Making space marines better

[fullmetaljacket]

Who else thinks space marines should be better/ more survivable but cost more points, I think it should be devastating when a battle brother dies not just a meh I have 50 more...
So not too the extreme of movie marines, but something.
Any thoughts
Fmj

[Rolling Thunder]

Really, you'd need to rework the entirity of 40K to make marines properly authentic. But as it stands? 2 wounds. They've got multiple redundant organ systems and medically-treating power armour. They should be tougher than some Ork that happens to be quite big. 2+ armour save for power armour. It gives complete protection; similar to medieval full plate (but motorised) from small arms. WS5 and BS5 as standard as well.

(Terminator armour is simply made to AV11 all around; completely immune to small arms fire.)

[RedsandRoyals]

RT is right. Part of the problem also is that they are trying to capture an extremely diverse array of weapons, armor, and combatants within a relatively small scale of values. As a result, certain things get hand waved or toned down to fit within established precedent.

There's also the issue that Marines are, for better or worse, the baseline of the game. Over half the codices have an MEQ statline for their basic troops, if memory serves. Vanilla marines are the standard against most other units and wargear are held when they are priced, too. That means that most weapons are balanced against marines in terms of lethality and that, in turn, reduces their survivability. Since they are more or less the default infantry of the game, that means that the question of "How survivable should infantry be" invariably means 'How survivable marines be?". If you buff marines to where they "should" be, you risk breaking the game and creating an infantry-heavy meta that curbstomps non MEQ armies.

All this is compounded by most Black Library authors and codex fluff writers trying to make the Marines as awesome sauce as possible in order to push the flagship army of the game.


Two wounds or some sort of special FnP save (taken after the saving roll is failed but before any normal FnP saves) to represent the redundant organs would be the best bet without completely breaking everything. Marines would need a price bump though to compensate.

[nutty]

I would personally like to see a re-rollable armor save for marines/termies. Much like the siege mantlet squads from the FW vanguard list. That would make them far more survivable vs small arms without having to big an impact on the rest of the game.

When it comes to infantry in general: I hope they go back to the cover system as used by epic/munda/fantasy where instead of a flat-out save, cover is a negative modifier to a to-hit roll. It just makes more sense to me that a unit will become harder to hit in cover, rather than recieve a 50/50 chance to ignore the damage caused by taking a battlecannon round to the face. And it'll be decent boost to the survival rate of most infantry units out there.

[RedsandRoyals]

That's an interesting idea, although given how heavily some armies rely on shooting in 40k (where, let's face it, there's probably a lot more shooting involved than Fantasy), I think that might nerf some armies way too hard. Ork shooting in particular would be entirely pointless, since they're already looking at 5s to hit anything.

[fullmetaljacket]

All great points and I really like that negative idea, even if it makes orks worse at shooting, I personally don't believe they should be a shooty army
. So the reason I bring this up is , forever ago, I started collecting siege if vraks armies. But just krieg or renegades but all of them,. And I'm nearing the end of collecting and getting ready to put it all together. ( I've been commission painting while in the marine corps and storing models for when I get out lol ,)
I would like to play a big (as In 30-40000 points on the table of models) games from the Siege if vraks campaign.
Now, I believe I have enough models to properly represent the death korps of krieg and renegades, my issue is do I really want to buy these huge Csm and marine armies, or would. Smaller portions be better, with boosted rules to match the campaign work,??
The biggest thing I don't understand in 40k is seeing so many marines die on the battle field. And I feel the ratio between renegades and krieg dying to space marines dying is to small. Ide rather see 5 space marines show up and do , what 10 space marines do at the same amount of points
So what I've been thinking is.. giving them. 3 inch unit coherency to make the unit more survivable to blasts
Double there points, but when uninjured( at 2wounds). They get double attacks, fire twice ect. Just so less marines die ( models removed I mean,. It's more accurate when you see 1 marine doing alot of damage, ect, )
Thanks for any further input!

[RedsandRoyals]

How about pooling some of the ideas here?

2 wounds, re-rollable armor saves, eternal warrior, and make it so each model can act and move independently (squad leaders can have a Ld bubble of 6-12in). In theory, the improved sticking power of the marines and their ability to fire independently thanks to being their own "squads" should be a natural indirect buff to their damage output, but if that's not enough, I'd go with +1 to the strength of the basic bolter, and/or an additional attack for their rapid fire weapons.

Playtest that, and see how survivable they become. I've no idea what sort of points value you'd assign an individual marine with that sort of statline, though. Unless armies for a given battle are pre-arranged, you obviously have to make them useful enough to justify the points cost. On the flip side, making them fight infantry heavy armies with relatively spares (by 40k standards) armor support is another way to indirectly buff them. Think of it as reducing their natural predators while increasing their prey.

[Rolling Thunder]

Eternal warrior isn't suitable. They've got redundant organs, not immunity to being obliterated by a meltagun.

Really, Tommorows War does it better.

[RedsandRoyals]

Fair point. FnP might be better if they still need a survivability buff after the additional wound and the armor save reroll.

[Rolling Thunder]

2+ and an additional wound. That's true to fluff. Bolters don't need a buff; if anything, their AP is overmodelled (HEAP rounds are fairly terribad at killing armour. something about less propellent than actual AP rounds). WS5/BS5 will do the rest.

[treadiculous]

I agree with RT's rules here, though think there could be more independence within units such as split fire at different targets.

I recall reading an article in which the game developers discussed marines and their fluff, arguing that people want to field big armies, this meant they had to make marines weaker in order that people could field visually larger armies.

Marines should cost 30 to 60 points and be scary.

an easy option for FullMetalJacket would be to count all marines as terminators - and then cost weapons upgrades as normal.

[fullmetaljacket]

Yes, but if I wanted to run terminators as well, that would be a problem
So i was thinking making marines cost double
Unit coherency up to 3 or 4 inches
Gain split fire, eternal warrior, attack twice and shoot twice,2 wounds. I feel like this would be an easy upgrade that I could do for an entire army right? Like the same for termies,. So it's still "two models" but only 1 is represented on the field and they are less vulnerable to blasts

Other things. Tanks? More hull points, extra armor, and 6+ invulnerable, and power of machine spirit

Another when assualt troops land they cuase infantry units within 8 to snap fire

Fmj

[RedsandRoyals]

For tanks, why not have them only lose a hull point on a penetrating hit? That, in and of itself, should be a decent buff. There's also the It Will Not Die trait, which, while not strictly being fluffy, serves the same purpose.

From what I'd gather, you're more interested in the mechanical effect of the rule, rather than the fluff justification behind it, right?

I'd also caution against the multiple attacks. For some weapons, being able to fire twice in a phase probably isn't too feasible (single shot heavy weapons that require a reload or recharge between firing, like lascannons or MLs). I think it sort of opens up a can of works unless you say 'All non heavy or salvo weapons" or something.

Instead of attacking twice, why not just add an extra attack? Or bring back the old True Grit rule, where they could count a bolter as an extra CCW.

[nutty]

Anyone notice that the improved space marines are remarkably similar to a certain gold plated group of individuals that just got released (https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Datasheets/Burning%20of%20Prospero%20Imperial%20Datasheets.pdf)


As for the cover saves.. Im not sure how the orks handle it in Epic.. but it works pretty well in Necromunda. Most guns get their own modifiers to hit at certain ranges; so you send the guys with shotguns and pistols to dig out a squad in cover, whilst the guys with rifles provide long range support. But it'd probably easier to say that a 6 always hits. The handfull of BS 6+ units will simply have an easier time hitting stuff in cover, so it will not affect them to much either. With Munda and 40k both being based on older versions of 40k (like 2nd/3rd) I imagine the rules used to be part of 40k... wouldn't know what orks used to be like back then though, but I'm sure they did some shooting.

I can kind of see that they took it out in order to streamline the game, but than again... Seeing as I needed to bring 5 books to my last game (rulebook, codex, stronghold assault, Warzone: Mont'ka, & IA:1) and that could have been worse if I'd brought allies, so that one extra modifier shouldn't be to bad.