NM & Set-up Teams

[Nuclear Arbitor]

wow, there are actually some serious differences, including buildings but also doing less damage to units in cover by quite (standard?) a bit

[Lag]

Also, NM are just fine. I think they're a fantastic addition to a lot of builds, in particular and as it has been pointed out, CL. That being said, the fact that they can de-setup your setup team if fine as well - if they are able to march themselves close enough to do that without retaliation, I think there should be some reward/incentive for doing something so risky.

Just making them stop firing would be a nice soft counter. You already have a hard counter (Raptors who can engage and deal enough damage to make them retreat) so having two hard counters, as it is right now, is a bit too much.

[Torpid]

Raptors scale pretty poorly due to the huge amount of bleed they concede, I loathe to even call them a hard set-up team counter since propelling them in head-first at a set-up team usually loses me the game if I do it several times in a row.

Noise marines are not a hard set-up team counter. Set-up teams counter noise marines. It's like saying that shotgun scouts are a hard suppression team counter because of their explosive shot (not even their nade) or even catachans for that matter!

I just smell anti-chaos bias...

[Lag]

Both shotguns and Cata barrage DOES setup the team (shotguns sometimes even fail to do that) but push them away so melee units need a bit more time to reach them and engage, giving more room to re-setup. Dunno, I always saw them as a pretty badass counter to setup teams, especially if you have Tic barrage handy.

[Torpid]

explosive shot/'ol unreliable also cause knockback so the units can't instantly kite away unlike the nm sonic blaster.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

Also, NM are just fine. I think they're a fantastic addition to a lot of builds, in particular and as it has been pointed out, CL. That being said, the fact that they can de-setup your setup team if fine as well - if they are able to march themselves close enough to do that without retaliation, I think there should be some reward/incentive for doing something so risky.

Just making them stop firing would be a nice soft counter. You already have a hard counter (Raptors who can engage and deal enough damage to make them retreat) so having two hard counters, as it is right now, is a bit too much.

I had this come up in the past about whether or not something was classified as a hard counter to something, and this feels like it'd be another one of those cases. I don't think it's right to classify them as hard counters despite being able to de-set them. It's crazy when you look at it at that context simply, but the reason I say that is you would not be able to counter the setup team with noise marines alone, much like you would raptors. Raptors can close the gap on their own without having to do anything like flanking, whereas Noise Marines require the support to march up and use their blaster.

It might seem a little too much that they can de-set any setup team, but I still stand that if they're that close to hit you with that thing, there should be a reward/incentive for doing such a ballsy move. Save for the CL (who himself can also run in to try and tie up the setup team), I think PC and CS would have a lot more difficulty in pulling off the counter play with NM. In fact, if you're playing against a Sorc and you've accounted for his tic play, almost every faction detector's also have a means of backing off NM from range save for Tyranids/Chaos, who'd have a more direct melee approach. Assuming you even need to use their abilities, of course.

[Lag]

You guys could be right!