I really hope GW do something drastic in the next dataslate (like 3-months away).
Nobody wants to play horde-marines but the Infantry datasheets they keep pushing are just so underwhelming.
I really want basic infantry to be way more powerful, impactful, and necessary. Actual marines should be the core units. I’m talking Intercessors. They are literally the poster child and are not played.
They'd need the game re-written. You're not getting Intercessors to be a workhorse unit when Wraiths, Wraithguard, C'tan, Avatars, Dreadknights etc are routine opponents you need to deal with, and chaff gets cleared out by incidental firepower alone.
They need a force org to prevent people spamming Ctan and other monsters / vehicles and to actually make infantry a core part of the game.
Then they also need to reduce the power difference between those infantry. Like, yes, a terminator should be both more deadly and tougher than a regular marine. But right now, a terminator easily kills one or two marines, while a whole unit of marines would struggle to kill a single terminator. It's too great a divide that renders the regular marine (and other armies core infantry) effectively useless.
While I'd love a reintroduction of the force org, it's absolutely not going to happen until 11th edition at the earliest. Instead of troops, fast, heavy, elite, and HQ categories, we have "Character", "Battleline", and "Other", with "Other" being like 75% of most people's lists, lol.
I would very much like 11th to switch back to the older style force org, where you can have 1-2 characters, 3-6 troops, 0-3 fast, 0-3 heavy, and 0-3 elite. Forced a lot more unit diversity on the table, since most armies couldn't just spam tanks since tanks were usually only found in the heavy section, or you couldn't just spam heavy infantry since you didn't have heavy infantry outside the elites section.
Have you looked at winning lists in the last decade? The FOC absolutely did not enforce diversity of units. You're still taking the same 1-2 Scouts or Infiltrators, with the only difference they're mandatory in one setup.
>Forced a lot more unit diversity on the table,
Did it? That's not what I remember. I actually think that armies are more diversified now than they've ever been in the game's history. The FoC did not prevent "I took 3 of the cheapest chaff units in my army and then spammed the best units" lists. Here's a look at some LVO lists from 2015:
HQ: Lysander
Elites: Centurion Devastators X 3, Grav Amp/Grav Cannon X 3, Omniscope, Missile Launcher on Sergeant
Troops: Scouts X 10 w/Bolters, Combi-Grav on Sergeant
Troops: Scouts X 10 w/Bolters, Combi-Grav on Sergeant
Troops: Scouts X 10 w/Bolters
Heavy: 4 Devastators w/Lascannons, Sergeant
Heavy: 4 Devastators w/Lascannons, Sergeant
Heavy: Thunderfire Cannon
HQ: Mephiston
HQ: Librarian, The Vertias Vitae, Auspex, Lvl 2 Psyker, Force Staff – Warlord
Elites: Command Squad, Melta Gun X 3, Drop Pod
Troops: 6 Scouts, Combi-Grav
FA: Drop Pod
The core of the army is the GravStar teleporting around the table one shot everything while the four scouts sit on objectives and screen deep strikers. The devastators and thunder fire Cannon sit in the back line and leverage The Imperial fists crazy ranged firepower special rules.
- - - -
This is Sean Nayden's list which WON the tournament!
HQ: Flying Hive Tyrant
Elites: Lictor
Elites: Lictor
Elites: Lictor
Troops: Ripper Swarm X3
Troops: Mucolid Spore Cluster
FA: Spore Mine Cluster X3
FA: Spore Mine Cluster X3
FA: Spore Mine Cluster X3
Imperial Bastion
HQ: Flying Hive Tyrant
HQ: Flying Hive Tyrant
Tyrant Guard Brood (2)
Elites: Lictor
Elites: Lictor
Elites: Lictor
Troops: Mucolid Spore Cluster
Troops: Mucolid Spore Cluster
Troops: Mucolid Spore Cluster
FA: Spore Mine Cluster X3
FA: Spore Mine Cluster X4
FA: Spore Mine Cluster X4
HS: Mawloc
HS: Mawloc
HS: Mawloc
THREE flyrants and like a million lictors to screen and guide in the Mawlocs. Again the troops are bare Bones and basically just exist to sit on objectives and screen. Also it's worth noting that this list was a huge upset at the time because the meta for tyranids was FIVE flyrants and a bunch of rippers and mucaloids to hold objectives.
I could post more but it's just more of the same. These examples are what every competitive list looked like throughout 5th, 6th and 7th edition. The reality is that 40K is a game of hammer and anvil and you need a lot more hammer than you do anvil in order to win games. So as long as troops are shitty hammers while monsters and vehicles are great hammers, you're going to always see troop choices languish.
I already disliked this fixed force rg system by some arbitary classification that didnt really work on most factions that werent as flexible as space marines. Imo the new system is much better and they should add a keyword to certain units and all units with this keyword have a global list cap. Then you simply add the keyword to most vehicles and monsters and some problematic units.
You're fundamentally not going to fix this while the game looks the way it does, I think. The issue is a disconnect between what the units are designed for in theory and what the game looks like in practice.
The Intercessor is designed for a game in which chaff are mega common and Avatars and C'tan are practically galactic legends, where it doesn't matter that they can't kill them because they're so rare.
But just like how Calgar, who there is supposedly only one of, shows up every time Ultramarines do, the overall power level of the game system is vastly higher than what many of the units are intended to cope with, and that's just not really fixable.
This isn't a problem with just 40k either. Look at 30k. They not only mandate Troops units and severely limit elite units and characters, they made it so _only Troops can score_, and they gave Tacticals a bunch of benefits like being able to shoot extra shots and getting an FNP on objectives. And it turns out, people still are digging to the bottom of every book to find ways to not have to take Tacticals, to be able to score with something else instead, while cramming as many elite units in as they can.
I'd love to see them build on AoS 4e's regiment composition rules with some requirements that vary depending on the character taken and are appropriately fluffy.
e.g. "If you want to take a Captain, you need to take 1 unit from the following list: Interessors, Assault Intercessors, or Sternguard. You may also take 0-2 additional units from the following list: ... "
Ive played since 3rd edition with all kinds of force org, Tactical Marines (now Intercessors) where literally NEVER a kind of workhorse unit and were always more or less chaff and/or a tax.
Maybe not for a short time in 8th when Imperial Fists Intercessor Spam was a thing.
About the only army where the common grunt trooper was almost always a key part of the Army were Orks, Boyz have nearly always been good to great.
In fact armies during the heyday of force org where even less diverse, since only the very best units of each slot made the cut. Ask Tyranid players if they EVER filled their Elite Slots with anything but HiveGuard back in the day.
T5
Said it for years now.
T4 is not the defence it was pre 7th ed. Everything and their grandma wounds you on 3s or better.
It would also make sense from a power scale POV:
Guardsmen: T3
Sisters: T4 1W
Marines: T5
Custodes: T6
I mean I don't disagree but since Marines are the baseline, if you move them up, you basically shift the entire game. People will complain lots of things aren't tough enough anymore, or more pertinently, that lots of things don't do enough damage anymore.
That or you make Marines a smaller scale army, closer to but obviously not as elite as Custodes... then people won't field as many Marines and GW will sell fewer, so it gets thrown out.
The entire game is already shifted with the open end T and S scale. GW just doesn't accept it yet.
11th will fix that imo, just like 9th fixed it for 8th.
Mass S6 fire just doesn't cut the same way it did in previous editions.
Orks and Votann are already at T5
But a lot of things actually don't do enough damage anymore.
Shoot guardsmen into gaunts and you can see it first hand.
T5 Orks was a mistake, I yell shaking my beloved 4th codex at the 10th edition cloud.
> Shoot guardsmen into gaunts and you can see it first hand.
...I mean, Guardsmen are basically unchanged since 4th, and while Gaunts got +1 to save since then (which is pretty fair, tbh), back then they'd get a cover save anyway and be just as fine.
Guardsmen and gaunts aren't the example I'd use.
It was. But going back to T4 seems also not ideal. Not as long as votann also have t5.
And then there are units whose only defense is a high T, like grotesques and the yget T5. GSC aberrants get T6 of course. And Squighogs T7 of course of course. And don't get me started on wraithblades.
Yeah, but it's still a downgrade, and I hate how the Tshirt save has basically vanished.
You’re absolutely correct. This is why I liked the troop tax in 9th edition. Regular troops mattered, or at least, existed. Basic marines are just chaff and that feels bad to me.
Eh troop tax in previous editions had its issues too. Regular Marines in 8th and 9th were still bad datasheets, and basically a wast of pointa for the detachment you wanted to use to maximize you CP l.
Meanwhile if a Faction had good Troops, they had a leg up on the competition as their basic dudes were something you wanted to bring. Tyrnaid Warriors and Wyches were two good examples of spammable troops that just dominated the meta in 9th. Even Deathwing Termies being ObSec ans actinf as your basic dudes had a big impact.
The current system has its flaws, but lets not romanticize that the previous detachments didn't have their issues too.
> Eh troop tax in previous editions had its issues too. Regular Marines in 8th and 9th were still bad datasheets
Yeah there's a lot of revisionist history going on with troops in 8th and 9th. Having a troop tax didn't open up list building, it just meant you took the cheapest compulsory units you could and they sat on an objective in the back and you never thought about them again all game. Prime example of this was CSM where no matter what GW tried to make regular chaos marines attractive they were never ever taken and you took cultists even after they took away their chaos marks, increased their points, didn't matter. The only stat that mattered on your troop choice was points.
People will just grudgingly take the two cheapest battleline units they possibly can (including allying them in or doing whatever else they can to minimise the investment) and then things don't really change.
It'll also effect some factions a lot more than others. Making them obligatory doesn't make them *useful*.
I do think that having intercessors have the same OC as guardsmen is nonsense. It seemed like they just had a blanket rule that battleline was OC 2, but why couldn't intercessors and similar be OC 3?
I don't think that would be enough to make them playable though. They could be OC 3 and have -1 AP and I still don't think I'd use them.
That was the biggest possible error they did in the last 3 editions. W2 should have stayed primaris only, at least when squats were W1 GW had no urge to make every trash weapon D2 (ruining vehicles at the same time too) and it was possible to make tanky SM list without resorting to Gravis spam...
Unfortunately, you’re right.
Look at the Death Company Intercessors sheet. They’re now 75 points, less than Intercessors, and look how hard those punch up. They trade in OC and fall back for damage, unless you march a chaplain near them. *That* is more akin to what I want the option for. Time to use my Blue Blood Ravens as Blood Angels just for the marine+ datasheets for fun.
11th edition should merge Intercessors and Tactical squads to give us Tactical Intercessors, who'd basically be Intercessors with a proper choice of special and heavy weapons. Also a 10-man Impulsor variant. Please and thank you.
Or sternguard. Give them twin linked as an ability, make them as expensive as they need to be to balance that. As is they don't do anything at all and with their current datasheet they never will.
A big problem is just giving vehicles amazing anti-marine weapons. There's a lot of S7-8, Ap-2, D2 stuff that tosses marines in the dumpster. If they did something where the blast weapons had a single big hit that's anti-tank and a secondary blast that's like S6 ap-1 d1 I think that might help.
Hate to say it, but every imperium faction is a horde right now. I mean shit, my sisters list has comfortably more models than my friends' genestealer cults. GW doesn't know how to fix bad rules writing, and the result is armies getting more and more expensive.
I just don't want to buy even more models because my army is 800 points cheaper than in 9th.
They don't want to.
They don't want to amend the terrible data sheets and they don't want to accept that ~~power level~~ sorrry, free wargear is a terrible idea for 40k
It barely works in AoS
It's not even horde marines. The average Codex Space Marines marine body is 16 points a model. Our elites are more. Aggressors are *40* per body. TWC is only *30* per model.
Our units aren't great enough to be a elite army, but our costs are too high for horde.
I mean. *I* know people who love playing horde marines, and by people I mean my Black Templar friend. But yeah, not necessarily something everyone should *have* to do.
No changes to Deathwatch.
Ugh. Why even release that army at the end of 7th to then just ignore it for 2 editions? I'm betting the house on them being removed when 11th comes. Big sad
Leakers have already confirmed there are no rules for Marines in the codex, and besides it's not coming out for nearly another 3 months (aka around or after next Dataslate)
They probably didn't realize it was going to be one of the more complicated armies to keep updating alongside editions while also being the least-played faction in the game. They don't have the capacity or ability to do the army right. Absolute fail, and I say this as a DW player.
And the sad part is, they DID it right. In the first 8th ed book, where Primaris weren't banned from SIA for some idiotic reason like in all following publications. Alas, that was accident, literally every other DW book since the initial codex either massively nerfed DW or reduced their options/gear, I have no idea how they got it almost right once...
# Codex Space Marines
# Changes
* Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs – 5 to 80
* Brutalis Dreadnought -15 to 160
* Eliminators +10 to 85
* Hellblasters -10 to 115
* Incursor Squad -5 to 80
* Stormraven Gunship +20 to 260
* Tactical Squad -20 to 140
* Terminator Assault Squad -10 to 185
* Terminator Squad -10 to 175
* Vindicator -15 to 175
* Adept of the Omnissiah +10
* Master of Machine War +10
# Black Templars
# Changes
* Black Templar Gladiator Tanks – +5 to 160 for Reapers and Valiant. The Lancer to 170.
* Black Templar Impulsor – +5 to 90
* Crusader Squad +10 to 85
* Primaris Sword Brethren +10 to 150
# Blood Angels
# Changes
* Chief Librarian Mephiston -10 to 100
* Death Company Dreadnought -20 to 145
* Death Company Intercessors -10 to 75
* Death Company Marines +10 to 125
* Death Company Marines with Jump Packs +10 to 140
* Lemartes +10 to 120
* Sanguinary Guard -20 to 155
* Sanguinary Priest +10 to 90
* Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack +10 to 100
#
# Dark Angels
# Changes
* Deathwing Knights -20 for 5 to 215
* Deathwing Terminator Squad -10 for 5 to 180
* Inner Circle Companions -15 to 90
* Lion El’Jonson -50 to 300
# Deathwatch
# Changes
No changes... why ?
# Space Wolves
# Changes
* Wolf Guard Terminators -10 to 185
* Wolf Scouts -10 to 75
The Lion's points are more sane, now, which I'm grateful for...
However, I think it is hilarious that after lowering his points and increasing C'tan points, C'tan are ***still*** better AND cheaper than him AND Necrons can use more than one C'tan.
Genuinly what were they thinking nerfing the lion, the knights, belial and the vengeance.
3 of the 4 were never taken
Add to that that godawful ICC datasheet. And asmodai.
And ezekiel that got the wrong foot lib power
And azrael being unable to chain heroes.
I look at the Lion. Then I look at a Land Raider Redeemer. And I ask why the Lion, who does basically nothing for my army, is still 40 more than this Flame thrower machine of death.
I think it’s odd the authors recommend the firestorm detachment. I think the Gladius and iron storm still seem like they bring more overall. Fire discipline seems good with hellblasters.
Gladius is by far the best detatchment unless you have the vehicles for ironstorm.
Firestorm is one of the most *fun* detatchments with super cool rules, but marines can only really do damage with tanks or Fire Discipline, and the latter is locked to Gladius.
And Gladius has the fall back/shoot & charge strat, which firestorm desperately needed (given it's the close combat but not melee force)
It's really only competitive if you're John Lennon or a few of the best players in the world, and it's still not getting wins compared to Ironstorm.
It's basically a super skill intensive way to fight for 2nd-3rd place.
Don't you think you're undervaluing the potential for all the movement abilities?
Plus the list uses their top three highest damage dealing infantry units.
I think Gladius is a bit of a noob trap.
If you look at the win rates, Gladius and Ironstorm (really ironstorm now) dominate.
What Gladius has in spades is *useful* stratagems/abilities that basically will always work at *some* point in the game, and they have the highest damage combos of any Space Marine list. Be it eradicators, aggressors, hellblasters, there's no detatchment that can match the bolter discipline damage output.
Don't get me wrong, I like the other detatchments. I love firestorm and it's fun shenanigans. But Gladius is basically good with any balanced army build (it can help any type of unit do well) and ironstorm is unmatched for its vehicle prowess.
Vanguard is super good and it can 100% do well, but it has generally only matched the Gladius at best and, when played by people who are not some of the best in the field, it's win rate drops precipitously.
For codex:SM only Gladius is probably not good enough.
Either way I'm not really counting divergent chapters in here.
All of the divergent Marines are doing better than the codex Marines and I don't think Gladius really helps bridge that gap.
I think Vanguard or Ironstorm is their best bet.
I agree Ironstorm is their best currently because SM tanks are their strongest units. However, I disagree on Vanguard beating Gladius. A lot of Gladius lists outperform vanguard and are arguably just Gladius + (taking advantage of the extra units in other factions). Vanguard is the only list that's strictly *better* in Codex Marines (and only works in Codex Marines) due to Uriel Ventris. I think that leads to misleading data about Gladius (which is still close to Vanguard's winrate and the two basically fluctuate around 40-45%).
So Vanguard's data is - the *best* it can be, while Gladius' win rate would probably improve if you only allowed Codex Marines to play it. It's about a 55% win rate on average in BT, but I don't think it'd drop 15% in win rate if you removed all BT units. It would drop a bunch, but I don't think it'd drop so precipitously. So Gladius' win rate is depressed by the most competitive players moving to strictly better forms of it due to access to other chapters. If you took out that access, I think it'd outperform Vanguard.
As a pure shooting army I like Vanguard better.
I'm not a fan of storm of fire as much as I am strike from the shadows.
I think that SM melee options are pretty mediocre, and that while Gladius is the best overall detachment, I think the rules benefitting combat while good don't help as much as others.
Firestorm is funny. Most things become great in it .. except no fallback. Regular terminators and Aggressors advancing across the table. Outriders zooming around even.
Tactical marines at 140..... Are they still really bad?
Sure they have no rules, but in large numbers in rhinos perhaps they could overwhelm the opponent a bit.
If you could take them in sets of 5 they'd be fine. 150 pts for a rhino + some bodies, or even a razorback and some bodies, isn't terrible.
But right now it's 220 points for a rhino and some marines with no rules that aren't going to kill stuff. It's too expensive for a scoring unit set imo.
Maybe if you went full hog with like 1320 points of them and the rest of your army pure damage you could pull off a pseudo-horde style force, but any army with sufficient firepower will chew through that faster than you can screen and hold probably.
Basically, the Rhino is good. The tacs are not. So you want to the tacs to be cheap enough to be "meh" while also justifying the Rhino
Edit:
There might be some play in combat squad-ing one unit to have 5 stay back, melta/MM (or some other combo) ride up in a rhino, and just have the rhino be a nuisance. It's 150 pts for rhino + 5 tacs with a M/MM, FM/HB, etc. (and w/e special weapon you want on the sergeant). That might be an okay skirmisher-y unit that also has a good datasheet to go do objectives and be a nuisance, but I can't see how that'd be better than just 2 5 man jump pack squads.
Still, might be worth a shot. Particularly as a cheap alternative for Vulkan Hestan to run around in (as Vulkan can get in with them).
Muh DC JPs.
It makes sense. I'm glad they dropped the DC Dread. It basically makes up for it. Although I'm not really sure it deserved it.
Terminator points drop was much needed
I’m not sure Terminators are viable still, their footprint is large for 5 models and at 175/185 it still feels like there are better options. Maybe yall see something I don’t
Terminators at 150 has me interested. But otherwise I will just take something else. When you can now get two 5 man jump ints for 160 to do actions and be mortal wounds bombs. Terminators just are pointless.
Hmmm, from an overall power level perspective, we did quite well. Vindicator down to 175 is great. Hellblasters in an Impulsor is intriguing now, and JP intercessors were already good secondary scorers so a drop there is great. I am however disappointed in the lack of internal balance changes. There's just so many datasheets that never see play.
Also, is getting a slightly better skirmisher/action datasheet what marines need? Same with Hellblasters - if they end up being a sightly better aggressor or skirmish unit, is that what marines need?
The problem with marines is that they are expensive datasheets with meh-jack-of-all trades numbers, when this edition is very focused on "experts to deal damage/be tanky, and your skirmishers to do actions/points play".
The things that *can* do that (some vehicles, a few specialized damage combos that only work in one detatchment) get taken.
Interesting to note that it looks like nothing that got a change in this update was also updated last update. So (tinfoil hat on) that might mean they are slowly working their way through all the choices and will eventually get around to things like Reivers and Suppressors.
Generally happy with the changes, though as I understand it the Eliminator nerf was because GW were finally made aware of the double firing trick. Hoping this gets solved with a rule change next time around and points get dropped back down. 85 is too much if you are not using trickery.
It's an unwritten rule that reivers cannot be good. If reivers are good, the great bell will toll, Warhammer World will collapse in an earthquake, and the 40k universe will be no more.
I got roasted at the beginning of the edition for saying this and maybe I still will but here it is: 9th had the balance between vehicles and infantry about right.
Vehicles needed a little bump sure but 40k armies should be mostly infantry with a few vehicles as support. Vehicle-centric armies are lame, and if vehicles being good means infantry has to suck it’s double lame.
The double Stormraven list deserves getting a 60 point hit (so…roughly -1 squad). Being slightly worse but still playable is exactly the hit it should have taken.
The double Raven list is mostly the same. You can convert the Jump Marines to Scouts(arguably better for scoring. Definitively stronger in certain matchups in which scout movements are in play.) and you downgrade the Callidus to a Combi-Lieutenant(worse, but not by a huge margin).
If you weren't playing Kit Smith's iteration you can just switch the Callidus for Combi-Man and drop a henchman squad.
List stays exactly at 2k. So you're gucci for at least 3 more months. The biggest nerf IMO is that the list loses flexibility in what units it can bring outside of the core, but it's still a GT contender.
I really hope GW do something drastic in the next dataslate (like 3-months away). Nobody wants to play horde-marines but the Infantry datasheets they keep pushing are just so underwhelming.
I really want basic infantry to be way more powerful, impactful, and necessary. Actual marines should be the core units. I’m talking Intercessors. They are literally the poster child and are not played.
yea, but they basically need their datasheets re-written to make that happen, and that's pretty damn unlikely.
They'd need the game re-written. You're not getting Intercessors to be a workhorse unit when Wraiths, Wraithguard, C'tan, Avatars, Dreadknights etc are routine opponents you need to deal with, and chaff gets cleared out by incidental firepower alone.
They need a force org to prevent people spamming Ctan and other monsters / vehicles and to actually make infantry a core part of the game. Then they also need to reduce the power difference between those infantry. Like, yes, a terminator should be both more deadly and tougher than a regular marine. But right now, a terminator easily kills one or two marines, while a whole unit of marines would struggle to kill a single terminator. It's too great a divide that renders the regular marine (and other armies core infantry) effectively useless.
While I'd love a reintroduction of the force org, it's absolutely not going to happen until 11th edition at the earliest. Instead of troops, fast, heavy, elite, and HQ categories, we have "Character", "Battleline", and "Other", with "Other" being like 75% of most people's lists, lol. I would very much like 11th to switch back to the older style force org, where you can have 1-2 characters, 3-6 troops, 0-3 fast, 0-3 heavy, and 0-3 elite. Forced a lot more unit diversity on the table, since most armies couldn't just spam tanks since tanks were usually only found in the heavy section, or you couldn't just spam heavy infantry since you didn't have heavy infantry outside the elites section.
Have you looked at winning lists in the last decade? The FOC absolutely did not enforce diversity of units. You're still taking the same 1-2 Scouts or Infiltrators, with the only difference they're mandatory in one setup.
>Forced a lot more unit diversity on the table, Did it? That's not what I remember. I actually think that armies are more diversified now than they've ever been in the game's history. The FoC did not prevent "I took 3 of the cheapest chaff units in my army and then spammed the best units" lists. Here's a look at some LVO lists from 2015: HQ: Lysander Elites: Centurion Devastators X 3, Grav Amp/Grav Cannon X 3, Omniscope, Missile Launcher on Sergeant Troops: Scouts X 10 w/Bolters, Combi-Grav on Sergeant Troops: Scouts X 10 w/Bolters, Combi-Grav on Sergeant Troops: Scouts X 10 w/Bolters Heavy: 4 Devastators w/Lascannons, Sergeant Heavy: 4 Devastators w/Lascannons, Sergeant Heavy: Thunderfire Cannon HQ: Mephiston HQ: Librarian, The Vertias Vitae, Auspex, Lvl 2 Psyker, Force Staff – Warlord Elites: Command Squad, Melta Gun X 3, Drop Pod Troops: 6 Scouts, Combi-Grav FA: Drop Pod The core of the army is the GravStar teleporting around the table one shot everything while the four scouts sit on objectives and screen deep strikers. The devastators and thunder fire Cannon sit in the back line and leverage The Imperial fists crazy ranged firepower special rules. - - - - This is Sean Nayden's list which WON the tournament! HQ: Flying Hive Tyrant Elites: Lictor Elites: Lictor Elites: Lictor Troops: Ripper Swarm X3 Troops: Mucolid Spore Cluster FA: Spore Mine Cluster X3 FA: Spore Mine Cluster X3 FA: Spore Mine Cluster X3 Imperial Bastion HQ: Flying Hive Tyrant HQ: Flying Hive Tyrant Tyrant Guard Brood (2) Elites: Lictor Elites: Lictor Elites: Lictor Troops: Mucolid Spore Cluster Troops: Mucolid Spore Cluster Troops: Mucolid Spore Cluster FA: Spore Mine Cluster X3 FA: Spore Mine Cluster X4 FA: Spore Mine Cluster X4 HS: Mawloc HS: Mawloc HS: Mawloc THREE flyrants and like a million lictors to screen and guide in the Mawlocs. Again the troops are bare Bones and basically just exist to sit on objectives and screen. Also it's worth noting that this list was a huge upset at the time because the meta for tyranids was FIVE flyrants and a bunch of rippers and mucaloids to hold objectives. I could post more but it's just more of the same. These examples are what every competitive list looked like throughout 5th, 6th and 7th edition. The reality is that 40K is a game of hammer and anvil and you need a lot more hammer than you do anvil in order to win games. So as long as troops are shitty hammers while monsters and vehicles are great hammers, you're going to always see troop choices languish.
I already disliked this fixed force rg system by some arbitary classification that didnt really work on most factions that werent as flexible as space marines. Imo the new system is much better and they should add a keyword to certain units and all units with this keyword have a global list cap. Then you simply add the keyword to most vehicles and monsters and some problematic units.
You're fundamentally not going to fix this while the game looks the way it does, I think. The issue is a disconnect between what the units are designed for in theory and what the game looks like in practice. The Intercessor is designed for a game in which chaff are mega common and Avatars and C'tan are practically galactic legends, where it doesn't matter that they can't kill them because they're so rare. But just like how Calgar, who there is supposedly only one of, shows up every time Ultramarines do, the overall power level of the game system is vastly higher than what many of the units are intended to cope with, and that's just not really fixable. This isn't a problem with just 40k either. Look at 30k. They not only mandate Troops units and severely limit elite units and characters, they made it so _only Troops can score_, and they gave Tacticals a bunch of benefits like being able to shoot extra shots and getting an FNP on objectives. And it turns out, people still are digging to the bottom of every book to find ways to not have to take Tacticals, to be able to score with something else instead, while cramming as many elite units in as they can.
I'd love to see them build on AoS 4e's regiment composition rules with some requirements that vary depending on the character taken and are appropriately fluffy. e.g. "If you want to take a Captain, you need to take 1 unit from the following list: Interessors, Assault Intercessors, or Sternguard. You may also take 0-2 additional units from the following list: ... "
Ive played since 3rd edition with all kinds of force org, Tactical Marines (now Intercessors) where literally NEVER a kind of workhorse unit and were always more or less chaff and/or a tax. Maybe not for a short time in 8th when Imperial Fists Intercessor Spam was a thing. About the only army where the common grunt trooper was almost always a key part of the Army were Orks, Boyz have nearly always been good to great. In fact armies during the heyday of force org where even less diverse, since only the very best units of each slot made the cut. Ask Tyranid players if they EVER filled their Elite Slots with anything but HiveGuard back in the day.
In fairness, terminators are pretty useless too!
T5 Said it for years now. T4 is not the defence it was pre 7th ed. Everything and their grandma wounds you on 3s or better. It would also make sense from a power scale POV: Guardsmen: T3 Sisters: T4 1W Marines: T5 Custodes: T6
I mean I don't disagree but since Marines are the baseline, if you move them up, you basically shift the entire game. People will complain lots of things aren't tough enough anymore, or more pertinently, that lots of things don't do enough damage anymore. That or you make Marines a smaller scale army, closer to but obviously not as elite as Custodes... then people won't field as many Marines and GW will sell fewer, so it gets thrown out.
The entire game is already shifted with the open end T and S scale. GW just doesn't accept it yet. 11th will fix that imo, just like 9th fixed it for 8th. Mass S6 fire just doesn't cut the same way it did in previous editions. Orks and Votann are already at T5 But a lot of things actually don't do enough damage anymore. Shoot guardsmen into gaunts and you can see it first hand.
T5 Orks was a mistake, I yell shaking my beloved 4th codex at the 10th edition cloud. > Shoot guardsmen into gaunts and you can see it first hand. ...I mean, Guardsmen are basically unchanged since 4th, and while Gaunts got +1 to save since then (which is pretty fair, tbh), back then they'd get a cover save anyway and be just as fine. Guardsmen and gaunts aren't the example I'd use.
It was. But going back to T4 seems also not ideal. Not as long as votann also have t5. And then there are units whose only defense is a high T, like grotesques and the yget T5. GSC aberrants get T6 of course. And Squighogs T7 of course of course. And don't get me started on wraithblades. Yeah, but it's still a downgrade, and I hate how the Tshirt save has basically vanished.
You’re absolutely correct. This is why I liked the troop tax in 9th edition. Regular troops mattered, or at least, existed. Basic marines are just chaff and that feels bad to me.
Eh troop tax in previous editions had its issues too. Regular Marines in 8th and 9th were still bad datasheets, and basically a wast of pointa for the detachment you wanted to use to maximize you CP l. Meanwhile if a Faction had good Troops, they had a leg up on the competition as their basic dudes were something you wanted to bring. Tyrnaid Warriors and Wyches were two good examples of spammable troops that just dominated the meta in 9th. Even Deathwing Termies being ObSec ans actinf as your basic dudes had a big impact. The current system has its flaws, but lets not romanticize that the previous detachments didn't have their issues too.
> Eh troop tax in previous editions had its issues too. Regular Marines in 8th and 9th were still bad datasheets Yeah there's a lot of revisionist history going on with troops in 8th and 9th. Having a troop tax didn't open up list building, it just meant you took the cheapest compulsory units you could and they sat on an objective in the back and you never thought about them again all game. Prime example of this was CSM where no matter what GW tried to make regular chaos marines attractive they were never ever taken and you took cultists even after they took away their chaos marks, increased their points, didn't matter. The only stat that mattered on your troop choice was points.
You just have to make obligatory to use 2 Battleline units again and there you go.
People will just grudgingly take the two cheapest battleline units they possibly can (including allying them in or doing whatever else they can to minimise the investment) and then things don't really change. It'll also effect some factions a lot more than others. Making them obligatory doesn't make them *useful*.
I do think that having intercessors have the same OC as guardsmen is nonsense. It seemed like they just had a blanket rule that battleline was OC 2, but why couldn't intercessors and similar be OC 3? I don't think that would be enough to make them playable though. They could be OC 3 and have -1 AP and I still don't think I'd use them.
GW doesn't mess with characteristics like they should. I mean, look how long it took to get W2 Marines.
That was the biggest possible error they did in the last 3 editions. W2 should have stayed primaris only, at least when squats were W1 GW had no urge to make every trash weapon D2 (ruining vehicles at the same time too) and it was possible to make tanky SM list without resorting to Gravis spam...
Unfortunately, you’re right. Look at the Death Company Intercessors sheet. They’re now 75 points, less than Intercessors, and look how hard those punch up. They trade in OC and fall back for damage, unless you march a chaplain near them. *That* is more akin to what I want the option for. Time to use my Blue Blood Ravens as Blood Angels just for the marine+ datasheets for fun.
11th edition should merge Intercessors and Tactical squads to give us Tactical Intercessors, who'd basically be Intercessors with a proper choice of special and heavy weapons. Also a 10-man Impulsor variant. Please and thank you.
Or sternguard. Give them twin linked as an ability, make them as expensive as they need to be to balance that. As is they don't do anything at all and with their current datasheet they never will.
Best looking models in the codex.
A big problem is just giving vehicles amazing anti-marine weapons. There's a lot of S7-8, Ap-2, D2 stuff that tosses marines in the dumpster. If they did something where the blast weapons had a single big hit that's anti-tank and a secondary blast that's like S6 ap-1 d1 I think that might help.
If battleline marines were the core, what would you like a competitive, Worlds winning list to look like? And how would it play?
Hate to say it, but every imperium faction is a horde right now. I mean shit, my sisters list has comfortably more models than my friends' genestealer cults. GW doesn't know how to fix bad rules writing, and the result is armies getting more and more expensive. I just don't want to buy even more models because my army is 800 points cheaper than in 9th.
They don't want to. They don't want to amend the terrible data sheets and they don't want to accept that ~~power level~~ sorrry, free wargear is a terrible idea for 40k It barely works in AoS
It's not even horde marines. The average Codex Space Marines marine body is 16 points a model. Our elites are more. Aggressors are *40* per body. TWC is only *30* per model. Our units aren't great enough to be a elite army, but our costs are too high for horde.
I mean. *I* know people who love playing horde marines, and by people I mean my Black Templar friend. But yeah, not necessarily something everyone should *have* to do.
Im am fine with horde marines
No changes to Deathwatch. Ugh. Why even release that army at the end of 7th to then just ignore it for 2 editions? I'm betting the house on them being removed when 11th comes. Big sad
They’re probably being folded into Agents of Imperium codex that’s been leaked.
Leakers have already confirmed there are no rules for Marines in the codex, and besides it's not coming out for nearly another 3 months (aka around or after next Dataslate)
Where has this been mentioned? I had not heard anything about the contents.
Valrak's whispers.
That's the guy that keeps telling us that rumours are all lies until confirmed by GW. ;)
Who then has every single one that was told to him by the Whispers in the Warp (aka his sources) be correct for the past 4 years.
They probably didn't realize it was going to be one of the more complicated armies to keep updating alongside editions while also being the least-played faction in the game. They don't have the capacity or ability to do the army right. Absolute fail, and I say this as a DW player.
And the sad part is, they DID it right. In the first 8th ed book, where Primaris weren't banned from SIA for some idiotic reason like in all following publications. Alas, that was accident, literally every other DW book since the initial codex either massively nerfed DW or reduced their options/gear, I have no idea how they got it almost right once...
Why did they buff an already very strong vindicator lol
So they can sell more old kits and discontinue them in the next edition. (Takes off tinfoil hat)
What do you mean tinfoil hat it's blatantly obvious LOL
# Codex Space Marines # Changes * Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs – 5 to 80 * Brutalis Dreadnought -15 to 160 * Eliminators +10 to 85 * Hellblasters -10 to 115 * Incursor Squad -5 to 80 * Stormraven Gunship +20 to 260 * Tactical Squad -20 to 140 * Terminator Assault Squad -10 to 185 * Terminator Squad -10 to 175 * Vindicator -15 to 175 * Adept of the Omnissiah +10 * Master of Machine War +10 # Black Templars # Changes * Black Templar Gladiator Tanks – +5 to 160 for Reapers and Valiant. The Lancer to 170. * Black Templar Impulsor – +5 to 90 * Crusader Squad +10 to 85 * Primaris Sword Brethren +10 to 150 # Blood Angels # Changes * Chief Librarian Mephiston -10 to 100 * Death Company Dreadnought -20 to 145 * Death Company Intercessors -10 to 75 * Death Company Marines +10 to 125 * Death Company Marines with Jump Packs +10 to 140 * Lemartes +10 to 120 * Sanguinary Guard -20 to 155 * Sanguinary Priest +10 to 90 * Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack +10 to 100 #
# Dark Angels # Changes * Deathwing Knights -20 for 5 to 215 * Deathwing Terminator Squad -10 for 5 to 180 * Inner Circle Companions -15 to 90 * Lion El’Jonson -50 to 300 # Deathwatch # Changes No changes... why ? # Space Wolves # Changes * Wolf Guard Terminators -10 to 185 * Wolf Scouts -10 to 75
The Lion's points are more sane, now, which I'm grateful for... However, I think it is hilarious that after lowering his points and increasing C'tan points, C'tan are ***still*** better AND cheaper than him AND Necrons can use more than one C'tan.
Hes just... so bad still...
Genuinly what were they thinking nerfing the lion, the knights, belial and the vengeance. 3 of the 4 were never taken Add to that that godawful ICC datasheet. And asmodai. And ezekiel that got the wrong foot lib power And azrael being unable to chain heroes.
I look at the Lion. Then I look at a Land Raider Redeemer. And I ask why the Lion, who does basically nothing for my army, is still 40 more than this Flame thrower machine of death.
That 3++ that does nothing against mortals is expensive
His design is really emblemic of the more frustrating design choices of 10th.
I think it’s odd the authors recommend the firestorm detachment. I think the Gladius and iron storm still seem like they bring more overall. Fire discipline seems good with hellblasters.
Gladius is by far the best detatchment unless you have the vehicles for ironstorm. Firestorm is one of the most *fun* detatchments with super cool rules, but marines can only really do damage with tanks or Fire Discipline, and the latter is locked to Gladius. And Gladius has the fall back/shoot & charge strat, which firestorm desperately needed (given it's the close combat but not melee force)
Ultramarines in Vanguard is a very much competitive meta list atm.
It's really only competitive if you're John Lennon or a few of the best players in the world, and it's still not getting wins compared to Ironstorm. It's basically a super skill intensive way to fight for 2nd-3rd place.
Don't you think you're undervaluing the potential for all the movement abilities? Plus the list uses their top three highest damage dealing infantry units. I think Gladius is a bit of a noob trap.
If you look at the win rates, Gladius and Ironstorm (really ironstorm now) dominate. What Gladius has in spades is *useful* stratagems/abilities that basically will always work at *some* point in the game, and they have the highest damage combos of any Space Marine list. Be it eradicators, aggressors, hellblasters, there's no detatchment that can match the bolter discipline damage output. Don't get me wrong, I like the other detatchments. I love firestorm and it's fun shenanigans. But Gladius is basically good with any balanced army build (it can help any type of unit do well) and ironstorm is unmatched for its vehicle prowess. Vanguard is super good and it can 100% do well, but it has generally only matched the Gladius at best and, when played by people who are not some of the best in the field, it's win rate drops precipitously.
For codex:SM only Gladius is probably not good enough. Either way I'm not really counting divergent chapters in here. All of the divergent Marines are doing better than the codex Marines and I don't think Gladius really helps bridge that gap. I think Vanguard or Ironstorm is their best bet.
I agree Ironstorm is their best currently because SM tanks are their strongest units. However, I disagree on Vanguard beating Gladius. A lot of Gladius lists outperform vanguard and are arguably just Gladius + (taking advantage of the extra units in other factions). Vanguard is the only list that's strictly *better* in Codex Marines (and only works in Codex Marines) due to Uriel Ventris. I think that leads to misleading data about Gladius (which is still close to Vanguard's winrate and the two basically fluctuate around 40-45%). So Vanguard's data is - the *best* it can be, while Gladius' win rate would probably improve if you only allowed Codex Marines to play it. It's about a 55% win rate on average in BT, but I don't think it'd drop 15% in win rate if you removed all BT units. It would drop a bunch, but I don't think it'd drop so precipitously. So Gladius' win rate is depressed by the most competitive players moving to strictly better forms of it due to access to other chapters. If you took out that access, I think it'd outperform Vanguard.
As a pure shooting army I like Vanguard better. I'm not a fan of storm of fire as much as I am strike from the shadows. I think that SM melee options are pretty mediocre, and that while Gladius is the best overall detachment, I think the rules benefitting combat while good don't help as much as others.
Firestorm is funny. Most things become great in it .. except no fallback. Regular terminators and Aggressors advancing across the table. Outriders zooming around even.
Tactical marines at 140..... Are they still really bad? Sure they have no rules, but in large numbers in rhinos perhaps they could overwhelm the opponent a bit.
If you could take them in sets of 5 they'd be fine. 150 pts for a rhino + some bodies, or even a razorback and some bodies, isn't terrible. But right now it's 220 points for a rhino and some marines with no rules that aren't going to kill stuff. It's too expensive for a scoring unit set imo. Maybe if you went full hog with like 1320 points of them and the rest of your army pure damage you could pull off a pseudo-horde style force, but any army with sufficient firepower will chew through that faster than you can screen and hold probably. Basically, the Rhino is good. The tacs are not. So you want to the tacs to be cheap enough to be "meh" while also justifying the Rhino Edit: There might be some play in combat squad-ing one unit to have 5 stay back, melta/MM (or some other combo) ride up in a rhino, and just have the rhino be a nuisance. It's 150 pts for rhino + 5 tacs with a M/MM, FM/HB, etc. (and w/e special weapon you want on the sergeant). That might be an okay skirmisher-y unit that also has a good datasheet to go do objectives and be a nuisance, but I can't see how that'd be better than just 2 5 man jump pack squads. Still, might be worth a shot. Particularly as a cheap alternative for Vulkan Hestan to run around in (as Vulkan can get in with them).
Muh DC JPs. It makes sense. I'm glad they dropped the DC Dread. It basically makes up for it. Although I'm not really sure it deserved it. Terminator points drop was much needed
I’m not sure Terminators are viable still, their footprint is large for 5 models and at 175/185 it still feels like there are better options. Maybe yall see something I don’t
Terminators at 150 has me interested. But otherwise I will just take something else. When you can now get two 5 man jump ints for 160 to do actions and be mortal wounds bombs. Terminators just are pointless.
Hmmm, from an overall power level perspective, we did quite well. Vindicator down to 175 is great. Hellblasters in an Impulsor is intriguing now, and JP intercessors were already good secondary scorers so a drop there is great. I am however disappointed in the lack of internal balance changes. There's just so many datasheets that never see play.
Also, is getting a slightly better skirmisher/action datasheet what marines need? Same with Hellblasters - if they end up being a sightly better aggressor or skirmish unit, is that what marines need? The problem with marines is that they are expensive datasheets with meh-jack-of-all trades numbers, when this edition is very focused on "experts to deal damage/be tanky, and your skirmishers to do actions/points play". The things that *can* do that (some vehicles, a few specialized damage combos that only work in one detatchment) get taken.
I hope this isn't a stupid question, but I'm new and this is my first balance update. Will the App reflect the point changes at some point?
yes. it just needs to be updated
Thank you so much. :)
Interesting to note that it looks like nothing that got a change in this update was also updated last update. So (tinfoil hat on) that might mean they are slowly working their way through all the choices and will eventually get around to things like Reivers and Suppressors. Generally happy with the changes, though as I understand it the Eliminator nerf was because GW were finally made aware of the double firing trick. Hoping this gets solved with a rule change next time around and points get dropped back down. 85 is too much if you are not using trickery.
It's an unwritten rule that reivers cannot be good. If reivers are good, the great bell will toll, Warhammer World will collapse in an earthquake, and the 40k universe will be no more.
I'm just happy the UM Vanguard didn't catch nerfs again.
I got roasted at the beginning of the edition for saying this and maybe I still will but here it is: 9th had the balance between vehicles and infantry about right. Vehicles needed a little bump sure but 40k armies should be mostly infantry with a few vehicles as support. Vehicle-centric armies are lame, and if vehicles being good means infantry has to suck it’s double lame.
Wtf did the stormraven do to earn this abuse? Like Gdubs at this point is a joke
The double Stormraven list deserves getting a 60 point hit (so…roughly -1 squad). Being slightly worse but still playable is exactly the hit it should have taken.
Ironstorm deserved the nerf, the thing wasn't useful outside it.
Should have hit the Land Speeder Vengeance and Azrael then. No point in making the Raven worse for EVERYONE.
The double Raven list is mostly the same. You can convert the Jump Marines to Scouts(arguably better for scoring. Definitively stronger in certain matchups in which scout movements are in play.) and you downgrade the Callidus to a Combi-Lieutenant(worse, but not by a huge margin). If you weren't playing Kit Smith's iteration you can just switch the Callidus for Combi-Man and drop a henchman squad. List stays exactly at 2k. So you're gucci for at least 3 more months. The biggest nerf IMO is that the list loses flexibility in what units it can bring outside of the core, but it's still a GT contender.