utilityzero

It's fun at least to identify what their renders are supposed to be. I do like some of those models as well.

Ultramar actually is a sort of utopia. Remember that utopia doesn't mean a world that is wonderful and gives everything to everyone. It means a world that functions perfectly as intended. You could have a utopian autocracy or something similar. Just as dystopian isn't about quality of life, it's a world or system that doesn't function at all and provides none of what it promises.

I think limiting players to a single primary faction for warlords and traits and strategems would help a lot to cut back on soup abuse. And maybe also a set number of CP instead of by detachment. Or go to a flat bonus across all detachments. Those aren't huge changes really but they'd make a big difference. I know a lot of people don't want to limit players choices but you can't have balance without some sort of limitations. If you want a game without them play narrative. Otherwise it can't be anything goes.

Yes. But it's horrible. They either take up one slot in a detachment but count as 2 drops or they can split after the game starts for 1 cp. Total waste. What about a tac rule where ten man squads take up two troop slots? It just sucks that 120 points of guard fills a battalion but it takes 195 points of marines and has half the bodies. In 7th that was fine but in 8th with CP it's like we are being penalized on top of paying more points.

I think CP and strategems are just one of the biggest short comings of 8th. Because of how they took the place of special rules and how they are unevenly implemented. But they aren't going anywhere so I feel that they need to at least attempt to balance them. And then deal with soups and CP batteries. I'd say only your primary faction even gets their faction traits and it's based on your warlords faction. I'd even be ok with some of the bigger factions like IMPERIUM getting a special trait or maybe even obsec just to make certain lists playable. I don't much care if it screws one or two builds or one codex more than others for a short while. That can be addressed on a case by case basis and is a problem for that army or codex. The CP disparity and soup exploitation are problems with the game to me and should be fixed first. I don't think a single paragraph rules change is ever going to fix that and please everyone.

I'm not sure that decoupling Captain Picard from list building helps marines that much, but it would balance the game out somewhat. That just means that soup lists are free to spend those points on something else if they want to. I suppose it could help pure elite armies somewhat. It would be intetesting to see how many guardsmen made it into soup lists after that. I think you should have to choose a primary faction. Your warlord and trinket have to come from them. Then you can have one detachment that doesn't come from that faction. It can have a mix of factions but obviosly if you do that they lose out on traits and stuff.

I prefer to limit CP generation and numbers of detachments. The more variables and fewer controls and limitations the more impossible any sort of balance becomes. Also list building should be a challenge to get the most out of your codex. Not about exploiting weird rules gaps and combinations and generating rule breaking CP.

I don't want tactical marines to be super elite in game. I just want them to stop being a useless tax. Guard, Orks and Eldar the like are so cheap they are barely felt. Taking the minimum isn't nearly as big of a drag on your army as wasting the points on tacticals. An entire Guard battalion costs less than three minimum, naked tactical squads and is probably better at most of the things you want troops to do. And some troops choices like Necron Warriors are actually useful for their points. I think there is a total lack of special rules across the codex that makes the whole codex underwhelming and uninteresting to play. I could live with tactical marines having less in the way of rules if they interacted in an interesting way with other units or could somehow have their damage potential boosted by characters or anything really but there is nothing but re-roll 1's. That's just lame when compared with what every other army has going on for it. I do agree better shooting would be the biggest necessity for upgrading them. Assault 2 bolters doesn't really give them that much of a jump in shooting either. Maybe assault 3? Rapid Fire 2? Something so that 130 points of marines can actually deal enough damage in a game to kill the same points value of guardsmen because currently those 10 marines have very little chance of killing 3 Guardsmen each.

Whatever the fix to tacticals and marines in general is or should be, it can't be tied to CP. That's the whole problem. Everything 'special' about marines except their armor save is tied to CP at the moment or chapter tactics and we are so limited. I think the problem with marines isn't just tacticals but they are the worst offenders. The entire codex is basically like 75% just marines with different load outs. Rather than just giving them different weapons sets they should have thought to actually give each unique unit some sort of special rule that show how they specialize in their field, like at least on par with what Long Fangs got, then I would give tacticals a watered down version of each of those rules and let them switch from turn to turn. Special rules for a lot of armies are woefully under priced. The orders rule a IG officer gets would probably cost 30 points alone if it were added to SM captain. Could you image marines with reanimation protocols? Now imagine what they would cost? Even though their basic stat line only had two or three differences from the necron one. The points on most single wound infantry models are now so low there isn't room for much variation between different units and the way they chose to make most basic weapons free, but include them in the cost of the unit was an odd choice and just adds to the problem. A bolter is better than a lasgun and a gauss flayer or whatever a necron warrior has is better still, but they're all the same cost ostensibly. And again, any fix that requires a 10 man tactical squad is terrible since you need to be able to take a lot of little 5 man units to fill out a pair of battalion.

The problem with tacticals is that they are the troop choice in the game that weighs most heavily around the necks of their players. Too many points for so little return. We have to take them to gey CP which we rely on so much because our codexes lack special rules or abilities beyond a 3 plus save. A chainsword or combat knife doesn't fix this. It would be nice but it's not enough. Upgraded stats don't help because all marines would have to get them and points cost would go up and you're still left with a body that will rarely make it's points back just because it lacks the damage potential it needs. So you'd rather have anything in your codex but a tactical marine really but you need them for CP. I think only 'fix' that might help and be something GW would actually consider is a points reduction. GW isn't going to do anything else to make them lethal enough to be anything but an anchor and anything that requires larger squads or putting more points into a squad just makes them more so in my opinion. That or give them a way to do mortal wounds. But then they would outshine to many other marine options by a long shot and GW isn't going to give us that.

Do explain why every army should have even and equal access to Mortal Wounds, and why it's a bad thing. Each army has different access to different things. Because on top of being a stupid game mechanic to begin with, giving some armies basically one way of getting it without spending CPs while others can spam units that deliver them fairly easily is a major imbalance. Just like making leadership tests a thing for some armies but not for others was probably a bad idea. At some point it's not just playing different armies, it's like you're playing different games.

Those units already don't exist because of the way Characters work now and Invisible is gone. Also even if I accept that Mortal Wounds aren't a horrible mistake, the extremely uneven way they are made available to different armies makes them a joke.

I think the mistake is thinking CP are worth most of those stratagems. I don't use points on things like red rampage or visions of sanguinius. Instead of spending points to take brigade tax to get those stratagems just take Mephiston or Sanguinor or something.

There are only two armies that have to use masses of psykers, TS and GK. So any change in the rules either has to take their situation into account or make some sort of exception. The other armies that are spamming psykers are only doing it because it's currently a bit broken. Smite spam is just too effective for what it costs points wise. But to be honest I don't have as much of a problem with psyker spam as I do with mortal wounds which I believe to be the biggest problem with 8th edition. I think removing mortal wounds would fix the psyker problem as well as removing one of the most painfully stupid imbalances from the rules altogether.

Clearly it means the keywords not the unit titles. If it didn't they would never have had to bother with mentioning the no primaris part.