I agree, to me, it is going slightly against background and fluff. Though I find a speed reduction would also be going slightly against background and fluff as I see it.

I have to agree with Chris on this. As I see it, it would need a slight change in a few formations to have an effect.

For me if unit stats stayed the same, for SM I'd say something along the lines of :-
Warhounds up to 325 (each maybe 525-550 for the pair).
T/bolts up to 175 (with the Intercept rule change these are a no-brainer in all lists and an activation booster).
Scouts up to 175 (way to useful at 150 and as it is it's too easy to bump up activations).
Land Speeders up to 225 (free swap between MW speeder and Tornado speeder,for me the same reasons as scouts).

Along with this a few points breaks would be needed to make the other options in the list of equal worth, or as Gavin has pointed out, we may see the SM Warhound list balanced against other types of SM lists but down to it's lowest level.

I think the easiest way to give the list a points break would be with the upgrades,
Hunters down to 50 points each *
Dreads and Vindicators 50 points each or 2 for 75 points.

If the core formations are given a points break you just end up with high activation armies and we are then in the same boat as now.



* Preds + hunter would be 325, same as 'hound. Devs/Tacticals/Land Raiders etc would all be 25 points cheaper with the upgrade than now. I'd see them all as a viable choice compared with the 'hound then.


With the above it could be 2 pred. formations for the same price as 2 'hounds but the preds would also have a dual roll as AA cover.

I'm not saying these are the changes needed or the points that units should be changed too.
I'm trying to show (as TRC/Gavin and Steve54 have pointed out) that just a points hike on the Warhounds isn't going to make the other Marine lists more viable/desirable at tournaments, the last thing we want to do is bring the SM list down to a level where all the types finish in the bottom half of events.
It will probably need a few give's and takes through out the list to make most styles of lists usable and roughly balanced at events.

I like dptdexys suggestions, that'd fix a raft of issues with the list.

Perhaps people might like to playtest along these lines?

The problem is that those changes will make the list even more impossible for newbies to use. The marine list is awkward, because it's both the best and worst list in the game...

Keep the Warhound at 275pts and give them a 0-1 limit is my vote (for what that means).
All these other suggestions are starting to re-write the whole list and I'm not in favour of that.

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Hmm, I understand the sentiment Zombo, but if players can end up with approximately the same number of activations and roughly the same powered armies, I am not sure that your assertion is necessarily true.

IMHO we need to find ways of providing the Marines with suitable alternative choices to the currently almost obligatory Warhounds. By this I mean formations that can fulfill the same roles as Warhounds, at a comparable cost (this is another way of echoing Steve's comments about altenative substitutions).

The concern here is that the various alternative formations each have one or more of the Warhounds traits, but not all of them (otherwise they would be Warhounds by a different name ). So Preds can shoot AT or AP tagets at range but have no resilience; LRs have resilience but less speed and only AT; Speeders have the speed and MW but not the range or resilience etc. In this I do tend to agree with Zombo's sentiments.

So, if we did not have Warhounds, how many of these alternative formations would be needed? Or put another way, (and ignoring the cost a second), just what combination of 'alternative' formations would be the equivalent of two Warhounds, and how would they be used to fulfill the WH role?

And Onyx, I think we are attempting to re-balance the list rather than re-writing it as IMHO that would involve changing stats as well.

I'd agree with the first two, don't have a ton of experience with scouts so I'd defer to your judgement, though I'm unconvinced that Speeders need a price rise.

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That, and Speeders being ubiquitous makes a lot more sense than Scouts or Terminators or Warhounds being so - Assault Marines can deploy as them, and IIRC most or all Tacticals can too...

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The marine list is the only one where I can totally see the need for different netEA and EpicUK lists.

After all the dust has settled you will still see warhounds in marine lists as they and the Warlord are the only access to long range shooting MW that the marines have.

That's true. I don't think they'd be replaced by anything if all you did is remove the plasma gun and replaced it with something else though.

Only WE, only range MW. the warhound isn't the true issue, it's the "only". Well, there are other WE and range MW, but only in the form of other titans anyway.

This has been debated since the first release of the marine list even before E:A release. the fundamental cause is marine background; an infantry focused special force list. It's geared toward surgical strike and skirmishes. Bring'em in a "Battle" game and they need to work as air dropped force, go with allies (here Titans) or depart from the fluff.

The thing is marines HAVE to pay a lot for their tank formations since they get ATSKNF, and lots of tanks in a marine army isn't much more true to the background anyway... I mean, how many preds a chapter is supposed to get ? 20-ish ? About 2 per deployed company ? How true to the background would it be to have 8 preds deployed with about a company worth of troops then ?

There are already complains that the marine lists tend to force the player to choose from only a very few alternatives, the only "fluffy" one being air-drop focused ones. Each army has to incorporate more termies and/or warhound that what the descriptions indicate to work, and a possibility would be to use more tanks than the fluff indicate instead.

I'm not sure if we're not trying to fix something that isn't that broken. I'd rather not fix the list by restraining it even further. Why not see what the effect of the various tank reprice discussed in other thread have before changing it all again ?

After all, game-wise, it's nice to be able to use aircrafts, war engines, infantry and vehicles in the game, that's what epic is about. A perfectly fluffy marine force would be infantry only, possibly air/drop/teleport inserted. It might be interesting to design such a list, or to make one where an "unfluffy" number of tanks would replace an "unfluffy" number of titans, and indeed I think various lists are about (Apocrypha spring to mind when it comes to ground based marine army), and that's perfectly fine, and some of those lists are great and fun to use.

But redesigning half the official list -which is one of the lists the others are meant to be balanced with- because players take titans in epic games, I'm not sure if it's really the most important design step to be taken.

Hell, isn't being able to field such stuff the point of the game ?

limiting the amount of SINGLE Warhounds fielded. You could still take as many warhound as you'd like (in the usual limit of 1/3rd of your pts), just not more than one single warhound.

Really not in favour of this. It's not enough to make any difference and wouldn't fix any of the supposed problems that people are mentioning here.

It all seems to have come about because a few players, who are great at winning tournaments take a few Warhounds in their Marine lists. As has been pointed out, these guys are GREAT at the game and would probably do just as well with any competetive list that they turn up with. Let's not change the Marine list used around the world, just because some guys in Britain are great tournament players.

As was mentioned a few posts ago, Warhounds will always be used in Marine armies. How about we not worry about it and get playing the game?

This is a storm in a tea cup and I really don't think it's worth debating any further.

Sorry for the tone of the post but I just don't see this as an issue.

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