Alright. No one is going to say it, so I will. Space Marines need help.
Combat doctrines and chapter tactics are all well and good, and the extra wound for Firstborn can’t get here quickly enough; but I think we all know that deep down, they aren’t nearly enough.
You’ll hear the Tau players complain about their faction’s woes in 9th, but they pale in comparison to the overwhelming difficulties that Marine players face. If I have to hear one more flippin’ Tyranid player talk about their codex, I think I’m going to just quit the game altogether. They just don’t respect what we go through as Space Marine players.
We have too many good choices, and not enough slots in a detachment for them. When a codex has this many choices for Elites, it becomes unfair for them to have to spend Command Points to unlock further detachments. Especially when only ONE chapter has access to multiple characters that add command points to their armies. Give me a break.
Why should I have to pay more command points to get access to choices beyond 6 Elites in my battalion? Why should I be penalized for having good units to take? It’s not my fault that your army doesn’t have those choices.
Everyone loves to complain about how Marines get ALL the love and attention from Games Workshop. I don’t know how they can get through the mental gymnastics of this issue, it’s painfully glaring and obvious. How can I pick between Judicators, Aggressors, Tactical Warsuits, Apothecaries, Sternguard, and other awesome choices with only 6 slots?
I want my command points for stratagems, not for detachments. We all do. Have a little heart rules writers. Everyone likes to get on Reece’s case for hating Tau (because he does), but he really has actually gone after Marines here. By not fixing this issue in play testing, he’s really telling all Astartes players that their weaknesses and huge obvious codex gaps aren’t his problem. That’s absolutely morally reprehensible.
I know that people won’t agree with me. That’s fine, sometimes it takes the true grit of an army wide 6+ feel no pain to be strong enough to take everyone’s scatter lasers. Remember though, thanks to Transhuman Physiology you can only wound me on a 4+.
Back in 7th, with the Gladius and peak demon summoning potential, Marines were playable. They still struggled against things like bark bark stars and thundercav stars. Before you go telling me that those are Marine lists too, they weren’t they were usually Space Wolves and Dark Angels. Totally different. We need to go back to free transports and pure Ob Sec to give Marines a chance. It’s not fair that we are the premier GW product yet lose all our rules.
Fix this Games Workshop. Not only do you have a fiduciary duty to your customers, you have a moral obligation to provide a product that’s fun for everyone. Also, Genestealer Cult need a points increase.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
I don’t understand why FLG allows this kind of “article”. I suppose this was meant to be humorous.
It really just comes across as trolling.
Hating (and don’t think this doesn’t come across that way) on the largest part of the community leaves FLG with a bad smell, supporting this kind of ridicule. You might think of this as funny, but as one of many who have rode Space Marines live or die since 2e, through high (few) and low (a few more) and getting a six month period of greatness only to have to listen to this kind of hate and ridicule.
It does nothing to grow the community. Quite the opposite.
From one Astartes player to another, don’t take jokes about little plastic models so seriously.
If you’ve played Marines for that long, you know they’ve had way more than a sixth month period of greatness.
Not only is this article a shot at Marines being OP, it’s also a shot at players constantly crying about imbalance.
If someone reads this and opts not to get into the hobby, they probably weren’t very long for the hobby then.
Man if you think some lighthearted satire about Marines is worth getting up in arms for you must not read what Marines players say about other factions lol.
Well, non-marine players like me think the oppossite than you and appreciate this article. Marines are ridicously powerful now and everyone hates having lost a game beforehand only because your opponent has Space Marines
It, s not nice to see that manyplayers that buy Space Marines (or any other army that fit the bill) just because they are the most powerful army at the moment
Space Marines aren’t just on a regular old six-month spree of being somewhat OP.
By any available metric, they are probably the most OP faction that ever existed in the game during the past 20+ years (if not more) and single-handedly turned 8th Edition from arguably the most balanced edition of the game into almost certainly the worst balanced (perhaps not counting the more RPG-ish first edition).
Some ridicule is small solace. Whether it’s 5th Edition Grey Knights, 7th Ed. Screamer Stars or 8th Ed. Ynnari / Castellan, many armies’ fans had to endure far worse for game-imbalances that are in hindsight negligible compared to the Marine codex.
Really between Spider winning the first GWGT in September 2017 with Ultramarines and Richard winning LVO in January 2020 was a long time.
During then we had Ynarri spam (LVO Jan 2018), HiveTyrant spam (Adepticon 2018), leading to the rule of 3. Custodus won London GT2018 (Geoff Robinson) and Orks won the GWGT2018. Then we had knight +spam for well over a year; before Tau won Nova 2019 and GWGT2019. So in real gaming terms that’s only a few months. And a lot of different armies winning throughout that edition.
We’re are ages away from any serious tournament worth reporting about. In many places a gathering of 6 or 30 is the largest allowed. Even Warhammer World remains closest and the only big tournament held was LVO in Jnaury 2020.
Meta ?
Best faction with only a small section of info available to us ?
No-one knows.
There’s always some army winning a tournament, obviously.
But there is a difference between Ynnari coming out on top of LVO 2018 with 2 lists in the Top 10 (actually Ynnari were outnumbered by Blood Angels in the top cut that year) and a high 50s win rate overall and other armies (e.g. Nids and Poxwalker-spam at Adepticon barely 6 weeks later) doing just as well at similar-sized events without a rule change vs. high 60% to near 70% win rates, frequent full-on top 5 all-Astartes and over 50% of all armies of Top 10s of big tournaments.
One is a strong army winning some tournaments (but not others). One is a structural balance-problem unprecedented in 25+ years of Warhammer 40K.
I’m starting to wonder of this will blow up in their faces like 7th edition did. If it doesn’t I think this is just going to be the future. Marines get more stuff because they sell more, they sell more because they are better and the circle closes.
Everyone (outliers I’m sure) buys Space Marines. Meta chasers are what they are, but the vast majority of Space Marine armies that exist because they are the Protagonist GW has chosen to drive the story. Meta chasers had Marines before 2.0, they just spiffied them up with black paint and and called them Iron Hands from October to February when COVID hit … almost six months.
Ultramarines were a hiccup at the beginning of 8th for half a sandwich before Soup, Ynarri, Death Guard, and Knights, especially Knights ruled the meta much longer than Iron Hands (sprinkle in some Imperial Fist and Raven Guard) ever did. It was overwhelming because … it took practically no investment for Meta chasers to jump on that wagon.
Iron Hands … not Dark Angels, not Space Wolves, not Salamanders or White Scars at the time … Iron Hands.
Victor … thank you that’s the perpetuation of the attitude I was pointing towards. Because nothing grows the hobby like being told you’re choice of an army is because you’re a bearded munchkin who is sucking the life out the game because of the Faction you chose to favor 30 years ago.
The most OP Faction for over 20 years Space Marines? Zweischneid I’ll have some of whatever you’re drinking. There is one Faction that has been among the best over that time period and it’s not Marines.
It’s my opinion that while it was attempting to be satirical, it just feeds the anger of players like Victor, and while I sympathize with Victors frustration because during COVID, and widespread social unrest across my country and the globe is still so fresh, it would be nice to see more articles healing the hurts of the community not throwing salt into wounds and dividing people.
The numbers just don’t bear out, sorry.
I never said Space Marines were the dominant army for 20 years straight.
But their win percentage and representation in tournament top 10s, top 5s, etc.. just puts them on an entirely different scale than anything seen before, whether it’s Ynnari, Maelific Lords, 7th Ed. Screamer Star, 5th Ed. Grey Knights, etc..
Trying to lump these in with the current Space Marines is akin to claiming shoplifting is the same as premeditated murder, just because they are both crimes.
There is no precedent for the current Marine book in the history of 40K (and yes, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Iron Hands or Ultramarines or Salamanders, the fault is in the main Marine Codex and the core mechanics, the re-rolls, etc.., not the supplements that may or may not compete for the final inch between each other 20 miles above all the other armies).
Trying to pull some weird trumpian false equivalence in excusing the current Marine problem by claiming they are of a kind with the Castellan or 7th ed Ynnari or some such is both dishonest, misleading and distracting from the issue.