Space marines are overpowered because of their 3+ save.

[hazmiter]

Transport spam *pukes in mouth*....... That's a nasty one as my devestators consistently roll 1s on the table........
Lash spam is just as bad, oh look you have great positioning.... Casts power, now its bad for you good for me now ill chill out and play sloppy.
Scouts need something to make them worth taking again, ie storm speeder, but as dedicated, and 1 per 5 scouts, run as squadron. So 10 scouts deploy as single unit, mounted in 2 storms, squadron....
Or combat squadded.
Marines are kinda overkill in 3+ saves, but there are armies out there that make that save worth spit. Ie nidzilla army, Gk........ Oh and melta vet spam backed by basilisks, hellhounds etc etc.
Personally as Ba, omg omg op op, I have to run at least one command squad to get maximum benifit from my assault squads, as well as my squishy sanguine guard, and oh are they squishy.....
Priest bubble spam of furiousness..... Not so much, I like my terminator squads and sanguine guard, and my 6 chaplain army...... (lemartes, astorath, 1 recluse, 3 chappies, 6 14 man death company squads.).

[insectum7]

Thing is, I don't think the problem is that MEQ armies are overpowered due to 3+ saves. The problem is that the abundance of 3+ saves in other armies makes it difficult to achieve internal balance in other armies because units that are a good counter to MEQs tend to be favoured over other units.

I see what you're saying, but I think any solution which lessens the toughness of the 3+ save starts to harm the game as a whole because faction/unit identity begins to homogenize. Any solution that keeps power armor tough, (preserving unit-type diversity), will result in the same predicament you suggest.

What you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the abundance of 3+ saves means that people design armies to deal with it. Essentially that people build armies expecting to have to deal with marine armies 50% of the time.

So on the one hand, we have a system that allows for a greater range of unit protection (and weapon utility), but at the same time one type of faction is so common that the intended diversity doesn't manifest itself as often as we might like.

It's a tough spot. Personally I'd rather there be about 3 fewer marine codexes and a little more support for xenos, or hell, bring back chaos and genestealer cults to add to the non-3+ armies. One thing that was nice about the old Chaos codexes was that god specific Daemons were available, and helped diversify the armor types in Chaos armies.

I think the problem is a combination of both the AP system and the cover system. I made this point earlier, but before the mech craze hit we were seeing armies like Orks doing very well at the beginning of 5th edition due to the improvements made to cover saves. It was as though all those Ork Boyz has suddenly been given a 4+ inv.

I saw this change as a 'patch up' of the AP system. By making it easy to gain 4+ cover saves they were levelling the field and giving more protection to non MEQ armies. The problem is that things shifted too far in the other direction. For some units this provided a massive increase in resistance to ranged fire whereas MEQs received practically no benefit at all (particularly when everyone started ditching their low AP weapons). Now that everyone is riding around in transports this development seems to have moved out of focus.

I'm not sure that things went so far out of whack, and just like earlier editions, the type of terrain you are playing with will have a huge effect on whether the cover system feels like it has gone too far. Unlike earlier editions, in 5th you can shoot through area terrain like a forest, which is important to remember in comparison to the complete blocking of shots of 3rd and 4th. Also, even though marines don't benefit from being in cover as much as the other races, they did all get equipped with frag grenades, and the Whirlwind and Sternguard have the option to use ammunition that ignores cover.

[Bassik]

This has got to be the most blatant overstatement in all of Warseer history.

It's ridiculous, isn't it? I've never even heard this complaint before, and I am playing the game for over ten years now.
There's even people coming with mathmatics and statistics, it's ridiculous.

Play the game. Fight Space Marines. First rank fire, second rank fire. Unleash S3 hell. 16 point models die only slightly harder then your 5 point dudes.
Why is this so hard? Stop theorizing and mathhammering, and play the game; you'll find it more fun and maybe also that power armour is not and never has been overpowered.

It's 15-20 points for a one-wound model that, barring any AP3 or better weapons, still dies on a 1 and a 2. Make them throw enough dice and there will be plenty of 1's and 2's. You don't have to be a mathmatician to figure that out, you can observe it just by playing the game.

Also: there's plenty of AP3 or better weaponry.

Stop whining, start playing. That's the gist of what I am trying to say.

[Miredorf]

i agree AP system is retarded (or just plain bad for those sensible). The armour system on vehicles is a very bad one too.

[Haravikk]

You managed to get your stats slightly wrong. AP5 would ignore 6+ saves, and reduce 5+ to 6+. Technically, AP6 wouldn't be 'ignoring' 6+ saves, it'd just be modifying them into a 7+ (i.e. ignoring).
However, the idea is actually very nice. Implementing cover would be rather difficult, but there we go. Tis the problems of a D6 save.

No I think it's correct; if the AP value is equal to the save then the modifier is -2, so AP6 versus 6+ actually creates an 8+ save (impossible), and AP5 versus 5+ saves would be a 7+ save (also impossible).
It's actually an interesting side-effect as it means that for 5+ and 6+ saves the equal AP weapons still ignore the armour as they do at the moment but I think it's appropriate as 5+ or 6+ armour is either very light, or only offers partial protection, so a weapon designed to threaten it is going to ignore it completely. On the other hand, 4+ or better saves are modified instead, since they still have some capability to protect against weapons at their level, though significantly reduced.

[edit]
I made a table to illustrate:

[Captain Collius]

I run an all Terminator army OP at 1500 pts i will have 1 hq 20 soldiers 3 speeders and 1 tank usually i will see 2-3 times as many models and vehicles against me.......I NEED MY 2+ to survive.

The same goes for my 18 pt 3+ marines my typical squad costs 230 pts theoreticaly it takes one 30 man blob of guardsman to take me out and they might lose 5-6 guys if they are out of cover.

Dude you are way off base on this one.

[Askari]

[edit]
I made a table to illustrate:

Elegant. I like this idea. Avoids the issue of Lasguns/Boltguns making Power Armour almost never 3+, while also making better use of AP5, 4 and 3 against heavy infantry.

[Mikial]

This is represented by T4, no? Perhaps it's because SMs are so prevalent that we don't realise just how tough something has to be to be given T4. Given that Orks are the only other organic race with widespread T4 (and they are similarly able to shrug off seemingly mortal wounds) I'd say that the stat represents pretty much what you have described.

The toughest, meanest and most gnarled mortal human would still 'only' have T3.

I agree on the T4 vs T3 for normal humans, although it still doesn't account for the ability to take serious wounds. I'm not necessarily saying that they should have multiple wounds, but I will stick with my assertion that the 3+ is fine for their armor save.

[Spell_of_Destruction]

I agree on the T4 vs T3 for normal humans, although it still doesn't account for the ability to take serious wounds. I'm not necessarily saying that they should have multiple wounds, but I will stick with my assertion that the 3+ is fine for their armor save.

40k is a pretty abstract system though. Let's say a Chaos Marine fires a bolt gun at a loyalist marine and rolls a 3 to wound. That 3 would have killed/incapacitated a normal human but not the marine. That it failed to wound doesn't necessarily mean that the marine has shrugged off the wound and is walking around unscathed. It could represent the marine continuing to take part in the battle with a massive hole in his chest.

3+ is fine for power armour though - I agree.

[Dazza612]

Transport spam *pukes in mouth*....... That's a nasty one as my devestators consistently roll 1s on the table........
Lash spam is just as bad, oh look you have great positioning.... Casts power, now its bad for you good for me now ill chill out and play sloppy.
Scouts need something to make them worth taking again, ie storm speeder, but as dedicated, and 1 per 5 scouts, run as squadron. So 10 scouts deploy as single unit, mounted in 2 storms, squadron....
Or combat squadded.
Marines are kinda overkill in 3+ saves, but there are armies out there that make that save worth spit. Ie nidzilla army, Gk........ Oh and melta vet spam backed by basilisks, hellhounds etc etc.
Personally as Ba, omg omg op op, I have to run at least one command squad to get maximum benifit from my assault squads, as well as my squishy sanguine guard, and oh are they squishy.....
Priest bubble spam of furiousness..... Not so much, I like my terminator squads and sanguine guard, and my 6 chaplain army...... (lemartes, astorath, 1 recluse, 3 chappies, 6 14 man death company squads.).

I do agree transports need to be toned down but I wouldn't say nerfed as I think it's quite fluffy armies arriving in battle in transports. I just hope they bring a rule in that to capture an objective you can't be in a transport.

Lash spam? You do realise that lash, obliteratirs and termies with combi are about the only decent things in the whole codex.

[TheDoctor]

40k is a pretty abstract system though. Let's say a Chaos Marine fires a bolt gun at a loyalist marine and rolls a 3 to wound. That 3 would have killed/incapacitated a normal human but not the marine. That it failed to wound doesn't necessarily mean that the marine has shrugged off the wound and is walking around unscathed. It could represent the marine continuing to take part in the battle with a massive hole in his chest.

3+ is fine for power armour though - I agree.

Later on, the marine in question will be the one missing on his "to hit" roll, since he does have a sucking chest wound.

[hazmiter]

I agree lash is one of the few tactics in meta for chaos, but I have seen chaos players do quite well without using it.

[Haravikk]

I do agree transports need to be toned down but I wouldn't say nerfed as I think it's quite fluffy armies arriving in battle in transports. I just hope they bring a rule in that to capture an objective you can't be in a transport.

The problem is definitely that while the transport is around the unit inside is effectively invincible, and when it's wearing power armour the chances of the vehicle's destruction have any effect upon them is pretty negligible, and they don't exactly become any easier to kill outside the vehicle. I'm really hoping 6th adds passenger damage, as that'd be a pretty big incentive to not just sit in a tank since you'd be making an easy target of its passengers; the purpose of a transport after all is speed and a measure of protection, not total invulnerability! Coupled with fixes for objectives we could probably keep the cheap transports of 5th edition, but actually have them be more worth the points we're paying for them, rather than them being a spam-friendly bargain.

[Konovalev]

The toughest, meanest and most gnarled mortal human would still 'only' have T3.

Tell that to Yarrick or Straken. Though they pale in comparison to Mephiston and Cassius... Those gents are as tough as greater daemons...

[hazmiter]

Yarrik, straken, both are cyber enhanced and longevity enhances I think.
Cassius and mephiston have fluff for it, but phisty is a bit of a slouch no offence, cassius is a slaughter machine though......

[Iron Puritan]

Yarrick and Straken both have profiles that hint at the legends and propaganda that the Imperium of man builds up around its heroes.

[lantzkev]

I miss the old orks with choppers make all armor 4+ max. Gave em a right good fight against termmies.

[Grimbad]

The toughest, meanest and most gnarled mortal human would still 'only' have T3.

Necromunda's advance scheme (and 2e's hero rankings, admittedly different to the ones we see now) would disagree. Toughness and Strength can only advance once, though, so 4 is the limit for unaugmented humans.

[Chaos257]

Space marine players will just design rules that make space marines even tougher. At the moment a space marine assault squad is a a superior assault unit to gene stealers. That is messed up. Reason ? Oh we'll just nerf rend, give nothing in return and in the next edition just make stealers even worse.

Who cares, they're not a space marine right ?

Anything which hurts space marines, no one on this thread will agree to because they play space marines.

Marine armies can spam heavy weapons because every single marine model is a 100% effective anti infantry device.

You guys shots ignore most armour completely ! And you're getting all huffy that some weapons might reduce the 3+ save ! ridiculous. Never seen marines THIS OP before. It is almost laughable.

Just rename the game - SPACE MARINE 40k.

[Chaos257]

Tell that to Yarrick or Straken. Though they pale in comparison to Mephiston and Cassius... Those gents are as tough as greater daemons...

Yup. Space marines now get the equivelant Hive Tyrants too.