Perspectives for a Prompt Improvement of Space Marines

[MARK0SIAN]

GW probably didn't expect that people would go min-sized units all the time. Silly GW.

This sums it up for me quite well! So many of the problems we are seeing were really easily, really obviously predictable from the rules and game mechanics and GW didn’t see it. It’s like the people designing it had never played before or had never met players before.

 

No incentive to take full squads when you can fill a detachment more easily with min sized ones, no additional benefits for a full squad to compensate and full sized squads are then more vulnerable to morale losses. All that was obvious from the start just by reading the rules, it really doesn’t fill you with confidence that the rules writers can balance the game. To me, promoting the use of full sized squads should be one of their priorities :)

[Skaorn]

I think a ban on soup in competitive play will look a lot like the 3 detachment hard limit: a helpful suggestion organizers could take. Considering DE both promote soup and multiple detachments, I find a ban highly unlikely.

[Dark_Jober]

Well... an easy way to restrict and not banning the soups is adding a % rule.

 

In other games I play, like Kings of War, you can use allies but you can't spend more than 25% of the total points in allies.

So 2k games, you're putting a limit on 500p of allies. There also other restrictions (spam, magic artefacts, special heros, etc.)

 

I don't know how is the competitive enviroment so I don't know the lists or the maths behind them, but I think putting a % is much better than banning.

[Panzer]

I think a ban on soup in competitive play will look a lot like the 3 detachment hard limit: a helpful suggestion organizers could take. Considering DE both promote soup and multiple detachments, I find a ban highly unlikely.

The soup thing is supposedly on the Imperium/Chaos/Aeldari level, so Drukhari soups would be fine.

I really hope that if it's true it really just comes as a suggeation for tournaments instead of a hard rule.

[Skaorn]

DE are part of the Eldar soup though

[Panzer]

Well d'uh. But it wouldn't stop you from mixing different cabals or whatever they're called in your army. You just can't mix DE with CE etc. That's what is meant.

[Ishagu]

Mixing soup punishes a few select units, such as Inquisitors and Assassins. Most multi codex lists are based on multiple detachments drawn from individual books.

[Subtleknife]

I dont think there will be a propper fix until a new codex is released.

 

I would like to see the following (along with points drops as others have suggested);

-Primaris reduce damaged recieved by 1 to a min of 1. This would up their survivability vs plasma etc and could be explained due to their extra organs.

-A way to deliver marines via drop pod in a points efficient manner. At the moments pods are prohibitively expensive which is weird for an army that is supposed to excel at striking suddenly.

[BluejayJunior]

I dont think there will be a propper fix until a new codex is released.

 

I would like to see the following (along with points drops as others have suggested);

-Primaris reduce damaged recieved by 1 to a min of 1. This would up their survivability vs plasma etc and could be explained due to their extra organs.

-A way to deliver marines via drop pod in a points efficient manner. At the moments pods are prohibitively expensive which is weird for an army that is supposed to excel at striking suddenly.

I think a good solution for Drop Pods would simple be to make the Drop Pod land 9" away, but the units inside can then immediately disembark within 3" of the DP, ignoring the 9" rule. It would be a simple change that may make them more usable. 

[Panzer]

A reliable first turn charge for Marine armies might even be justified by the high Drop Pod point costs.

[MARK0SIAN]

A reliable charge would be good but there’s not much you could put in them that would be worth charging with. Maybe a vanguard veteran squad with no jump packs but if you give them decent equipment they’re expensive already and you’re losing a lot of utility by removing their jump packs.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Honor Guard. Company Veterans kitted for melee.

[Brother Captain Ed]

Characters!

 

But even just dropping into melta range would add utility.

 

Edit: it would also reduce the effectiveness of bubble wrap. Yeah my tactical squad could drop into rapid fire range before...but now maybe they can get into cover, too. Or give more control over bubble placement. Or be used to bully things that don't even want to melee with marines.

 

Changing 9 to 6 has many far reaching effects beyond likely charges.

[MARK0SIAN]

Honor Guard. Company Veterans kitted for melee.

Same problems as the vanguard though, already quite expensive without the drop pod and they don’t really hit that hard in melee.

 

I just don’t think a better charge range is enough to justify the cost of the pod for the units you could put in it.

 

Now if they added some cool rule like a drop pod shockwave that forced a -1 to hit on shots targeting the disembarking unit for the next turn, that would be cool and represent the floor shaking and dust cloud kicked up.

[Aegir_Einarsson]

I agree it is sad that most epic item like drop pod is useless now. You think Space Marine you see bolter, chainsword And drop pod.

On the topic though. I would like to see Land ruder improvement, the same as baneblade have. Fall back And shoot, or shoot in combat.

[Skaorn]

Well d'uh. But it wouldn't stop you from mixing different cabals or whatever they're called in your army. You just can't mix DE with CE etc. That's what is meant.

Well d'uh. But it wouldn't stop you from mixing different cabals or whatever they're called in your army. You just can't mix DE with CE etc. That's what is meant.

Yes, but one of the things about Ynnari was specifically to mix DE and CW. Not to mention that the clowns are designed to be used as soup more than as a stand alone and they were at one time an actual DE unit. I think it's more likely to see a point cap for allies or an actual allied detachment before they stop CSM/Daemons, Inquisitors/anything, or Ynnari.

[Panzer]

Well the Clowns will be getting their own Codex shortly and Ynnari are in a kinda odd spot currently anyway. Like Primaris-only armies. GW introduced them and is now so busy writing Codexes for everyone and releasing Death Guard/Nurgle inbetween that they hadn't had the time to build up on them. I think we can expect that to change sooner than later once every army got their Codex tho.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

The biggest offense of C:SM is that the iconic units didnt get anything.  In fact they almost all hot garbage.  

 

Iconic Units that are Hot Garbage:

Drop Pods

Terminators(all flavours)

Assault Marines

Tactical Marines

 

Other Hot Garbage:

Centurions(both flavours)

Bikes(not scout bikers though!)

Hunter/the other AA tank LOL?

Land Speeders

 

 

I think a lot of these units can be good with some relatively minor stratagem/chapter tactic tweaks or additions. 

 

Examples

 

1. Give White Scars a new chapter tactic granting ALL UNITS with the keyword Bike and Fly the ability to shoot heavy weapons on the move and assault weapons after advancing without penalty.  That really buffs stormtalons/bikers/speeders.  Would it be competitive?  No idea but it would be fun and play to their fluff and let them play as White Scars and not a bastardized jump pack army that probably definitely sucks.   

 

2.  Tweak Wisdom of the Ancients so that you can give ONE Venerable Dread a the character keyword and a captain reroll aura for the entire game.  You play this before the game starts.  Now that is a cool stratagem that will buff up a single dread that would be similiar to a daemon prince in terms of its battlefield roll.  

 

3.  Add a stratagem for drop pods!  Call it "Steel Rain"  and let it allow pods to drop within 9" of an enemy.  Maybe make it 9" minus d6 and cost 2 CP.  Now you can have marines drop in and rapidfire/flame/melta/assault stuff like they always have but for a cost.  

 

4.  Add a stratagem for Terminators that lets you nominate 1 unit of terminators before the game starts and buff them with +1w.  Not sure how much this should cost but 2cp is probably ok? 

 

None of these changes require new books/models/extensive points adjustments just an FAQ and some play testing to make sure Space Marines dont have anything equivalent to Dark Reapers. 

[Wargamer]

One issue I have is that Space Marines of all flavours are meant to be a rapid strike force, but rulewise they really aren't. It seems like most, if not all of their vehicles should ignore the -1 to hit when moving and firing heavy weapons at the very least - that won't help the infantry, but it means there's no excuse not to have your tanks and speeders racing back and forth all game long.

[MARK0SIAN]

The biggest offense of C:SM is that the iconic units didnt get anything. In fact they almost all hot garbage.

 

Iconic Units that are Hot Garbage:

Drop Pods

Terminators(all flavours)

Assault Marines

Tactical Marines

 

Other Hot Garbage:

Centurions(both flavours)

Bikes(not scout bikers though!)

Hunter/the other AA tank LOL?

Land Speeders

 

 

I think a lot of these units can be good with some relatively minor stratagem/chapter tactic tweaks or additions.

 

Examples

 

1. Give White Scars a new chapter tactic granting ALL UNITS with the keyword Bike and Fly the ability to shoot heavy weapons on the move and assault weapons after advancing without penalty. That really buffs stormtalons/bikers/speeders. Would it be competitive? No idea but it would be fun and play to their fluff and let them play as White Scars and not a bastardized jump pack army that probably definitely sucks.

 

2. Tweak Wisdom of the Ancients so that you can give ONE Venerable Dread a the character keyword and a captain reroll aura for the entire game. You play this before the game starts. Now that is a cool stratagem that will buff up a single dread that would be similiar to a daemon prince in terms of its battlefield roll.

 

3. Add a stratagem for drop pods! Call it "Steel Rain" and let it allow pods to drop within 9" of an enemy. Maybe make it 9" minus d6 and cost 2 CP. Now you can have marines drop in and rapidfire/flame/melta/assault stuff like they always have but for a cost.

 

4. Add a stratagem for Terminators that lets you nominate 1 unit of terminators before the game starts and buff them with +1w. Not sure how much this should cost but 2cp is probably ok?

 

None of these changes require new books/models/extensive points adjustments just an FAQ and some play testing to make sure Space Marines dont have anything equivalent to Dark Reapers.

I like some of these ideas but the problem for me is they’re basically all stratagems. They don’t help the individual units, they just make them temporarily better (even a whole game is temporary and can only affect one unit of them) It doesn’t fix the problems of the units themselves being rubbish and it costs CP.

 

I apologise for repeating my earlier posts but if the units aren’t worth taking without stratagems then they’re not right.

 

To use a (fairly rubbish analogy) the iconic space marine units are like a car with a flat tyre, they need a permanent fix to be able to get from A to B. However you can also put the car on a tow truck to get it to its intended destination. In this analogy the tow truck is a stratagem. Sure it gets the car to your destination and theoretically you could spend the rest of your life hiring a tow truck every time you needed to move the car so the car can get from A to B consistently but that hasn’t fixed the flat tyre.

[Wargamer]

I'm not opposed to pushing Astartes to be stratagem focused, but there would have to be a change to the Stratagem system to reward you bringing 10-man tacs over 5-man squads. In fairness, this is a game-wide problem, but it would really grate on my nerves if I brought 3 10-man tacs and my army was gimped compared to the guy who brought 3 5-man tacs...

[MARK0SIAN]

I would hate to see them be stratagem focussed, especially given that you can probably only afford an average of 4 or 5 stratagems per game.

 

But more than that it’s a point of principle for me. Why should death guard, Eldar, tau, necrons etc all get an army that works perfectly well without stratagems but Space Marines don’t?

 

However I agree about squad sizes. I would much prefer to take full sized squads but at the minimum it’s self handicapping to do so and gives no advantage.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

A stratagem based approach is probably the most likely because it is the cheapest to implement and would be effective.

 

If you take away stratagems from chaos space marines then they are pretty lackluster and comparable to space marines.  

 

Are cultists good without VoTLW and Tide of Traitors?

How good are Obliterators without endless cacophony and VoTLW?

 

Adding stratagems or reworking chapter tactics is something that could easily be done through Chapter Approved.

[Tamiel]

• Tactical marines and assault marines need to be good. I'm sick and tired of seeing scouts making up the troop selections of every SM army.
• Drop pods need to stop being useless.
• There needs to be a bonus given to people who took 10 man squads. As it stands, 10 man squads are almost never worth taking except for the Scions of Guilliman stratagem, and the Sternguard stratagem.
• A lot of our vehicles (Hunter, Whirlwind, Landspeeder) are unacceptably bad. Something needs to be done about this.
• Why do stratagems like Orbital Strike exist? Why do I need three (four, if you want to be realistic) predators to make use of the killshot stratagem?
• Why is power armour so weak in general?

   

So many things wrong with this edition. Almost makes me want to go back to 7th.

[MARK0SIAN]

A stratagem based approach is probably the most likely because it is the cheapest to implement and would be effective.

 

If you take away stratagems from chaos space marines then they are pretty lackluster and comparable to space marines.

 

Are cultists good without VoTLW and Tide of Traitors?

How good are Obliterators without endless cacophony and VoTLW?

 

Adding stratagems or reworking chapter tactics is something that could easily be done through Chapter Approved.

Everything you say is true and I agree, that is probably how they will try and fix it. However, that doesn’t make it a good solution. Seeing units that aren’t any good (in any codex) is something we should be trying to eliminate across the game, not aspire to as a way of balancing.

 

Stratagems should be balanced between codexes but they should not be used as a lazy balancing tool for the units. No army should have units that can only be good once per game and are then rubbish for the rest of it.

 

I can’t speak for others obviously, but when I play Space Marines I tend to average between 7 and 9 command points per game, unless I’m playing a particularly large game. If the average cost of a stratagem is 2 CP, then I have enough for approximately 4, maybe 5 stratagems per match. That’s not even enough to make all my units good in a turn, let alone over the course of the game.

 

Plus the units that need the most help for Space Marines are the basic ones, tactical, assault marines etc. The kind where you want more than one squad on the table. If they’re only good with stratagems then I can only make one squad good per turn and I will have to keep spending this CP each turn to keep them good. We get a scenario where, over three turns, I’ve spent most of my CP making a single tactical squad effective. Whereas other codexes have effective troops and have been able to use their CP for cool, bonus abilities, just as they were originally intended.