I'd support Steve54's suggestion, ONLY if the rest of the Marine list gets a look at.

Terminators and Air Assault are at the forefront of Marine tactics, in part because they're very effective, but also in part because any other option kinda blows. Just nerfing it and not fixing the other aspects (Vinds and Pred D's most noticeable, but Tacs, Assaults(when not ThunderHawking), Raiders and Pred A's could all use some lovin'), wouldn't do it for me.

Personally I think the list needs a complete overhaul. Nickle-and-Diming it just looks like it's going to take forever.

Morgan Vening

Though I'm not sure I necessarily agree completely, Morgan has a point.

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E&C isn't really misrepresenting you as, in addition to saying they were 'crappier', said you always lost with them.

IMO they were a strong air assault/teleport list before and now are even better at that. Surely changes to reduce armour costs+increase stats will be more effective if the errata changes boosting air assaults etc aren't retained.

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Now you're doing it I didn't actually say that. But I'm done. I'm in the minority again so there's no point arguing about it I guess. I will say though that I hope this doesn't pass because 4-5 people want it that way....

Is it ok to ask what prompted the sudden desire to change the SM rules again? it's been this way for 2 years now and this is the first I've heard that it's over the top.

I agree that I hope it doesn't go thorugh just because 5 people support it - but I've yet to see any resistance to it based on any actual issues

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Well I'm opposed to it on the basis that is starting to look quite like we are changing everything in the list at once.

Vindicator det. and upgrade reprice
Predator Dest. reprice
Land raider update and reprice
Warhound update and reprice
...

Wouldn't it be wiser if we were to wait to see what those changes affect first ?

I mean, soon this official list will see "a change a week" like in its infancy. Isn't it supposed to be at least somewhat stable ? From all the cries, it look like it's utterly broken since day 1.

The list isn't that imbalanced at all. People here are unhappy that air assault/warhound lists seem to dominate and want things to change.

Steve has just brought up another option for discussion. As Steve says at every tournament I've attend this year I've had to re-confirm how the blast markers effect marines in assault resolution. If that many regular epic players get confused then the rule is, at best, poorly implemented. I'd be happy to see it go.

And at the end of the day we are all suggesting and debating options that the Army Champion can elect to adopt or not. I doubt very much that all of the suggested changes would be incorporated in one hit, but you never know!

As Zombo said in that thread however, these tournaments uses the EpicUK lists, not this one. It is quite futile to change this list if the aim is to affect those tournaments.

In my opinion Marines have always been a very powerful army, as long as you focus on an Air assault theme backed up with Terminators for teleporting and recycling. Before the change to halve blasmarkers in an engagement they were one of the top lists in terms of power.

In recent times the Marines have been weakened by cost increases to Terminators and Warhounds (but in truth these choices were very overpowered and the adjustment was required). The Codex Marine list also gained a boost in the form of the Half blast markers in an engagement and also Leaders removing 2 blast markers, now I think most people are happy enough with the 2 blast marker removal from leaders - Marine characters are quite expensive and it is both a characterful addition and because of the way broken marine formations come back with so many blast markers it is probably required.

The problem is the fairly innocuous looking half blast markers in an engagement - its a very powerful tool, it could for instance be looked at in most situations when marines Air assault or Teleport as a free inspiring character (the effect is invariably the same) - In most cases a Thunderhawk or Landing Craft Air assault will come under fire from AA but its armour will protect it and you will enter the engagement with a single blast marker which will then be effectively reduced to 0 blast markers (while still counting as having a blast marker - confusingly written rule!).

The same occurs in general with teleporting Terminators, invariably they get a single blast marker.

Now I am sure if I was to propose a free inspiring character to teleporting Terminators and any Marines partaking in an air assault - everyone would think I am crazy, but that is effectively what this rule did under the most common in game conditions.

At the same time in the Codex list at least it didnt really help any of the formations perceived as weak (mostly Marine armour formations). if I am engageing Marine armour it is invariably dead (half blast marker or not), also Marine armour is not the optimum load for any air assault (note it can be used to air assault effectively - its just not the optimum) so again wont be using the half blast marker effect to any great advantage.

Personally to balance Marines currently I would think the easiest way would be remove the half blast markers in an engagement effect from ATSKNF and add some sort of dammage (or potential dammage) effect to the warhound critical.

Would any of that solve the internal balance issues in terms of what is an optimal Marine build - probably not, but from my perspective at least it would make them balanced as a tournament force.

Yes.

To be honest, the Codex Marine list *has* been out of shape since day one.

You don't get 250pt Warhounds and 300pt Vindicator formations in a list that is internally balanced.


To be fair, the EpicUK Codex list is very similar to the NetEA list.

There are some minor differences, but for the most part it's the same; They didn't deal with some problem units (Land Speeder Tornados, Predator Destructors), but it's not like those units form the bedrock of typical NetEA lists (Indeed, Pred D's are still often regarded as pretty lame in their NetEA implementation too).

The only big difference is that EUK decided that Marines should have an explicit rule that allows them to swap drop pods for Rhinos before each game starts in a tournament situation, which some NetEA chaps play with anyway.


This is a good point to make I think, and one that I agree with.

At the same time, we're looking at two different sets of changes.

1 - Balance externally (Remove problem special rule, Nerf Warhounds again)
2 - Balance internally (Make several formations cheaper/better because they're being out-shone by other formations that are all balanced externally)

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Just sayin'.

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I despise the "half BP in assault" thing. It's unneeded, unclear, never feels fair on the opponent, and honestly marine assault formations were already brilliant, so it just made the air assault list better.

As yme-loc mentioned; if the rule had instead been "free inspiring character for every formation" it would have been quickly shot down, but the effect is almost always the same.

Hena: Sure, it makes ground assault a little better, but it makes air assault much better, which overall makes mud marines less likely to be seen.

I agree with Hena; the 1/2 bm rule does not negate the need to prep an assault. If a SM formation carries a BM into an engagement, it still counts as having a BM (at least that's how we've understood/played it). So, it's rare that this rule generates the 2 point swing (i.e. no bm vs having bm) in resolution unless the SM player has prepped the assault anyway. The rule should be easy to understand, but it does fit with ATSKNF, IMHO.

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