Assault Marines feel way too strong

[KingOmnis AKA TurboGrandpaRacing]

I've been playing as both the Orks and the Space Marines, but ive noticed that some units seem to stand out far above some comparable units: namely the Assault Marines. These guys have been so extremely effective and I just cant figure out the counter to them: they do some of the highest DPS in the game at 72, they can be drop podded which lets them get a free jump onto ranged units, and lets them save their jump to go repair after they get a pick or 2. Theyre fairly tanky, and outside of a loota or devastator squad, it is fairly hard to kill them. And third they scale extremely well into the late game compared to most T1 units because they can be upgraded to true damage. That gives them 72 DPS of true damage which is insane. 3 squads of them can wipe a turret by themselves.

I suppose the only counter as an ork player feels like slugga boys, with 2 squads beating 1 out barely, but it does tend to leave me at a deficit. Shootas, get devistated, and because of the jump ability, it feels impossible to get your lootas to effectively trade. and it doesn't get much better as you tech up further until 4 waaaagh banners.

As a space Marine player, I have a few more options with grenades, but those are not really a hard counter, so much as a soft counter since you can miss the ability and you need to get scout marines, which just get destroyed by the assault marines if they get caught. It just seems better to match their assault marines with your own assault marines.

Heroes can help with this too, but the storm boyz just seem to get wiped out by them, same as the magey heroes on the orks, which just leaves Gorgutz, and hes passable at best.

Please understand, that these units are, in my opinion, a major problem when the SM player is only constantly pushing out assault marines squads, while having maybe 1 tactical marine squad at most. There does not seem to be any effective counter play, and over the course of the night ive seen several players doing it in a 2v2 setting. They destroy heroes, units, and even vehicles with their insane DPS and true damage, coupled with their relatively high tankyness.

Help me out here and explain if there is some secret strat that I'm missing or some hidden T1 counter. I was quite enjoying the game until I ran into the constant assault marine harassment.

[Asylum]

the heavy bolters can immobolize units with there ! ability if u get it. and stun granades etc kill them fast.

[Manslayer]

They can still use jump jets when they're immoblized. Also, you need to pick a doctrine in order to use that ability. Finally, stun grenades don't kill them fast, you need to invest into a scout marine 200 req and a tactical marine 400 req to do damage, and after the stun they can go in or run away. Then they'll hit a critical mass and start steam rolling.

[KingOmnis AKA TurboGrandpaRacing]

Originally posted by Asylum:

the heavy bolters can immobolize units with there ! ability if u get it. and stun granades etc kill them fast.

I believe that the units can still jump with the pin ability activated, and as I mentioned, a group of 2 or 3 assault marines, which is quite possible early if they forgo the tactical marines at the start, are hard to all hit with a grenade or 2, and then effectively kill before it wares off. I'm not saying your strat isnt effective, just its not quite a hard counter, considering assault marines are desgined to take out units like devastator squads in every other game.

[Asylum]

Originally posted by King Omnis, Lord of Booty Dance♂:

Originally posted by Asylum:

the heavy bolters can immobolize units with there ! ability if u get it. and stun granades etc kill them fast.

I believe that the units can still jump with the pin ability activated, and as I mentioned, a group of 2 or 3 assault marines, which is quite possible early if they forgo the tactical marines at the start, are hard to all hit with a grenade or 2, and then effectively kill before it wares off. I'm not saying your strat isnt effective, just its not quite a hard counter, considering assault marines are desgined to take out units like devastator squads in every other game.

the immobilize effect has a 0 second cooldown.

[Manslayer]

Originally posted by Asylum:

Originally posted by King Omnis, Lord of Booty Dance♂:

I believe that the units can still jump with the pin ability activated, and as I mentioned, a group of 2 or 3 assault marines, which is quite possible early if they forgo the tactical marines at the start, are hard to all hit with a grenade or 2, and then effectively kill before it wares off. I'm not saying your strat isnt effective, just its not quite a hard counter, considering assault marines are desgined to take out units like devastator squads in every other game.

the immobilize effect has a 0 second cooldown.

But what if the unit jumps ontop on your heavy bolter. Then it can't attack and dies. Do you have two bolters, they have two assault marines. I understand what I THOUGHT countered it, the problem is in practice, it doesn't.

[KingOmnis AKA TurboGrandpaRacing]

the immobilize effect has a 0 second cooldown. [/quote]

I can see that working out, but generally they will jump on top of the devastator squads, which will wipe them, since theyre about the same cost, with a 50 req difference. I don't think they can use it while engaged in melee. And hypothetically, so dont mind the math exactly and it will favor the opposing argument, 4 devastator squads and a scout marine squad, which are from 2 different tech buildings, against 4 assault marines, the 4 assault marines will fly up and hit each one of the devastator squads, esp since the range of the jump is about the same distance that devastators can shoot.

The opposing style would be to use the scout squad to grenade a squad after theyve jumped, but the setup would be too long for the devastators to deal damage to the squad, and the scout squad deals very minimal dps which does not work well against the relatively high HP of the assault marines. (i understand that you can have a tact marine squad, but this is regarding counters, and every type of build that the SM builds seems to have this problem)

devastators just do not seem to be an effective counter to assault marines, nor do I think they should be.

(edited for some grammar)

[Head Butt]

I tend to not leave one unit alone outside the range of any other unit, that way you can always drive them back. Sometimes it means letting the unit they initially attacked take a pounding so your back line can focus on them. While a devastator squad that has been jumped on will do tiny damage to the assault in hand to hand it's still better to let them stand and fight if you have another squad covering them. Devs hold them in place and do a little damage and your cover squad force them to retreat or die. If the other player retreats you've knocked their confidence about jumping them into your lines. If they don't you've knocked their confidence and they've hopefully lost their unit.

[KingOmnis AKA TurboGrandpaRacing]

Originally posted by BuzzsawBandit:

I tend to not leave one unit alone outside the range of any other unit, that way you can always drive them back. Sometimes it means letting the unit they initially attacked take a pounding so your back line can focus on them. While a devastator squad that has been jumped on will do tiny damage to the assault in hand to hand it's still better to let them stand and fight if you have another squad covering them. Devs hold them in place and do a little damage and your cover squad force them to retreat or die. If the other player retreats you've knocked their confidence about jumping them into your lines. If they don't you've knocked their confidence and they've hopefully lost their unit.

see I completely understand where youre coming from, and on paper and in practice that would work. Having a line essentially where a dev squad guards a dev squad which guards a dev squad(ESSENTIALLY! I can understand a change to a tactical marine, but this is the arguement when provides the largest amount of dps and shows the situation in its more pristine form, but it also shows the flaws of the plan in a much more clear fashion). An assault jumps on one dev and then gets hit with the dev in wait. now this presents 2 problems: We are assuming that theyre going 1:1 in production because the costs are very similar. There is nothing that stops the second squad of assault marines from walking forward and then jumping on the second dev squad and tying them up. This will of course lead to the 3rd dev squad tying up the second marine squad, but this leads to two situations: 1st is that now the 1st and 3rd assault marine squads are free to attack the first squad of devs, and if they focus fire, esp with a good jump by the 3rd assault marine squad, they slow devs cant run away from the high dps and mobility of the assault marines. The second situation is that he walks his 3rd assault marine squad and jumps forward and attacks the 3rd dev, but id imagine this would take too long overall and most people would go for the basically assured pick.

the second part where this plan fails is in the overall style of the game: You're having 3 squads watching over each other, against a unit that essentially costs the same amount. You can not push out against these kind of units, and because of the mobility of the offensive units, they will either take all the points while you sit on one, unable to push out, or they can flank around your dev squads and take them out. Essentially, because they are offensive, they will take the resources, and because devs are intended to be defensive, they are unable to capture points as well or push out to get picks.

Not to mention, the power to hold the units in place is a DOCTORINE ability. There should be a hard counter to these types of units, through efficent trades, at all points in the game, regardless of your doctorines, but as it stands I do not think that there is a way to trade with them or counter them effectively at the moment, and dev squads and weapon teams in general are what assault marines usually counter, so an effective hard counter they do not make.