I don't think they're terribly underpowered(though I think they are), I just think they have fewer play styles available to them and thus are pretty boring.
I have a different theory as to why the LSM are the most popular faction in 40k in general, but it's irrelevant and doesn't DISprove the notion that newbies like LSM A fully upgraded Big Shoota Boy has nearly 500 effective hitpoints vs the bolter (not hit points, effective hitpoints, which is including armor and the toughness-based damage reduction); the marine is lucky to have 350 armor + health or approximately 430 EHP. Doing a rough number crunch it would take 15 rounds from both guns to down the other fighter assuming max durability builds. But the shoota has a higher rate of fire with the same cone of spread and recoil. And the Shoota Boy is better in melee Setting aside my insistence that both shields are equally garbage, the Slugga Boy is still better both vs the LSMGA and in general because, again, more EHP and also the ability to cap points. And that Six Shoota is pretty vicious for the Slugga Boy to have Now Chaos has the tools to equalize the difference. Lifesteam MoK. Faster running MoS. More EHP MoN. What do LSM get? Jack shit
Sm have most of players including noobs too. While playing with eldar, usally same names is playing. and when u have "good" teamwork against poor one, u know what is going to happend. played today wiht SM rank1, no trinkets, armor slots, 0 ap, nothing extra weapon just basic rank1 gears, i was 3th on scoreboard and it was 30players map, so.
I noticed something about player behaviour while playing CSM: I had a group of CSM that I could have sworn just bandwagoned over from LSM starters. Performance was very bad for 3 battles until I got into a new group thanks to the matchmaker. The stark difference I noticed was, that many of the team seemed to go with ranged weaponary. There were ALOT of havocs, Bolter tacticals, very little melees. And what it seemed to me, when attacking for example, people started shooting at range.. and reinforcements also started doing that, forming neat little firing lines. Firing lines of course do not secure an area and the few TAs trying to cap that darn point were eviscerated brutally (not to mention the friendly fire). And it seemed, the more our melees were slaughtered, the more people were inclined to change to a ranged class as well, exacerbating the problem. Effective pushing and area denial went down the drain, showing the classical trickle of lemmings on the map. Eldar on the other hand brought very little ranged classes in most situations I witnessed. Their teams mostly consisted of Scorps, Warlocks and Banshees, only a few Dire Avengers in between. Their area denial, no surprise, was brutal. When that melee train waltzed in on a point, you could bet on the Emperors Golden Buttocks that the cap went off. Orks by the nature of their weaponary behave similar. They put up pressure on defenders by their proximity. So, it might all be a faction thing to a degree and LSM have the worst cards currently. By tendency, I see less melee and more ranged classes on the LSM teams and those by their nature make the team less aggressive when it comes to pushing. Few want to be the guy to step forward and charge, even less feel inclined to follow that crazy bastard who runs with a knife to the chainsword massacre. On melee heavy teams, seeing one guy push makes the rest go "YEEHAW, moshpit!". The design of the heal classes cements that situation with the apos being just that much better at patching up the firing lines and not being that helpful when it comes to keeping a melee train rolling. (They are great though after a push gained control of a cap point in bringing the team up to a strong defense again). What can be done about it? Apo heal grenade could use a little more output to compensate for their inability to patch up a melee running around chopping stuff. Second, the often overlooked stormbolter could use some buffing so the tactical heavy teams get some incentive to move in closer. Long story short: Melee is king and makes people behave in ways that fits the game mode, namely "Take control of room with cap point". The less melee orientated a faction, the less success it sees.
Most likely... As a carbon copy faction, except some cool toys, it is easier to fight againt a slightly tougher version of yourself then to try and hold your ground vs the other 2 factions, one is tough as bricks and the other one dances between the fire-rates of our boltguns, but we need boltguns because they are attached to our Tacticals that cap points. CSM on their own, being slightly better then LSM have 2 actual cap classes, perform slightly better against the brick army with Auto Cannon spam that eats bricks for breakfest and slay eldar with their supremacy of Melee on the board, melee that can then cap those points they just cleared. Thats my take on it.
Every match I have played vs the SM has been hard fought, and it felt dead even. Much of the time, SM even have more Clan members playing together, making a win against them even more difficult. 90% of the games I have played in this game, have been against SM because that's the majority of the playerbase. Yea, that's a load of crap. The only time I have ever felt close to that, is when playing Eldar, because their speed and agility instantly augments a player with good timing, reaction time. Playing an Ork actually is much more difficult than playing a SM, because you have a lot of visual stuff that distracts, blinds, or impairs your viewing - that's a fact. LOL wait, so you want to try and use OP Eldar as an excuse to to say SM are weak against everyone else? You don't think Orks struggle just as bad, if not worse vs Eldar? A lore friendly buff to SM, would to give them better endurance than any other race in the game. They should regenerate stamina faster naturally, and should be able to dodge roll 1 extra time. Also, their armor could probably use a minor buff. If the stats for the Bolter come in, and it's showing to be too weak, reduce it's recoil further, and improve the long range accuracy further. This would make it useful, and feel different to Ork shootaz. Well I thought they already could, but they should be able to. The devs need to make each sub-faction more unique and interesting to play against, and this is an example how they could.
My 2 cents. Orks seem to be a close knit group and being orks they seem to run in mobs. Which is our strength. Most the time I get on my LSM it seems more free for all. Chaos and Eldar still just wreck us
I think we can flood their plasma cheese with enough bodies to actually push a point faster than they can kill.
When played well LSM are great. I do think Apoth needs a slight utility buff but LSM are pretty much fine other than that right now. Of course new things are always welcome and fun but LSM have Rites of Fire which is one of the best weapons ingame right now, their advancement tree is good as well.
