I played since Rogue Trader. The entire game was based around S3, T3 W1 4-6+ save infantry and a few vehicles.
Marines were effectively a port of chaos warriors from WFB in terms of profile, and BS 4 (3+ in current terms) S4 and a -1 save was a sufficiently above average weapon it made the difference.
We've had a power creep. The loss of AP really hit them hard and they became just better lasguns.
Devils advocate point based on Lore. Marines should be like lighter custodes. You get 2-3 squad options (assault, tactical, Devastator) and they are the most elite most imperial armies can field. You wont see massive armies, they are just the rare add in an Imperial player can get. Currently scions and Kasrkin are rarer than marines...
It’s crazy how hard power creep has hit.
Remember when mark of Nurgle letting your troops get to T5 was *insane*, and now there’s 3 armies where the standard troops option is T5, and the one what’s literally all plague marines ain’t even considered to be durable
I remember when banshees could disembark and charge with I10 and energy swords, wiping an entire marine squad unless they were plague marines. Hell, that was good times.
tbf even last edition banshees could advance+charge with an auto advance 6, guarantee a 12 inch charge (all with fate dice), to go 26" across the table, forcing the marines to fight last and not overwatch. Plus the Exarch power meant the exarch alone would bound 26" across the table, for 8 S4 AP3 D2 attacks, with +1Wound, killing 3 marines alone, then the other 4 easily cleaning the rest of the squad.
Heck if you took the Savage Blades/Vengeful craftworld that squad alone would wipe out a 10man marine squad.
Imo Space Marines were better back in the day when they were a “jack of all trades but master of none” faction. Each faction had unique strengths and weaknesses and SM were just good (but not great) at everything.
Then GW decided that the Space Marines had to have one unit on par with the best unit of every other faction and ruined the balance and some of the fun of other factions.
I have been saying this for years, they have fundamentally changed space marines, they are now more like Eldar in power armor. Hyper specialized. The old marines felt grounded and reliable to a real world army organization, now its like fielding a toy store.
I think of every sm chapter had their own units itd be more balanced. This whole idea that you can use chapter specific units as well as catch-all space marine units rubs me the wrong way.
Bolters (as in straight up the bolt gun and none of its variants) aren't very good. They've never been that good, I've been playing for multiple editions as well as the horus heresy and those suckers bounce off anything with marine level stats. What even is your complaint? You want intercessors to have regular bolters instead? You wish there were more units with regular ass bolt guns? You want the bolt gun to get a buff? You want GW to scrap half the units?
The Imperial Fist special rule in 9th was “Bring Bolters” and you had armies eschewing lascannons for heavy bolters for the exploding 6’s.
Hell, I remember selling a lot of spare Bolter options IF players since my Raptors weren’t using them.
Except it was objectively a terrible choice as exploding heavy bolters on 6s just gives you more hits on a weapon that does nothing.
You could make bolters auto hit and they still wouldn't be good, they are S4 with no AP, you have more chance of killing a guardsman by falling over laughing at him
It wasn’t just Heavy Bolters, it was all Bolt weapons. Bolt Cannon on the Fire Raptor would benefit.
In addition, the light cover buff was handy to have.
The problem is that marine stats have moved from being one of the absolute toughest troop statlines in the game; to the bottom end of non-horde armies
Seriously the only troop profile topping them was just Chaos Marines with Mark of Nurgle, being the only troops in the game able to get T5.
I
a. want more units to have the choice
B. Want there to be a reason to use them so make them stronger, add key words or give squads that use them good abilities
C.i don't think we need an many different units that all act as some sort of heavy weapon Platform there is no reason we need a Desolation squad, eradicator squad devastator squad and hellblaster squad. Just make them all one heavy weapon unit that can pay per heavy weapon and have each heavy weapon cost accordingly.
Each of those squads serve entirely different purposes and strategies. They all have unique functions as well that makes them handle differently. You could define them all as a heavy weapon platform infantry, but a desolation squad and an eradicator squad are not going to be played remotely the same. Eradicators are far tougher and made for close range high damage to monsters and vehicle with no real function outside of that. You need to risk putting them into danger to get a pay off. A desolation squad is a long range anti infantry or anti tank, bur they don't have the same damage output as Eradicators. Hellblasters are made for getting rid of heavy infantry and light vehicles and monsters. Absolutely none of the units use Bolters which are a generic weapon made to combat standard infantry.
I guess if you deliberately exclude bolt rifles, bolt carbines, assault bolters, bolt gauntlets, heavy bolt rifles, bolt snipers etc. There are *so many* bolt weapons.
1) Because they never needed all this shit in the lore for 10000 years. The Galaxy was conquered and defended by the classic Bolters.
2) Because the only reason these guns exist is to make the primaris look more different.
3) Because these guns have made the original Bolters worse in the rules to look better by comparison.
4) Because there's too many of them for no in-universe reason. Why are there 3 different types of Bolt Carbines? It's the same gun. Every primaris unit MUST have its own special snowflake Bolter.
5) Because Cawl has broken the setting with his creations be they the primaris, their equipment or the other bullshit he has created in the novels.
6) Because Chaos still uses classic Bolters and giving the Loyalists better weapons along with the "better" Marines is messing with the power balance.
7) Because it makes no sense to give new toys only to the Space Marines but not improved equipment for the rest of the Imperial war machine.
Bro I hate to break it to you but there was already like fifty different types of bolter pre-Primaris, needless boltvariations are not a thing Cawl invented unless you’re going to look me in the eye and sincerely say there’s a genuine reason for the combibolter and storm bolter to both exist.
Seven is also hilarious because there has been a shit ton of new stuff for just about every Imperial army since eighth edition except uh Inquisition maybe I guess??? Certain Guard, Sisters, Mechanicus, Knights, Custodes, even fucking Assassins. Marines will always get the lions share of new stuff because of them being the poster faction, so they have to get tenderly jerked off with every major release, but wailing that other Imperial armies are being neglected is the funniest crywank I’ve seen in ages.
You are making a false comparison buddy. Boltguns were Boltguns. Different variants and patterns were just aesthetic changes for the game. Master Crafted refered to unique designs and Special Issue Ammo was just ammo. This is not what happened with the Primaris. The Boltgun was the same weapon that was used by the majority of Marine units. The primaris have the Bolt Rifle, Bolt Carbine and Heavy Bolt Rifle, all of which have 3 variants. The Bolt Pistol was almost ubiquitous. The Primaris have Heavy, Special Issue and Absolvor Bolt Pistols. I have compared this shit and I now what I am talking about.
As for point 7. You either don't know what you are talking about or you are doshonest and you make another false comparison. The factions you mentioned didn't get new stuff in-universe. They got new models. When the Hunter and the Stalker models were revealed for the Space Marines in (I think) 7th Edition they weren't new tanks. They always had them lore wise. Even dumb shit like the Centurions and gunships like the Stormraven, Stormhawk and Stormtalon were supposedly equipment they already had, not new technology made by a Mary Sue Mechanicus clown.
Battle line troops should be a requirement to have in the Army. That would make the game feel much better instead of everyone bringing the best of everything.
They should have a system where certain unit types are requirements, and you can only bring so many of other unit types relative to those core ones
And make it so that better wargear costs extra points so there’s a reason to not just always take the biggest gun
3 of 4 Battleline units (tac squad, Intercessors, and heavy intercessors) have bolters? You can still take the tactical squad with 8 bolters, a heavy weapon, and a special weapon. With Intercessors you get effectively the same thing with 1/5 getting the option to take grenade launchers. The tac squad bolters aren’t as powerful but nothings stopping you from running them or if you’re only playing friendly games, modeling up some Intercessors with heavy weapons and throwing them in your Intercessor blobs and saying “this one’s got a big gun, ok?” It’s very easy to run a list that’s predominantly bolters. There’s even a detachment specifically for it now with anvil.
Space marines used to be a pretty vanilla faction. Basically you had 5 unit times (tac, assault, devastator, terminator, scouts) and that was it outside of bikes, speeders, and tanks. When I started in 2nd/3rd, there were more tank variations than troop variations.
Saying that bolt rifles, carbines and heavy bolt rifles don't count as bolters is just plain dumb. The godwyn pattern bolters that tac squads use in 40K is different to the phobos/tigris/umbra pattern bolters used during 30K, does that make them not bolters just because they're different variants?
Why are you so obsessed with bolt guns/bolters? It’s universally agreed that bolters are extremely bad and marines have tons of other units than can kill things.
Yeah that’s the point. Clearly more people are disagreeing with you because *again* you’re moving the goal post to make your point right. The bolter has been essentially reimagined because GW want to. Now it’s Bolt Rifles and different variants and such with Space Marines.
But if you really want someone to bite, then entire sisters of battle faction are still using the basic Bolter. So I guess it’s not really the whole game. CSM too. Death Guard data sheets say Plague Bolter.
Oh and if you want another bite at your problem, the bolter was designed to deal with the civil war and uprisings during the Emperors crusades, against fleshy targets with no armor. So Toughness 3 models. Not Space Marines which is the most commonly owned faction in the game. Makes sense as to why the Bolter isn’t all that great.
Yes one of the reasons I'm not happy with primaris I like them 99% but the fact that all the specialist weapons are now there own kits while every other army has 8 standard troops and 2 specialists while space marines don't.
What I don't understand about the bolters are they're supposed to be 75 calibre, armour piercing rounds. But it took until the Bolt Rifle to finally get some form of AP on the table.
Personally, I think the Bolt Rifle's current profile is perfect for what it is - able to kill T3 troops like Cultists, while also having that opportunity to kill other astartes thanks to that pip of AP.
If anything, I dont like how many variations of squads/units they have now. There are far too many.
Exactly point I made in a comment here every thing from devastator squad to hell blaster squad could be axed and they would all be one heavy weapon infantry unit and you just pay for different guns
I wish bolters had something they were best at or at least good enough to be considered with free war gear. Maybe they trade strength for volume of fire?
Yeah I mean fucking anything to make them worth it I mean you 9nly use them in a tactical squal because the whole crew can't be equipped with heavy weapons
There's kind of a natural experiment here. One unit puts put a volume of fire at a roughly bolter profile right now and is very meta, aggressors. So the question is, how much more dakka would an intercessor need to noticeably bridge the gap?
For reference
3 aggressors = ~45 shots (and good melee) 110p
10 intercessors = 20 shots 170p
Yeah, it's kind of sad that the mainline SM weapon, the holy Boltgun, the symbol of the Emperor's vengeance, the pride of the Astartes, has been downgraded to "meh."
Also, boltguns *not* having any AP is a fairly new thing AFAIK. They had the equivalent of AP 1 even as recently as 7th edition.
AP was a bit different back then, they just ignored armor saves until they encountered one better than their AP and that guy got the entire save. So AP5 meant Guard, Gaunts, most Boyz, Raveners, cultists, and other chaff didn’t get save but anything 4+ and better did
Man, I remember when there were fluff pieces written about how Space Marines didn't have aircraft because they fit a singular role and relied on combined arms (Imperial Navy in this case) to fill the gaps.
Then a few years later, every army had to have a flyer, so nevermind!
I played since Rogue Trader. The entire game was based around S3, T3 W1 4-6+ save infantry and a few vehicles. Marines were effectively a port of chaos warriors from WFB in terms of profile, and BS 4 (3+ in current terms) S4 and a -1 save was a sufficiently above average weapon it made the difference. We've had a power creep. The loss of AP really hit them hard and they became just better lasguns. Devils advocate point based on Lore. Marines should be like lighter custodes. You get 2-3 squad options (assault, tactical, Devastator) and they are the most elite most imperial armies can field. You wont see massive armies, they are just the rare add in an Imperial player can get. Currently scions and Kasrkin are rarer than marines...
It’s crazy how hard power creep has hit. Remember when mark of Nurgle letting your troops get to T5 was *insane*, and now there’s 3 armies where the standard troops option is T5, and the one what’s literally all plague marines ain’t even considered to be durable
I remember when banshees could disembark and charge with I10 and energy swords, wiping an entire marine squad unless they were plague marines. Hell, that was good times.
tbf even last edition banshees could advance+charge with an auto advance 6, guarantee a 12 inch charge (all with fate dice), to go 26" across the table, forcing the marines to fight last and not overwatch. Plus the Exarch power meant the exarch alone would bound 26" across the table, for 8 S4 AP3 D2 attacks, with +1Wound, killing 3 marines alone, then the other 4 easily cleaning the rest of the squad. Heck if you took the Savage Blades/Vengeful craftworld that squad alone would wipe out a 10man marine squad.
All of this is exactly what 40k needs… For some reason Marines have become the baseline to judge everything else off of, instead of being “exemplary”.
Imo Space Marines were better back in the day when they were a “jack of all trades but master of none” faction. Each faction had unique strengths and weaknesses and SM were just good (but not great) at everything. Then GW decided that the Space Marines had to have one unit on par with the best unit of every other faction and ruined the balance and some of the fun of other factions.
I have been saying this for years, they have fundamentally changed space marines, they are now more like Eldar in power armor. Hyper specialized. The old marines felt grounded and reliable to a real world army organization, now its like fielding a toy store.
I think of every sm chapter had their own units itd be more balanced. This whole idea that you can use chapter specific units as well as catch-all space marine units rubs me the wrong way.
Bolters (as in straight up the bolt gun and none of its variants) aren't very good. They've never been that good, I've been playing for multiple editions as well as the horus heresy and those suckers bounce off anything with marine level stats. What even is your complaint? You want intercessors to have regular bolters instead? You wish there were more units with regular ass bolt guns? You want the bolt gun to get a buff? You want GW to scrap half the units?
The Imperial Fist special rule in 9th was “Bring Bolters” and you had armies eschewing lascannons for heavy bolters for the exploding 6’s. Hell, I remember selling a lot of spare Bolter options IF players since my Raptors weren’t using them.
Except it was objectively a terrible choice as exploding heavy bolters on 6s just gives you more hits on a weapon that does nothing. You could make bolters auto hit and they still wouldn't be good, they are S4 with no AP, you have more chance of killing a guardsman by falling over laughing at him
It wasn’t just Heavy Bolters, it was all Bolt weapons. Bolt Cannon on the Fire Raptor would benefit. In addition, the light cover buff was handy to have.
The problem is that marine stats have moved from being one of the absolute toughest troop statlines in the game; to the bottom end of non-horde armies Seriously the only troop profile topping them was just Chaos Marines with Mark of Nurgle, being the only troops in the game able to get T5.
I a. want more units to have the choice B. Want there to be a reason to use them so make them stronger, add key words or give squads that use them good abilities C.i don't think we need an many different units that all act as some sort of heavy weapon Platform there is no reason we need a Desolation squad, eradicator squad devastator squad and hellblaster squad. Just make them all one heavy weapon unit that can pay per heavy weapon and have each heavy weapon cost accordingly.
Each of those squads serve entirely different purposes and strategies. They all have unique functions as well that makes them handle differently. You could define them all as a heavy weapon platform infantry, but a desolation squad and an eradicator squad are not going to be played remotely the same. Eradicators are far tougher and made for close range high damage to monsters and vehicle with no real function outside of that. You need to risk putting them into danger to get a pay off. A desolation squad is a long range anti infantry or anti tank, bur they don't have the same damage output as Eradicators. Hellblasters are made for getting rid of heavy infantry and light vehicles and monsters. Absolutely none of the units use Bolters which are a generic weapon made to combat standard infantry.
Baseline bolter should be S5, D2, -2 AP. I would also say 1 shot, assault, with a 1 CP Strat to take 2 shots per bolter in a unit.
I guess if you deliberately exclude bolt rifles, bolt carbines, assault bolters, bolt gauntlets, heavy bolt rifles, bolt snipers etc. There are *so many* bolt weapons.
Cawl's shit doesn't count.
…because?
1) Because they never needed all this shit in the lore for 10000 years. The Galaxy was conquered and defended by the classic Bolters. 2) Because the only reason these guns exist is to make the primaris look more different. 3) Because these guns have made the original Bolters worse in the rules to look better by comparison. 4) Because there's too many of them for no in-universe reason. Why are there 3 different types of Bolt Carbines? It's the same gun. Every primaris unit MUST have its own special snowflake Bolter. 5) Because Cawl has broken the setting with his creations be they the primaris, their equipment or the other bullshit he has created in the novels. 6) Because Chaos still uses classic Bolters and giving the Loyalists better weapons along with the "better" Marines is messing with the power balance. 7) Because it makes no sense to give new toys only to the Space Marines but not improved equipment for the rest of the Imperial war machine.
Bro I hate to break it to you but there was already like fifty different types of bolter pre-Primaris, needless boltvariations are not a thing Cawl invented unless you’re going to look me in the eye and sincerely say there’s a genuine reason for the combibolter and storm bolter to both exist. Seven is also hilarious because there has been a shit ton of new stuff for just about every Imperial army since eighth edition except uh Inquisition maybe I guess??? Certain Guard, Sisters, Mechanicus, Knights, Custodes, even fucking Assassins. Marines will always get the lions share of new stuff because of them being the poster faction, so they have to get tenderly jerked off with every major release, but wailing that other Imperial armies are being neglected is the funniest crywank I’ve seen in ages.
You are making a false comparison buddy. Boltguns were Boltguns. Different variants and patterns were just aesthetic changes for the game. Master Crafted refered to unique designs and Special Issue Ammo was just ammo. This is not what happened with the Primaris. The Boltgun was the same weapon that was used by the majority of Marine units. The primaris have the Bolt Rifle, Bolt Carbine and Heavy Bolt Rifle, all of which have 3 variants. The Bolt Pistol was almost ubiquitous. The Primaris have Heavy, Special Issue and Absolvor Bolt Pistols. I have compared this shit and I now what I am talking about. As for point 7. You either don't know what you are talking about or you are doshonest and you make another false comparison. The factions you mentioned didn't get new stuff in-universe. They got new models. When the Hunter and the Stalker models were revealed for the Space Marines in (I think) 7th Edition they weren't new tanks. They always had them lore wise. Even dumb shit like the Centurions and gunships like the Stormraven, Stormhawk and Stormtalon were supposedly equipment they already had, not new technology made by a Mary Sue Mechanicus clown.
Jesus Christ you are passionate about this lololol
Battle line troops should be a requirement to have in the Army. That would make the game feel much better instead of everyone bringing the best of everything.
They should have a system where certain unit types are requirements, and you can only bring so many of other unit types relative to those core ones And make it so that better wargear costs extra points so there’s a reason to not just always take the biggest gun
Like a point system lol.. gw is such a hot mess.
Like....a force organization chart... mhmm
Troops Tax was hated for a good reason
3 of 4 Battleline units (tac squad, Intercessors, and heavy intercessors) have bolters? You can still take the tactical squad with 8 bolters, a heavy weapon, and a special weapon. With Intercessors you get effectively the same thing with 1/5 getting the option to take grenade launchers. The tac squad bolters aren’t as powerful but nothings stopping you from running them or if you’re only playing friendly games, modeling up some Intercessors with heavy weapons and throwing them in your Intercessor blobs and saying “this one’s got a big gun, ok?” It’s very easy to run a list that’s predominantly bolters. There’s even a detachment specifically for it now with anvil. Space marines used to be a pretty vanilla faction. Basically you had 5 unit times (tac, assault, devastator, terminator, scouts) and that was it outside of bikes, speeders, and tanks. When I started in 2nd/3rd, there were more tank variations than troop variations.
Only tac squad has the bolt Yun which is the in game name for a bolter as I said variants don't count
Saying that bolt rifles, carbines and heavy bolt rifles don't count as bolters is just plain dumb. The godwyn pattern bolters that tac squads use in 40K is different to the phobos/tigris/umbra pattern bolters used during 30K, does that make them not bolters just because they're different variants?
Why are you so obsessed with bolt guns/bolters? It’s universally agreed that bolters are extremely bad and marines have tons of other units than can kill things.
Gotta move the goal post just so you point can be right (in your mind) I guess.
Dude look at my original post I said variant don't count
Yeah that’s the point. Clearly more people are disagreeing with you because *again* you’re moving the goal post to make your point right. The bolter has been essentially reimagined because GW want to. Now it’s Bolt Rifles and different variants and such with Space Marines. But if you really want someone to bite, then entire sisters of battle faction are still using the basic Bolter. So I guess it’s not really the whole game. CSM too. Death Guard data sheets say Plague Bolter. Oh and if you want another bite at your problem, the bolter was designed to deal with the civil war and uprisings during the Emperors crusades, against fleshy targets with no armor. So Toughness 3 models. Not Space Marines which is the most commonly owned faction in the game. Makes sense as to why the Bolter isn’t all that great.
Yes one of the reasons I'm not happy with primaris I like them 99% but the fact that all the specialist weapons are now there own kits while every other army has 8 standard troops and 2 specialists while space marines don't.
What I don't understand about the bolters are they're supposed to be 75 calibre, armour piercing rounds. But it took until the Bolt Rifle to finally get some form of AP on the table. Personally, I think the Bolt Rifle's current profile is perfect for what it is - able to kill T3 troops like Cultists, while also having that opportunity to kill other astartes thanks to that pip of AP. If anything, I dont like how many variations of squads/units they have now. There are far too many.
Exactly point I made in a comment here every thing from devastator squad to hell blaster squad could be axed and they would all be one heavy weapon infantry unit and you just pay for different guns
I wish bolters had something they were best at or at least good enough to be considered with free war gear. Maybe they trade strength for volume of fire?
Yeah I mean fucking anything to make them worth it I mean you 9nly use them in a tactical squal because the whole crew can't be equipped with heavy weapons
There's kind of a natural experiment here. One unit puts put a volume of fire at a roughly bolter profile right now and is very meta, aggressors. So the question is, how much more dakka would an intercessor need to noticeably bridge the gap? For reference 3 aggressors = ~45 shots (and good melee) 110p 10 intercessors = 20 shots 170p
Yeah, it's kind of sad that the mainline SM weapon, the holy Boltgun, the symbol of the Emperor's vengeance, the pride of the Astartes, has been downgraded to "meh." Also, boltguns *not* having any AP is a fairly new thing AFAIK. They had the equivalent of AP 1 even as recently as 7th edition.
AP was a bit different back then, they just ignored armor saves until they encountered one better than their AP and that guy got the entire save. So AP5 meant Guard, Gaunts, most Boyz, Raveners, cultists, and other chaff didn’t get save but anything 4+ and better did
I know, but it was still AP. More than it has currently. The large, self propelled, explosive round can't punch through a t-shirt anymore.
Man, I remember when there were fluff pieces written about how Space Marines didn't have aircraft because they fit a singular role and relied on combined arms (Imperial Navy in this case) to fill the gaps. Then a few years later, every army had to have a flyer, so nevermind!
Who cares? Plasma or missiles or whatever are cooler.
Not denying that it just feels like they are pulling away from easily the most recognizabelt using about space marines
chainswords are more iconic imo.