Im glad more people are starting to see this internal space marine issue. If you play vanilla marines and you don't play ultra marines, its pretty rough right now. All they really had to do was up the points on Uriel, Calgar, BT units. The increase to scouts makes sense for what they do and maybe inceptors. They also should have lowered the price on more units than they did. The Brutalis still feels too expensive etc...
Exactly they should've lowered pts on less used units. They didnt.. I don't understand why they hit units instead of ultramarine characters that supercharge those units..
@@peters6345 I’m just convinced that under this new system, the divergent should be allowed to take the same units but should probably have different detachments instead of having access to everything plus more options.
@@drewfire7540 Hardly fair, look at Space Wolves, look at Blood Angels, look at Dark Angels, Space Wolves and BA detachments SUCKED on release and got minor buffs, Dark Angels detachment also sucks and their codex release basically saw multiple nerfs. If you restrict them to those detachments you might as well bin them and lose all that flavour. Plus there is nothing stopping an ultramarine player playing as Blood Angels if they really want, they can just use unique units from there but no the Ultramarines characters, in reality any marine player has plenty of options and that is how it should be, they just need decent balance. Its honestly not that hard as it is made out to be.
This. Don't nerf the units, nerf what makes the units must take and too strong. If Vanguard Ultramarines was too strong, then up Calgar and Ventris, change their rules even. I mean Calgar is absurd, he hands down beats any other chapter master bar maybe Hellbrecht, he hits like a truck, he has massively survivability and adds it to a squad with the honour guard, he gives flexibility with the advance/fall back charge and shoot, AND he generates CP. Meanwhile Dante is over here with a sucky battleshock rule and doesn't even have free strats like a normal captain. Same with bolter discipline, up the enhancement, make it 70-80 pts, up the cost of a biologis a bit, leave the aggressors alone who are just a solid unit in most detachments and armies. Templars didn't have their Sword Bretheren upped in cost whilst having like 5-6% better win rate than any other marine faction, but marines get nerfs to inceptors, scouts, redemptors, and aggressors?
GW had no issue nerfing The Lion from Index to Codex debut. Why couldn't they just monkey around with Marnius and Uriel (who were necessary for the 'John Lennon' build) instead of screwing all the marine players with massive points hikes?
This. Not to mention go over the detachment options again. I try to make Anvil Siege Force work and I feel the disparity so clearly against something like Vanguard Spearhead. I have to jump through hoops to meet the conditions for my detachment buff and for a number of my stratagems and enhancements to work while VS get their value just by existing. They just have to be outside of 12" for -1 to be hit AND Cover against ranged which extends to vehicles, while I have to stay still to get +1 to Hit and maybe +1 to Wound while not getting any more durable and risking giving up a lot of board control.
@@gregoryseraphin1426 True, true. I was actually wondering why it wasn't put in since they already had something like it back in 9th. It wouldn't have solved all of its problems, but that stratagem option would alleviate a few of them.
When you look at how GW balances marines, it’s clear that they don’t know what to do. Look at the end of 9th, what they did was cut prices across the board and it STILL wasn’t enough, for anything that wasn’t terminator or desolator spam. They don’t fix units at all, what they do is hurriedly and excitedly design a unit, push it out the door and then design another five superfluous primaris units without taking the time to properly adjust what’s already out there. Look at Reivers. They keep fiddling with them and making them worse. Outriders - ZERO options, constantly nerfed despite no one ever taking them. Troop overload without any distinguishing weapons or options with the exception of infiltrator DS denial. A model they actually did well were the gladiator tanks with diverse builds and then they kept fiddling with them and nerfing them because that’s what people brought to games. The biggest issue by far is their balancing philosophy of hurting what people bring instead of raising up everything that doesn’t work. Not only is this minimum effort, it also punishes people for making an effort which feels absolutely terrible and it’s exacerbates by tournament play which enables net-listing. All that being said, everything being within a rough 20% window is okay. At least it’s not as bad as pre 8th.
Random thought here: Does it really matter what GW “changes” the points to after the codex comes out for whatever faction? Like how many people would stop a game (casual game) and say “no no no, that’s 85 points now instead of 75. You went over the limit buster!” Can’t we as a loose community united primarily by the internet just reach a gentlemen’s agreement on this? Help me understand why ppl still follow so vehemently a company they all say they hate
@@kentknightofcaelin4537Throughout the 3rd system faction disparity was higher and it took ages for GW to change anything. Whether it's preferable that they now constantly change things is subjective.
As previously stated by others. Divergent chapters need to be separate now. It will be easier to isolate and balance them and space marines. They can still share general units and oath. This will also give GW better data on each as well.
either that, or codex compliant chapters need more unique units to incentivize taking them compared to the divergents. ATM the only codex compliant chapter that can stand up to the divergents is Ultramarines.
@@johnj.spurgin7037 Agreed! If the codex compliant chapters had like 3-4 unique squads and 2-3 unique characters there would be more reason to run them! I personally feel like we should have Chapter Master models for all the base marine chapters by default
just like it is being done with the CSM having their Legions split, so does the Divergent chapters need to split of and become full codexes. it would be much easier to balance and you can exclude models that those chapters don't use like Librarians in SW and BT.
they use to be all their own books, SW in particular in 3rd, DA and BT went solo in 4th (then the BT got rolled into IF supplements), BA in 5th, DW introdiced as a actual faction in 7th. its was only 9th they all returned to be supplements, so its not like they once were solo books
Not gonna happen as gw already made a step by removing unique divergent units: dark angels talon masters, interrogator chaplains, deathwing strike master, deathwing command squad, soon possibly ravenwing command squad as well. Im sure the ba and sw units will be culled as well
I think this is the best fix, but it would likely stand in opposition of GWs focus on reducing rules bloat when you have 6 different unit stat lines depending on which army you're playing (ex: DA Inceptors vs BA vs SW etc) I personally don't have a problem with it, but I imagine that's the way they're looking at it. Seems like GWs ultimate goal if DA is any hint with their range losses is to reduce the divergent chapters for a possible single SM faction in the future.
I agree 100%, the problem they have is they let BA, DA, SW, and BT bring all the units from their mini codex and all the units from space marine codex. If they just made a DA codex for example and you could only take units from that, they could control it a lot better.
@@Syst3m04 Because Blood Angels are doing so well with that? Most Blood Angels units suck. And then you have the problem of shared models with ever so slightly different rules and all the mess that 5e and 6e had with that. No thanks. What the Codex Space Marines needs is 2-3 unique units for each SM faction, that only Ultramarines can take. But in 10e... I can play Red Ultra Marines with my BA, and just leave Mephiston, Dante, Lemartes, etc at home... oh wait... most BA players are doing that because the whole BA faction sucks rule-wise.
I think one of the if not the main cause of balancing issues for space marines is the bloat of units that they have. The best solution is to consolidate many units into customizable units. Some examples would be consolidating intercessors and tactical marines into tactical marines, hellblasters and the rocket marines and devastators into devastators. 3 man gravis units in general into a gravis squad. Wirjs fir vehicles too, gladiator variants into loadout options for a gladiator datasheet, land raiders as well if the variety of weapons can be consolidated into a single land raider data sheet with different loadouts
@@viktorgabriel2554 lieutenants are the exception. Can't wait for a lieutenant with jump pack to come out. I am in the process of building a full first company and I have one for my intercessors and sternguard squads.
The trouble with that would be the lack of by-model or by-wargear points costs. Imagine if inceptors and Eradictors were the same unit in this edition. Chances are, only one of those two build options would be good, due to GW pricing the unit based on the most powerful build option.
Absolutely, not to mention I have no idea what a chapter looks like now. Tons of info about how a first born chapter operates, but now everyone is in a tiny specialty squad.
I wish it was an Eldar-like scheme. But it's not. Eldar actually have cool system with Exarch special abilities, unique wargear, Phoenix lords etc. New marines are Stormcast Eternals in space. And they are not good - how ironic!@@Sparkyinbozo-xe9fn
@@Sparkyinbozo-xe9fn I miss when space Marines were defined by unit customisation and versatility. Craftword eldar always had unit focus and psychic powers as their things, now storm guardian's have more options than any new space marine unit. Wtf.
No shit, they threw the codex astartes in the trash and now the traditional chapters are not even in existence anymore. Now we have mundane battle line and support units and everything is in one of those categories. Are scout marines even a thing anymore? How the hell are chapters even set up these days? God the primaris marine saga has been the biggest DEBACLE of GWs career. @@armi999
I only own the necron codex to compair to but space marines have the most flexible dettachment rules it isn’t even funny. Necron detatchments are super restrictive only allowing a handful of units to take use of them (5 for awaken, 5 for annihlation, 5 for hypercrypt, and the canopteks are hypercrypt are pretty flexible). I do not understand why the Vanguard dettachment doesn’t only work for taticus or phobos units.
Let's not forget the other factor affecting every army - the usage of Power Level style points. GW drastically shot themselves in both feet with that change as they not only upset players with the preset unit sizes, but because it made it incredibly difficult for them to make individual models in a unit be costed fairly. What makes it more frustrating is that when you could pick how many models your unit had, you could use the leftover points for another unit, either by bolstering one or by potentially adding a whole new one. Sometimes you just need 6 Terminators. Those extra 3 wounds are just enough to outlast an equivalent 5-man unit. But no, I have to spend nearly 200 points just for the opportunity to bring one extra model. Oh, and naturally that means buying a whole extra kit because GW doesn't sell individuals any more, like in the metal days. Maybe that's why? But hey, while I'm at it, why not also bring up the lack of unit enhancements? Remember when armies had armouries? They were an excellent way to buff a unit that was underperforming! Too bad those don't come in the box now, so nobody gets them!
From 3E to 6E (maybe 7th, I never played a game of it) the base stat in the game was a 3, with 4s for faction/unit specialties. Space Marines' _thing_ was even Troops being a tactically versatile (customizable) entire statline of 4s with a 3+ in a system where armor saves meant a lot more, constantly outnumbered but individually very powerful. And then the rapid bloat happened to every edition starting with late-8th, and with it inevitably came power-creep. Extreme power-creep that jumped edition-barriers. Quantity-based factions and units were allowed to quality-power-creep into parity with SMs so badly they needed, _actually needed,_ two main-codex releases in 8E. The "corrective" codex added "Bolter Discipline" and "Assault/Tactical/Devastator Doctrine" to correct the situation with non-stat abilities. It worked well enough... until 9E: when ork boyz became T5, every S4/5/8/9 weapon in the game lost 30/25/20% effectiveness against a horde-style Troops choice. First they were struggling to rebalance the franchise poster-boys against power-creep; now they can't. They just keep adding (and maybe later removing) increasingly wild non-stat abilities.
It's crazy how weak a standard marine, the pinnacle of imperium technology, is now. I remember the days of marine toughness being higher than most standard weapons. Now almost everything wounds a marine on a 3+ at worst. Same with shooting, a bolter was a powerful weapon in early editions now it's a pea shooter. I've always thought marine armies should function largely how custodes do now, with extremely powerful infantry and a few supporting units. That would reflect the lore. Probably explains why custodes are so popular!
The main problem is, that Space Marines have about 100 units and several chapters, that are totally different in playstyle. Other armies have one codex and can be balanced within one codex. I think they should go back one or two steps and bring back own full codices for the big chapters with limited units available. This might be more work, but much easier to balance within a closed, full codex!
Indeed, i.e. Dark Angels didn't have access to Centurions, Siege Dreads, Scout Bikes, not only are half the units gone, there is nothing special chapters don't have over standard chapters, it's just so much more flavourfull not having access to everything else, when you got your own specialists...!
I think you hit the nail on the head! And, as a casual marine player myself, i constantly run into the problem of being forced to play more optimized Lists due to the average codex power being low. I really hate the reliance on divergent chapter units and named characters that dont fit the style of my homebrew successor chapter, which in my head should have been a mostly codex compliant chapter. I think firstly, GW should improve generic marines by locking the codex detachments to all marine chapters with supplements. This will be a hard step, but it makes sense within the lore and will be much easier to balance.
The problem with Space Marines is there are too many subfactions who all build off the “basic” Space Marines, but then have unique rules or models tagged on. Means some factions can break certain units through specific combos while with other subfactions they are completely fine.
Except that all the divergent chapters are doing worse than vanilla marines aka ultramarines except maybe Wolves and only when you spam their thunderwolves. As a dark angels player, especially after the codex, it's better that I DONT use my unique units.
@nferry3017 I get that, but in this case it's a matter of Ultramarines specific characters (Ventris and Calgar) breaking units otherwise balanced (or maybe even slightly subpar?). It's still subfaction specific units/rules breaking the army.
@jacob5700 I guess I don't see Ultramarines as a subfaction since it's all in the vanilla codex. I don't think Ultramarines are even broken out in the metawatch either. It seems like they just made two characters overpowered in certain circumstances and are unwilling to nerf them or boost the other characters somehow. If Kaldor Draigo comes back in the Grey Knights codex with all the OP nonsense from of old, then it's pretty clear who behind it.
@@stephenferry3017 My first comment was mainly generalizing - it's already difficult balancing one book, but when they then add another 10 books that work off the main one it gets exponentially more difficult. It's just bad game design.
may get flamed for this but i honestly reckon all the space marine factions should be a 30k exclusive. with 40k having a single ruleset with lots of flavour mechanics so people can emulate or simply create their favourite chapter.
Think someone already mentioned this but you could easily make codex chapters more tempting by giving players access to additional relics, strats, and even unit buffs when taking characters exclusive to those chapters. Shrike and Khan don't really add much worth taking if it's purely just their sole datasheets alone. And I sure as heck don't see GW making a solid effort to bolster these lacking chapters with named characters anytime soon (sadly). So a rules approach would be more preferred to get some sense of faction appeal back.
Personally, I think every faction needs a small pool of enhancements with simple buffs that fit the faction's general vibe, possibly synergising with the army rule. With SM, maybe they could have one or two less than everyone else, but then the difference is made up by 'x chapter only' enhancements.
Nah relics/artefacts/enhancements add another layer of complexity to balance that GW couldn’t handle which is why they’ve been scaled back. It used to be a way to add variety and differentiate but also caused massive problems
that's an elegant solution. The long-term fix needs to be unique models for each chapter, but i doubt that can happen in 10th anymore. (Corax will return though and I expect he'll bring other units with him) But within this edition it would not be out of the question for them to do something like adding unique enhancements only available for a specific codex chapter. For example, give RG an enhancement for free Rapid Ingress, something that only that chapter can use. Or even go as far as a different weapon profile. If they won't make new models, then maybe create codex chapter upgrade sprues for existing models. Or just skip the upgrade sprue, all we need is a datasheet. If Space Wolves can have Hounds of Morkai then RG could have their own enhanced version of Reivers. The best stealth units should be Raven Guard! Sallys should have their own datasheet for enhanced Infernus. The best torrent units should be Salamanders! And it would give people a reason to choose those chapters.
Great video! This is something I've been struggling with as a BT player. I like having the option of using all the different attachments, but it does feel like it takes away from some of the other chapters. Maybe if GW made more characters for the codex-compliant chapters that buffed their units in that specific detachment could help. Basically having a vulkan equivalent character that buffs the units you want to take in that detachment to help even the playing field. At the same time, restricting divergent chapters to their own detachment would totally ruin SW and BA.
The real issue is range bloat, since all the rules are made to sell minis, balancing the mess that is the space marines is practically impossible. The new Dark Angels inner circle thing are vets that know stuff, once on the battlefield they are no different than other vets. To sell the minis, GW just add rules to make them cool enough to sell.
@@darko-man8549 You want balance and it to be fair between xenos and imperium when it comes to faction balance right? Just cut the divergent chapters completely and axe bout half if not more of the space marine datasheets. Makes it a lot more simple to balance. I say this as a dark angel player btw.
All I wanted was for Intercessor squad to have the ability to have a single heavy/special weapon in them, like the Tactical Squad of old. There was no reason to have seperate fully dedicated plasma/flamer/missile units (beyond the obvious "forcing" people to purchase another unit for those options).
@@stephenferry3017 Definitely. The Thunderfire Cannon made more sense from a design point of view to me as well. A tracked weapon system instead of a stationary turret. Maybe it would have been better if it was the Techmarine in control of a couple of smaller weapon turrets like the old Tarantulas from Forge World? Sometimes I have no idea what the design team are thinking with some of these new kits. Maybe it's just my "old timer" mindset but I liked the classic Force Organisation setup and the way a Space Marine Company would fit it perfectly and you wouldn't really miss out on any weapon options. It just felt "right".
@scottatkinson666 as some one who started in 4th edition, I agree. I like a lot of the new kits, especially the tanks. But the other units. Like, what is the point of the desolation squad? Devastators had a point, both tactically and in the lore. Desolators seem like an attempt to replace Devastators but in a bad way that will make bloat worse. Devastators seem to be getting replaced by eradicators, hellblasters, and desolators. I imagine we'll get a 3-6 man squad of las-based heavy weapons soon.
@@stephenferry3017 I started 40k just before 3rd edition with Dark Eldar, back when the Codex for your army was about 30pages long if you were lucky and yet still felt like you could get more personality out of your army than you can with today's iterations. I've seen some perfect conversions that should have been the official models for them. A Gravis armoured unit with the options for either a rocket pod, heavy bolter, melta cannon, plasma cannon, lascannon and heavy flamer would have been both aesthetically and game wise, a much better choice. Another model that doesn't make sense to me is the Suppressors. You've got a model in Phobos armour (stealth/infiltration) with a jump pack and a massive cannon. It should have been a weapon option for the Inceptors. It's like they don't understand their own Lore about things. I still think that overall the Primaris look 100x better than Firstborn do but there are still design choices that boggle the mind. They seem to be made either to force us to purchase more models (likely) or because they think that having close to 100 different Codex entries, gives us more of an illusion of choice. Bring back being able to give models more than the options available in the box.
They need to just print all the data sheets that a faction can use in one book, it makes no sense that space marine specialist chapters have access to the full codex roster and chaos fractions are locked to what is printed in each chapters specific rule set. I just imagine how amazing thousand sons would be with warpsmiths, havocs, possessed, or any of the other csm only units
Its because they have about 6000 datasheets and only 3 of them are actually good. Heres the thing, nerfing SM datasheets that are really good, dont make the bad datasheets any better. Theyre still just bad datasheets.
Thank you for bringing attention to this important issue! As a Raven Guard player I feel like I'm playing at a built-in disadvantage by sticking to my own chapter master. They have designed a system where there simply are too few levers to balance for the Codex-compliant chapters outside of Ultramarines. Each chapter should at minimum have their chapter master, one specialized unit, and one vehicle (even if all it is is an upgrade sprue for an existing unit or vehicle along with a new datasheet). This would give each chapter their own unique way to play, and give GW items to buff and nerf to give us balance and keep us competitive.
I Have one beef with the design of Codex vs non-codex Space marines factions : When I play Dark Angels, I don't want to play 'Dark green Space marines" When I play Blood Angels, I don't want to play "Red Space marines" When I play Black templar, I don't want to play "Black, angry Space Marines" Divergent Chapters should not have free access to all codex Detachement in addition to their custom ones. If you are Dark Angel, you play Greenwing, Deathwing or Ravenwing. NO GLADIUS, NO Stormlance, etc ... Still want to play Gladius ? You are not playing Dark angels anymore, you lose access to Dark angels specific models/units. If you play Black templar, you HAVE TO play their Detachement, or you lose access everyhting BT (i.e no Helbrecth, no Grimaldus, no Swordbrethren, etc ..). IN COMPENSATION : Divergent chapters Unique units SHOULD ALWAYS be better than "codex ones". To continue with Dark Angles examples : Inner Circle Companion should be striclty better than Bladeguards. For fuck sake we are comparing 10k years old, Heresy era, veterans that actively avoided being found by the hunt for the fallen while not falling to chaos with "veterans" of one fucking conflict at most, the plague wars. Basically : Codex chapters = Better Detachement / Divergeant chapter = better "individual" units
The problem isn't any perceived amount of benefits to specific chapters: The problem is that the core datasheets of the SPace Marine codex are just awful and if you want to win in competitive, you have to cherry pick the few accidentally good ones. The last dataslate should have decreased points for Brutalis Dreadnoughts, Stormspeeders, Hellblasters, etc. But it didn't.
You nailed the problem. Not only does GW feel their (literal) poster child has to have everything, GW also bestowed the Space Marines with lots of overlapping and redundant units. Rather than simply upscaling the firstborn kits GW went out of their way to create something tangential to the existing firstborn kits. It's annoying from a collector's point of view and indeed it results into balance problems as well.
I can imagine it was far easier to balance when the infantry was limited to tactical squad, scout, assault and devastator. Now you have about 5 different units fitting that scout, and another 4 in devastator etc. and the bloat grows
Easiest not super complicated fix: If you take units from divergent chapters, you must use their detatchments. You can then balance those detatcments around the access to more units
@@BurnByMoonlight That's the same problem all other factions without their codex have, and as long as they can use SM detatchments, GW doesn't care to try and balance them properly as to not become overpowered
tournament players want to win tournaments, and fluffy detachments that suck don't allow for that. Space Wolves players don't want to have to buy Ultramarines character models just to feel like they have a shot at winning.
Agreed, I've never understood from a game design perspective why divergent chapters can suddenly decide to follow the codex despite lore wise they're divergent specifically because they don't. I may just be bitter though as a Raven Guard player with no chapter specific codex. 😢
Divergent chapters shouldn’t be able to use the standard Space Marine codex, simple as. They are called divergent chapters for a reason. Once they get a codex of their own they shouldn’t have access to the normal one, and the units being separated as such would mean you could also edit the points of their respective units without hobbling the other as well. This seems very simple, and not sure why it wasn’t done this way from the beginning.
Divergent Chapters are inherently more powerful because they have access to more tools. I think the codex Space marine detachments should have been more rewarding for thematic army composition by giving points cut to specific key units of those particular detachments. For example, Gladius could have cheaper bladeguard veterans and Ironstorm could have cheaper repulsors.
There are ways to balance marines, but it won't make people happy. As many have already stated, things went off the rails for marines when they broke the mold from Tactical, Assault, Devastator. As the explosion of datasheets got ridiculous. With that in mind: Step 1. Bite the bullet and merge Tactical squads and Intercessors. "1 model in every 5" can take a special weapon. Step 2. Release a primaris scaled devastator squad. Step 3. Roll Hellblasters and Infernus, plus any melta/gravgun marines into a single datasheet, as a support squad where all models need to be equipped with the same weapon. Step 4. The point that causes most rage. Limit which chapters can take certain units: Raven Guard = something Phobos Imperial Fists = Heavy Intercessors or Eradicators Just to aim to create some differences between the codex chapters as well as cut down the bloat of the faction as a whole.
My thought was that they would just slap a thematic and chapter focused buff on the unique characters that only works if youre playing "their" detachment. For example, Kor'sarro Khan could be unchanged, but also give advance and charge to his unit if your army is a Stormlance Tanskforce. Simple, easy to template, and easy to edit into the rules with the "as long as this model is on the battlefield and your army is bla bla"
GWs approach this time round really does seem very odd. Targeting units that are only an issue in certain unique tournament builds. Then making those units worse across all armies and detachments. Crazy. One of the actual advantages to the simplified points system would actually to alter points depending on detachment (obviously this goes against the whole 'simplified not simple' mantra) So ill use the Vanguard spearhead as a example. At the moment tournament/competitive players are using it not as intended as per usual. So in said detachment you could increase the problem units by say 10% and decrease the intended and fluffy stuff by 10% (infiltrators, eliminators etc) Then the units which took the hit (centurion devastators in this example) get the 10% points decrease. But in the Anvil siege force ! You know. The place youd expect to see centurions 😅 crazy i know. Just an idea. I know what this comment section is like and someone is going to tell me flat out no this could never work. Im just putting ideas out there for discussion....
I think ultimately it's down to GW flogging new kits in many cases - case in point is sternguard vets at 10 for 180 points vs tactical squad at 10 for 160 points. Makes no sense from a gameplay perspective but it's a good way to promote a new kit
This is a self made problem. Every xenos or chaos unit HAS to be followed by a marine unit. The only way to fix this, is to make all divergent chapters ineligible to use the codex detachments. If they don't want to go that route they'll have to somehow limit the units that divergent chapters have access to. If you want to use special characters or units, you have to give something else up. You don't see chaos Knights using chaos daemon detachments. For good reason. Should be the same for marines. If a separate codex is needed you can't use the rules from another codex
I miss the days when you could make your own chapter and have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. If you don't have 2-3 named characters these days you can forget it.
I got my custom chapter and could give less of a damn about bring named characters. In fact I am planning on selling the different named characters I got from all the chapters I can get.
Their philosophy is just 'nerf everything people use a lot' instead of nerfing what is actually a problem. Uriel and Calgar need points increases, not Aggressors and Centurions. Sword Bretheren and horde Black Templars need points increases, not all the top performing marine units. They're mostly just lazy at looking at *why* certain combos are powerful.
Using the Chaplain on Bike profile just… isn’t the same, hey 😅 Edit: Also Outriders are such a damn wasted opportunity, not even the sergeant gets an option…
A problem that affects rules changes more than points is that SM share wargear with many other Imperium factions which means even when getting a new Codex it is difficult to change the profile of said wargear. This can lead to situations where some wargear will always be the "inferior" choice as you cannot change it. A good example of it for me is the boltgun, for what it needs to be in a elite focused army its profile is laughable, yet it is tied to so many other weapons and Codex that changing it is virtually impossible.
The boltgun and the marine are like the staple and example that everything else is designed around. If they changed the boltgun, you can be sure they would be changing the entire game relative to how the boltgun changes anyway. So its never really gonna get better.
Not sure if thats really the Problem. Since there is no generic Arsenal anymore, every Heavy Bolter, every Melta and every Lascannon can be different. There are three different Heavy Bolters in the SM Codex alone right now.
Also, they kinda fixed that issue last edition with the introduction of the astartes chainsword that got ap-1. Just throw astartes in front of all the space marine versions that need to be different. Sisters got the super special flamers this edition showing they can do it for the other imperial factions as well
Sharing wargear isnt an issue at all. Wargear is on the unit's data card now explicitly so they can change what a thunderhammer does on one unit without affecting it on another.
@@williampounds5191 k to reply to a few points 1) The game USED to be balanced around boltguns. Since then powercreep has happened and boltguns havent kept up. 2) Yes in theory individual datasheets means they can make weapons have different profiles for different unit. In practice how much they can do this is limited so as not to cause confusion. Having multiple different profiles for the samage gun is just asking for people to forget which unit has which gun and if the game designers arent keeping that in mind....
Space Marines suffer a lot from the design changes that came from the new rules used in 8th ed onward. Their old design philosophy emphasizing versatility ended up being wasted. In 7th ed, a single melta could kill a leman russ. Now you need a lot more to do the job and if you take just take the 1 melta, you were wasting points. Even with war gear now being free, it still means many units aren't serving a purpose and the versatility doesn't add much. The changes to wounding was a good thing(no more invincible units on the field!), but as a consequence there has been a shift to a game state where consistency is formulaic and narrows down the scope of what units to take from an already bloated roster.
@@whitewall2253 True, but the point still stands. I never meant to highlight it as a Marine specific problem, but the point still stands. Just saying war gear is far from free, and that’s part of the problem.
@@whitewall2253 To add something else to the discussion, I feel like some of this could have been addressed by making units more competitive. As you have noted though, that’s more so a problem with the game and not just Marines. Doesn’t make the issue any less valid because of the application however. It’s crazy hard to try and give hundreds of data sheets a unique flavor. A lot of units feel like they’re holding back other units in the sense that they could probably be combined in someway as one unit. Instead of having complete/good feeling units as the norm, most feel like they embody situational aspects of the same block. Why create a game space that can be chaotic and unpredictable only to try and fill it with units that don’t fit the game well?
@@artkewl03 This is a marine exclusive problem, I can't think of any 40k army with half as much pointless redundancy as space Marines, the tau literally only interact with half of the phases and their units are still all distinct in terms of gameplay.
I feel like a good way to help out balancing something like space marines is to just give them good default weapon stats and not make strategems that increase their damage output, but rather just give units more utility or versatility, cause that’s usually we’re the broken combos tend to come from, a good unit trait, a good warlord trait/ enhancement, and then using 2 strats and then bam you’re nuking an enemy unity or a couple of their units and there’s no counter to it and so you lose.
I do not think that the bloat itself is a problem, sure it would be a bit easier to internally balance units if we had less datasheets (removed or merged), but what I identify as the biggest problem is what things and how things are restricted. If the combination of A+B is OP, they increase the cost of B, making all armies running only B even worse than before. If running tripple C is OP, increase cost of C, making lists only running a single C even worse than before. This in combination with for example the Vanguard Spearheads ability "slip through the shadows, half-seen spectres barely visible to the foe" that is unrestricted, and restricted Techmarines that cannot restore health Knights, really takes away most choices. If I'm taxed for the A+B combo I might just play it, drop my single C since it's way overcosted, run my Dreadnoughts with Vanguard for tankyneess and sell my Knight. I could run my army unit B+C, a techmarine and a Knight, but it would
This might be a bit of a stretch but I think another big part of the problem is just that their "design philosophy" doesn't work for modern 40k. Space Marines are designed around being fairly durable and brave, able to hold out for a long fight. However, the rest of the game is designed around glass cannon trading, which just completely obliterates the marines attempt at durability, to where even if they get as much damage per model compared to other factions, they still waste a lot of points on useless durability that leads to less damage per point/army. I think they would be better suited to a much less lethal game in general.
I think that the main issue is that the army doesn't feel like a truly Elite army with the way AP and damage works right now. You're paying a lot of points for that 3+ save, when with the amount of AP -1 and Damage 2 weapons there are in the game right now they die too easily to make their points back, but if they reduce their points a lot they then start to feel like a spammy army when they shouldn't be that way.
I think GW should balance the div chapters from the comp chapters would be not allowing chapter-specific units in the standard codex detachments or allow standard codex characters be playable in div chapter detachments
@@viewtifuljoe4412 I think their core issue is their statline; they’re too squishy. GW’s response to this is to cut points which makes the army less thematic because Marines are supposed to be an elite army, not horde. Marines need a stat revamp across the board (including Chaos) where each baseline marine should have the stats close to what a Custodian Guard has right now (BS/WS 3, S5, T5, 3W, Sv 3+, for example), and Custodes should have its own stat boost while everything else remains largely the same. I don’t mind paying premium points for an elite statline but at least make them elite first. Marines, right now, simply die like flies before basic fire and it doesn’t seem right.
GW cares about selling models first, game design and balance second. It really shows with how absurdly bloated the SM roster is. It's impossible to balance a faction with more units than multiple factions combined.
@@arn1345 The thing is though even armies like CSM or Ork players (I am both) tend to just use 1 or 2 type builds because da Meta. I cannot tell you how irritating it is to see so many Beast Snagga type cut and paste lists when there are other cool stuff in the model line.
@@viewtifuljoe4412 People are doing the Beast Snagga cut and paste lists because they're basically the only good things Orks have outside of a Nob squad in a Trukk or Flash Gitz with Badrukk.
I think they shouldve made it so divergent chapters are locked to their codex when it was released. So they get 3 unique chapter focused detachments, Gladius, and perhaps one or two others picked from the space marine codex that would fit with their own theme or models. That way theyre just treated like every other faction
I would like to see more chapter uniqueness. Sure you can play vanguard spearhead as ultra marines but if you play them as raven guard or raptors, you get some more buffs because they do it better than ultra marines would. Maybe have better stats with the detachment rule. Idk
One option to balance the divergent chapters vs "core" space marines is to reduce the divergent chapters access to "core" units, or the abilities of those core units. I remember when Space Wolves terminators didn't have access to deep strike because they were scared of teleporting as a quick example. it also makes no sense for them to have access to devastators currently when they have long fangs. Same is true for assault intercessors vs blood claws, vanilla terminators vs Wolf Guard termies, the list goes on. Locking divergent chapters out of certain core units (or abilities) would make balance much easier for GW, add more flavour to both the divergent chapters and codex compliant chapters, and should ultimately result in more variation of units on the table.
Let's address the core problem with Space Marines, that ends up being the root of all their issues over the years. Games Workshop over-produces SM models and kits, putting out whatever "cool" idea they think will sell, without a single thought about how the army in general can and should work. Characters, wargear, vehicles, and rules are all sacrificed for the brand, as long as they can get the model out and maintain the image. The result is broken armies with weak rules, weird combinations and subfactions that suddenly become almost unplayable.
The easiest and best possible solution would be to actually publish datasheet updates online and let people adjust as needed. The issue is that GW would have to stop being so ridiculously devoted to the Codexes. Also maybe recognize that a codex containing NERFS to an army that was struggling at launch is *maybe* a bad idea? People loved to rag on SM for getting full hit and wound rerolls on a single target once per turn, but it was also the only way a lot of previously worthless units had any viability in any lists. Now it's mostly finding units that synergize with Oaths of Moment and give a unit full hit and wound rerolls, or find ways to compensate for that lack of rerolls/damage boost given with that reroll. You could fix this with a Dataslate, imagine if the First Company detachment was suddenly upgraded to having Old Oaths, or the detachments enhancements were improved so that people were incentivised to actually use more than just Ironstorm, Gladius and in the case of Space Wolves, Stormlance. But this would mean GW has to stop being obsessively devoted to the Codex system, this system was outdated back in 8th, it was an active issue in 9th, and has reached its worst cases here in 10th with the AdMech Codex, the Dark Angel Supplement, and even in the SM, and Tyranid Codexes, it's reached a more serious problem where all of these factions have gotten worse despite getting a codex. We shouldn't be seeing this kind of dread. As a Black Templar and Custodes player, I am not looking forward to my factions getting a Codex, I am actively dreading them. GW if somehow you see this, for the good of your own playerbase and your customer base, stop letting the Codex be the arbiter of all things and being where armies stop getting help. You've even said Necrons and AdMech are not where you want either of them to be. You can't fix AdMech with points drops, and I know that if Necrons lose C'Tan, that faction is going to be in a genuinely *terrible* state. Just update Datasheets digitally and damn the consequences.
"People loved to rag on SM for getting full hit and wound rerolls on a single target once per turn, but it was also the only way a lot of previously worthless units had any viability in any lists." A lot of armies have units that are even weaker than Space Marines weakest units with no ability to make rerolls, and half the time I've played against Space Marines those Oath rerolls basically bring the one unit firing from doing a lot of damage to outright killing what they shot at. Giving the army with the best weapons and highest native shooting/melee skills the best rerolling capabilities is fucking strange.
I currently have 3 armies I can field 2k armies with; Dark Angels, World Eaters and Custodes. Playing Dark Angels at an RTT a couple of months ago was a miserable affair with what should have been a fairly well balanced list. Pretty much given up on them for the moment. Haven't bothered to get the new DA codex as it's a waste of time. Thank the Emperor Custodes are good again...
I think the way to balance compliant versus non-compliant chapters is if you want to bring Dark Angel specific units you have to play the Dark Angel to specific detachment.
In this particular balance dataslate, it seemed like rules were used to balance armies against each other whilst points were used for internal balance. If every army for a certain faction had a certain unit, its points went up.
I'm not really sure the subfaction effect works the same for other armies. With my Necrons I'm having to retool a bit now but on the whole you're just choosing a ruleset, where with the Space Marines you really build into one specific subfaction and I don't think many people are jumping between standard and things like Black Templars, Dark Angels, and whathaveyou.
Hardly rocket science was it that a 45% win rate army, you nerf their best stuff and give nothing in return, that army is going to do even worse. Marines should have been getting buffs not nerfs. What gets me is Eldar dominate the meta for 10th months, winning tournament after tournament, they get (until recently) soft touch nerfs, and they are still winning above 50%. But marines bob around 45% the entire time, but as soon as ANY unit is good or gets use, instantly nerfed. Desolation marines, Redemptors, Aggressors, Inceptors, Scouts, etc. makes no sense. Aside Templars and right at the start Deathwatch, no marine faction has been above 50% yet marine units keep getting nerfed. It's taking them 10th months to get Eldar from broken beyond all belief to still one of the best armies, in those 10 months marines have had constant point increases and decreases and generally just been around 45% or even worse, the two things are just an insult to marine players IMO. Eldar players get to stomp, Marine players have a bad overall army and any good unit instantly gets a point increase.
GW needs to give the divergent chapters a handful of units on top of their own special snowflake marines and cut them off from the rest. I mean can you imagine if “World Eaters” could just use Angron and the best CSM units? It would ruin CSM, same issue here. Give all the SM armies the battleline guys, Tanks (not dreds), and then like Terminators and 1 unit that fits them and a couple characters (Chaplains, LTs, Tech Marine, Librarians and the 2 Apothecaries)
I've said it before, for the divergent chapters it would probably be best to lock their unique units to their specific codex detachments. If you want to use the codex compliant detachments you can only use units found inside the Space Marines Codex, outside of special characters of course. I'd argue that the 1st Company Task Force should get old style Oath of Moment all game long instead of for one turn. The Siege Anvil special rule would benefit from an amendment where a unit could move up to half its normal move (rounding up), or maybe even a full move, and still count as having remained stationary. These changes would certainly make those detachments more playable.
The divergent chapters should be their own armies again. This is a hill I will die on and could help solve some of the issues with space marine balance.
Balancing for one strong detachment and particular combos makes no sense, because it harms units used in other ways. For example every Firestorm player out there just had their Aggressors, a decent unit in Firestorm, upped in points because of its use with completely different weapons in different detachments, it makes no sense. People using one unit of Assault Bolter inceptors, again just get their list more expensive for no reason just because of inceptor spam in one detachment. Make those detachments worse if they overperform, up the cost of their enhancements, turn their best strats into 2CP ones, stuff like that rather than harm all marines. But honestly nerfing any marines when they were around 45% win rate, and several divergent chapters were also struggling as well, just makes no sense. If the army has a 45% win rate, it should be irrelevant if one detachment, in certain players hands wins a few tournaments, that army should be getting buffs. Maybe don't increase or reduce the points of decent units people are using but buff the points of other stuff.
Divergent chapters should have their own full codex and only restricted access to units within the main SM codex. Makes the more divergent chapters more flavourful and fluffy like they should be. There are also a lot of units in the main SM codex that you could consolidate onto one data sheet, Tactical + Intercessors? Devastators/Desolation/Hellblasters? Just to name a couple of examples.
The first fix must be limit access to the detachments. Divergent chapters should only have access to their unique detachment, and this solves the problem that using divergent chapters are far better than using chapter ones (except for ultramarines). With the DA index, there was absolutely no reason not use Deathwing Knights with, for example, the "ravenguard" detachment.
It's complete bloat, I stopped playing warhammer at the end of 9th after I realised the bloat. GW so focused on releasing releasing releasing releasing. Horus heresy! Old World! New edition! New Faction! while they continuosly pump out more and more models and data sheets and game modes instead of acting like a games company and creating a stable and balanced base product. Whole game needs a hard reset, and they need to not be worried about making everything super unique. People want to play with their models on the table and have a fair game. Thats it. if some data sheets are kinda similar so be it.
This just seems to be what happens. Space Marines are good for a few months, then they're on the bottom. I really just kind of expected it. I'm far from a competitive player, so it doesn't matter so much to me.
GW isn’t helping the problem by bloating the codex with more Primaris units some of which are completely unnecessary like Reviers, Heavy Intercessors, and the splitting of heavy weapons into multiple units. It’s too much for the my Wallet then they cut my firstborn units and pile in more Primaris units without thinking about the long term damage to the marine balance and range.
In my opinion, the problem of balance with Space Marines will always be the same: The army is too damn large. That makes "internal balance" impossible in two ways: First, everyone wants their favourite unit to be "balanced correctly", meaning good. If you have 100 plus units, that is just no possible without making SM the absolute best army in the game. Second, with variety comes flexibility, and with flexibility comes victory. If too many units of SM are good, then they will always have an answer for every single meta, for every single army, they will always be 55+%. GW cornered themselves by allowing SM to grow so big, and to then include more and more factions based on them, which add more and more specialized units. What GW does with each set of nerfs is create a subgroup of SM which is the size of a normal army, and that army is good. But of course that angers people whose favourite units lie out of the subgroup. So yeah the answer is that there is a conflict and you have to pick a side: Either SM are the absolute best army in the game when "internally balanced", or they have a selected group of units that are good (a normal army amount of units) and then they can be globally balanced. One or the other, people.
Space Marines is 1 of my 4 armies and probably my main one, I'd honestly say that let the Divergent chapters have 1-3 detachments each and thats it. If you collect and play with Wolves of Vampires then you are locked into that faction and get 1-3 detachements and not the other 7 standard ones. So Dark Angels for example would get their Deathwing & Speedwing and maybe one more general one but not the standard 7.
How about we also get access to a variety of detachments as well then? We’ll have 3 each at most. Unforgiven Task Force is bad - everything is inferior unless you’re battle shocked. Company of Hunters is passable, but doesn’t have enough good supported units. Inner Circle Task Force is at least good enough, but you’re pretty much locked to one way of playing. And lore wise is doesn’t make sense to lock us out of codex compliant stuff. We are codex compliant, at least while people are looking. So we will use the stuff they use, and do the things they do.
@@BurnByMoonlight having access to the wide array of datasheets in the space marine codex + their own special units seems like plenty to show they are still codex compliant, but they should be locked to their own detachments to better emulate them being divergent chapters and to allow for better balance across space marines as a whole
Seems to meet that an issue could be fixed by limiting the units used (or benefiting from) detachement rules. For example vanguard detachment, if I got it right, should be more stealth/scout style. So hows about that it only gives boosts / stratagems to phobos units? (except armour of contempt) Of course, I am a newbie so I could be way off. 😅
14:51 I like the kinda freeform vibe. It's nice to just chill and listen to your assorted informed musings, and it's gotta be a bit less effort right? Maybe a few more of these random musings type things a month would be cool.
I know it created a hassle updating differing points across books, but I really think per chapter points was the better route for balance. Any time you have a system where there's a faction that is a different base faction+extra, it will always be better than the base. Generic marines really need some kind of unique thing the named chapters don't get or the system won't ever balance.
The real problem with Space Marines and balance is trying to balance small arms and anti-infantry weapons when the default unit profile in the game is very heavy infantry.
A smart man once said that if you seek the truth then pay attention to patterns. Patterns speak truth. I've played this game since 6th edition and it's always been a pattern that GW couldn't do a good job balancing the various space marine factions, let alone the overall array of 40k factions. Here we are 6 months into 10th edition and ... we're talking the problem with space marine balance in the current 40k. I'll be honest, this shit gets so fuckin' old I don't think I care that much anymore tbh. The various faction relative power balance is always going to be lukewarm garbage from GW, as it always has been. Also GW uses rules to sell models, that fact alone violates any sort of army balance integrity that could exist. I don't play competitively so ... "Hey look kids, there's Big Ben, and there's Parliament!" .... good video on your part AT, like always ;)
when divergent chapters get their codex they should loss access to the standard space marine detachments to give a reason to play standard over divergent without weakening divergent chapter units
They could price certain units differently based on what detachment/subfaction you're having them in. Powerful interactions should cost more. All, datasheets should be interesting and relevant.
The best solution for me would be to assign point costs to each detachment to make the weaker ones more attractive and the stronger ones slightly less attractive. The weakest detachment might then cost only 25 points and the strongest 125 points, for example. This way, there would be no need to increase the point costs for units that might only be particularly strong in a certain detachment, making them unplayable due to cost increases for other detachments that do not buff these units.
As an ultramarines player I apologies but in all honesty I don't understand why the divergent chapter units aren't restricted to only being in that chapters detachment that would stop any of the weird interactions with their unique units in the standard codex detachments from happening (note I'm not saying stop DA running a gladius task force detachment or other equivalent from the main book just that they cant have their Deathwing knights or the Lion in those detachments) on the vanguard spearhead ultras build front they don't need to increase points on anything really just FAQ the infiltrate enhancement to say no gravis probably no centurion too there are a bunch of units it would still be good for that don't have an innate infiltrate and it would force the ultras to either use Ventrises deep strike on the Calgar deathball or use a transport to get them in place fast enough
Here is quite strange meta. In my contry marines are spammimg separhead and ironstorm detachments with mass primaris dreadnaughts and primaris tanks being very painful
I would said all or nothing, make the supplements full codexes and ban some stuff. I think makeing different rules for the same unit in different codexes would create a big mess and probably some gotcha moments, but change to special rules on datssheets may work. For me its a problem, I am White Scars fan, and last edition it was easier for me to play Dark Angels ravenwing, it was more in the theame for m army, current;y its Space Puppies with proxing big dogs with bikes. I had a really byt felings about Dark ANgels in 9th, they got everything - buffed termis - here you go, better bikes/speeders you are welcom and they had (and still have) characters on bikes! When my biker themed army dont. I would like to get something like special rule, character, options for character and unit for any 'regular" chapter maybe option for white scars to put character on bike? for ravengard to give them jump pack, special unit for white scars - veteran bikers? maybe a weapons option like a old khan on bike glavie.
I would restrict chapters that have their own codex from using main one. I mean, they have their own codex because they're unique with rather unique structure, units and tactics. BUT I would try and make Salamanders, Ravenguards, Scars and vechicle bois their own, unique chapers/codex(es?) - Ravens - you have Vanguard + 3 Phobos units that fit mostly to Ravens but require weapons options, some buffs and be for them a battleline, you have warsuit and those flayers (storm-something) Grav-tanks (Gladiators, Repulsors) which ain't clanking with their tank tracks, you have 3 types of Jump Packs... - Sallies - you have Firestorm, have Aggressors, Eradicators, Infernus, Hellblasters, Gladiator Valiant, LR Redeemer, Brutalis, Redemptor, Executioner (yes, hellblasters, redemptor and Executioner have plasma incinerator which fits perfectly) - Scars need more bikes and characters for them, but we have flayers and the JP infantry, fast moving vechicles - Vechicle bois - no need to explain anything here... They could have their own codex, leaving "space marines" to basically Ultramar/random, fanmade chapters. We just need to play with keywords to have different battleline units for different chapters, add some more Stratagems and enhancements, maybe some weapons avaible to specific chapter (i.e. Flamer for Intercessors when Sallies or something) like 2 detachments per chapter and one for Ultramar and we are good to go. The possibilities are there and the foundations for this have been already laid... It's either we do this and it will be easier to balance things out or there will never be balance and someone will remain as the loser in this situation.
Divergent Chapters should not be able to use the Codex Compliant detachments. It's easier to balance when there are less variables. They should get 6 total and I am sure some will be very similar to the ones already existing (advance and charge in SW or BT as a Detachment wouldn't be out of place for either) BUT you can limit them from there. I play BT and it bugs me that BT are the only viable Marine Faction ATM so we get punished with nerfs when GW looks and sees BT are doing well when in reality its every other Marine faction is hot garbage by comparison. You don't need to nerf BT (they are about right balance wise IMO vs other none marine factions) you need to improve the other Marine factions. (not just with point drops)
I just want Assault Terminators to feel good. Preferably with new models. Thunder Hammer Terminators with a chaplain wound everything shy of a Warlord Titan on 4s; but hitting on 4s and having a terrible ability (battleshock test on the charge) mean there's zero reason to run them over regular Terminators or especially Aggressors.
Divergent chapters need to be fully seperated again. Back in 8th, each divergent chapter had its own fully fleshed out codex with its own strats and unit limitations. I think i agree with many here that it needs to go back to that. 1: as a blood angel player i’m required to buy 2 codex’s and that sucks. 2: gw can theb lock them out from the core codex and better balance them, which would mean that each divergent chapter could have a full lineup of its own detatchments and not be nerfed to 2 of it’s own cause they can have any of the core detachments which to me is a feels bad for core SM players
The core problem with divergent chapters is that they can always take the core marine units at normal price. The only way to balance that is to make the divergent chapters pay a tax to take normal marines (e.g., normal marine units are more expensive for divergents). Absent some barrier to entry, divergents will always beat out normal marines *unless* the core commanders are so cheap they are worth taking over every divergent unit.
I personally think the solution is something they kinda already have with not printing points on the datasheet. Non-codex chapters get their own pricing for the same datasheet. I think that would help. Not sure though
Im glad more people are starting to see this internal space marine issue. If you play vanilla marines and you don't play ultra marines, its pretty rough right now. All they really had to do was up the points on Uriel, Calgar, BT units. The increase to scouts makes sense for what they do and maybe inceptors. They also should have lowered the price on more units than they did. The Brutalis still feels too expensive etc...
Upping the points on the divergent units that actually let marines have good performance on the tabletop does nothing to help the overall faction.
Exactly they should've lowered pts on less used units. They didnt..
I don't understand why they hit units instead of ultramarine characters that supercharge those units..
@@peters6345 I’m just convinced that under this new system, the divergent should be allowed to take the same units but should probably have different detachments instead of having access to everything plus more options.
@@drewfire7540 Hardly fair, look at Space Wolves, look at Blood Angels, look at Dark Angels, Space Wolves and BA detachments SUCKED on release and got minor buffs, Dark Angels detachment also sucks and their codex release basically saw multiple nerfs. If you restrict them to those detachments you might as well bin them and lose all that flavour. Plus there is nothing stopping an ultramarine player playing as Blood Angels if they really want, they can just use unique units from there but no the Ultramarines characters, in reality any marine player has plenty of options and that is how it should be, they just need decent balance. Its honestly not that hard as it is made out to be.
This. Don't nerf the units, nerf what makes the units must take and too strong. If Vanguard Ultramarines was too strong, then up Calgar and Ventris, change their rules even. I mean Calgar is absurd, he hands down beats any other chapter master bar maybe Hellbrecht, he hits like a truck, he has massively survivability and adds it to a squad with the honour guard, he gives flexibility with the advance/fall back charge and shoot, AND he generates CP. Meanwhile Dante is over here with a sucky battleshock rule and doesn't even have free strats like a normal captain. Same with bolter discipline, up the enhancement, make it 70-80 pts, up the cost of a biologis a bit, leave the aggressors alone who are just a solid unit in most detachments and armies. Templars didn't have their Sword Bretheren upped in cost whilst having like 5-6% better win rate than any other marine faction, but marines get nerfs to inceptors, scouts, redemptors, and aggressors?
GW had no issue nerfing The Lion from Index to Codex debut. Why couldn't they just monkey around with Marnius and Uriel (who were necessary for the 'John Lennon' build) instead of screwing all the marine players with massive points hikes?
This. Not to mention go over the detachment options again. I try to make Anvil Siege Force work and I feel the disparity so clearly against something like Vanguard Spearhead. I have to jump through hoops to meet the conditions for my detachment buff and for a number of my stratagems and enhancements to work while VS get their value just by existing.
They just have to be outside of 12" for -1 to be hit AND Cover against ranged which extends to vehicles, while I have to stay still to get +1 to Hit and maybe +1 to Wound while not getting any more durable and risking giving up a lot of board control.
@@marauder340 they needed a stratagem to have considered to remain stationary.
@@gregoryseraphin1426 True, true. I was actually wondering why it wasn't put in since they already had something like it back in 9th. It wouldn't have solved all of its problems, but that stratagem option would alleviate a few of them.
Because the Wardian Heresy never ended and Matt still works there without being put in the credits.
When you look at how GW balances marines, it’s clear that they don’t know what to do.
Look at the end of 9th, what they did was cut prices across the board and it STILL wasn’t enough, for anything that wasn’t terminator or desolator spam.
They don’t fix units at all, what they do is hurriedly and excitedly design a unit, push it out the door and then design another five superfluous primaris units without taking the time to properly adjust what’s already out there.
Look at Reivers. They keep fiddling with them and making them worse.
Outriders - ZERO options, constantly nerfed despite no one ever taking them.
Troop overload without any distinguishing weapons or options with the exception of infiltrator DS denial.
A model they actually did well were the gladiator tanks with diverse builds and then they kept fiddling with them and nerfing them because that’s what people brought to games.
The biggest issue by far is their balancing philosophy of hurting what people bring instead of raising up everything that doesn’t work.
Not only is this minimum effort, it also punishes people for making an effort which feels absolutely terrible and it’s exacerbates by tournament play which enables net-listing.
All that being said, everything being within a rough 20% window is okay. At least it’s not as bad as pre 8th.
Gladiators were easy because they made Predators so bad they no longer compete for the same niche.
@@Neothunder240 Neither were worth bringing until latter 9th, but the gladiator gameplay design was sound, unlike the majority of shitmaris units.
Random thought here: Does it really matter what GW “changes” the points to after the codex comes out for whatever faction? Like how many people would stop a game (casual game) and say “no no no, that’s 85 points now instead of 75. You went over the limit buster!” Can’t we as a loose community united primarily by the internet just reach a gentlemen’s agreement on this? Help me understand why ppl still follow so vehemently a company they all say they hate
What was bad about pre 8th? We had seperate codices and a more limited roster.
@@kentknightofcaelin4537Throughout the 3rd system faction disparity was higher and it took ages for GW to change anything.
Whether it's preferable that they now constantly change things is subjective.
As previously stated by others. Divergent chapters need to be separate now. It will be easier to isolate and balance them and space marines. They can still share general units and oath. This will also give GW better data on each as well.
yes exactly.
just like they are doing with the CSM splitting off legions, the divergent chapters are ready to be split of from the main marines.
They just HAVE to treat marines specially. It’s frustrating.
either that, or codex compliant chapters need more unique units to incentivize taking them compared to the divergents. ATM the only codex compliant chapter that can stand up to the divergents is Ultramarines.
@@johnj.spurgin7037 Agreed! If the codex compliant chapters had like 3-4 unique squads and 2-3 unique characters there would be more reason to run them! I personally feel like we should have Chapter Master models for all the base marine chapters by default
@@NecroGoblin-yl2fxyeeeeah csm doesnt need 5 codexs fuck that.
just like it is being done with the CSM having their Legions split, so does the Divergent chapters need to split of and become full codexes.
it would be much easier to balance and you can exclude models that those chapters don't use like Librarians in SW and BT.
they use to be all their own books, SW in particular in 3rd, DA and BT went solo in 4th (then the BT got rolled into IF supplements), BA in 5th, DW introdiced as a actual faction in 7th. its was only 9th they all returned to be supplements, so its not like they once were solo books
Not gonna happen as gw already made a step by removing unique divergent units: dark angels talon masters, interrogator chaplains, deathwing strike master, deathwing command squad, soon possibly ravenwing command squad as well. Im sure the ba and sw units will be culled as well
I think this is the best fix, but it would likely stand in opposition of GWs focus on reducing rules bloat when you have 6 different unit stat lines depending on which army you're playing (ex: DA Inceptors vs BA vs SW etc) I personally don't have a problem with it, but I imagine that's the way they're looking at it.
Seems like GWs ultimate goal if DA is any hint with their range losses is to reduce the divergent chapters for a possible single SM faction in the future.
I agree 100%, the problem they have is they let BA, DA, SW, and BT bring all the units from their mini codex and all the units from space marine codex. If they just made a DA codex for example and you could only take units from that, they could control it a lot better.
@@Syst3m04 Because Blood Angels are doing so well with that? Most Blood Angels units suck. And then you have the problem of shared models with ever so slightly different rules and all the mess that 5e and 6e had with that. No thanks. What the Codex Space Marines needs is 2-3 unique units for each SM faction, that only Ultramarines can take.
But in 10e... I can play Red Ultra Marines with my BA, and just leave Mephiston, Dante, Lemartes, etc at home... oh wait... most BA players are doing that because the whole BA faction sucks rule-wise.
I think one of the if not the main cause of balancing issues for space marines is the bloat of units that they have. The best solution is to consolidate many units into customizable units. Some examples would be consolidating intercessors and tactical marines into tactical marines, hellblasters and the rocket marines and devastators into devastators. 3 man gravis units in general into a gravis squad. Wirjs fir vehicles too, gladiator variants into loadout options for a gladiator datasheet, land raiders as well if the variety of weapons can be consolidated into a single land raider data sheet with different loadouts
are you telling me you dont want to go up to 40 lieutenants
@@viktorgabriel2554 lieutenants are the exception. Can't wait for a lieutenant with jump pack to come out. I am in the process of building a full first company and I have one for my intercessors and sternguard squads.
But but then the comp people wouldn't be able to spammmmmm :P
No, jokes aside, this is a good idea!
The trouble with that would be the lack of by-model or by-wargear points costs. Imagine if inceptors and Eradictors were the same unit in this edition. Chances are, only one of those two build options would be good, due to GW pricing the unit based on the most powerful build option.
@@tigerdoodat5427 then let's add that back in then as well.
You also forget that they balance over in shop games as well, where a lot of them are 1k/500 points where oath of moment is super good.
Imo GW dug a hole for themselves balance wise when they decided to diversify beyond the tactical/assault/devestator design of SMs.
Absolutely, not to mention I have no idea what a chapter looks like now. Tons of info about how a first born chapter operates, but now everyone is in a tiny specialty squad.
They stole aspect warriors from the Eldar in their arrogance, unprepared for the fallout.
I wish it was an Eldar-like scheme. But it's not. Eldar actually have cool system with Exarch special abilities, unique wargear, Phoenix lords etc. New marines are Stormcast Eternals in space. And they are not good - how ironic!@@Sparkyinbozo-xe9fn
@@Sparkyinbozo-xe9fn I miss when space Marines were defined by unit customisation and versatility. Craftword eldar always had unit focus and psychic powers as their things, now storm guardian's have more options than any new space marine unit. Wtf.
No shit, they threw the codex astartes in the trash and now the traditional chapters are not even in existence anymore. Now we have mundane battle line and support units and everything is in one of those categories. Are scout marines even a thing anymore? How the hell are chapters even set up these days? God the primaris marine saga has been the biggest DEBACLE of GWs career. @@armi999
I only own the necron codex to compair to but space marines have the most flexible dettachment rules it isn’t even funny. Necron detatchments are super restrictive only allowing a handful of units to take use of them (5 for awaken, 5 for annihlation, 5 for hypercrypt, and the canopteks are hypercrypt are pretty flexible). I do not understand why the Vanguard dettachment doesn’t only work for taticus or phobos units.
Yeah that feels super weird.
"Come here Centurions, we're going infiltrating!"
Potato Marines: "Okay! *CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK*"
Let's not forget the other factor affecting every army - the usage of Power Level style points. GW drastically shot themselves in both feet with that change as they not only upset players with the preset unit sizes, but because it made it incredibly difficult for them to make individual models in a unit be costed fairly.
What makes it more frustrating is that when you could pick how many models your unit had, you could use the leftover points for another unit, either by bolstering one or by potentially adding a whole new one. Sometimes you just need 6 Terminators. Those extra 3 wounds are just enough to outlast an equivalent 5-man unit. But no, I have to spend nearly 200 points just for the opportunity to bring one extra model. Oh, and naturally that means buying a whole extra kit because GW doesn't sell individuals any more, like in the metal days. Maybe that's why?
But hey, while I'm at it, why not also bring up the lack of unit enhancements? Remember when armies had armouries? They were an excellent way to buff a unit that was underperforming! Too bad those don't come in the box now, so nobody gets them!
From 3E to 6E (maybe 7th, I never played a game of it) the base stat in the game was a 3, with 4s for faction/unit specialties. Space Marines' _thing_ was even Troops being a tactically versatile (customizable) entire statline of 4s with a 3+ in a system where armor saves meant a lot more, constantly outnumbered but individually very powerful.
And then the rapid bloat happened to every edition starting with late-8th, and with it inevitably came power-creep. Extreme power-creep that jumped edition-barriers. Quantity-based factions and units were allowed to quality-power-creep into parity with SMs so badly they needed, _actually needed,_ two main-codex releases in 8E. The "corrective" codex added "Bolter Discipline" and "Assault/Tactical/Devastator Doctrine" to correct the situation with non-stat abilities. It worked well enough... until 9E: when ork boyz became T5, every S4/5/8/9 weapon in the game lost 30/25/20% effectiveness against a horde-style Troops choice.
First they were struggling to rebalance the franchise poster-boys against power-creep; now they can't. They just keep adding (and maybe later removing) increasingly wild non-stat abilities.
It's crazy how weak a standard marine, the pinnacle of imperium technology, is now. I remember the days of marine toughness being higher than most standard weapons. Now almost everything wounds a marine on a 3+ at worst. Same with shooting, a bolter was a powerful weapon in early editions now it's a pea shooter.
I've always thought marine armies should function largely how custodes do now, with extremely powerful infantry and a few supporting units. That would reflect the lore. Probably explains why custodes are so popular!
Ork Boyz absolutely needed that Toughness increase because of how unplayably bad they were before it.
The main problem is, that Space Marines have about 100 units and several chapters, that are totally different in playstyle. Other armies have one codex and can be balanced within one codex.
I think they should go back one or two steps and bring back own full codices for the big chapters with limited units available. This might be more work, but much easier to balance within a closed, full codex!
Indeed, i.e. Dark Angels didn't have access to Centurions, Siege Dreads, Scout Bikes, not only are half the units gone, there is nothing special chapters don't have over standard chapters, it's just so much more flavourfull not having access to everything else, when you got your own specialists...!
I think you hit the nail on the head! And, as a casual marine player myself, i constantly run into the problem of being forced to play more optimized Lists due to the average codex power being low. I really hate the reliance on divergent chapter units and named characters that dont fit the style of my homebrew successor chapter, which in my head should have been a mostly codex compliant chapter.
I think firstly, GW should improve generic marines by locking the codex detachments to all marine chapters with supplements. This will be a hard step, but it makes sense within the lore and will be much easier to balance.
The problem with Space Marines is there are too many subfactions who all build off the “basic” Space Marines, but then have unique rules or models tagged on.
Means some factions can break certain units through specific combos while with other subfactions they are completely fine.
Except that all the divergent chapters are doing worse than vanilla marines aka ultramarines except maybe Wolves and only when you spam their thunderwolves.
As a dark angels player, especially after the codex, it's better that I DONT use my unique units.
@nferry3017 I get that, but in this case it's a matter of Ultramarines specific characters (Ventris and Calgar) breaking units otherwise balanced (or maybe even slightly subpar?).
It's still subfaction specific units/rules breaking the army.
@jacob5700 I guess I don't see Ultramarines as a subfaction since it's all in the vanilla codex. I don't think Ultramarines are even broken out in the metawatch either. It seems like they just made two characters overpowered in certain circumstances and are unwilling to nerf them or boost the other characters somehow.
If Kaldor Draigo comes back in the Grey Knights codex with all the OP nonsense from of old, then it's pretty clear who behind it.
@@stephenferry3017 My first comment was mainly generalizing - it's already difficult balancing one book, but when they then add another 10 books that work off the main one it gets exponentially more difficult. It's just bad game design.
may get flamed for this but i honestly reckon all the space marine factions should be a 30k exclusive. with 40k having a single ruleset with lots of flavour mechanics so people can emulate or simply create their favourite chapter.
Think someone already mentioned this but you could easily make codex chapters more tempting by giving players access to additional relics, strats, and even unit buffs when taking characters exclusive to those chapters. Shrike and Khan don't really add much worth taking if it's purely just their sole datasheets alone. And I sure as heck don't see GW making a solid effort to bolster these lacking chapters with named characters anytime soon (sadly). So a rules approach would be more preferred to get some sense of faction appeal back.
Personally, I think every faction needs a small pool of enhancements with simple buffs that fit the faction's general vibe, possibly synergising with the army rule. With SM, maybe they could have one or two less than everyone else, but then the difference is made up by 'x chapter only' enhancements.
Nah relics/artefacts/enhancements add another layer of complexity to balance that GW couldn’t handle which is why they’ve been scaled back. It used to be a way to add variety and differentiate but also caused massive problems
that's an elegant solution. The long-term fix needs to be unique models for each chapter, but i doubt that can happen in 10th anymore. (Corax will return though and I expect he'll bring other units with him)
But within this edition it would not be out of the question for them to do something like adding unique enhancements only available for a specific codex chapter. For example, give RG an enhancement for free Rapid Ingress, something that only that chapter can use. Or even go as far as a different weapon profile.
If they won't make new models, then maybe create codex chapter upgrade sprues for existing models. Or just skip the upgrade sprue, all we need is a datasheet. If Space Wolves can have Hounds of Morkai then RG could have their own enhanced version of Reivers. The best stealth units should be Raven Guard! Sallys should have their own datasheet for enhanced Infernus. The best torrent units should be Salamanders! And it would give people a reason to choose those chapters.
Great video! This is something I've been struggling with as a BT player. I like having the option of using all the different attachments, but it does feel like it takes away from some of the other chapters. Maybe if GW made more characters for the codex-compliant chapters that buffed their units in that specific detachment could help. Basically having a vulkan equivalent character that buffs the units you want to take in that detachment to help even the playing field. At the same time, restricting divergent chapters to their own detachment would totally ruin SW and BA.
The real issue is range bloat, since all the rules are made to sell minis, balancing the mess that is the space marines is practically impossible. The new Dark Angels inner circle thing are vets that know stuff, once on the battlefield they are no different than other vets. To sell the minis, GW just add rules to make them cool enough to sell.
They need to scrap a lot of the redundant units & bring back chapter uniqueness.
no they need to cut divergent chapters completely. Then cut the model line by at least half.
@@LordErebusBloodmoonyou want all the SM to be Ultramarjes in a different colour?
@@darko-man8549 yes so then xeno players will stop bitching about datasheet unfairness.
coming from a Xenos-lover - that is definitely not what I want to see but go off i guess@@LordErebusBloodmoon
@@darko-man8549 You want balance and it to be fair between xenos and imperium when it comes to faction balance right? Just cut the divergent chapters completely and axe bout half if not more of the space marine datasheets. Makes it a lot more simple to balance. I say this as a dark angel player btw.
All I wanted was for Intercessor squad to have the ability to have a single heavy/special weapon in them, like the Tactical Squad of old.
There was no reason to have seperate fully dedicated plasma/flamer/missile units (beyond the obvious "forcing" people to purchase another unit for those options).
This. Also, we can all agree the firestrike servo turrent is dumb and is worse than the old thunder fire cannon.
@@stephenferry3017 Definitely. The Thunderfire Cannon made more sense from a design point of view to me as well. A tracked weapon system instead of a stationary turret. Maybe it would have been better if it was the Techmarine in control of a couple of smaller weapon turrets like the old Tarantulas from Forge World?
Sometimes I have no idea what the design team are thinking with some of these new kits.
Maybe it's just my "old timer" mindset but I liked the classic Force Organisation setup and the way a Space Marine Company would fit it perfectly and you wouldn't really miss out on any weapon options. It just felt "right".
@scottatkinson666 as some one who started in 4th edition, I agree. I like a lot of the new kits, especially the tanks. But the other units. Like, what is the point of the desolation squad? Devastators had a point, both tactically and in the lore. Desolators seem like an attempt to replace Devastators but in a bad way that will make bloat worse. Devastators seem to be getting replaced by eradicators, hellblasters, and desolators. I imagine we'll get a 3-6 man squad of las-based heavy weapons soon.
@@stephenferry3017 I started 40k just before 3rd edition with Dark Eldar, back when the Codex for your army was about 30pages long if you were lucky and yet still felt like you could get more personality out of your army than you can with today's iterations.
I've seen some perfect conversions that should have been the official models for them. A Gravis armoured unit with the options for either a rocket pod, heavy bolter, melta cannon, plasma cannon, lascannon and heavy flamer would have been both aesthetically and game wise, a much better choice.
Another model that doesn't make sense to me is the Suppressors. You've got a model in Phobos armour (stealth/infiltration) with a jump pack and a massive cannon. It should have been a weapon option for the Inceptors. It's like they don't understand their own Lore about things.
I still think that overall the Primaris look 100x better than Firstborn do but there are still design choices that boggle the mind. They seem to be made either to force us to purchase more models (likely) or because they think that having close to 100 different Codex entries, gives us more of an illusion of choice. Bring back being able to give models more than the options available in the box.
it's so strange that a scout can have a missile launcher or heavy bolter but a 'standard' space marine can't.
They need to just print all the data sheets that a faction can use in one book, it makes no sense that space marine specialist chapters have access to the full codex roster and chaos fractions are locked to what is printed in each chapters specific rule set. I just imagine how amazing thousand sons would be with warpsmiths, havocs, possessed, or any of the other csm only units
Thousand sons are fine how they are. Would I like some extra fast attack options? Yes. Do I need them? No.
Its because they have about 6000 datasheets and only 3 of them are actually good.
Heres the thing, nerfing SM datasheets that are really good, dont make the bad datasheets any better. Theyre still just bad datasheets.
GW executives and management could not right good rules if their asses were on the line.
Thank you for bringing attention to this important issue! As a Raven Guard player I feel like I'm playing at a built-in disadvantage by sticking to my own chapter master. They have designed a system where there simply are too few levers to balance for the Codex-compliant chapters outside of Ultramarines. Each chapter should at minimum have their chapter master, one specialized unit, and one vehicle (even if all it is is an upgrade sprue for an existing unit or vehicle along with a new datasheet). This would give each chapter their own unique way to play, and give GW items to buff and nerf to give us balance and keep us competitive.
I Have one beef with the design of Codex vs non-codex Space marines factions :
When I play Dark Angels, I don't want to play 'Dark green Space marines"
When I play Blood Angels, I don't want to play "Red Space marines"
When I play Black templar, I don't want to play "Black, angry Space Marines"
Divergent Chapters should not have free access to all codex Detachement in addition to their custom ones.
If you are Dark Angel, you play Greenwing, Deathwing or Ravenwing. NO GLADIUS, NO Stormlance, etc ... Still want to play Gladius ? You are not playing Dark angels anymore, you lose access to Dark angels specific models/units.
If you play Black templar, you HAVE TO play their Detachement, or you lose access everyhting BT (i.e no Helbrecth, no Grimaldus, no Swordbrethren, etc ..).
IN COMPENSATION : Divergent chapters Unique units SHOULD ALWAYS be better than "codex ones".
To continue with Dark Angles examples : Inner Circle Companion should be striclty better than Bladeguards. For fuck sake we are comparing 10k years old, Heresy era, veterans that actively avoided being found by the hunt for the fallen while not falling to chaos with "veterans" of one fucking conflict at most, the plague wars.
Basically : Codex chapters = Better Detachement / Divergeant chapter = better "individual" units
The problem isn't any perceived amount of benefits to specific chapters: The problem is that the core datasheets of the SPace Marine codex are just awful and if you want to win in competitive, you have to cherry pick the few accidentally good ones.
The last dataslate should have decreased points for Brutalis Dreadnoughts, Stormspeeders, Hellblasters, etc. But it didn't.
You nailed the problem. Not only does GW feel their (literal) poster child has to have everything, GW also bestowed the Space Marines with lots of overlapping and redundant units. Rather than simply upscaling the firstborn kits GW went out of their way to create something tangential to the existing firstborn kits. It's annoying from a collector's point of view and indeed it results into balance problems as well.
Anyone notice the price increases on the website? They did it so silently I didn't even notice how much Blades of Khane was
I can imagine it was far easier to balance when the infantry was limited to tactical squad, scout, assault and devastator. Now you have about 5 different units fitting that scout, and another 4 in devastator etc. and the bloat grows
Easiest not super complicated fix: If you take units from divergent chapters, you must use their detatchments. You can then balance those detatcments around the access to more units
Would be nice if their detachments were decent, or they had a couple more options.
Based and ultramarinepilled
@@BurnByMoonlight That's the same problem all other factions without their codex have, and as long as they can use SM detatchments, GW doesn't care to try and balance them properly as to not become overpowered
tournament players want to win tournaments, and fluffy detachments that suck don't allow for that. Space Wolves players don't want to have to buy Ultramarines character models just to feel like they have a shot at winning.
Agreed, I've never understood from a game design perspective why divergent chapters can suddenly decide to follow the codex despite lore wise they're divergent specifically because they don't.
I may just be bitter though as a Raven Guard player with no chapter specific codex. 😢
Divergent chapters shouldn’t be able to use the standard Space Marine codex, simple as. They are called divergent chapters for a reason. Once they get a codex of their own they shouldn’t have access to the normal one, and the units being separated as such would mean you could also edit the points of their respective units without hobbling the other as well. This seems very simple, and not sure why it wasn’t done this way from the beginning.
Divergent Chapters are inherently more powerful because they have access to more tools. I think the codex Space marine detachments should have been more rewarding for thematic army composition by giving points cut to specific key units of those particular detachments. For example, Gladius could have cheaper bladeguard veterans and Ironstorm could have cheaper repulsors.
Well, I don’t think it’s foregone, because base marines have their own unique units, like Calgar, for instance.
But I know what you’re trying to say.
@@reginlief1 don't white scars only have 1 character that they get access to?
Last time I was this early, the Emperor still walked this Earth.
Last time I was this early, the Iron Hands still had a Primarch.
Too soon
Technically he still does. We've got about another 30k years to go before the HH happens.
Last time I was this early... the was a war in heaven between necrons and old ones
There are ways to balance marines, but it won't make people happy.
As many have already stated, things went off the rails for marines when they broke the mold from Tactical, Assault, Devastator. As the explosion of datasheets got ridiculous.
With that in mind:
Step 1. Bite the bullet and merge Tactical squads and Intercessors. "1 model in every 5" can take a special weapon.
Step 2. Release a primaris scaled devastator squad.
Step 3. Roll Hellblasters and Infernus, plus any melta/gravgun marines into a single datasheet, as a support squad where all models need to be equipped with the same weapon.
Step 4. The point that causes most rage. Limit which chapters can take certain units:
Raven Guard = something Phobos
Imperial Fists = Heavy Intercessors or Eradicators
Just to aim to create some differences between the codex chapters as well as cut down the bloat of the faction as a whole.
My thought was that they would just slap a thematic and chapter focused buff on the unique characters that only works if youre playing "their" detachment.
For example, Kor'sarro Khan could be unchanged, but also give advance and charge to his unit if your army is a Stormlance Tanskforce. Simple, easy to template, and easy to edit into the rules with the "as long as this model is on the battlefield and your army is bla bla"
Wicked smaht. I like that a lot. You get a bonus but then you're not limited.
This is all caused by GW refusing to get the humble Boltgun right…
GWs approach this time round really does seem very odd. Targeting units that are only an issue in certain unique tournament builds. Then making those units worse across all armies and detachments. Crazy.
One of the actual advantages to the simplified points system would actually to alter points depending on detachment (obviously this goes against the whole 'simplified not simple' mantra)
So ill use the Vanguard spearhead as a example. At the moment tournament/competitive players are using it not as intended as per usual. So in said detachment you could increase the problem units by say 10% and decrease the intended and fluffy stuff by 10% (infiltrators, eliminators etc)
Then the units which took the hit (centurion devastators in this example) get the 10% points decrease. But in the Anvil siege force ! You know. The place youd expect to see centurions 😅 crazy i know.
Just an idea. I know what this comment section is like and someone is going to tell me flat out no this could never work. Im just putting ideas out there for discussion....
I think ultimately it's down to GW flogging new kits in many cases - case in point is sternguard vets at 10 for 180 points vs tactical squad at 10 for 160 points. Makes no sense from a gameplay perspective but it's a good way to promote a new kit
This is a self made problem. Every xenos or chaos unit HAS to be followed by a marine unit. The only way to fix this, is to make all divergent chapters ineligible to use the codex detachments. If they don't want to go that route they'll have to somehow limit the units that divergent chapters have access to. If you want to use special characters or units, you have to give something else up. You don't see chaos Knights using chaos daemon detachments. For good reason. Should be the same for marines. If a separate codex is needed you can't use the rules from another codex
I miss the days when you could make your own chapter and have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. If you don't have 2-3 named characters these days you can forget it.
I got my custom chapter and could give less of a damn about bring named characters. In fact I am planning on selling the different named characters I got from all the chapters I can get.
Their philosophy is just 'nerf everything people use a lot' instead of nerfing what is actually a problem. Uriel and Calgar need points increases, not Aggressors and Centurions. Sword Bretheren and horde Black Templars need points increases, not all the top performing marine units. They're mostly just lazy at looking at *why* certain combos are powerful.
I just want my smash captain on bike back
Using the Chaplain on Bike profile just… isn’t the same, hey 😅
Edit: Also Outriders are such a damn wasted opportunity, not even the sergeant gets an option…
And Librarian on Bike
It's in Legends if you aren't playing tournaments,
I’d settle for the normal captain we have, I just want my claws back.
A problem that affects rules changes more than points is that SM share wargear with many other Imperium factions which means even when getting a new Codex it is difficult to change the profile of said wargear. This can lead to situations where some wargear will always be the "inferior" choice as you cannot change it. A good example of it for me is the boltgun, for what it needs to be in a elite focused army its profile is laughable, yet it is tied to so many other weapons and Codex that changing it is virtually impossible.
The boltgun and the marine are like the staple and example that everything else is designed around. If they changed the boltgun, you can be sure they would be changing the entire game relative to how the boltgun changes anyway. So its never really gonna get better.
Not sure if thats really the Problem. Since there is no generic Arsenal anymore, every Heavy Bolter, every Melta and every Lascannon can be different. There are three different Heavy Bolters in the SM Codex alone right now.
Also, they kinda fixed that issue last edition with the introduction of the astartes chainsword that got ap-1. Just throw astartes in front of all the space marine versions that need to be different. Sisters got the super special flamers this edition showing they can do it for the other imperial factions as well
Sharing wargear isnt an issue at all. Wargear is on the unit's data card now explicitly so they can change what a thunderhammer does on one unit without affecting it on another.
@@williampounds5191
k to reply to a few points
1) The game USED to be balanced around boltguns. Since then powercreep has happened and boltguns havent kept up.
2) Yes in theory individual datasheets means they can make weapons have different profiles for different unit. In practice how much they can do this is limited so as not to cause confusion. Having multiple different profiles for the samage gun is just asking for people to forget which unit has which gun and if the game designers arent keeping that in mind....
Space Marines suffer a lot from the design changes that came from the new rules used in 8th ed onward. Their old design philosophy emphasizing versatility ended up being wasted. In 7th ed, a single melta could kill a leman russ. Now you need a lot more to do the job and if you take just take the 1 melta, you were wasting points. Even with war gear now being free, it still means many units aren't serving a purpose and the versatility doesn't add much. The changes to wounding was a good thing(no more invincible units on the field!), but as a consequence there has been a shift to a game state where consistency is formulaic and narrows down the scope of what units to take from an already bloated roster.
War gear isn’t free though. Part of the problem. Everything is priced around the best option but those options are far from competitive.
@@artkewl03 that isn't a marine specific problem though. Every factions dealing with that problem.
@@whitewall2253 True, but the point still stands. I never meant to highlight it as a Marine specific problem, but the point still stands. Just saying war gear is far from free, and that’s part of the problem.
@@whitewall2253 To add something else to the discussion, I feel like some of this could have been addressed by making units more competitive. As you have noted though, that’s more so a problem with the game and not just Marines. Doesn’t make the issue any less valid because of the application however.
It’s crazy hard to try and give hundreds of data sheets a unique flavor. A lot of units feel like they’re holding back other units in the sense that they could probably be combined in someway as one unit. Instead of having complete/good feeling units as the norm, most feel like they embody situational aspects of the same block. Why create a game space that can be chaotic and unpredictable only to try and fill it with units that don’t fit the game well?
@@artkewl03 This is a marine exclusive problem, I can't think of any 40k army with half as much pointless redundancy as space Marines, the tau literally only interact with half of the phases and their units are still all distinct in terms of gameplay.
I feel like a good way to help out balancing something like space marines is to just give them good default weapon stats and not make strategems that increase their damage output, but rather just give units more utility or versatility, cause that’s usually we’re the broken combos tend to come from, a good unit trait, a good warlord trait/ enhancement, and then using 2 strats and then bam you’re nuking an enemy unity or a couple of their units and there’s no counter to it and so you lose.
The problem? The problem is my Raven Guard pay the same points for a unit as the Ultramarines.
I do not think that the bloat itself is a problem, sure it would be a bit easier to internally balance units if we had less datasheets (removed or merged), but what I identify as the biggest problem is what things and how things are restricted. If the combination of A+B is OP, they increase the cost of B, making all armies running only B even worse than before. If running tripple C is OP, increase cost of C, making lists only running a single C even worse than before.
This in combination with for example the Vanguard Spearheads ability "slip through the shadows, half-seen spectres barely visible to the foe" that is unrestricted, and restricted Techmarines that cannot restore health Knights, really takes away most choices.
If I'm taxed for the A+B combo I might just play it, drop my single C since it's way overcosted, run my Dreadnoughts with Vanguard for tankyneess and sell my Knight. I could run my army unit B+C, a techmarine and a Knight, but it would
This might be a bit of a stretch but I think another big part of the problem is just that their "design philosophy" doesn't work for modern 40k. Space Marines are designed around being fairly durable and brave, able to hold out for a long fight. However, the rest of the game is designed around glass cannon trading, which just completely obliterates the marines attempt at durability, to where even if they get as much damage per model compared to other factions, they still waste a lot of points on useless durability that leads to less damage per point/army. I think they would be better suited to a much less lethal game in general.
I think that the main issue is that the army doesn't feel like a truly Elite army with the way AP and damage works right now. You're paying a lot of points for that 3+ save, when with the amount of AP -1 and Damage 2 weapons there are in the game right now they die too easily to make their points back, but if they reduce their points a lot they then start to feel like a spammy army when they shouldn't be that way.
I’m onboard with the idea of dividing up divergent chapters from the main codex, and I say this as someone who has everything painted as Black Templar
I think GW should balance the div chapters from the comp chapters would be not allowing chapter-specific units in the standard codex detachments or allow standard codex characters be playable in div chapter detachments
I think drop pods carrying 10 guys and able to take stuff like aggressors or eradicators would be cool.
The issue with Marines is that it doesn't feel like you're commanding an army of super soldiers when you play them.
Agreed. Either the points are too high so you never have enough or what you mean is their rules are weak.
@@viewtifuljoe4412 I think their core issue is their statline; they’re too squishy. GW’s response to this is to cut points which makes the army less thematic because Marines are supposed to be an elite army, not horde. Marines need a stat revamp across the board (including Chaos) where each baseline marine should have the stats close to what a Custodian Guard has right now (BS/WS 3, S5, T5, 3W, Sv 3+, for example), and Custodes should have its own stat boost while everything else remains largely the same. I don’t mind paying premium points for an elite statline but at least make them elite first. Marines, right now, simply die like flies before basic fire and it doesn’t seem right.
what happens when theres a bloated model line up, how to even manage all of that balance wise
GW cares about selling models first, game design and balance second. It really shows with how absurdly bloated the SM roster is. It's impossible to balance a faction with more units than multiple factions combined.
The rules were only for selling models, that's it.
@@arn1345 The thing is though even armies like CSM or Ork players (I am both) tend to just use 1 or 2 type builds because da Meta. I cannot tell you how irritating it is to see so many Beast Snagga type cut and paste lists when there are other cool stuff in the model line.
@@viewtifuljoe4412 People are doing the Beast Snagga cut and paste lists because they're basically the only good things Orks have outside of a Nob squad in a Trukk or Flash Gitz with Badrukk.
I think they shouldve made it so divergent chapters are locked to their codex when it was released. So they get 3 unique chapter focused detachments, Gladius, and perhaps one or two others picked from the space marine codex that would fit with their own theme or models. That way theyre just treated like every other faction
I would like to see more chapter uniqueness. Sure you can play vanguard spearhead as ultra marines but if you play them as raven guard or raptors, you get some more buffs because they do it better than ultra marines would. Maybe have better stats with the detachment rule. Idk
One option to balance the divergent chapters vs "core" space marines is to reduce the divergent chapters access to "core" units, or the abilities of those core units.
I remember when Space Wolves terminators didn't have access to deep strike because they were scared of teleporting as a quick example. it also makes no sense for them to have access to devastators currently when they have long fangs. Same is true for assault intercessors vs blood claws, vanilla terminators vs Wolf Guard termies, the list goes on.
Locking divergent chapters out of certain core units (or abilities) would make balance much easier for GW, add more flavour to both the divergent chapters and codex compliant chapters, and should ultimately result in more variation of units on the table.
Let's address the core problem with Space Marines, that ends up being the root of all their issues over the years. Games Workshop over-produces SM models and kits, putting out whatever "cool" idea they think will sell, without a single thought about how the army in general can and should work. Characters, wargear, vehicles, and rules are all sacrificed for the brand, as long as they can get the model out and maintain the image.
The result is broken armies with weak rules, weird combinations and subfactions that suddenly become almost unplayable.
The easiest and best possible solution would be to actually publish datasheet updates online and let people adjust as needed.
The issue is that GW would have to stop being so ridiculously devoted to the Codexes.
Also maybe recognize that a codex containing NERFS to an army that was struggling at launch is *maybe* a bad idea?
People loved to rag on SM for getting full hit and wound rerolls on a single target once per turn, but it was also the only way a lot of previously worthless units had any viability in any lists. Now it's mostly finding units that synergize with Oaths of Moment and give a unit full hit and wound rerolls, or find ways to compensate for that lack of rerolls/damage boost given with that reroll.
You could fix this with a Dataslate, imagine if the First Company detachment was suddenly upgraded to having Old Oaths, or the detachments enhancements were improved so that people were incentivised to actually use more than just Ironstorm, Gladius and in the case of Space Wolves, Stormlance.
But this would mean GW has to stop being obsessively devoted to the Codex system, this system was outdated back in 8th, it was an active issue in 9th, and has reached its worst cases here in 10th with the AdMech Codex, the Dark Angel Supplement, and even in the SM, and Tyranid Codexes, it's reached a more serious problem where all of these factions have gotten worse despite getting a codex. We shouldn't be seeing this kind of dread. As a Black Templar and Custodes player, I am not looking forward to my factions getting a Codex, I am actively dreading them.
GW if somehow you see this, for the good of your own playerbase and your customer base, stop letting the Codex be the arbiter of all things and being where armies stop getting help. You've even said Necrons and AdMech are not where you want either of them to be. You can't fix AdMech with points drops, and I know that if Necrons lose C'Tan, that faction is going to be in a genuinely *terrible* state. Just update Datasheets digitally and damn the consequences.
"People loved to rag on SM for getting full hit and wound rerolls on a single target once per turn, but it was also the only way a lot of previously worthless units had any viability in any lists." A lot of armies have units that are even weaker than Space Marines weakest units with no ability to make rerolls, and half the time I've played against Space Marines those Oath rerolls basically bring the one unit firing from doing a lot of damage to outright killing what they shot at. Giving the army with the best weapons and highest native shooting/melee skills the best rerolling capabilities is fucking strange.
I currently have 3 armies I can field 2k armies with; Dark Angels, World Eaters and Custodes. Playing Dark Angels at an RTT a couple of months ago was a miserable affair with what should have been a fairly well balanced list. Pretty much given up on them for the moment. Haven't bothered to get the new DA codex as it's a waste of time. Thank the Emperor Custodes are good again...
DA are in a really poor place stunning models but rough in game! It’s like a 1 litre car with a body kit. 😂
I think the way to balance compliant versus non-compliant chapters is if you want to bring Dark Angel specific units you have to play the Dark Angel to specific detachment.
Thats a good idea
In this particular balance dataslate, it seemed like rules were used to balance armies against each other whilst points were used for internal balance. If every army for a certain faction had a certain unit, its points went up.
I think it would be absolutely ok to restrict the unit pool for divergent chapters. Say BT can't take Gladiator Lancers, whirlwind, predator etc.
I'm not really sure the subfaction effect works the same for other armies. With my Necrons I'm having to retool a bit now but on the whole you're just choosing a ruleset, where with the Space Marines you really build into one specific subfaction and I don't think many people are jumping between standard and things like Black Templars, Dark Angels, and whathaveyou.
Unit creep is probably the biggest problem.
GW writing rules to just sell models is the problem. They never gave a damn about the game.
Just make the same units cost differently with different chapters, that way you can balance weaker ones
Hardly rocket science was it that a 45% win rate army, you nerf their best stuff and give nothing in return, that army is going to do even worse. Marines should have been getting buffs not nerfs. What gets me is Eldar dominate the meta for 10th months, winning tournament after tournament, they get (until recently) soft touch nerfs, and they are still winning above 50%. But marines bob around 45% the entire time, but as soon as ANY unit is good or gets use, instantly nerfed. Desolation marines, Redemptors, Aggressors, Inceptors, Scouts, etc. makes no sense. Aside Templars and right at the start Deathwatch, no marine faction has been above 50% yet marine units keep getting nerfed. It's taking them 10th months to get Eldar from broken beyond all belief to still one of the best armies, in those 10 months marines have had constant point increases and decreases and generally just been around 45% or even worse, the two things are just an insult to marine players IMO. Eldar players get to stomp, Marine players have a bad overall army and any good unit instantly gets a point increase.
You could give the core ones their old oath of moment back, but only if you are running core only. Its not a perfect fix, but a thought.
I am not a huge tabletop fan but the models are easy to balance in the table, the base is very smooth but I don't know
GW needs to give the divergent chapters a handful of units on top of their own special snowflake marines and cut them off from the rest. I mean can you imagine if “World Eaters” could just use Angron and the best CSM units? It would ruin CSM, same issue here. Give all the SM armies the battleline guys, Tanks (not dreds), and then like Terminators and 1 unit that fits them and a couple characters (Chaplains, LTs, Tech Marine, Librarians and the 2 Apothecaries)
I've said it before, for the divergent chapters it would probably be best to lock their unique units to their specific codex detachments. If you want to use the codex compliant detachments you can only use units found inside the Space Marines Codex, outside of special characters of course.
I'd argue that the 1st Company Task Force should get old style Oath of Moment all game long instead of for one turn. The Siege Anvil special rule would benefit from an amendment where a unit could move up to half its normal move (rounding up), or maybe even a full move, and still count as having remained stationary. These changes would certainly make those detachments more playable.
The divergent chapters should be their own armies again. This is a hill I will die on and could help solve some of the issues with space marine balance.
Balancing for one strong detachment and particular combos makes no sense, because it harms units used in other ways. For example every Firestorm player out there just had their Aggressors, a decent unit in Firestorm, upped in points because of its use with completely different weapons in different detachments, it makes no sense. People using one unit of Assault Bolter inceptors, again just get their list more expensive for no reason just because of inceptor spam in one detachment. Make those detachments worse if they overperform, up the cost of their enhancements, turn their best strats into 2CP ones, stuff like that rather than harm all marines. But honestly nerfing any marines when they were around 45% win rate, and several divergent chapters were also struggling as well, just makes no sense. If the army has a 45% win rate, it should be irrelevant if one detachment, in certain players hands wins a few tournaments, that army should be getting buffs. Maybe don't increase or reduce the points of decent units people are using but buff the points of other stuff.
Divergent chapters should have their own full codex and only restricted access to units within the main SM codex. Makes the more divergent chapters more flavourful and fluffy like they should be.
There are also a lot of units in the main SM codex that you could consolidate onto one data sheet, Tactical + Intercessors? Devastators/Desolation/Hellblasters? Just to name a couple of examples.
The first fix must be limit access to the detachments. Divergent chapters should only have access to their unique detachment, and this solves the problem that using divergent chapters are far better than using chapter ones (except for ultramarines). With the DA index, there was absolutely no reason not use Deathwing Knights with, for example, the "ravenguard" detachment.
It's complete bloat, I stopped playing warhammer at the end of 9th after I realised the bloat.
GW so focused on releasing releasing releasing releasing. Horus heresy! Old World! New edition! New Faction! while they continuosly pump out more and more models and data sheets and game modes instead of acting like a games company and creating a stable and balanced base product.
Whole game needs a hard reset, and they need to not be worried about making everything super unique. People want to play with their models on the table and have a fair game. Thats it. if some data sheets are kinda similar so be it.
This just seems to be what happens. Space Marines are good for a few months, then they're on the bottom. I really just kind of expected it. I'm far from a competitive player, so it doesn't matter so much to me.
I think divergent chapters shouldn't get all the detachments. Once they get a codex of their own that should be all they get.
Uriel Ventris and Calgar cause units to be strong.. GW hits the units rather than ultramarine characters.. genius move
GW isn’t helping the problem by bloating the codex with more Primaris units some of which are completely unnecessary like Reviers, Heavy Intercessors, and the splitting of heavy weapons into multiple units. It’s too much for the my Wallet then they cut my firstborn units and pile in more Primaris units without thinking about the long term damage to the marine balance and range.
In my opinion, the problem of balance with Space Marines will always be the same: The army is too damn large.
That makes "internal balance" impossible in two ways:
First, everyone wants their favourite unit to be "balanced correctly", meaning good. If you have 100 plus units, that is just no possible without making SM the absolute best army in the game.
Second, with variety comes flexibility, and with flexibility comes victory. If too many units of SM are good, then they will always have an answer for every single meta, for every single army, they will always be 55+%.
GW cornered themselves by allowing SM to grow so big, and to then include more and more factions based on them, which add more and more specialized units.
What GW does with each set of nerfs is create a subgroup of SM which is the size of a normal army, and that army is good.
But of course that angers people whose favourite units lie out of the subgroup.
So yeah the answer is that there is a conflict and you have to pick a side:
Either SM are the absolute best army in the game when "internally balanced", or they have a selected group of units that are good (a normal army amount of units) and then they can be globally balanced.
One or the other, people.
Yeah you hit it on the head. There's too many damn units to balance Space Marines properly.
@@arn1345 Honestly they need too cut like 75% of the faction and completely cut divergent chapters.
Thanks for the therapy session Auspex 🙏🏻
Space Marines is 1 of my 4 armies and probably my main one,
I'd honestly say that let the Divergent chapters have 1-3 detachments each and thats it.
If you collect and play with Wolves of Vampires then you are locked into that faction and get 1-3 detachements and not the other 7 standard ones.
So Dark Angels for example would get their Deathwing & Speedwing and maybe one more general one but not the standard 7.
Really wish they would lock the divergent chapters to their own detachments and not let them use the codex SM detachments
How about we also get access to a variety of detachments as well then? We’ll have 3 each at most. Unforgiven Task Force is bad - everything is inferior unless you’re battle shocked. Company of Hunters is passable, but doesn’t have enough good supported units. Inner Circle Task Force is at least good enough, but you’re pretty much locked to one way of playing.
And lore wise is doesn’t make sense to lock us out of codex compliant stuff. We are codex compliant, at least while people are looking. So we will use the stuff they use, and do the things they do.
@@BurnByMoonlight having access to the wide array of datasheets in the space marine codex + their own special units seems like plenty to show they are still codex compliant, but they should be locked to their own detachments to better emulate them being divergent chapters and to allow for better balance across space marines as a whole
Seems to meet that an issue could be fixed by limiting the units used (or benefiting from) detachement rules. For example vanguard detachment, if I got it right, should be more stealth/scout style. So hows about that it only gives boosts / stratagems to phobos units? (except armour of contempt)
Of course, I am a newbie so I could be way off. 😅
14:51 I like the kinda freeform vibe. It's nice to just chill and listen to your assorted informed musings, and it's gotta be a bit less effort right? Maybe a few more of these random musings type things a month would be cool.
I know it created a hassle updating differing points across books, but I really think per chapter points was the better route for balance. Any time you have a system where there's a faction that is a different base faction+extra, it will always be better than the base. Generic marines really need some kind of unique thing the named chapters don't get or the system won't ever balance.
The real problem with Space Marines and balance is trying to balance small arms and anti-infantry weapons when the default unit profile in the game is very heavy infantry.
A smart man once said that if you seek the truth then pay attention to patterns. Patterns speak truth. I've played this game since 6th edition and it's always been a pattern that GW couldn't do a good job balancing the various space marine factions, let alone the overall array of 40k factions. Here we are 6 months into 10th edition and ... we're talking the problem with space marine balance in the current 40k. I'll be honest, this shit gets so fuckin' old I don't think I care that much anymore tbh. The various faction relative power balance is always going to be lukewarm garbage from GW, as it always has been. Also GW uses rules to sell models, that fact alone violates any sort of army balance integrity that could exist. I don't play competitively so ... "Hey look kids, there's Big Ben, and there's Parliament!" .... good video on your part AT, like always ;)
when divergent chapters get their codex they should loss access to the standard space marine detachments to give a reason to play standard over divergent without weakening divergent chapter units
They could price certain units differently based on what detachment/subfaction you're having them in. Powerful interactions should cost more.
All, datasheets should be interesting and relevant.
The best solution for me would be to assign point costs to each detachment to make the weaker ones more attractive and the stronger ones slightly less attractive. The weakest detachment might then cost only 25 points and the strongest 125 points, for example. This way, there would be no need to increase the point costs for units that might only be particularly strong in a certain detachment, making them unplayable due to cost increases for other detachments that do not buff these units.
No. Point costs for SM are already too damn high.
As an ultramarines player I apologies but in all honesty I don't understand why the divergent chapter units aren't restricted to only being in that chapters detachment that would stop any of the weird interactions with their unique units in the standard codex detachments from happening (note I'm not saying stop DA running a gladius task force detachment or other equivalent from the main book just that they cant have their Deathwing knights or the Lion in those detachments) on the vanguard spearhead ultras build front they don't need to increase points on anything really just FAQ the infiltrate enhancement to say no gravis probably no centurion too there are a bunch of units it would still be good for that don't have an innate infiltrate and it would force the ultras to either use Ventrises deep strike on the Calgar deathball or use a transport to get them in place fast enough
Here is quite strange meta. In my contry marines are spammimg separhead and ironstorm detachments with mass primaris dreadnaughts and primaris tanks being very painful
I would said all or nothing, make the supplements full codexes and ban some stuff. I think makeing different rules for the same unit in different codexes would create a big mess and probably some gotcha moments, but change to special rules on datssheets may work.
For me its a problem, I am White Scars fan, and last edition it was easier for me to play Dark Angels ravenwing, it was more in the theame for m army, current;y its Space Puppies with proxing big dogs with bikes. I had a really byt felings about Dark ANgels in 9th, they got everything - buffed termis - here you go, better bikes/speeders you are welcom and they had (and still have) characters on bikes! When my biker themed army dont.
I would like to get something like special rule, character, options for character and unit for any 'regular" chapter maybe option for white scars to put character on bike? for ravengard to give them jump pack, special unit for white scars - veteran bikers? maybe a weapons option like a old khan on bike glavie.
I would restrict chapters that have their own codex from using main one.
I mean, they have their own codex because they're unique with rather unique structure, units and tactics.
BUT
I would try and make Salamanders, Ravenguards, Scars and vechicle bois their own, unique chapers/codex(es?)
- Ravens - you have Vanguard + 3 Phobos units that fit mostly to Ravens but require weapons options, some buffs and be for them a battleline, you have warsuit and those flayers (storm-something) Grav-tanks (Gladiators, Repulsors) which ain't clanking with their tank tracks, you have 3 types of Jump Packs...
- Sallies - you have Firestorm, have Aggressors, Eradicators, Infernus, Hellblasters, Gladiator Valiant, LR Redeemer, Brutalis, Redemptor, Executioner (yes, hellblasters, redemptor and Executioner have plasma incinerator which fits perfectly)
- Scars need more bikes and characters for them, but we have flayers and the JP infantry, fast moving vechicles
- Vechicle bois - no need to explain anything here...
They could have their own codex, leaving "space marines" to basically Ultramar/random, fanmade chapters. We just need to play with keywords to have different battleline units for different chapters, add some more Stratagems and enhancements, maybe some weapons avaible to specific chapter (i.e. Flamer for Intercessors when Sallies or something) like 2 detachments per chapter and one for Ultramar and we are good to go.
The possibilities are there and the foundations for this have been already laid...
It's either we do this and it will be easier to balance things out or there will never be balance and someone will remain as the loser in this situation.
Divergent Chapters should not be able to use the Codex Compliant detachments. It's easier to balance when there are less variables. They should get 6 total and I am sure some will be very similar to the ones already existing (advance and charge in SW or BT as a Detachment wouldn't be out of place for either) BUT you can limit them from there.
I play BT and it bugs me that BT are the only viable Marine Faction ATM so we get punished with nerfs when GW looks and sees BT are doing well when in reality its every other Marine faction is hot garbage by comparison. You don't need to nerf BT (they are about right balance wise IMO vs other none marine factions) you need to improve the other Marine factions. (not just with point drops)
I just want Assault Terminators to feel good. Preferably with new models. Thunder Hammer Terminators with a chaplain wound everything shy of a Warlord Titan on 4s; but hitting on 4s and having a terrible ability (battleshock test on the charge) mean there's zero reason to run them over regular Terminators or especially Aggressors.
Divergent chapters need to be fully seperated again. Back in 8th, each divergent chapter had its own fully fleshed out codex with its own strats and unit limitations. I think i agree with many here that it needs to go back to that. 1: as a blood angel player i’m required to buy 2 codex’s and that sucks. 2: gw can theb lock them out from the core codex and better balance them, which would mean that each divergent chapter could have a full lineup of its own detatchments and not be nerfed to 2 of it’s own cause they can have any of the core detachments which to me is a feels bad for core SM players
GW: you will all play the same and be happy.
Just two thinks, put unique units on all vahinilla chapters and an special detachment to be more divergents
The core problem with divergent chapters is that they can always take the core marine units at normal price. The only way to balance that is to make the divergent chapters pay a tax to take normal marines (e.g., normal marine units are more expensive for divergents). Absent some barrier to entry, divergents will always beat out normal marines *unless* the core commanders are so cheap they are worth taking over every divergent unit.
I personally think the solution is something they kinda already have with not printing points on the datasheet. Non-codex chapters get their own pricing for the same datasheet. I think that would help. Not sure though