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I find it a bit odd that most players tend to ignore glaring inconsistencies on how the lore is represented in the rules. The adeptus astartes are a fine example of this (and have been since rogue trader). There's only a million of these dudes (in a galaxy of trillions of humans) and in most games, they die almost as easily as any other force?

They are suppose to be game changers in wars that quite possibly contain billions of combatants; I simply don't see that reflected in the rules.

I believe it's quite possible to make space marines a smaller scale, skirmish style force and it still remain 'balanced' and fun in 40k. There's a big chunk of the SM community probably not caring for the idea (since most SM wargamers demand either model spam or option cheese) but I'm curious what the other side has to say?

So, the following is my attempt at revamping the 'movie marines' rules from one of the 2005 white dwarf issues:


[ From update 1/12/2015 - I've dropped the Strength and Toughness value to 5 and the point value
per model to 75..... Thoughts? ]


Space Marines

75 pts per model

WS 5
BS 5
S 5
T 5
W 3
I 5
A 3
Ld 9

Armour Save 2+

Special Rules
Feel no Pain 5+

Other
Close combat
When engaged in close combat, a bolt pistol and astartes combat knife are used. This grants the rending special rule in close combat.

Auto senses
Ignore night fighting penalties. Additionally, creatures within 2x the distance of the Astartes' initiative are no longer shrouded.

Astartes Power Armour
Space marine power armour is crafted with more care and simply more. The armour confers a 2+ save.

Astartes Grade Bolter
Space marines are outfitted with well crafted bolter variants, using different ballistics than standard bolters. The material used for its explosive properties are further enhanced than the standard militarum grade.

Bolter
Strength: 5
AP: 5
Special Rules: Assault 2, Rending, Master Crafted
Range: 24"

Bolt Pistol
Strength: 5
AP: 5
Special Rules: Assault 2, Rending, Master Crafted, Close combat weapon
Range: 12"


And they Shall know no fear
Astartes are physiologically able to control fear. They are further mentally reinforced with imperial and chapter doctrine. As such, they are considered fearless but with the exception that on a successful initiative test, they may choose to 'tactically withdraw', and leave combat after any assault phase. Simply place the marine D6" away from the unit he was engaged with at the end of the assault. Choose the closest exit point (less enemy models to wade through) of escape for the squad/marine.

More to come (Tactics, roles, coherency etc)

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Combat Doctrine
Each Astartes is trained to work in a squad under a variety of conditions. To reflect this, each marine is treated as independent characters that may choose to form a unit within 6" of each other with a squad cohesion range of 6". Furthermore, any marine may choose to detach themselves from the squad, or seperate to make multiple squads - however the player sees fit. This must be done at the beginning of the space marine players turn. Regardless of how they are setup, each marine is always treated as having the Split fire special rule.


They shall have tactics
Each squad or single marine may elect a particular tactical doctrine under certain conditions. This doctrine may only be changed at the beginning of each space marine players turn. Choose one of the following:

By Holy Bolter, purify the enemy.
As long as the models are formed into a squad, you may shoot twice in the shooting phase (so as an example, a standard bolter will shoot a total of 4 shots).

We are the mailed fist of the Emperor
As long as the models are formed into a squad, you may attack twice in the assault phase.

Where there is uncertainty, I shall bring light
Any Astartes, either in a squad or not, may fire twice during an overwatch at their BS value. This does not grant extra attacks to heavy weapons unless they are wearing terminator armour

Commence Area Denial
As long the models are formed into a squad, they count as a scoring unit within 6" of an objective. That objective will generate 1 Victory point per turn it is controlled by the space marine player - at the end of that turn.

My word in the soul shall be as my bolter in the field.
Any Astartes, either in a squad or not, may take aim to increase their weapon range by 12" and gain the Precision shot special rule but they cannot move, run or assault this turn.

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Point cost reduced to 125 points

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Honors:

Any Astartes may choose the following honors:

Crux Terminatus +50 pts
This confers the following bonuses: +1 Attack +1 WS
The marine may now field terminator armour for 50 points.
The marine may equip any close combat weapon of your choice, or a storm bolter, at no additional cost.

Service Studs +15 pts per
For each Service stud a marine has, he may gain one additional piece of wargear, to a maximum of three. He may only ever have one heavy weapon.

Prime Helix +50 pts
Limit one per 3000 points
This honor bestows the rank of Apothecarion, and outfits the wearer with medical equipment but restricting his weapon choices: He may select any bolter pattern or one close combat weapon, for free. Any marine within 6' of the apothecary gains it "It will not die" (4+) special rule. Furthermore, any marine within this range will have their 'Feel no Pain' special rule increased to 3+
You cannot have the Machina Opus if you choose the Prime Helix

Marksman's Honour +35 pts
The marine is treated as always benefitting from "My word in the soul shall be as my bolter in the field." but may move and operate as normal. However, he cannot choose this same doctrine again during combat but may choose another and still receive the benefit from both.

Imperial Laurel +50 pts
For each wound suffered, unsaved or saved, the marine may retaliate with same manner of attack type. Thus, if he were shot at, he can shoot his weapon, if he was attacked in close combat, he may attack with his close combat weapon. Doctrines have no effect on this type of attack. Heavy weapons are not permitted to be used in the shooting phase in this way either.

Iron Skull +25 pts
Limit one per 1000 pts
This award promotes the marine to the rank of Sergeant, and therefore must be declared as warlord if there are no models in the force with Iron Halo. If there are multiple sergeants you must declare which one is acting warlord. He gains +1 Attack to his profile and may choose one additional piece of wargear.

Iron Halo +75 pts
Requires Honor: Crux Terminatus
Limit one per 5000 pts
This award automatically promotes the marine to captain and therefore must be the warlord of your force. He gains the following upgrades to his characteristics: +2 Attacks, +1 WS, +1 BS, +1 I, +1 Ld.
Once per battle the captain may choose to call in for orbital bombardment: Pick any unit within line of sight of the captain; place the Apocalyptic Barrage template over the target unit and resolve scatter. Every model affected by the template suffer 1 Strength D hit with no cover saves allowed. Every model within line of sight of the blast must test for blindness after the attack is resolved. Additionally, models who survives the barrage (Vehicles do not count) will be counted as casualties at the end of the battle due to radiation effects. This does not necessarily mean they are dead, rather it could mean that the amount of time to cleanse them from radiation is enough time to be counted as a casualty.
You cannot have the Machina Opus or Prime Helix Honours if you choose Iron Halo.


Machina Opus
Limit one per 3000 points
WIP

Valour Crest +40 pts
For each successful unsaved wound caused in close combat, the marine may make an additional attack

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----------------Update detected 01/12/2015-------------

Changed the parenthical stats:

Strength and toughness were 5 (6). They have no been changed to just 5. The power armour entry has been changed to reflect this.

The attack value has been changed from 2 (3) to just three. The Astartes close combat rule has been changed to reflect this.

Some honor point values were adjusted.

Since some stats have been changed, I dropped the point value per model to 75..... Thoughts? This should give about 4-6 marines (depending on upgrades chosen) and 50 points left over - for a 500 point game. I figure this gives way more options and maneuverability for gameplay too. 'Cross-reference wise', this is close to the stat profile of a brood lord, which isn't much bigger than the broken 28mm GW hero scale of space marines. So from a fluff scale perspective, this is much better suited than throwing sixes in there.

Wargear Considerations:

Terminator Armour - Draft 1
Crux Terminatus Honor required
+2 Toughness
1+ Save (remember a 1 always fails, so this will affect AP more than anything)
All other terminator special rules apply.
Cost: +25 pts

Power fist, Thunder Hammer, Chainfist - Draft 1
Aside from the usual rule this has, Astartes are highly trained to also utilize this as anti personnel weapons; before an
attack is made, the marine equipped with such a weapon may elect to use this as a power weapon instead of its normal properties.

Storm Bolter - Draft 1
Requires Crux Terminatus
Strength: 5
AP: 5
Special Rules: Assault 4, Rending, master crafted
Range: 24"

Heavy Bolter - Draft 1
Strength: 5
AP: 3
Special Rules: Salvo 6/3, Rending, Shred, Pinning
Range: 36"


Force Organization/ Detachment Structure:

Each Astartes must declare a designation: Tactical (Troop), Assault (Fast Attack), Devastator (Heavy Support) or Scout (Troop)
Each Astartes shall have equipment assigned to him based on designation role.
Some Astartes with certain Honors shall be declared elite and affect detachment structure accordingly.
Wargear is assigned individually but must follow the considerations of Honours first - to have additional wargear, the appropriate honor must be selected first.

Armour Variants Idea:
I really like the idea of being able to choose different Mk armours and have it carry some meaning on the battlefield. For example, lets say MK 3 Iron armour confers a +1 Toughness bonus (it was front heavy) but with a penalty to movement and/or initiative. I think this would add even further flavor when fielding your army. Would also make certain builds of marines more specialized or hybridized.

The Emperor Protects


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Oh and here is an 'Art Scale' space marine project I'm working on; I figured it was a tad related to the thread. I don't intend on forcing the issue of base size or art scale along with my version of 'movie marines'.
I'm trying to just get em done and out of the way. I wasn't a big fan of this conversion kit from chapter house, so next time I'll be doing the terminator parts method.
I put the titan crew next to them (which is also a WIP) next to them to show the scale difference. The crew is a bit on the small side compared to other 40k humans (more 28mm than hero 28mm).

I really like this idea, I think as you will have so little units on the table you will probably need to up the firepower of at least the bolter. Maybe making it fire more shots or something I'm not too sure.

If 10 Marines face up against 100+ orks in a 1500 pt game (150 pt per marine) you will need more than 20 bolter shots a round to want to make that a bit balanced I feel.

But sweet idea!

If you read the novels you should know that you only need 10 Astartes in a 2k point battle.

Don't forget to place explosive barrels (red, obviously) next to each enemy squad

Seems pretty cool. Might give it a shot as well with some local games.

I'd say that Cinematic Bolters would be better represented as Salvo 6/3, but have the Marines be Relentless - more close-range shots or fewer, longer-ranged shots, with the freedom to choose appropriately.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I'd say that Cinematic Bolters would be better represented as Salvo 6/3, but have the Marines be Relentless - more close-range shots or fewer, longer-ranged shots, with the freedom to choose appropriately.

That's an interesting use of the salvo rules. Are there any weapons that work like that, currently?

I like it, except that ,with this, you would struggle to win any battle against ranged armies like tau in any battle because they would just shoot you to pieces and mass close combat units like 'nids can just tear you to bits with the sheer number of attack, so changing the point cost might make battles slightly fairer, unless you make one marine even more powerful. to have a fullscale battle for the marines, would mean playing in apocalyptic scale battles.

You hit a slippery slope when you start claiming fluff means one army should be able to fight everyone with one squad. I could claim I have lore supporting an Eldar infiltration force with the Pathfinders' guns having no profile, only a rule that says "once per game remove one model within this model's line of sight from the game".

Caution aside you've made reasonably durable Space Marines but for a hundred and fifty points they really need more firepower. Right now I can spend the entire game hiding from your puny 24"-range-infantry or sitting in a tank that S5 can't touch whittling them down over a long period of time, which I suspect is not what you were aiming for when you went for cinematic Marines.

Yeah I'm not "the other side," so.

size: 1-10
150 pts per model

This is a fluff army list, and the background is that not counting combis you get no more than two upgrade weapons per ten models. Even if you have bs10, the fire power you put out is very limited by the S and AP of the guns you're shooting; usually you need more than one hit to kill a tank even with melta. It may help that your bolters can glance land raiders, for some reason.

If you get beyond that to bs10 s10 ap1, you still can only attack two units per turn with your two combat squads, so you can only kill two units a turn. I'm being very optimistic when I say that, because one of your combat squads only has an 18" range, so now that you've killed one unit, good luck hoofing it for two turns to catch the next one.

when engaged in close combat, a bolt pistol and astartes combat knife are used. This counts as an additional close combat weapon (+1 A) but with the rendin

What bonus do you get for equipping your dreadnought or knight engine with a three foot long sword? You don't get any. The point of a ccw bonus is that the weapon it improves your leverage and reach in proportion to what you had without it.

There are some important rules in Horus Heresy: Extermination. It's nice that there are now official rules that explain how knives work. A power knife, used by marines, is a negative strength specialist weapon with ap3. It doesn't give a bonus with a pistol, and if not for its AP it would be worse than using a blunt instrument.

T
5(6)

If you wound my space marine with a krak missile or a prism cannon, I promise to remove it from the game.

bolters are s5 and rending

You're not going to believe this because I'm being a crab, but this needs to be more powerful. With the weapon as you have it now, you can take an Imperial Guard Colonel, shoot him full on I the face with a high caliber explosive round, and have zero expectation that it will remove him from the game.

You can't have marines losing only one wound to battle cannons and multi meltas. They have to be t4. You can give them FNP.

You can't allow bolters to do only one wound to measly t3 models. You can say that bolters, regular s4 ap5 bolters, that roll a six to wound count as s8. That allows them to ace guard colonels, take the FNP off of space marines without penetrating power armor, and put single wounds on monstrous creatures.

As for putting out the volume of fire you need to clear the four or five enemy units you're outnumbered by, I'd say you should say "immediately after shooting, a unit in power or terminator armor may perform a second round of shooting at a different target, resolved as snap fire. Snap fire is resolved at bs -1, instead of bs1."

So you know, use the normal marine profile. You can't yell "look at my huge profile numbers, let me wave these numbers around and slap you in the face with them," but you can explain how marine squads chew through entire companies of infantry and don't bother about not having any anti-aircraft since they usually don't have tanks.

You can have two attacks base if you want, but no way am I playing any rules where having a knife that's shorter than the user's forearm counts as a ccw.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Yeah I'm not "the other side," so.

size: 1-10
150 pts per model

This is a fluff army list, and the background is that not counting combis you get no more than two upgrade weapons per ten models. Even if you have bs10, the fire power you put out is very limited by the S and AP of the guns you're shooting; usually you need more than one hit to kill a tank even with melta. It may help that your bolters can glance land raiders, for some reason.

If you get beyond that to bs10 s10 ap1, you still can only attack two units per turn with your two combat squads, so you can only kill two units a turn. I'm being very optimistic when I say that, because one of your combat squads only has an 18" range, so now that you've killed one unit, good luck hoofing it for two turns to catch the next one.

There's a reason the original Movie Marines army had individual models operating alone in each slot. The Sergeant was HQ, the flamer dude and the protagonist were Elites, the bolter Marines were Troops, the Rhino was Fast Attack, and the missile launcher was Heavy Support.

Colpicklejar wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I'd say that Cinematic Bolters would be better represented as Salvo 6/3, but have the Marines be Relentless - more close-range shots or fewer, longer-ranged shots, with the freedom to choose appropriately.

That's an interesting use of the salvo rules. Are there any weapons that work like that, currently?

Not that I know of. However, it is almost identical to the original Rapid Fire rules in 3rd edition, which stated that a Rapid Fire weapon could fire once at long range if stationary, or twice at half range if moving, and could not assault.

I've always wanted to try the Unbound method: 9 Captains and a CM as a tac squad!

At least give them some powerful plasma guns etc to deal with armour etc.

Movie Chaos Space Marines

2 Pts per model

Guardsmen statline
WS2 BS2 S2 T2 W1 I2 A1 Ld7 Armour 6+


They die in droves! Perfect for fighting your 10 uber marines!

 AnomanderRake wrote:
You hit a slippery slope when you start claiming fluff means one army should be able to fight everyone with one squad. I could claim I have lore supporting an Eldar infiltration force with the Pathfinders' guns having no profile, only a rule that says "once per game remove one model within this model's line of sight from the game".

Caution aside you've made reasonably durable Space Marines but for a hundred and fifty points they really need more firepower. Right now I can spend the entire game hiding from your puny 24"-range-infantry or sitting in a tank that S5 can't touch whittling them down over a long period of time, which I suspect is not what you were aiming for when you went for cinematic Marines.

I'm sure each army has their equivalent of uber soldiers and the like. The problem is, I don't recall specific numbers thrown around like the astartes. You can make the claim that eldar have some special rule because of some black library writer or there was a quick excerpt from one particular edition but, it won't be near as consistent problem as SM stuff.

I don't think I would have so much a problem with eldar (and xenos in general) having their nuances as long as things were more internally consistent with humans vs humans - space marines fighting guard/pdf should at least be way more distinguished from each other. Problem with fixing that is it will throw global balance off.

Easiest solution is to approach just the SMs. I think if I tinker enough with abilities and tactics (and not so much the stats), it can make them an interesting force, and still have a squad/tactic feeling. I may consider lowering the point value, but with the measuring stick (a point matrix I used), I've already cheapened it a few times and I would rather err on the side of expensive than too cheap (and avoid that kind of qq in play testing)

As far as them coping with armies like the tau, or swarm armies, I still want there to be choices, not just fielding one dude that can do everything. I want each marine to feel like they have their specific role - somewhat. As far as tanks still roming around unaffected by bolter shots, that's the way it should be

Heck, there are still things like terminators to consider in this SM list. You can expect a lower model count, but it would give the meaning of 'tactical dreadnought armour' the rightful dread it deserves. Something like this would change the flavor enough in the army.

I have been working on similar projects in the past, but I've always found that the D6 system breaks when I reach Terminators.

I'd gladly help out here though.

Many units could use similar enhancements. Aspect Warriors, Chaos Space Marines, Necrons and Chaos Daemons are pretty badass as well (and don't even get me started on the Grey Knights), and certain Tyranids and so on and so forth, but Space Marines seem as good a place to start as any.

Terminators become Monstrous Creatures. with 6 wounds each. and t6 or t7 and FNP to go along with their 2+ armor and 4+ invuln.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Yeah I'm not "the other side," so.

size: 1-10
150 pts per model

This is a fluff army list, and the background is that not counting combis you get no more than two upgrade weapons per ten models. Even if you have bs10, the fire power you put out is very limited by the S and AP of the guns you're shooting; usually you need more than one hit to kill a tank even with melta. It may help that your bolters can glance land raiders, for some reason.

If you get beyond that to bs10 s10 ap1, you still can only attack two units per turn with your two combat squads, so you can only kill two units a turn. I'm being very optimistic when I say that, because one of your combat squads only has an 18" range, so now that you've killed one unit, good luck hoofing it for two turns to catch the next one.

I refuse to make bolter glance land raiders . Just to make it clear, this list is not meant to make tactical marines into greater demons with auto cannons.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Yeah I'm not "the other side," so.

when engaged in close combat, a bolt pistol and astartes combat knife are used. This counts as an additional close combat weapon (+1 A) but with the rendin

What bonus do you get for equipping your dreadnought or knight engine with a three foot long sword? You don't get any. The point of a ccw bonus is that the weapon it improves your leverage and reach in proportion to what you had without it.

There are some important rules in Horus Heresy: Extermination. It's nice that there are now official rules that explain how knives work. A power knife, used by marines, is a negative strength specialist weapon with ap3. It doesn't give a bonus with a pistol, and if not for its AP it would be worse than using a blunt instrument.

I'll have to consider looking into the knife rules from extermination. I only have conquest and the legiones book (have yet to get the istvaan red book). Though, maybe its in the legiones book... hmm.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Yeah I'm not "the other side," so.

T
5(6)

If you wound my space marine with a krak missile or a prism cannon, I promise to remove it from the game.

No. Any band aid rule or the like would simply be too circumstantial. The only explanation I can offer as to why a marine hit with a multi melta would survive is that you didn't get him center mass or the head. Lore wise, marines are known for losing appendages and still remain operational (more so than normal humans). Hitting anyone with a rocket launcher square on is not very probable either (it's not like an FPS ). Even a prism cannon I doubt is meant to be so precise - so being even close to the ray impact, for a normal human, would probably be enough to die

pelicaniforce wrote:
Yeah I'm not "the other side," so.

bolters are s5 and rending

You're not going to believe this because I'm being a crab, but this needs to be more powerful. With the weapon as you have it now, you can take an Imperial Guard Colonel, shoot him full on I the face with a high caliber explosive round, and have zero expectation that it will remove him from the game.

You can't have marines losing only one wound to battle cannons and multi meltas. They have to be t4. You can give them FNP.

You can't allow bolters to do only one wound to measly t3 models. You can say that bolters, regular s4 ap5 bolters, that roll a six to wound count as s8. That allows them to ace guard colonels, take the FNP off of space marines without penetrating power armor, and put single wounds on monstrous creatures.

As for putting out the volume of fire you need to clear the four or five enemy units you're outnumbered by, I'd say you should say "immediately after shooting, a unit in power or terminator armor may perform a second round of shooting at a different target, resolved as snap fire. Snap fire is resolved at bs -1, instead of bs1."

So you know, use the normal marine profile. You can't yell "look at my huge profile numbers, let me wave these numbers around and slap you in the face with them," but you can explain how marine squads chew through entire companies of infantry and don't bother about not having any anti-aircraft since they usually don't have tanks.

You can have two attacks base if you want, but no way am I playing any rules where having a knife that's shorter than the user's forearm counts as a ccw.

First, any wargame is going to contain elements that vary in abstract interpretation. Commander type units with multiple wound probably don't just represent raw resilience, but rather a different way to mitigate damage (like ducking behind Guardsman Jo Bob). I'm sure there are better abstract explanations, but I have no problem with a guardsman hero being shot a few extra times to nail em.

As far as marines not dying outright from battle cannons, again, the likelihood of such large blast hitting dead on, isn't as square on as you would probably think. I know that's not as definitive of an explanation as you may like, but it's still a reasonable counter perspective. Plus consider this - the biology of an astartes - they have freaking 2 hearts, a bunch of extra organs under one hell of a turtle shell, and at a whopping 7'6 to 8' tall! It doesn't seem to far off explaining why something so supernatural like that surviving those type of hits.

Your issue with attacking hordes: I've considered rebuilding something similar to 'Fury of the Legion' in which, IF you are in coherency of another marine, you may shoot twice. (if you caught that IF, yes, I mean to make marines able to go out of coherency of a squad, yet gain benefits for being with in certain distance).

Your other view - about the current 40k stat profile better explaining holding their own - em well yea sure, bolters can rapid fire, and with a lot of them they can be kinda rough, but vs lasgun variants, and simply having more guardsman, its a moot comparison. SM's are not meant to lay down as much firepower as the Militarum, not like that. They are not meant to be that kind of front-line infantry. More like rapid surgical, rapid response area denial etc.

Okay, and about the knife thing, have you ever seen how big those dang knives are? its almost the size of a gladius/ short sword! Plus having a bolt pistol and that 'knife' makes as much sense as having 2 attacks in your profile. Its an abstract representation of combat style.

I'll have to look for an old WD i have. Has their take on "Movie Marines".

 Ashiraya wrote:
I have been working on similar projects in the past, but I've always found that the D6 system breaks when I reach Terminators.

I'd gladly help out here though.

Many units could use similar enhancements. Aspect Warriors, Chaos Space Marines, Necrons and Chaos Daemons are pretty badass as well (and don't even get me started on the Grey Knights), and certain Tyranids and so on and so forth, but Space Marines seem as good a place to start as any.

I think it would be a very interesting project to re-balance some of the 'uber' units from each codex. Im afraid though, it may affect it so globally, that you would need to release all codices at the same time - to do it justice. Maybe not.

Also, as far as other armies go, I just don't see very many having enough issues - lore wise - to go and rebalance them. Orks might be the next one and Traitor marines, but after that, I would be a bit cautious - I don't want to just a pat the head of other players so they don't feel left out.

As far as terminators go, I think a few considerations for them are this: keeping with lore, my impression of these fellows is that they are miniature tanks. Keeping with this, the armour should be practically impervious to small arms. This would allow for some very interesting options as to how to use them - i think.

The way I see to balance them, without making them vehicles lol, is by increasing their toughness enough to make them immune to strength 3 weapons (T7). Also, increasing the armour save to a 1+ also seems fitting (remember a roll of a 1 always fails) - this would affect AP2 stuff and thus, not limiting them near as much as they are now.

I think with these two upgrades, that should be enough, but perhaps giving them some bonuses to overwatch would be interesting, and in line with lore.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I'd say that Cinematic Bolters would be better represented as Salvo 6/3, but have the Marines be Relentless - more close-range shots or fewer, longer-ranged shots, with the freedom to choose appropriately.

Heh, I'm sort of steering away from the WD 'over the top' cinematic attachments, and attempting to make them more 'legal'. Plus, having Salvo 6/3 is way too much. That's way better than an assault cannon, which I don't want to do.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 megatombuscus wrote:
I like it, except that ,with this, you would struggle to win any battle against ranged armies like tau in any battle because they would just shoot you to pieces and mass close combat units like 'nids can just tear you to bits with the sheer number of attack, so changing the point cost might make battles slightly fairer, unless you make one marine even more powerful. to have a fullscale battle for the marines, would mean playing in apocalyptic scale battles.

Well, im not trying to make the standard marine completely bullet proof. I'm considering lowering their point value. Something to consider too, that a single tacitcal marine isn't really meant to go head to head in a fire fights vs a squad of fire warriors. That's bad tactics to reserve yourself to ranged combat vs the most ranged oriented army, (let alone go in unsupported).

Also, a fire warrior squad shooting at long range would hit half the time, on average, thus about 5 hits. Out of those 5 hits, only 33% would wound, that's about 2, rounding up. Out of those 2, there is about a 33% chance one will wound (so less than 1). That one unsaved wound that would further need a 66% chance to resolve the wound (Feel no pain).

Yea i think its fine atm vs ranged armies, if not a bit on the OP side I wonder....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Filch wrote:
Movie Chaos Space Marines

2 Pts per model

Guardsmen statline
WS2 BS2 S2 T2 W1 I2 A1 Ld7 Armour 6+


They die in droves! Perfect for fighting your 10 uber marines!

Hah! This explains the movie Ultramarine!

FYI, even the traitors should use these rules

kveldulf wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I'd say that Cinematic Bolters would be better represented as Salvo 6/3, but have the Marines be Relentless - more close-range shots or fewer, longer-ranged shots, with the freedom to choose appropriately.

Heh, I'm sort of steering away from the WD 'over the top' cinematic attachments, and attempting to make them more 'legal'. Plus, having Salvo 6/3 is way too much. That's way better than an assault cannon, which I don't want to do.

...I'm confused. You're spending a hundred and fifty points on a dude with a rending pulse rifle. How are you expecting to play the game if you can't kill anything?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

kveldulf wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I'd say that Cinematic Bolters would be better represented as Salvo 6/3, but have the Marines be Relentless - more close-range shots or fewer, longer-ranged shots, with the freedom to choose appropriately.

Heh, I'm sort of steering away from the WD 'over the top' cinematic attachments, and attempting to make them more 'legal'. Plus, having Salvo 6/3 is way too much. That's way better than an assault cannon, which I don't want to do.

...I'm confused. You're spending a hundred and fifty points on a dude with a rending pulse rifle. How are you expecting to play the game if you can't kill anything?

You should read the update I added to the original post. May put a better perspective as to what direction I'm going with this list. Also, are you being serious? A guy at T6 2+ 5+ FNP running around that cannot be tar pitted... and with an Assault 2 24" rending weapon at BS5, Master crafted is not anything to blow your nose at. And now with the doctrine options I've added, two guys can pop 8 shots at 24 if they wanted...

If those two marines are shooting at a two fire warrior squads with (again 8 shots a round) - where most hit on a 2 (and better with master crafted) and wound on a 2 - then those fire warrior squads are more than likely going to end up close to half strength, while the marines most likely won't suffer a wound. Not to mention... if they were facing suits from the tau, the rending would be pretty nice. If there were any area to beef up though, that would still seem fairly tasteful, I could look at making rending at 5+ ?

kveldulf wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

kveldulf wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I'd say that Cinematic Bolters would be better represented as Salvo 6/3, but have the Marines be Relentless - more close-range shots or fewer, longer-ranged shots, with the freedom to choose appropriately.

Heh, I'm sort of steering away from the WD 'over the top' cinematic attachments, and attempting to make them more 'legal'. Plus, having Salvo 6/3 is way too much. That's way better than an assault cannon, which I don't want to do.

...I'm confused. You're spending a hundred and fifty points on a dude with a rending pulse rifle. How are you expecting to play the game if you can't kill anything?

You should read the update I added to the original post. May put a better perspective as to what direction I'm going with this list. Also, are you being serious? A guy at T6 2+ 5+ FNP running around that cannot be tar pitted... and with an Assault 2 24" rending weapon at BS5, Master crafted is not anything to blow your nose at. And now with the doctrine options I've added, two guys can pop 8 shots at 24 if they wanted...

If those two marines are shooting at a two fire warrior squads with (again 8 shots a round) - where most hit on a 2 (and better with master crafted) and wound on a 2 - then those fire warrior squads are more than likely going to end up close to half strength, while the marines most likely won't suffer a wound. Not to mention... if they were facing suits from the tau, the rending would be pretty nice. If there were any area to beef up though, that would still seem fairly tasteful, I could look at making rending at 5+ ?

I'm being perfectly serious. At 125pts you're putting out a fourteenth the firepower than 126pts of Fire Warriors plus Rending at a shorter range.

Survivability alone is cool, but if your army can't kill anything (right now if I take a Wave Serpent your Space Marines have to throw up their hands and go home) how are you expecting to play?

 AnomanderRake wrote:


I'm being perfectly serious. At 125pts you're putting out a fourteenth the firepower than 126pts of Fire Warriors plus Rending at a shorter range.

Survivability alone is cool, but if your army can't kill anything (right now if I take a Wave Serpent your Space Marines have to throw up their hands and go home) how are you expecting to play?

I'm not trying to give the marines an equal quantity of firepower - that would just go back to standard 40k, plus, that defeats the reason for ever fielding space marines; if all you need was more 'firepower', heck, just bring the guard.

Quantity does not equal quality, though Mr Stalin would argue with that. What you don't get in quantity with these guys, you more than make up in quality. This translates into different options than the standard infantry mentality you have in 40k - via: better stats, special rules, doctrines, wargear options, honors, and new insertion rules; Space Marines will have many options and choices at their disposal and thus will yield some very interesting combinations.

And about your wave serpent... am I only allowed to bring tactical marines with bolters? Well.... of course that's not bloody fair. So, what can I bring? Yea, this list isn't going to be stuck on bolters and that's it.

[Although, as far as how many hits you can land with a wave serpent, your looking at maybe ~2 wounds on average without taking saves yet.... so I'm not sure why you are using that as a benchmark pointer.... yea an upgraded serpent is 130 points, and yea you have more utility, but it's not the same purpose. Also, 7th isn't about obliterating things to win (as you most likely already know), its about objectives. Did you see one of the objective doctrines they can toggle? If your wave serpent, or your entire army, just sat back shooting, you could easily lose the game. The purpose of having this doctrine was to apply pressure for the enemy, and reinforce the notion that space marines are very tough, mobile, objective oriented, skirmishers.]

Also, I'm not going to make bolters blow up the front armour on tanks. Nor am I going to straight up default the range band of bolters so they are on par with xenos weaponry (I don't want to rain on everyones parade) - weapons need to be distinguished from each other so they can have some sense of purpose/ signature. I would like to keep lascannons, meltas, plasma, etc as unaltered as possible for marines. If I made bolters as good as anyone of those, it would defeat the point of ever taking one of these weapons. As it is now, I'm already going to have to revamp the heavy bolter so its better than the standard bolter.

I love the idea of Movie Marines, and I'm pretty sure some of my Marine-playing friends would enjoy this too. I'm going to talk to my gamer group this week about trying these rules out next time we play. I'll let you know what we all think about them after we've play-tested them.

A couple thoughts I have after reading through this:

I know it's probably late in this project to be thinking about this, but will vehicles remain the same or will they be getting an overhaul as well?

Assault Marines. Maybe about 25pts for the jump pack and to replace their bolter with a bolt pistol and chainsword. Your Close Combat rule is still in effect (pistol and knife give +1 A and Rending special rule). But since it's a chainsword instead, how about +1 S and/or AP4 in addition to the +1 A and Rending?

The Heavy Bolter. Since your regular bolters are S5 AP5 Assault 2 Rending, how about S6 AP4 Salvo 6/3 Rending? Snap shots resolved at -1 BS instead of at BS 1. 20pts or so?

Just my two cents. Thoughts?

kveldulf wrote:
Quantity does not equal quality

You don't have quantity. You don't have quality. You're bringing a toothpick to a gunfight here.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

kveldulf wrote:
Quantity does not equal quality

You don't have quantity. You don't have quality. You're bringing a toothpick to a gunfight here.

I don't know what else more to say other than the original concept of this project isn't meant to make tactical marines line infantry nor the equivalent of them carrying assault cannons.

My approach is more about regarding the global scale already there, and getting as close as possible to SM fluff - without getting convoluted. Like I said earlier... Space marines should not have more firepower than the Imperial guard, but what firepower they do have is very effective for the purposes they serve in war: Rapid resolutions to high value objectives, area denial, surgical kill teams, etc. SM are not meant to be trench fodder that can pew pew it up with other infantry. At BS5 Mastercrafted, 2 shots... that can further be multiplied by doctrine.... you could blow up a squad pretty well, if you needed to. I haven't even touched on special issue ammunition either....

Right now, marines are pretty expensive, but I would rather them a bit too expensive than too little while balancing them and designing them.

I sense you are not really regarding all of my posts and their addendums....




Automatically Appended Next Post:

InquisitorRoeth wrote:
I love the idea of Movie Marines, and I'm pretty sure some of my Marine-playing friends would enjoy this too. I'm going to talk to my gamer group this week about trying these rules out next time we play. I'll let you know what we all think about them after we've play-tested them.

A couple thoughts I have after reading through this:

I know it's probably late in this project to be thinking about this, but will vehicles remain the same or will they be getting an overhaul as well?

Assault Marines. Maybe about 25pts for the jump pack and to replace their bolter with a bolt pistol and chainsword. Your Close Combat rule is still in effect (pistol and knife give +1 A and Rending special rule). But since it's a chainsword instead, how about +1 S and/or AP4 in addition to the +1 A and Rending?

The Heavy Bolter. Since your regular bolters are S5 AP5 Assault 2 Rending, how about S6 AP4 Salvo 6/3 Rending? Snap shots resolved at -1 BS instead of at BS 1. 20pts or so?

Just my two cents. Thoughts?

Kewl, I would like to hear what your group thinks of it Though, I'm not sure how playable it is atm... even at 500 pts, just bringing tactical marines might be kinda rough. I guess if you ran over to a few objectives and did area denial doctrine, you might just make the other player sweat and bite his finger nails.

Please know, if you don't hear a response from me for some time , it's probably because I'll be busy contending with the arrival of a tyrant - who will demand much of my time (my newborn son ). So for a few weeks a may be a tad aloof.

Regarding your thoughts:

the jump pack, im still undecided as to how to make that available, but I think 25ish sounds lIke a good figure as any to start from.

The heavy bolter Salvo idea is what I was thinking, but instead of increasing the strength, playing around with the AP might be an option or giving it a special rule? I would like to leave assault cannons alone, since that would affect the global scheme even more so. At least with just messing with heavy bolters we can just reason that it's an astartes version - consistent with astartes bolter family. If we jump out of bolters then I think 'astartes version x' may get over done.

I would like to leave vehicles alone as much as possible, but if there would be anything worthy of consideration out of them, dreadnoughts come to mind. If dreadknights and Thallaxii get stat lines, I think dreadnoughts should too. Of course, this might be going outside of the realm of 'movie marine'

 Filch wrote:
Movie Chaos Space Marines

2 Pts per model

Guardsmen statline
WS2 BS2 S2 T2 W1 I2 A1 Ld7 Armour 6+


They die in droves! Perfect for fighting your 10 uber marines!

Grots have ld5, armor- and grot blastas. And still cost 1.5 times more.

I always liked the Movie Marines, but whilst I had a few games, they were never something you could do seriously because they were just ridiculously overpowered for their price.

I'd love to see a toned-down version using unbound; I keep looking at the current lists and thinking that by stacking the relics you can do a reasonable job.

For example, a captain with Primarch's Wrath actually puts out slightly more bolter fire than ten marines with 'normal' bolters, and there are quite a few named boltguns and suits of armour by now.

Actually kind of going down this road at the moment as I'm currently painting up an Officio Assassinorium army.

kveldulf wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

kveldulf wrote:
Quantity does not equal quality

You don't have quantity. You don't have quality. You're bringing a toothpick to a gunfight here.

I don't know what else more to say other than the original concept of this project isn't meant to make tactical marines line infantry nor the equivalent of them carrying assault cannons.

My approach is more about regarding the global scale already there, and getting as close as possible to SM fluff - without getting convoluted. Like I said earlier... Space marines should not have more firepower than the Imperial guard, but what firepower they do have is very effective for the purposes they serve in war: Rapid resolutions to high value objectives, area denial, surgical kill teams, etc. SM are not meant to be trench fodder that can pew pew it up with other infantry. At BS5 Mastercrafted, 2 shots... that can further be multiplied by doctrine.... you could blow up a squad pretty well, if you needed to. I haven't even touched on special issue ammunition either....

Right now, marines are pretty expensive, but I would rather them a bit too expensive than too little while balancing them and designing them.

I sense you are not really regarding all of my posts and their addendums....

Not really. I'm looking at your stats and the updates to your stats and asking myself "How would this set of model stats fare in a live game?". I'm not coming up with promising answers.