I was thinking recently that its interesting that the original designers decided that tacs would have 4+ FF and devs would have 3+ FF because arguably it should have been the other way round.

Care to elaborate more on this? I thought it was quite obvious really, assault gets 3+ CC Devs get 3+ FF and Tacs get 4+ to both since they are jack of all trades types. I'm happy to admit I'm probably looking at that a little simplistically.

Units equipped with the big anti-tank type weapons tend not to enjoy good FF values, whereas the small arms, flamer and rapid fire weaponry, gets the bigger numbers (see Predator Annihilator, for instance). Devastators getting missile launchers is a bit of a wash if we assume a firefight involves a combination of suppressive, maneuver and close quarters combat abilities.

I don't know about that. The Imperial Guard Fire Support have a 4+ FF value compared to the IG Tacs 5+, and those are the closest comparison units I can recall off the top of my head in terms of function.

FWIW I think the idea at the time was that since the FF/CC is supposed to represent an entire game of 28mm 40k devastators have to have a decent prociency in it? The meta of the game may have moved way beyond that line of reasoning now but the result remains.

I think its a very good point - though probably mean no-one would take devs instead! :-)

Got to say, tacticals tend to be the go to for a hard BTS unit in most lists i see. Yes they aren't the heavy hitters of the lists but they are often the backbone.

Imho, the biggest problems for sm internal balance are that terminators are just too damn all round good, and assault units cant assault...


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Some musings . . . .

Termies have always been the best all round unit in the Marines arsenal, and Assault marines the weakest. These are really because of unit sizes and armour.

The RA armour rule makes a huge difference in many respects of the game. I have long argued for a 'variable' armour rule where there are different numbers for the initial and reinforced saves. Eldar titans already do this where the initial save is 3+, but the RA save is 5+. Here I would suggest that the Termies should be 4+ then 5+ (reserving 4+ / 4+ for armoured vehicles).
Tacticals are a good formation, but need upgrades to make them viable - as noted, they make a good BTS. A key problem is Dreadnoughts armour, which 'variable armour' would also assist, perhaps 4+/6+?. This would make Dreads a better option.

Unit sizes are also critical. I actually prefer Assault Bikes over Assault marines because they have 5x units and better stats. It would be a huge benefit if Assault marines could have 1-2 additional units in a similar vein (as in the Blood Angels), and equally the Vindicator ought to have better armour; perhaps 4+/6+ or even 5+/5+ ?
And I see no valid reason why THawk Transporters should not be available to all marine lists - again this would greatly assist the Assault marines.

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Ok, I have now woken up from these pleasant dreams . . . .

As much as I like the idea of variable saves, I strongly object to try to implement it further in the game. It is not a given for eldar titans, it is due to the special rule of holofields. Once they are gone the armour reverts to the normal rules.

Implementing variables would lead to a maelstrom of unending discussion concerning all lists out there and serious balancing issues. And since all lists would be affected I don't see how this could be handled within a decade Apart from creating a new game with few lists..

Personaly i cant help thinking the original writers never imagined people mounting terminators in thunderhawks - and then recycling them too. It cant be right that a unit which already has a deep strike ability - teleport - (and presumably has paid the points for it (?) is still the no-brainer option for putting in a thunderhawk. To me it seems under costed and leads to very samey lists.

Of course, if termies were nurffed a little marines would need a bit of a boost somewhere else. 6 (or8) strong assault option would be a great start.


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Actually I am pretty sure that air-assaulting Termies in a THawk among other things was the main reason that the consolidation rule was introduced just after E:A was first published. Imagine being able to assault / destroy an enemy each turn with this reinforced armour force . . .

I've found that a thunderhawk with assault marines is really good for jumping things like small tank formations and things like that. When deployed on the ground my assault troops usually get mushed unless my opponent gets a bit careless around them

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I suspect that the core lists were originally designed to have slightly sub-par formations that needed upgrades to work well. This is certainly true for the core marines list.

Assault marines work best with commanders and several formations. The standard is a THawk full of AMs or mixed Devastators and AMs. However, have you tried using three formations of AMs together, with a captain commanding two chaplains? Yes it is 675 points worth but still packs quite a punch, and as a variation they can be carried in a landing craft, possibly giving one of the formations the vindi upgrade to add a bit more local firepower, and dropped on a suitable target in the rear.

I've just split this thread, the page-and-a-bit discussion of how list builds match fluff is now here: viewtopic.php?f=73&t=31530

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Something to note is that when people develop new lists nowadays they are playtesting against lists and playstyles that have been 'optimised' for the older lists. Thus these new lists are designed facing off against the 'best' that these old lists can achieve so these new lists 'baseline' opposition is already 'optimal'.

In a way that these older lists would not have been designed for. People, player, community knowledge and skill, experience, etc. would have been less in the days when the initial SM, IG and Orks were being put together compared to now.

Basically: the community now is better at using the older lists so new lists are designed to deal with better players utilising their lists more effectively than they used to.

This can lead to power creep.

@Scutarii - thats a very fair point.

Yes indeed it is, never thought about it like that...

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