Make Power Armour and Bolters Great Again

[Zodd1888]

What do you all think of giving PA troops the All is Dust rules (+1 save if damage of weapon is 1) and Bolter equivalent weapons (likely among others) a -1 AP to compensate?

 

I realize this would have some significant effects across the game but it hurts the things it should (hordes) and make PA more interesting.

 

Opinions?

[USNCenturion]

I think doing something like that would require too much shifting to equalize and balance , and would ultimately not be worth the time and treasure to do. Plus they have updated marines by giving them the primaris stat line; they’re most likely going to be the standard marines down the road so this addresses some of the issue you speak of.

 

Consider they give power armor the “all is dust” rule. What do the thousand sons get then to make them stand out? There are already -1 ap weapons, one of which is again a primaris armament, that would need to be pushed and stretched to balance the new standard bolter. What happens to the heavier weapons, does their ap go up? Now the little guardsmen and Eldar and hormagaunts need to have their points rebalanced since more basic weapons can harm them more easily...

 

See the slope this little tweak starts to go down?

[Azekai]

In 8th, where everything can hurt everything and wounds matter more than saves, having lots of cheap bodies is very efficient.

The problem isn't that marines suck. The problem is that anything a space marine can do, 2 guardsmen can do better.
 
Direct buffs to space marines don't address the new paradigm of 8th. Nerfs to the hyper-efficient units that undermine the supremacy of 3+ power armored troops is the key. Either make guard-equivalent troops a tad more expensive (given the efficacy of orders, it is admittedly tricky to put a price tag on the humble guardsman), or, alternatively, make them slightly easier to kill, perhaps with crappier saves.

It is a sad truth that in 8th bringing gaggles of cultists is often more effective than taking squads of chaos space marines.

[chapter master 454]

In 8th, where everything can hurt everything and wounds matter more than saves, having lots of cheap bodies is very efficient.

 

The problem isn't that marines suck. The problem is that anything a space marine can do, 2 guardsmen can do better.

 

Direct buffs to space marines don't address the new paradigm of 8th. Nerfs to the hyper-efficient units that undermine the supremacy of 3+ power armored troops is the key. Either make guard-equivalent troops a tad more expensive (given the efficacy of orders, it is admittedly tricky to put a price tag on the humble guardsman), or, alternatively, make them slightly easier to kill, perhaps with crappier saves.

 

It is a sad truth that in 8th bringing gaggles of cultists is often more effective than taking squads of chaos space marines.

 

Yet I have found Knights are doing very well despite this.

 

The issue lies in just how poor the marine stat line is in relation to the game itself. To be honest, 8th edition is a game full of massive fundamental overhauls from prior editions. While marines weren't always the best (they saw some light with grav-turions) they did have one thing going for them: Their save. The 3+ save back in the days of yore was very powerful are often the highest AP any weapon got was 4 then you skipped straight to 2. With rules as they were back then, this meant marines got their save against a majority of weapons that now affect them be it autocannons, heavy boltguns and the like.

 

The shift in how AP works has actually had a weird affect on infantry which...to be honest can't be seen unless you have had actual air time of it. In reality the AP change has buffed guardsman while nerfing marines which was...well...un-needed.

Prior, Guardsman would see a heavy boltgun and just give up. Now they get a 6+ save (to them, that is christmas from santa emperor himself) where as marines used to look at heavy boltguns and gufaw with their 3+ armour save but now we have to take the lower class bus, using only a 4+ save.

 

Couple this with other problems marines have which can be seen in a thread that talks about this down in the adeptus astartes section, you can see we the community have had a lengthy, hot and well debated discussion regarding what is wrong, what is right (ha...nothing is right) and what could be done to fix it (wishes...fishes...something about the warp?). Trust me. I mean, you tried debating with Ishagu? It ain't easy! He was even right a couple of times!

[sairence]

There was also a lengthy discussion here back in June about marines as a baseline, which went into the topic of power armour.

 

As a side-note, a comment like

"units that undermine the supremacy of 3+ power armored troops"

comes across incredibly entitled to me as a non-power armour player. I agree that marines don't seem to do very well and need changes, but geez...

[Halandaar]

What do you all think of giving PA troops the All is Dust rules (+1 save if damage of weapon is 1) and Bolter equivalent weapons (likely among others) a -1 AP to compensate?

 

I realize this would have some significant effects across the game but it hurts the things it should (hordes) and make PA more interesting.

 

What this effectively achieves is that Power Armour now has a 2+ save against the vast majority of weapons in the game (which are D1). 

 

I'm sure you can see the problem with giving the most common unit type in the game the highest possible armour save.

[Dr. Clock]

You guys know that Primaris exist, right? I hate to break it to you, but Primaris are GW's answer to 'make marines great again'. I know that Primaris get hated on, but I rather like them - the 2W, longer range and -1AP makes them feel much more 'next generation super soldier' than Marines have in a long time. 

 

For me, oldmarines are still perfectly fine, as long as you don't drink the 'marines should walk all over other armies' Kool Aid. Please remember that most of the marine fluff is essentially Imperial propaganda and legend. Marines can get the job done, but there's a limit to how effective GW can afford to make them, and that limit is in their business model, not in the game. 

 

If you really want 'marines +1', then consider doing some counts-as? I've found Deathwatch to be oodles of fun; you could proxy oldmarines as Primaris... Or if you like the 1kSons rules so much, just use them??

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Panzer]

 

For me, oldmarines are still perfectly fine, as long as you don't drink the 'marines should walk all over other armies' Kool Aid. Please remember that most of the marine fluff is essentially Imperial propaganda and legend. Marines can get the job done, but there's a limit to how effective GW can afford to make them, and that limit is in their business model, not in the game. 

 

 

Not to mention that the armies facing off on the board are NOT equal in size. They are equal in strength. That's what points are supposed to represent. Would Marines have an army equal in actual size to an Astra Militarum army they would indeed wreck face. ^^

[Lexington]

For me, oldmarines are still perfectly fine, as long as you don't drink the 'marines should walk all over other armies' Kool Aid. Please remember that most of the marine fluff is essentially Imperial propaganda and legend.

I don't think the fiction is usually intended to be propaganda or legend. People just tend to ignore or misremember context when it comes to background material. What you'll often have in the fiction is Marines deploying and attacking in a way that's highly favorable to them - flying in from Drop Pods and Jump Packs, or otherwise getting the drop on isolated group of regular troops - and turning them into jelly. You rarely, if ever, see fiction that reflects a typical Marines-on-Guard 40K game, where Marines have to make their way through a storm of coordinated small arms fire, artillery and air support in order to put their power armored hands on a single Guardsman.

 

40K doesn't tend to simulate "real" 40K battles very well. It's meant to create an even parity between two forces. Really, 40K represents the worst way for Marines to deploy, which is head-on versus an organized army that's ready for them.

[Jukkiz]

I sense this thread might go same direction as "Are marines wrong baseline for 40K" one.

[Mileposter]

 

For me, oldmarines are still perfectly fine, as long as you don't drink the 'marines should walk all over other armies' Kool Aid. Please remember that most of the marine fluff is essentially Imperial propaganda and legend.

I don't think the fiction is usually intended to be propaganda or legend. People just tend to ignore or misremember context when it comes to background material. What you'll often have in the fiction is Marines deploying and attacking in a way that's highly favorable to them - flying in from Drop Pods and Jump Packs, or otherwise getting the drop on isolated group of regular troops - and turning them into jelly. You rarely, if ever, see fiction that reflects a typical Marines-on-Guard 40K game, where Marines have to make their way through a storm of coordinated small arms fire, artillery and air support in order to put their power armored hands on a single Guardsman.

 

40K doesn't tend to simulate "real" 40K battles very well. It's meant to create an even parity between two forces. Really, 40K represents the worst way for Marines to deploy, which is head-on versus an organized army that's ready for them.

 

This, here, is largely the reason I have switched to playing primarily with Power Level and Narrative games, where each battle is defined by the mission rather than the points brought to it. So many have been conditioned to focus only on the points, the tournament, the win.

 

But fair does not immediately equal fun. We love those stories of the small force overcoming the larger army, or of the heroic last stand of the few against the many, or of the perfectly deployed counter-attack that won the day. I find that "Space Marines Greatness" is shown far more in the narrative than in the numbers - which is appropriate, and is available to anyone who wants to play that style.

 

Put another way: If the guiding light of the hobby is "Rule of Cool", why can't that guiding light apply to the game as well?

[Panzer]

You can play Narrative play perfectly fine with points. Power level is just another, objectively worse, system to make both armies have roughly the same strength.

[Redtoof]

I’m still of the opinion that a lot of problems can be solved with a gentle points shift here and there. Regular marine equivalents go down a point or two, guardsmen and a few others go up by a point. For me, a marine in the current rules should probably cost slightly less than 2 guardsmen or Ork boyz, and slightly more than 2 Termagants or cultists. I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but marines feel about right to me in the game - they are significantly tougher than horde units against anti infantry fire, but nearly as vulnerable to high powered weapons.

[Guest MistaGav]

I think the two areas that need addressing are survive ability as 1 wound weapons and damage output of the lowly Boltgun. Maybe tone those two rules down a bit while still offering something good for SM. Power Armour reduces the AP value of any weapons targeting the unit by 1, Terminator armour reduces the AP value by 2. With Bolters/Bolt Pistol/Storm Bolter on any hit roll of 6 increases AP by -1ap.

Without going too deeper though, Tactical, Assault, Devastator, Terminators need a bit of an overhaul really.

[Calyptra]

Whenever I see a thread like this, I think the same three things.

 

First, when players talk about how Space Marines should be able to walk all over other armies because of the lore, I don't think they're very familiar with those other armies' lore.

 

Second, the basis for comparison of Space Marines' power level (and model scale, for that matter) is always and exclusively Imperial Guard. It's assumed that the Guard are pointed and powered correctly, and therefore Marines ought to be adjusted. Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, Craftworlds, Drukhari, Tau, etc are all ignored.

 

As someone else said above, it comes off as entitled. It also comes off as severely myopic. Compared to the rest of the galaxy, Space Marines are not as dangerous as a lot of people seem to think, regardless of what some dubious Black Library novel might have told them. Nor should they be, because "Space Marines curbstomp everything" is not particularly interesting in narrative or game design.

 

And the third thing I think is that it almost certainly isn't worth it for me to post or get involved.

[Mileposter]

You can play Narrative play perfectly fine with points. Power level is just another, objectively worse, system to make both armies have roughly the same strength.

You absolutely can. No argument.

 

Power Level is just another, objectively better, way to put an army together. You can see here where our disagreement lies. But without dragging the thread into the details of that disagreement, I'd like to clarify: I specified that I prefer PL, not that I strive to make both sides use the same amount of PL.

 

And yes, the same concept can apply to points for those who prefer it. My point was more focused on Narrative and casual play rather than the nuances of how a player starts those games. That portion is preference and comfort from player to player.

[Azekai]

People seem to be getting really hung up on ‘buffing’ space marines. And calling my position arrogant is just codswallop.

 

I am tired of being accused of wanting space marines to walk all over other races. Maybe some people want that, but I realize the hyperbolic stereotypes don’t need to be enshrined in the game. That isn’t what I am suggesting.

 

What I am saying is that a S4/T4 3+ model doesn’t feel meaningfully better than a S3/T3 5+, especially in light of the glaring cost difference. A superior profile is what marine players are paying for, but that doesn’t actually translate into valuable stats. In 8th, volume of firepower and volume of wounds/bodies is what matters more than slightly better saves or toughness.

 

I think that should be recitifed, and that I shouldn’t feel like kicking myself for taking a power armored unit of troops over cultists.

[Dracos]

With the current system my answer would be for all Astartes infantry and dreadnoughts to reroll armor saves (not invulnerable) as an army wide ability. Considering Marines are a bottom or low mid tier army at best, something should be done to make them competitive.

 

 

"Entitiled"? Poster boys for the whole game. The most popular army in the game that hooks more new players than any other army. Subject of the majority of any literature or game campaign ever published. Try maintaining the game pushing Druhkari or Demon armies as the company flagship army, good luck.  That's not entitled that's earned.

 

All this guy is asking is for his Marines to be competitive mono-dex as Tyranids and Drukhari, or likely Orcs are going to be. I've been at this game 30 years and I can't name one Edition that Power Creep didn't turn the Vanilla Marine (not Ultras) into a weak toast after the first year of other Codex coming out.

 

 

No ones asking Marines walk over other armies on the table top ... coming out even after a year into an new Edition might be nice for once. 

 

Rant over ... 

 

 

 

Everything has a reroll these days, maybe giving Astartes Infantry and Dreadnoughts a normal armor reroll would make them worth taking instead of Johnnies Come Lately like Custodes and Armigers.

[USNCenturion]

Iron Hands captain smash face on bike was a top tier build in 6th/7th. They were vanilla marines.

 

Marines fit right where they belong. Any stronger they’d be custodes, any more maneuverable or accurate they’d be stepping on toes of Eldar.

 

A marine is a human who has been made stronger and more durable to be able to fight orks and other aliens encountered by humanity during the great crusade. They’re not beat all supermen.

[Vykes]

You guys know that Primaris exist, right? I hate to break it to you, but Primaris are GW's answer to 'make marines great again'. I know that Primaris get hated on, but I rather like them - the 2W, longer range and -1AP makes them feel much more 'next generation super soldier' than Marines have in a long time. 

 

For me, oldmarines are still perfectly fine, as long as you don't drink the 'marines should walk all over other armies' Kool Aid. Please remember that most of the marine fluff is essentially Imperial propaganda and legend.

 

Pah, revisionist propaganda!  Marines are supersoldiers, they are 'walk over other armies' material, it's why so many races were put to the sword in the Great Crusade and The Forging.  To say that they are just fancy kit +1 guardsmen compared to the fifty some-odd fancy knife ears in gaudy rags are cavorting around chortling like lunatics about their platinum library cards, is short changing a significant draw of the Power Armoured Angels of Death*.  Like it or not, there's a pretty good reason why power armour armies make up such a large percentage of the player base and it's not really a chicken and egg issue. 

 

Of course I'm being a little facetious.  That's 'fluff', and that doesn't translate well to game mechanics, neither does ballooning the number of models others have to have in order to face a more 'representational' marine force.  And more over, I totally agree, Primaris are much closer representation of movie marines.  Most of the issues with them are the optics of 'replacing' old model armies, and the lack of vehicle interaction mechanically (IE, no rhino, drop pods, etc).  Of course they shouldn't cake walk over other armies on the tabletop, but there are serious glaring flaws when units like scouts and cultists make up a serious portion of the numbers based on mechanical efficiency over their supposedly numerous counterparts. 

 

I do think that marines get a fair bit of flak (often for good reason), but I do think that Inquisitor Dracon has the long and short of it (There's be a +1 like on there if I hadn't run out today, mate). While some shiny prismatic marines may come off well in editions, or there are little oddities where a vanilla dex will have a superstar specialist unit (looking at you, accursed grav centurions of 7th.  Bike armies previously), the typical marines and vanilla line marines are usually left by the wayside and end up feeling like dead weight next to cult and specialist troopers.  I like the idea of a reroll mechanic especially for D1 weapons (the idea of separating an autocannon from a heavy bolter appeals to me), but I also hate rerolls as by the Warmaster does that slow these games down! 

 

Long story short, Tactical/chaos Legionnaires come off very poorly in optics and have for quite some time.  This edition, and the past few editions' creeping lethality has reduced their vaunted durability of the Astartes while giving them a lot of specialist units who are capable of dealing even more damage than before. In effect, tactical marines and standard power armour has become significantly less mechanically worthwhile while specialist teams become more useful; a rift further exasperated by unit synergy and interaction mechanics that benefit specialists in more profound ways than the rank and file.  As such, marines don't feel like they're even remotely close to the media depiction.  I think I've grown to just accept that aside from marine on marine combat, marines won't really feel like they're doing their fluff legacy justice in any case. 

 

*Seen the Astartes Episode 2?  Cold, brutal, martial perfection drilled into a marine to the marrow.  It's not the monologing Space Marine captain spouting 'for the Emperah', it's the battle forged astartes meant to be ruthless. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

My Deathwatch are doing just fine.

[chapter master 454]

ok...know what, why not lets rumble.

 

Marines suck. Outright. Don't debate it or argue it the issue is ironclad in how bad it is, marines lack anything that we can call good.

 

One here calls out that we pay attention to lore of other races...well tell you what, so far my eldar live up to their lore just fine (except for being fragile. They seem to take hits really well in fact), necrons are a similar story, Knights are killing it with their lore to game styling and imperial guard...well I guess they are since its all super-heavies (which are in lore supposed to be able to take on armies...which they are).

 

"And we shall know no fun"

Marines do not match their lore at all. They say a marine is worth 10 guardsman or something like that, meanwhile patrick here will give me 3, take it or leave it. Walked into a pawns star shop with a marine with an expert saying he's worth ten and the store owner can at best do me 1 and half guardsmen.

Seriously I could keep rattling this out day in, day out. Marine players are not entitled, we're still waiting. Compare our codex with any other codex of a non-power armour army and you will see some serious power gaps.

Only way to balance play with them is to have the "power armour league". All armies must be power armoured and even then index sisters would likely body us! (just wait until their codex! we might have a good power armour army at last!).

 

I've put far too much energy into discussing marines in previous threads and frankly, I need this nonsensical response that holds more water than all the marine power armoured codexes combined. Might need to run some tests with marines for the giggles where I have my friend borrow my marines and plays them at massive point advantages and see if they can hold their ground with an advantage (I'm thinking 3k marines vs. 2k eldar. Seems more fair that way!)

[Beams]

The issue is not ironclad. Marines are hampered by two things: being slighlty overcosted and Marine players taking only minimal Marines. 100 Marines buffed with a captain and lt kills like 42 Guardsmen a turn at 24", Costs 1300 pts and provides 100 3+ wounds and leaves 700 pts for anti tank, but most marine lists I come up against have maybe 30 total models, and get mad when they can't beat my 100 model sisters of battle army, much less a 200 model guard army, because they just don't have the volume of fire.

 

 

Not saying you need a 100 Marines, but taking 15 isn't helping Marines.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

ok...know what, why not lets rumble.

 

Marines suck. Outright. Don't debate it or argue it the issue is ironclad in how bad it is, marines lack anything that we can call good.

 

One here calls out that we pay attention to lore of other races...well tell you what, so far my eldar live up to their lore just fine (except for being fragile. They seem to take hits really well in fact), necrons are a similar story, Knights are killing it with their lore to game styling and imperial guard...well I guess they are since its all super-heavies (which are in lore supposed to be able to take on armies...which they are).

 

"And we shall know no fun"

Marines do not match their lore at all. They say a marine is worth 10 guardsman or something like that, meanwhile patrick here will give me 3, take it or leave it. Walked into a pawns star shop with a marine with an expert saying he's worth ten and the store owner can at best do me 1 and half guardsmen.

Seriously I could keep rattling this out day in, day out. Marine players are not entitled, we're still waiting. Compare our codex with any other codex of a non-power armour army and you will see some serious power gaps.

Only way to balance play with them is to have the "power armour league". All armies must be power armoured and even then index sisters would likely body us! (just wait until their codex! we might have a good power armour army at last!).

 

I've put far too much energy into discussing marines in previous threads and frankly, I need this nonsensical response that holds more water than all the marine power armoured codexes combined. Might need to run some tests with marines for the giggles where I have my friend borrow my marines and plays them at massive point advantages and see if they can hold their ground with an advantage (I'm thinking 3k marines vs. 2k eldar.

 

 

Here we go again - you have to get over not having BAF stuff like skyhammer formation.

[Dracos]

The issue is not ironclad. Marines are hampered by two things: being slighlty overcosted and Marine players taking only minimal Marines. 100 Marines buffed with a captain and lt kills like 42 Guardsmen a turn at 24", Costs 1300 pts and provides 100 3+ wounds and leaves 700 pts for anti tank, but most marine lists I come up against have maybe 30 total models, and get mad when they can't beat my 100 model sisters of battle army, much less a 200 model guard army, because they just don't have the volume of fire.

 

 

Not saying you need a 100 Marines, but taking 15 isn't helping Marines.

 

I like your thoughts and given what there is to work with its not a terrible idea, but if this could really work you'd have seen it on at least a couple top tables over the past year or so. Things like board control and secondary objectives come into play. Marines just cant field the number of durable bodies transports and equipment to be high mid tier.

 

Keep in mind all  my comments are based on tournament play when I say competitive. If tournament (match) play isn't your thing then these things wont mean the same to you as they do me.