Ironically I find the lack of MW making units with them exponentially more important to be taken far before other slightly more thematic and/or fluffy reasons. The combination of speed +MW in a list without much of that is exactly why WH are so prevalent in the first place. You'd think every battalion in the Imperium had two of them assigned

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Another issue people have voiced to me in the past - "It's dull to play the same list almost every time."


Agreed.

The list is good as it is, but anyway here is my opinions:

Make the Warhounds a pair only. Most of all lists I use tend to end up with 1 or more often 2 single warhounds. That makes listbuilding a little "boring" as they are too good to resist.

Make the list "Ultramarines" instead of Codex. Every other lists is a specific version of that race.

I wouldn't mind some "new" toys as well

And:

I think new toys are the domain of a sub list.

Maybe a 42nd millenium codex list with those silly fliers, space marine in a space marine in a space marine battlesuit thingies, etc etc. And different costings throughout

Perhaps not all the new toys

I should add that I rarely take Warhounds in my SM lists and often no air units and find the list plays competitively. Adding a single Land Raider to each Tactical and Devestator formation helps in a mech/armour list.

I don't think we're aiming to get rid of Warhounds entirely, just reduce their prevalence slightly and if you'd still take them at 300 that's fine and not a counter-argument.

No one's advocating dumping them AFAIK. I just think that we're pointing out why they're so prevalent and universally in the Imperial world, they're fantastic options. I'd expect we'd keep the point spread constant across the lists if they went up/down otherwise you're giving a ding to a list that already works and has data to show that it works well and across a variety of builds thereby simply reducing the number of competitive builds (or better stated, their relative competitive styles). I'd expect that Imperial factions pretty much work well, irrespective of actual list, with Warhounds already. A highly mobile, void shielded, MW carrying, WE unit is good, period.

Honestly I'm more in favor of simply leaving it alone. The game's not broke.

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I don't, they're still doing fine for me here. Minimizing exposure to MW shots takes top priority for me. RA you can either ignore if its big enough, or break with a good assault and then hack down.

If I would going to mess with anything for testing I'd like to try:

Fearless characters (or at least a fearless SC)
Dread back to 4+ armor but with fearless
0-1 restriction on single Warhounds
Predator upgrade option (up to two) for Devs, Preds, Tacs
Vindicator upgrade on Vindy formation

Those are coming from a fluff PoV, from a game PoV I think they're fine.

On a related note, bringing the upgrqade options from Codex over to White Scars is something I've been hoping for for awhile.

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Fearless Captains would be nice. As is, I only take them to get an SC. The Commander ability is not nearly as useful as Inspiring or Smite.



I don't think that is inappropriate at all; I think of Marines as extreme version of special forces. They are supposed to be rare, and usually not deployed for anything except lightening strikes against key objectives. I actually like the way the list structure encourages this mode of play.

I like the thought of ground-pounding marines, but really only in a Heresy context where they were fielded in Legion strength.

Nooo, thought that was the dark angel schtick

I'm really not keen on the idea of fearless Dreads or characters, it's too big a change and ATSKNF is enough.

Chaplains are blatently the best character upgrade and seen the most while the Captain is the poorest choice and rarely seen (which is a shame - marines should have a captain every hundred marines, so 1-2 in every 3k army).

Chaplains could cost 60 points and Captains 40. Suddenly all the choices would be pretty balanced with each other.

edited to add: Dreadnought and/or Vindicator upgrades could potentially be made 40 too. It would be slightly harder to add up a list, but other lists have 5, 10, 15, ect point upgrades and the extra granularity would be worth it.

This would also be a good fix.

is there any evidence to suggest that chaplains are overpowered and in need of a price hike, or is it more the case that the other character choices are less useful and should be reduced?

I agree that dreads and vindicator upgrades could be cheaper, to keep the 25 point structure, I reckon 1 for 50, 2 for 75 is a decent starting point

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They are certainly more popular than the other characters - from the EUK database of Codex army lists, I find:

137 Chaplains
23 Librarians
12 Captains
126 Supreme Commanders

I think there is good evidence that they are not balanced against each other, at least.

IMO further changes to Codex SM, Steel Legion and Ghazghkull Orks are unnecessary and the focus should be on variant lists. Some options may be sub-par or taken less but I don't think there is anything left that is a definite auto-include or a definite never considered unit so just declare them as good as they can be and direct attention elsewhere.

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