Marines just died.. not with a bang but with a whimper

New Marine FAQ out.
Marines are where they should be.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/5e1be5c1.pdf?fbclid=IwAR03w8piS05lEmQh-KRvLtFprDICfh3dSmya4q5JhtZFLbNWArZINVmUgNg

Skulnbonz wrote:

Marines are where they should be.

We'll see, but I think even with these changes there's a good chance they'll be top of the pack for a little while longer.

Definitely happy about the changes but I want to see how things shake out before thinking they're no longer a problem.

To summarize the changes:

Doctrines:

Turn 1: Start in Devastator Doctrine.
Turn 2: Must advance to Tactical Doctrine.
Turn 3: May stay in Tactical Doctrine or advance to Assault Doctrine.
Turn 4: Must advance to Assault Doctrine if they haven't already.

Adaptive Strategy Strategem: Deleted. (This was the revert to previous Doctrine Strategem.)

Duty Eternal: Nerfed to reduce damage to Dreadnoughts by 1 (minimum 1) instead of halving.


Chapter Specific:

Iron Hands
Cogitated Martyrdom: Can only protect Infantry units now. Shifts wounds before Ignore Wounds rolls.
Ironstone: Doesn't stack Duty Eternal.

Raven Guard
Master of Ambush: Excludes Centurions now.


I don't think this kills Marines. I think this kills the broken Marine builds. And gives validity to Marines whose specialty lies outside of the Devastator Doctrine.

Boy oh boy are some Iron Hands players going to be upset, though...

Died? Hardly, marines haven't lost the many things that made them super good. Some of the worst offenders have been reigned in, IH/IF in particular are going to have to really rethink their lists. The other chapters though are rarely affected, I think Ultras, BA and WS in particular all benefit from this as IH/IF seem a bit less crazy strong, and I suspect in particular we'll see more BA/WS.

All that being said, props to GW for actually realizing this needed to be addressed, and not left alone for years as they would have done in previous editions. Hardly fixes everything, but it's a start.

Now, Thunderfire cannons need either a point increase, BS 3+, or both.

krayd wrote:

Now, Thunderfire cannons need either a point increase, BS 3+, or both.

Something about that giant gun having a 2+ save...

It's nice to see GW actively balance something when it gets to out of hand as oppossed to waiting until a CA or following Codex, hopefully this means they will do the same to armies that are behind and give them a boost

Liking these changes. I was pretty sick of trying to adopt the mentality that if I play my ass off, I might only lose to IH by a point or 2.

It is a nice start but I guess it will not be enough to really balance them out to many other armies who struggled against them before.
Maybe there are more things to come in the spring faq. Perheps we might get a buff there but that could be just wishful thinking.

its a good change but imo the biggest problem with marines are their crazy auras and the fact that they can give almost their entire army 2bs with rerolls meaning they are basically autohitting everything. Couple that with crazy survivability to almost everything and the rest is just icing on the cake...
Anyway lets see how this works out

the Marines did not die, only iron hands and other absurdly powerful combos that any fool could do.

Now marine players are going to have to combine weapons or take advantage of rapid firearms and assault. And Marines has so many options that he will not stop being one of the most powerful armies for this.

Definitely a positive for all other armies to see IF/IH get the Nerf bat.

Time will tell how this affects things, but I feel that we are in a good place with all our disintegration cannons and coven units