game is set to make them all hordes with pea shooters, this is a problem. A pulse weapon back 8 editions ago was special because it was longer range and stronger than a bolter. Wounding marines on a 3+ from afar but being made of paper in melee was the entire design ethos for tau infantry.

 

Where is that now?

Same with Skitarii Rangers. Comparative firepower to a bolter but longer effective range, which made sense considering the long-barrelled design of the weapon. Now standard issue bolters make them look ridiculous.

[Karhedron]

15 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

intercessors actual rules look interesting too..

+1 to hit with ranged attacks when on an objective or attacking an enemy on an objective

being able to perform actions and shoot 

being able to perform actions even if battleshocked or engaged

 

Yes, definitely interesting but it will be a shame to see sticky Objectives go. This slightly reduces the value of Intercessors in a "Take and Hold" Dispositions but increases them in a couple of others. I can definitely see a couple of 5-man squads roving the battlefield.

[Indy Techwisp]

48 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

Legendary proxies is a fate worse than Legends.

It's just the deletion of that unit within the rules of the game.

 

While I agree that not actually having a proper Legends datasheet is bad, by making them "Legendary Proxies" instead the models are still usable at official GW tourneys.

 

I expect "make these somehow still usable in official games" was the main driving force behind this decision.

[Orange Knight]

9 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

While I agree that not actually having a proper Legends datasheet is bad, by making them "Legendary Proxies" instead the models are still usable at official GW tourneys.

 

I expect "make these somehow still usable in official games" was the main driving force behind this decision.

 

Yes, but people always had the freedom to use a sensible "counts-as" and many people did this.

But with Legend rules, you still had that distinctive unit as well, even if only in a casual setting.

Take Uriel Ventris and Pedro Kantor - you could always use them as a Marine Captain, but now those distinctive characters are just gone.

[Lord Marshal]

13 hours ago, Marshal Reinhard said:

It took 9 years. Every argument was made. Every counter was made. Hard to accurately gauge the most prevailing opinions without hard data.

 

I think it's one of those situations where the online discourse surrounding it gave an extremely disproportionate voice to the anti-Primaris side versus how many people either liked them or didn't give enough of a damn to care. Hell, how many people loudly insisting GW will never get any money from them again if they squat Firstborn are now sat on 3000pts+ of Primaris? Everybody saw the writing on the wall and the desire to play with a 'legal' (non-Legends) Marine army has outweighed the number of people sticking to their guns by a huge margin.

 

In my anecdotal experience, once 9th edition hit and people had three years to understand where this was heading, I almost never saw Firstborn models unless it was a vehicle somebody had from prior to 8th edition or it was a tournament game where a Firstborn unit being good outweighed the foreknowledge it was going to be binned off sooner rather than later (and even that was rare).

 

There's no hard data, but GW like their money more than anything else, and if Primaris were a failure of sales or marketing (especially in an era of 'memberberries) we'd have seen the new Intercessors instead be a true Tactical Squad rather than 8th edition Intercessors just with a couple of helmets, pauldrons and a backbanner tossed in. 

 

I don't have any skin in the 40k Marine game though, so this is just an observation of mine rather than falling down on one side or the other (I do dislike their lore though).

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:47 AM by Lord Marshal

[Tastyfish]

51 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

Same with Skitarii Rangers. Comparative firepower to a bolter but longer effective range, which made sense considering the long-barrelled design of the weapon. Now standard issue bolters make them look ridiculous.

Both the Tau and AdMech example are still looking at this from the point of view of the marines being the standard benchmark.

A Skitarii would seem equally ridiculous holding a Astartes scale bolt rifle - but if marines now cost twice as much as rangers, the galvanic rifle only needs to be half as good for their shooting power to be roughly comparable.

 

That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see an increase in lethality anyway - if only to make the recon guard/endless swarm builds less viable

[Lord Marshal]

12 hours ago, roryokane said:

Can… can we go back? Whatever GW was doing during the Black Books/IA era is what it should be.

 

The Black Books mostly released during 7th edition, so that's a Monkey's Paw if ever I saw one. 

 

It was also the height of the 'okay we're running out of niches for Marines. What about a Space Marine INSIDE a Space Marine?' releases, prior to the Primaris reset.

 

(Selfishly I'd like to have seen Forge World take a swing at Votann though).

 

Edited Tuesday at 11:03 AM by Lord Marshal