r/WarhammerCompetitive • u/Impboy83 • 13h ago
40k Analysis Marines are in a weird place
Played a few battles with the new Marines and they play weird. The extra thoughness doesnt seem to matter much, they die just as fast as before. Lack of ignore cover makes them hit on 4+ on average. Played a game vs orks and they even shoot more and better then marines...orks shoot better then marines, how weird is that.
Im still looking for tactics that work, but overal Marines feel pretty weak. Im a missing someting? There are some strong combos, but cost alot of points. And when you fail to kill something the unit always dies in return.
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u/Cynical_PotatoSword 13h ago
Unfortunately skill issue
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u/ForbodingWinds 12h ago
Objectively a skill issue. They have a crazy high winrate for space marines right now and being a new book that's largely unsolved.
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u/Ketzeph 10h ago
The win rate is heavily reliant on Terminators. If the OP is playing non-terminator lists I could see the hit. There's a reason Purge and T&H are basically the majority of lists and are the ones putting up +50% win numbers (compared to Prio in the 40s).
If OP is stuck with lots of Tacticus I could see it being a problem
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u/Carl_Bar99 9h ago
This^.
TEQ with access to AoC and -1D from detachments are very strong right now, i think only DW with Plasma cannons are silly levels of broken, but all TEQ probably need a small nudge.
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u/_the-wanderer 13h ago
Honestly hahaha I couldn’t imagine the game being easier than playing space marines
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u/Cynical_PotatoSword 13h ago
As a Tau player I started dabbling in new codex marines and it’s insane how much the game becomes easier and expands its scope.
I love the tau and I’d say I’m pretty good but all we do is one thing. Space marines can do anything and it’s awesome.
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u/gcaw9 13h ago
Yeah Tau having to jump through hoops just to hit passable shooting and a complete lack of detachment options is rough. Space wolves are currently great fun though.
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u/Cynical_PotatoSword 13h ago
Actually playing against space wolves today and very nervous considering all the changes. But fr the only playable detachment imo is Ret Cad considering that's the only way we can reliably wound on 3s.
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u/gcaw9 13h ago
My last few games I was really enjoying kauyon and sending in some early pirhanas.
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u/Cynical_PotatoSword 13h ago
How are you faring against t5 though? Our flamers are overpriced useless utilities and now all our standard bursts wound on 4s outside of Ret Cad.
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u/gcaw9 13h ago
Only really played into my mates Orks in 11th so far, been really close but he normally ends up with more units to score with towards the end. I tend to have 2 riptides so I can focus down important targets. Tau for me just feel like they are short of a couple tools
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u/Cynical_PotatoSword 12h ago
Yea i've had to drop double tides and go double railside units to replace the punch and some of the durability to free up points which has allowed me to field an extra crisis squad or two to increase damage output against the t5 onslaught
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u/Impboy83 11h ago
Oh wise one please share you tactics or made up battles
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u/Cynical_PotatoSword 11h ago
I was not trying to be mean but it's all about using your units synchronously and understanding what they can and can't do while also seeing what they do to serve your force disposition. What are you running?
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u/Carl_Bar99 9h ago
As someone else said, the dominant lists are running one big brick of Terminaitors, (often assault but there may be some running regular ones), and two 5 mans of DW Terminaitors via the deathwatch support detachment kitted out with all chainfists and 3 plasma cannons.
Non-terminaitor marines seem to be limited to Incursours and Eradicators in Impulsors.
If your not running lots of any of those things your going to have a much worse time IMO. People really hate admitting that the list matters a lot in these discussions. You still have to play well to hit top tables, but if your list is bad your going to need to be a very good player just to feel average.
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u/AdamCDur93 4h ago
I think if an army is reliant on a detachment which allies in a broken unit that's a problem. Most marine players have no reason to own 6 plasma cannon terminators to put the 2 Deathwatch units on the table. I'm not saying marines are bad, but it feels like one broken unit and interaction and then a bunch of stuff which just needs a light tap
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u/Carl_Bar99 3h ago
Yeah i'm expecting Eradicators, and all TEQ to eat a 5-15 point cost bump and DW Termies to have to pay 10 points per plasma cannon at the next balance pass, not sure incursors or rievers need touching honestly, they're support units so a lot of their power is in what they're supporting, and its that which feels a bit overtuned.
That said i wouldn't be surprised to see a number of other marine units get buffs at the next dataslate. Custodes are going to murder non-TEQ in melee and thats going to compress the viable options a lot at current prices. Anything without base AP-2 is probably just dead due to Wardens/AoC pushing the output per round too low to secure any kills.
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u/AdamCDur93 3h ago
Erads can definitely go up. Regular terminators to me have felt good but not broken, but I'm very mediocre. I won't cry if they get a tap.
The Deathwatch Termis are ridiculous. I don't know why they're the same price as regular and just get to have three heavy weapons and mix in some storm shields, it's nonsense. I also think the Deathwatch support detachment needs to lock you out of using other chapter unique units. Make people pick between Deathwatch and Gman
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u/SilverBlue4521 11h ago
"Lack of ignore cover" why does this get parroted so much. Second time I seen this mentioned. They have easy access to ignore covers as strats:
- Tacticus Firestorm - Point Blank Brutality
- Ironstorm Spearhead - Might of the machine Spirit (ignore mods)
- Gladius Strike Force - Storm of devastation
Devastator Brethren - Storm of Fire
And this is before the datasheet abilities.
Desolation squad, eliminator squad ignores cover as their ability
MM Erads hits on 2s into their hunter unit
Infernus, Librarian in Phobos armour and Storm Speeder Hailstrikes strip cover from the enemy unit
Repex have +1 to hit naturally if the target isnt below half str
Iron Father Feirros makes one vehicle ignore all mods
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u/WhiteWindmills 13h ago
The floor is much lower on Marines now that Oath is gone. Before you could point and click and even a terrible list could do decent damage.
Now, with cover changes and Oath being gone, you need to actively build into the power in the book. There's lots of good stuff, but overall the damage is still lower than 10th.
Without knowing what your list was and how you played it, we can't know what your problem specifically was. But suffice to say there's more than enough power in that Codex if you know how to play the game. This is probably a you issue.
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u/Ketzeph 13h ago
Yeah it’s really that marines can have abysmal floor lists - particularly if going heavy on certain troop options that would normally seem reasonable off lore.
They have some super strong options, too, but it’s much easier to hobble yourself in list building.
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u/SkeletonJakk 13h ago
Yeah. On one hand it’s great that marines have so many options, on the other there’s a lot of traps too, and it’s easy to fall into those traps. Marines are surprisingly hard to list build due to this, if you don’t know where the power is it’s easy to end up in a bad spot.
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u/Ketzeph 10h ago
Basically if you were seduced by T5 tacticus, and go all in on intercessors and the like, you're in trouble. The book's power is in it's T6 and T4 units.
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u/SkeletonJakk 6h ago
Yeah, blood angels are sneaking some T5 in thanks to SanGuard, but basically everything else is terminators, gravis and reivers. Oh, and bikes.
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u/Draconian77 1h ago edited 1h ago
And even SG aren't really honest to goodness T5 what with their -1 to be wounded ability. Considering that you are wounding them on 4's with S6-9, and 3's with S10+, they feel more like a T6 unit.
And of course they get -1 to be hit in melee as well which is just an extra layer of defence. Genuinely that datasheet is so custom.
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u/Consistent-Brother12 13h ago
Probably depends on your list, play style and disposition. I play orks and have been struggling into new Marines in my area.
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u/CrebTheBerc 13h ago
As a Tsons player I definitely felt the increase in toughness playing into new marines. Most of my stuff is now -1 to wound into marines
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u/vandergueler 13h ago
All my infantry is effectively -1 to wound against them (plasma, melta), ork shooting was a little overtuned, but got recently nerfed, and it's not like thay shoot better, they just shoot a TON more, which is very lore accurate.
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u/Desperate_Turnip_219 13h ago
Shoot better? They hit on 5s, 6s in cover. You hit on 3s, 4s in cover. By my math, that's about 33% more hits.
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u/Impboy83 11h ago
Orks shoot on 4+, have strat for +1 to hit and ignore cover. Lots of units hit on 4+ with ignore cover.
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u/Desperate_Turnip_219 11h ago
So if we layer on a similar amount of stuff onto the baseline marine, they are still better at shooting, right?
So... What's the point you are getting at? A juiced Ork outshoots an unsupported marine? I guess.
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u/TechnologyClear7014 13h ago
orks shoot in 4s now so 5s in cover
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u/Desperate_Turnip_219 13h ago
A fair point, I didn't remember that. Still, 16% better. The best an Ork can do is hide in cover and shoot things not in cover to make them equal, but even then, that's not better then Marines
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u/Valynces 13h ago
Phobos librarian lets you ignore cover
Bobby G hands out rerolls to everybody within 6”
New marines are VERY good. Probably too good, but data will show. I think they need somewhere between 150-200 points per list to come out.
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u/GreenShoeRedSock 13h ago
Lack of ignore cover? Don't they have like 3 sources of it? Speeder, Libby and Infernus? I don't know all the factions, but that seems like more than most get. There are also a few strats for it... Marine players will never live down their reputation for being the biggest babies in the hobby.
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u/SilverBlue4521 12h ago
Devastator Brethen & the 3 DP detachment both have Ignore Cover stratagems as well.
Then you have ignore all mods in the Ironstorm detachment. Dunno what this guy is smoking
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u/corporalcasualty 13h ago
A huge chunk of the power shifted from the detachments and army rule to the datasheets, and if you're mostly running Tacticus marines it can hurt. I think Tacticus going to T5 doesn't matter much atm as a lot of lists are kinda avoiding them except a few like Bladeguard. They're not even really bad, just kinda overshadowed. Everyth gun except three ranged profiles getting at least AP -1 is the bigger deal, along with termis getting bumped to T6.
The new codex pretty much demands you build into the datasheet roles, and while our buff pieces aren't quite as strong as they were they're really impactful. In my game yesterday, an invictor with ignore cover from a phobos librarian and reroll 1s from incursors killed 18 Ork boz and moved back into cover after shooting with Phobos Shadow Force.
The power is definitely there, it's just gonna take time to figure out the best ways to use it.
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u/Weekly_Interview_936 13h ago
I'm not surprised the toughness change didn't make that big of a deal. With how much GW likes to throw around flat modifiers to the wound roll, toughness means a lot less than it used to.
This is also why I think Custodes are going to be a much harder to play army than their statlines indicate. Yeah, T7 as a baseline seems like a lot. But for anyone with S4 guns, which is a whole lot of factions still, it's not actually a change from when they were T5 or whatever they were in 10th. It's still base 5+ and so you're still looking for sources of a flat +1 to bring it down to a 4+, same as before.
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u/Iknowr1te 11h ago
T7 hurts my S6 melee (DWK, ICC, RWCS, sammael, and azrael). but over all Custodes should be better than marines in melee.
it'll require strat access. and if i pop mini-transhuman they're theoretically more durable the more i can chip them down before combat.
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u/starcross33 10h ago
Toughness change would be a bigger deal if opponents obliging continued to take stuff that's now bad into marines instead of changing their lists
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u/Another_Guy_In_Ohio 13h ago
Almost all my games since the codex have been against other marine armies(and the new Custodes which obviously they don’t feel tough against them).
I think you’re probably feeling the lack of Oath more than anything else. Orks don’t really shoot better as they’re hitting on 5’s or 6’s for the most part, with a little more volume. I also play Salamanders, so the “hitting on 4’s” I haven’t felt much because Eradicators hit on 2’s into vehicles, and I have infernus marines to strip cover for my non-torrent weapons anyway.
With the defensive Gravis detachment, my Gravis troops are much tougher to dislodge. Terminators also feel tougher with the T6, especially against Bladeguard now, which struggle to wound them.
I think there’s so much flexibility with the datasheets and detachments that it’s hard to find a really big weakness. My Salamanders list went up by 100 points, had to cut a unit and an enhancement and that’s it. I’m not really playing with a lot less models on the board
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u/Impboy83 11h ago
Orks shooty units hit on 4+ with ignore cover and option to get +1 to hit aswell. The moment you are in the open you take a lot of hits. Tankbustas, gunrig, killakans, nazdrag, shooty enhancment all hit on 4+ and mostly ignore cover, shoot alot, high str/ap/dam. You can tank some, but with that much soothing... its rough
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u/Carl_Bar99 8h ago
Ok one thing to say, 99% of the time your units should be receiving cover, steping out into the open should never be a thing you do unless your willing to have the unit die next turn, and even then it should be avoided wherever possibble because it makes the opponent commit more to killing you.
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u/Impboy83 8h ago
I agree. But at a certain point you cant avoid it anymore, sooner or later you will get shot. Orks have lots of units to, so even if you would evade an shooty unit an other pops up.
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u/OkBet2532 13h ago
I agree. There are very strong builds, but if you aren't specifically doing Gman, eradicators in impulsors, and terminators, it just feels clunky.
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u/Van_Hoven 9h ago
Here's the thing about marines not feeling tougher: As many pointed out when the changes got announced, it wont make marines feel tougher when they actually get shot at. What I'm trying to say is, the only thing this change accomplishes is making datasheets that can't deal with marines efficiently disappear. You have to build your list to deal with marines. It will also give your enemy less tools overall, so you should have more units around in the later stages of the game. But you only commit to shooting when you can reasonably wipe a unit or severely cripple it, so ofc they wont "feel" tougher since they still dissappear in a turn. Your opponent just has to spend more of their available tools to do so.
Also playing against orks is a bad example, since they allready got their updates with the new marine profile in mind.
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u/PollutionMajestic668 9h ago
So going by your logic making all marines T9 would be perfectly OK because "all" it would do is make datasheets that can't deal with marines dissappear. No wonder Space Marine codexes have to be braindead
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u/Van_Hoven 9h ago edited 9h ago
there is a difference between perfectly ok and not making them feel tougher.
and yeah, making them t9 would not make them feel tougher since everyone would build to deal with them as efficiently as possible. armies would be way smaller though. and everyone but marines probably would run lascannons equivalents only.
Edit: oh and btw invalidating other factions datasheets is a very bad thing. just to be clear, i think the toughness change is stupid outside of an index edition. and the most stupid thing as i was trying to point out is that it doesnt even accomplish the set goal of making marines feel tougher.
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u/PollutionMajestic668 9h ago
I misunderstood you, re reading your post you never implied it was ok or a good decision. Apologies.
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u/PollutionMajestic668 11h ago
I wonder if Russian bots are making Space Marine apologetic threads as a side job
53.3 WR and ~19% X-0/X-1 with 540 games with a brand new codex
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u/gallowstorm 13h ago
Skill issue.
Orks have had a book for over a month, Marines are brand new. Reps could be a big difference. Orks good stuff meta is mostly known. Marines good stuff meta hasn't been fully developed.
Marine book has a lot of opportunities to make bad/inefficient decisions. If you aren't skilled at list writing and there aren't any established "net lists" you can easily make a bad list.
Also, orks are the only other 11th ed book so they are on an even footing (approximately). Try punching down into non-11th ed codex armies and I'm sure the marine changes will feel stronger.
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u/Impboy83 11h ago
So what you suggest to do then? Saying skill issue doesnt help anyone
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u/gallowstorm 8h ago
What listare you running? Detachments? Are you deploying correctly? Playing macro/micro stratgey correctly
Start by elliminating the variables. New Marines have won events now. Copy/paste. The list is good, don't change anything. Read every rule and datasheet. Why is it good? How does it synergize? Play the list a bunch until you understand it.
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u/donggeh 9h ago
It’s not like you’ve provided any info on what you’re currently doing either…list? Mission? Layouts?
Orks pay a character tax for access to ignore cover and the +1 to hit is limited to either meks of specific detachments/datasheets so it seems like you’re just selectively cherry picking when you got a super juiced codex just last week
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u/mor7okmn 13h ago
You are missing a lot my friend. Marines are incredibly strong as shown in this weeks tournament results. The phobos librarian has an infinite ranged ability that strips cover.