Balance Issues: Space Marines, And Freaking Wraithguards

[Arcane Teuton]

So I love this game. I used to play it all the time a couple years back, but something made me stop. But now I've recently got into it again. I've been doing AI battles in order to re-learn the mechanics to prepare for battling other people. I finally worked up the courage to play a real VS match, 2v2. It went well and seemed like a fair fight, until it went awfully, due to what I see as horrible balancing. The enemy started spamming Wraithguards.

I like to play as the Space Marines, which I guess is partially why I have a problem, since space marines don't seem very viable.

Let me set up my case:
Their starter units, the scouts, are almost completely useless. Their only upside is that they can repair. So that makes them almost essential to an army, even though they are otherwise completely useless and just a waste of population and resources. They die too easily, they don't deal much damage, none of their upgrades seem to ever make them worth the time. Snipers are too slow, don't deal enough damage, etc, and shotguns just make the scouts have to move closer to the enemies, putting them into the line of fire when they are one of the most fragile units in the game, and their damage output doesn't even make up for it.

The scouts don't just lose effectiveness as the game progresses. Right off the bat, they are the weakest, most fragile and useless combatants. Every other starter unit is better than them. And they are the only space marine units which can repair (except for the techmarine) so they are of high importance even though they are otherwise dead weights in your army composition. So not only does this set you back early game (Which is a big problem since all the space marine units and upgrades are ridiculously expensive so you can't afford to lose all those points) but they serve very little purpose late game except for being the only unit which can repair, which if you plan on having any vehicles or upkeeping any turrets, including your base turrets, that's important.

Every other faction's starting units are useful right off the bat, and most of them stay useful throughout the entire game.


Let's move on to the next issue: The Space Marines have absolutely no way of effectively countering wraithguard. Nothing can counter wraithguards, not even a damn orbital strike. Wraithguards are mobile area of effect units which can just move up to your army, and instantly wipe out the infantry and bring the vehicles down to almost dead, so the rest of the relatively weak eldar units can come in and pick you off. Wraithguards are completely overpowered, are incredibly beefy, and the Space marines have no way to counter them. Assault marines are useless, since the enemy is usually smart enough to back up their wraithguards with other units. If you try to distract the wraithguard with the assault marines so your army can move up, tough luck, cause they can't be suppressed, and they can't be knocked down. You CAN'T distract them, you can't disable them, you can't melta bomb them, blind them... they're super resilient, quick deploying artillery units which you can't imagine to counter if the enemy so much as has a basic force backing them up of any composition really.

Also, terminators can't retreat, which makes no sense. Why would they not be able to retreat? They're super expensive and they are only obtained by special abilities, so they aren't spammable like Nobs, but Nobs are about just as powerful as them (Assault Marines.) Nobs, Wraithguards, and just about every other unit can retreat, but not this insanely expensive, game changing unit available late game which is almost essential to the marines, which is incredibly slow moving and easy to pick off when the rest of your army is killed, usually by wraithguards, can't retreat.

So, now I remember why I stopped playing this game. I genuinely had more fun fighting against the AI, and it's not because I was winning, it was because I actually felt my units had weight. I had more fun fighting against AI than I did against humans, which I can't say for many games. That's a huge problem.

This is actually what made me quit in the first place, I remember. Everyone was picking Eldar so they could spam wraithguards, and I'd lose almost every time, because there is no way to counter wraithguards, ESPECIALLY as the Space Marines.



So yeah. If anyone knows some secret I don't, please fill me in. How are scouts supposed to be useful, and as the Space Marines, how are you supposed to counter wraithguards?

[MASTAXPLODER]

you can switch your marines to melee and go toe to toe with them.

[Oregano Gangsta]

Scouts with shotguns are your soft counter to melee (hard counter would be heavy bolter devs) - tacs have the job of sponging bullets and throwing them; scouts with shottys have the job of delaying melee units so in short they help the heavy bolter devs get time to setup to counter melee units or save units before they become kaput.

Scouts with sniper rifles are to harass or bleed enemy models - the only i thing they don't do too well against is tyranids and even then you can boop the synapse units (warriors).

Regardless of whether they have upgrades or not - scouts are not there for taking damage or throwing it and are more about being either harassing with sniper rifles and cloaking or being just behind your tacs to deter melee units with their shottys; they do have more functions than this - they also make great backcapping units and as you make more time to play around with them you'll like them more and get other fun ideas with them.

As mastaxploder said - tie the wraithguard up in melee; wraithguard are slow, cannot be surpressed but are bad at melee (they can get a warlock but that warlock is only really there for movement bonus) and are either heavy or super heavy infantry so plasma guns ahoy!

Whilst they are backed up by other units you'll need to do the same and back your units up - like you assault can counter the guards or if something is already doing that can deal with setup teams, tacs can easily force them off with plasma guns (if they dont have it no prob, have them to tie them up and the assault marines to do other things)

Depending on your commander - if its fc, he can just mess stuff up with a power fist (its eldar which is great he hits like a truck), apo with a melee weapon can tie up guard, ranged units in general and heal assaults marines as they make a mess of things (if apo has bolter he can stick with tacs or a bit behind assaults, can knockback stun most enemy commanders which is great and heal units as needed), scouts and heavy bolter devs can take care of any melee units and lascannon dev can keep an eye out for vehicles (especially walkers holy moly) etc.

Terminators are literally a squad of commanders - thats terrifying. They can melee vehicles (heavy melee) and upgrade to assault cannon for destroying commanders and heavy infantry, heavy flamer to say goodbye to tarpit units (anything with just infantry armor so guardsmen and gaunts will evaporate) or cyclone for a mix of arti/anti armor (id rather let plasma cannon/lascannon do that work though)
As you said they cant retreat - they are an all in unit and when they push - they push and it must count because as you also said - they are buttloads expensive if they bleed (their upkeep is also notable and your requisition gain will be lousy)
Whilst I said they are a squad of commanders - even they need support so they act as pointman in your army and soak hits whilst your army throws hits back at the enemy.

I'd go on but I'm sure you got the idea on what can do what but I hope this helps.

edit: I can't spell for bugger