And boosted by a variety of top players who also bring tank companies.

You'd expect the same padding on each end from any widely-played core army, including Space Marines, I should think?

So, I don't think you can entirely discount the stats by saying "Oh, Tank Companies played by noobs will lose"... because any army played by noobs will tend to lose.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

*Throws toys out of pram*

But I want my Russes to be more awesomer. :-(

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

My point is that you'd also expect to see a big proportion of losses from Marines, as they're also the first choice of many newbies. Ya don't though...

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

E&C feel free to change whatever you like in your games, just don't think the rest of us will be following you!

Unnessesary tone is unnessesary.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

By the nature of tournaments a new players second game is either likely to be against another new player, or someone that hasn't selected the most powerful list. There are exceptions but this mainly holds true. Then the new marine player probably has better chance against the new guard player purely on army selection and match up.

Many newer Guard players turn up with maybe 8 activations and if the random draw is unkind it will always hurt. Marine armies tend to be in the 9+ range no matter who selects them.

Interesting. My experience is that many newbie players gravitate towards Marines because:

1 - Marines are popular with the 40k crowd (And Epic players are often "graduates" from 40k).
2 - Marine armies cost about a tenner on eBay.

Mayhaps tournies are different. I guess I turned up to my first tourney with Guard mind you, heh.

Meph makes a good point about low-skill Guard/Marine matchups, too.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Of the 21 players that have attended their first event since Jan 09 they have opened up with the following lists

Codex Marines - 6
Steel Legion - 4
Orks - 3
Black Legion - 3
Biel Tan - 3
Siege Masters - 1
Black Templars - 1

And the results of those new players are ?

And how many of the Steel Legion players brought Tank Companies?

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Of the 4 guard players the WLD record is 4-12-1

Of the 4, 2 players brought 2 Tank Companies, One brought one and the final player brought a Super heavy company instead.