I think the best example of a Harker-Marine in the current fluff would be the Arjac Rockfist. He was a beast before he was indoctrinated and now he is a veritable juggernaut. If Marine Power armor+training adds +1S/+1T Arjac would be s4t3 before it as well.

Scouts are newbs. Veterans have been fighting for 15-20 years. Marines don't have a monopoly on bad-ass, you know

You have obviously played to much DoW.
Read up on the fluff and tell me exactly where it says that full scouts are noobs.

Not really. Strength and survival instincts will help once the Marine has been "made", but they won't actually help with who makes it. Space Marines chiefly recruit from Death Worlds because the population there is, to put it bluntly, "dumb enough" to not have their brains explode from the conversion and indoctrination process,

And still all chapter-recruitment fluff clearly states the primary reason being the hardy stock with superior survival instincts breeded into the populace.

Have you read the chapter IA articles (canon fluff) or later deathwatch background on chapters?

There is a strong physical need to have a sturdy stock to recruit from as well as a mentally "uncivilized" to ease transition true but only a few chapters recruit from civilized worlds (ultramarines) where the vast majority prefer physical stock over anything else. As for the transition being easier with a "dumb" populace that is pretty much moot since they take children 6-10 year old and in some cases chapters even take babies (from warlike societies made warlike on purpose - deathwatch) letting them grow up "in-house" so to speak for even better indoctrination. The very young age and psycho conditioning means nothing of the past (dumb vs civilized) remains. This is why marines are just as uncaring about their childhood past and upbringing no matter if they came from violent but civilized Nostromo, educated and civilized Mcraggae or as in the vast majority, primitive, death world warrior societies.

There is no fluff at all supporting that dumb vs civilized children make any sense at all relative the "mind exploding" from to much cultural shock at being induced into the chapter whereas almost all (not all) canon as well as novel fluff on neophyte selection are primarily based on physical pedigree (death world, survivalist, strong, warlike culture).

What you're missing out on is the realisation that this is a redundant quality control measure established by the Chapter itself (in many cases arguably part of the warrior culture and a matter of pride), not in any way a fundamental requirement. Consider this:

Now I get your point and I agree. It is an unnecessary thing yes, there is no actual need to recruit from warlike deathworld stock BUT I am not talking about what is needed, I am talking about what IS being done in the 40:th millenium.
The fact still remains(like you said), due to superstition, tradition etc etc 99.9% of all chapters stick hands down to selecting from primitive warlike societies o n l y looking at physical strenght, bravery, genetic adaptability.

Yes, with this method a ton of possible recruits that could have become perfect marines are overlooked, you are right.
The fluff also supports this with things mentioning a different recruitment process to the Emperors own Custodian guard super-marines being made marines well into their later age.
There is even one particular piece of fluff (Abnett) that mentions some of the Black Templar crusades having the means to transform grown up men into space marines with no negative side effect.
BUT, it also contradicts fluff on really old selection back where legions were started (and thus not suffering from traditions and superstitions) that clearly states that to old men (meaning not children) could not be made into fully fledged marines but became half effective or died in the process (or suceeded despite being to old). (Dark angels and space wolf fluff has this).

It could be legion specific though with some legions having the knowledge and some not but that doesnt sound particularly logical.

Thus, the lesser man will become a Space Marine, simply because he has a bunch of different genes that do not actually make him a better warrior but just a human who can be converted into Astartes.

The only canon fluff on this (lowering the standards in the event of severe losses) where replacements need to be brought up fast is not to ease on the compability but to induce not yet finished scouts into full marine status.
Thus a lowering of skill and not genetics.
Well yes the wolfs and Ravens did that once resulting in wulfen and monsters but I view that as an abnormality.

The Astartes could very well recruit Hivers (in fact, I do recall GW fluff saying that some Chapters do just this)

True. The most notorius of all those chapters are the Imperial Fists, thy recruit from the hive Necromunda (and also from Terra itself if I remember correctly) but again, even in these instances (and the fluff is very clear about this) the hivers selected are underhive gang scum, the most violent and dangerous individuals where again, the primary "need" is for the chapter to select strong individuals from a stock with proven superior survivability.

If you want to go to even older fluff on this then chapters used to select from grown up prisoners and yet again, no care was ever made on said prisoners mental education or level of civility but on sheer brutality, survivability and fighting prowess.

But as you have mentioned, these things ought to be irrelevant since the geneseed alters the body so much nothing original even remains, the mind and mentality however should be what is the most important thing (and maybe it is in the selection aspect of "beavery").
We have examples from the BA where complete physical wrecks, radiated, sick, miserable individuals are turned into perfect killing machines by the geneseed and the same geneseed in otehr BA sucessor chapters like the flesh tearers alter perfectly healthy and strong candidates into...the exact same killing machines. Thus fluff, canon fluff even, proves amongst other your point in that the physical state of the pre-scout is totally irrelevant.
But as I said myself, this is not what is actually happening.

Of course, once in a while a Chapter might actually get someone like Harker who does make it. Needless to say, this wouldn't be the standard (Harker isn't standard either, after all), and thus the average Space Marine can actually be "worse" in some regards. "Harker-Marines" would undoubtedly be those rare guys who may go on and become a hero of the Chapter some time down the road.

I agree 100% with you.
But , even an individual who at birth is weaker and genetically inferior to one "Harker baby" will become inhumanly superior to said grown up Harker after gene seed implantation and training. Space marines, even "common" ones are on a totally different level then a mortal, even a Harker one with tons of muscle etc.
Skill wise the Harker type can very well be better then a "new" marine since the Harker type has extreme experience in a given environment (in his case, death jungles) but even those special nieches will soon be overtaken by the "normal" marine as he gains decade after decade of experience in a tempo of training and battle that would kill the Harker type since he is after all...only human.



Thanks for the debate by the way, it is really fun to talk to you about these things and you have made some really good points that made me thing, keep it up

Harker is better because he has skillz. A Space Marine has brute strength. But Harker has skills, experience and precision. Essentially, he's Rambo. But awesomer to the max.

Pyriel- wrote:Read up on the fluff and tell me exactly where it says that full scouts are noobs.

He does have a point, sort of. Being a Scout is basically the Space Marines' Prep School, and the experience they collected before being recruited will be of some use, but considering the doctrinal differences between a Chapter of Adeptus Astartes and a Hive gang or a bunch of Feral World barbarians armed with clubs and spears, it is new territory for them.
Psycho-indoctrination should be able to ease the transition, however, with much knowledge being lasered directly into peoples' brains.

Pyriel- wrote:And still all chapter-recruitment fluff clearly states the primary reason being the hardy stock with superior survival instincts breeded into the populace.

Naturally, but only because the Space Marines believe that it would somehow make for better Marines, not because it would make for more Marines.
The stuff about "better Marines" might actually be true, but as mentioned before, the differences would probably be somewhat negligible and largely based on the subjective opinion of people who don't really understand the tech they're working with.

Pyriel- wrote:Have you read the chapter IA articles (canon fluff) or later deathwatch background on chapters?

If you are referring to the Index Astartes articles, then yes.
With the "Deathwatch background", are you referring to FFG's RPG? If so, then no. I see how much FFG's vision deviates from GW's own position, so personally I do not value those books as a source but stick solely to GW publications. Gives me a greater consistency.
Selection of choices is a huge problem in the fandom, and undoubtedly a source of a great many misunderstandings. I have a feeling that our opinions differ because of this, too.

Pyriel- wrote:There is a strong physical need to have a sturdy stock to recruit from

No, not at all. Otherwise the Index Astartes article would have pointed it out, considering the level of detail it goes into.

Pyriel- wrote:There is no fluff at all supporting that dumb vs civilized children make any sense at all relative the "mind exploding" from to much cultural shock at being induced into the chapter whereas almost all (not all) canon as well as novel fluff on neophyte selection are primarily based on physical pedigree (death world, survivalist, strong, warlike culture).

See, this is what I meant when I mentioned GW's vision being different from the individual ideas of the various writers who work on licensed products.

"The third consideration is mental suitability. The catalepsean node, occulobe, and sus-an membrane will only develop to a useable condition under the stimulus of hypnotic suggestion. A recruit must therefore be susceptible to this particular treatment. [...]"

"Although the Chapters are careful to select only the most suitable candidates, not all neophytes survive to become initiates. This is due in part to the degeneration of knowledge amongst the individual Chapters that makes screening procedures less effective than they once were. Nor are operational methods entirely satisfactory in some cases. In many Chapters, implant surgery is heavily ritualised and often accompanied by scarring, incantation, periods of prayer, fasting and all sorts of mystical practices which compromise medical efficiency."

From the Index Astartes I.

Pyriel- wrote:The fact still remains(like you said), due to superstition, tradition etc etc 99.9% of all chapters stick hands down to selecting from primitive warlike societies o n l y looking at physical strenght, bravery, genetic adaptability.

That's not what GW says, though there are undoubtedly some Chapters that operate this way. Needless to say, their recruitment statistics would be suitably abysmal, except for those cases of sheer luck where a native population may sport a higher rate of compatibility.

The fact remains that Space Marine Chapters incur casualties. Of course the first step is, as you said, to promote Scouts into full Space Marines. Yet obviously this cannot go on forever, lest your Chapter will run out of Scouts pretty soon. And so a Chapter will have to come up with a minimum recruitment rate of Neophytes to secure its future, which means either adapting their selection process or ... well, refraining from going to battle until their numbers have recovered. But regardless of what they do, they cannot turn every individual they'd wish to recruit into a Space Marine, they can only take the best of those who are compatible. Which tends to be a very small part of the population, again going by GW sources.

Pyriel- wrote:There is even one particular piece of fluff (Abnett) that mentions some of the Black Templar crusades having the means to transform grown up men into space marines with no negative side effect. BUT, it also contradicts fluff on really old selection back where legions were started (and thus not suffering from traditions and superstitions) that clearly states that to old men (meaning not children) could not be made into fully fledged marines but became half effective or died in the process (or suceeded despite being to old).

See, perfect example for what I mentioned about outsourced products presenting a different idea than GW.

Pyriel- wrote:But , even an individual who at birth is weaker and genetically inferior to one "Harker baby" will become inhumanly superior to said grown up Harker after gene seed implantation and training. Space marines, even "common" ones are on a totally different level then a mortal, even a Harker one with tons of muscle etc.

Aaaaand this is where interpretation kicks in. Whilst I will agree that a Space Marine will ultimately be physically superior, this superiority does not have to extend to any and all areas concerning combat. I see this a lot - fans taking that "Space Marines are better" would supposedly automatically mean that "they are better at everything". They're not. Well, unless you look at the aforementioned outsourced products.

Also, the term "mortal" is actually a good hint at a certain degree of distortion concerning your perception of Space Marines. Space Marines are not immortal. Their lifespan may be 2-3 times higher than that of a normal man, and they may require a greater beating to kill, but in the end they will still die just like anyone else. It is primarily the novels and computer games that promulgate a much more heroic version of the Astartes as "gods of the battlefield" - the result obviously being that people are convinced that they are not strong enough on the tabletop just because a freelance writer thinks he has to make them better than GW themselves intended. This includes the height issue that Jes Goodwin joked about in the podcast when he said that they (the Marines) get progressively bigger with every Black Library book.

Pyriel- wrote:Skill wise the Harker type can very well be better then a "new" marine since the Harker type has extreme experience in a given environment (in his case, death jungles) but even those special nieches will soon be overtaken by the "normal" marine as he gains decade after decade of experience in a tempo of training and battle that would kill the Harker type since he is after all...only human.

Quite possibly, but the average Scout and Devastator Marine may both lack these decades. Both positions are said to be "rookie jobs" within the Chapter, after all.

Pyriel- wrote:Thanks for the debate by the way, it is really fun to talk to you about these things and you have made some really good points that made me thing, keep it up

Whew, no problem.
I just fear that this is largely an issue resulting out of us "growing up" on different books. 40k having no canon means that there's a lot of individual interpretation running rampant, with us fans and gamers just as much as with various freelancing authors. Needless to say, this makes discussions difficult - we each defend a perfectly valid view of the setting, and none of us is "wrong". We're possibly just not 100% on the same common ground, if that makes any sense.

A lot of arguments here center on Harker's experience, how old and how long do you people think he's been fighting for?

 Lynata wrote:

Pyriel- wrote:There is no fluff at all supporting that dumb vs civilized children make any sense at all relative the "mind exploding" from to much cultural shock at being induced into the chapter whereas almost all (not all) canon as well as novel fluff on neophyte selection are primarily based on physical pedigree (death world, survivalist, strong, warlike culture).

See, this is what I meant when I mentioned GW's vision being different from the individual ideas of the various writers who work on licensed products.

"The third consideration is mental suitability. The catalepsean node, occulobe, and sus-an membrane will only develop to a useable condition under the stimulus of hypnotic suggestion. A recruit must therefore be susceptible to this particular treatment. [...]"

"Although the Chapters are careful to select only the most suitable candidates, not all neophytes survive to become initiates. This is due in part to the degeneration of knowledge amongst the individual Chapters that makes screening procedures less effective than they once were. Nor are operational methods entirely satisfactory in some cases. In many Chapters, implant surgery is heavily ritualised and often accompanied by scarring, incantation, periods of prayer, fasting and all sorts of mystical practices which compromise medical efficiency."

From the Index Astartes I.

That doesn't prove your point on the subject needing to be dumb. It's saying that the chapters apothecaries are dumb. It's talking solely about how the chapters apothecaries knowledge has degenerated, not requiring a less intelligent mind to work on.

-Loki- wrote:That doesn't prove your point on the subject needing to be dumb. It's saying that the chapters apothecaries are dumb. It's talking solely about how the chapters apothecaries knowledge has degenerated, not requiring a less intelligent mind to work on.

The first sentence talks about the intelligence bit, the second section was about how the creation process has become less and less scientific over the ages.

I've already quoted something about "the subject being dumb" earlier, but here it is again:
"Cretacia has provided the Flesh Tearers with a good source of recruits in the past, as the primordial humans make excellent Space Marines: only a small percentage of them reject the genetic modifications that make a Space Marine superhuman, while their simple minds are easily adapted to the martial conditioning all Space Marines aundergo."

I suppose it may be debatable whether "dumb" is an accurate term, but the subject's mental capacities need to be malleable and open to hypnotic suggestion. In other words, it seems as if people who have a more developed mind might subconsciously resist this process. I suppose the exact tolerance levels may differ depending on the Chapter and to which degree their technology has degraded.

Their simple minds are easily adapted to the martial training. What this says to me is that its easier to train someone who doesnt have a whole lot on his mind, not that their stupid. Look at every story where they are try to teach a kid/young adult... well anything. They dont want to listen because they are used to all the crap they do, who wants to become a "hero" (hard work) when you can play with plastic space men . I have no doubt that the trials most chapters put their canidates through have a fair share of puzzles to test thier mental apitude also, after all they are not just strong theyre smart too.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/simple-minded

Well, we can also just chalk that up as a matter of interpretation, I guess.

Regarding "smart" Space Marines, I'm fairly convinced that they will only become smart thanks to the indoctrination, flash-training and decades if not centuries of experience, but when it comes to their recruits... come on, they are basically rounding up tribal barbarians and ghetto kids here, and the sources I've read are fairly clear about which attributes are considered important.

Anyhow, what would you even do if your best warriors, those few who managed to succeed in the physical trials, fail at your puzzles? And what when the smart recruits aren't strong enough? Would you further lower your requirements?
Thinking about it, I guess it's not out of the question that some Chapters - those not too fixated on the unnecessary warrior trials - might try to find some "middle ground". Probably the Chapters which recruit from the more civilised worlds, whose cultures will also place more value in cleverness. But ultimately you will have to compromise somewhere ... there will be no "nerd quarterbacks".

Ah but your talking death worlds here, everyone is physically "better" than normal therfore the thing that would make them better is their mental aptitude. remember the gene seed increases every physical attribute but not mental ones, that all in the teachings of the chapter and you cant teach a mentally deficent individual to be intellegent or witty or quick that ability has to be present already.

 Pyriel- wrote:

You have obviously played to much DoW.
Read up on the fluff and tell me exactly where it says that full scouts are noobs.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Scouts#.UEsHcrJlSAo

First words:
"Scouts are the new recruits of a Space Marine chapter"

New recruits. Noobs. New guys.

Also, when are scouts mentioned in DOW? It's been a fair few years since I played the story line games (the original and winter assault), I don't remember scouts being mentioned in particular.

 Testify wrote:

First words:
"Scouts are the new recruits of a Space Marine chapter"

New recruits. Noobs. New guys.

It is important to note that a "newbie" Space Marine still has a ton of experience compared to a regular trooper. He's been raised from childhood to be a warrior. So even if he's just dropped into the Scout company, he's not a boot fresh out of basic.

It's probably fair to assume that Space Marines spend a fair number of years in the Scout Companies. The average real world Special Operators (SEALs, Delta Force, SAS, etc) don't have decades of experience. They might have a decade if they are veterans. It's the level of training and the difficulty of selection and the wealth of shared experience that makes them what they are. The average Space Marine Scout is probably on their level by the time he makes it to the Battle and Reserve companies, so leading up to that, he's close.

AndrewChristlieb wrote:Ah but your talking death worlds here, everyone is physically "better" than normal therfore the thing that would make them better is their mental aptitude.

Yes, and it has to be low enough so they are susceptible to hypno-suggestion, as GW said. This is not what makes them better warriors, it makes them better Space Marine candidates.
And no, people aren't "equally badass" just because they come from a Death World. You will still have those that stand out and those who won't even see their 10th birthday. See Catachan. I think it's safe to say that many Chapters would prefer the former to the latter, regardless of how smart he is.

AndrewChristlieb wrote:remember the gene seed increases every physical attribute but not mental ones, that all in the teachings of the chapter and you cant teach a mentally deficent individual to be intellegent or witty or quick that ability has to be present already.

No it does not. Where did you read this?
Again, the Astartes prefer feral barbarians - to suggest that this stock of recruits already has the innate ability to become as smart as what is essentially a modern day warrior within a matter of years just because of the knowledge beamed into his skull is ... well, it just doesn't seem very feasible to me. Also keep in mind that the children recruited are still growing, so their bodies may be easily enhanced by the gene-therapy. This does not only extend to his muscles - how intelligent a person can be is also dependent on the structure of his brain. When it comes down to it, even cleverness is a physical attribute somewhere.

"The various implants cause vital changes in a Marine's physique and mental state."
- Index Astartes I : Recruitment and Initiation

Veteran Sergeant wrote:It is important to note that a "newbie" Space Marine still has a ton of experience compared to a regular trooper. He's been raised from childhood to be a warrior. So even if he's just dropped into the Scout company, he's not a boot fresh out of basic.

Well, I'd say that depends a lot on a Chapter's battle doctrines. A Space Marine Scout "has been raised from childhood to be a warrior" for a feral tribe hunting bears with a spear and a knife. That may not translate so well to shooting people with sniper rifles and heavy bolters or utilising advanced battle tactics. It's obviously an advantage, but many of these years will ultimately be wasted - though this is of course not how people within the setting will actually see it.

 Lynata wrote:

Veteran Sergeant wrote:It is important to note that a "newbie" Space Marine still has a ton of experience compared to a regular trooper. He's been raised from childhood to be a warrior. So even if he's just dropped into the Scout company, he's not a boot fresh out of basic.

Well, I'd say that depends a lot on a Chapter's battle doctrines. A Space Marine Scout "has been raised from childhood to be a warrior" for a feral tribe hunting bears with a spear and a knife. That may not translate so well to shooting people with sniper rifles and heavy bolters or utilising advanced battle tactics. It's obviously an advantage, but many of these years will ultimately be wasted - though this is of course not how people within the setting will actually see it.

As always, mileage may vary, but it seems to be the industry standard to start selecting recruits at age 6-7, and the chapters that utilize older recruits (like the Space Wolves) are the exceptions, not the rules. In fact, there's no real advantage to waiting. They need to find kids who are genetically compatible with the implants, free of mutation or other taint, and perhaps screen them for baseline mental traits.

Otherwise, their bodies are crafted by constant training and biological modification. It doesn't matter if you are getting the scrawniest kids or the huskiest. They're all going to end up 7 feet tall and built. Their killer instincts are going to be honed by repetition of combat tasks and psychological conditioning. Their combat skills honed through endless drilling. Their psychological endurance honed by various trials. Their minds sharpened by lessons, puzzles, and other challenges. Waiting until later doesn't make any sense. Any time past early childhood that isn't spent being indoctrinated is time wasted in the developmental cycle. The Space Wolves may (foolishly) place value in their traditions, ultimately, the Ultramarines' model is the superior one, and it has shown in the comparative advantage the Ultramarines seem to enjoy everywhere except in the poorly balanced table top codex books. Nevermind that the Ultramarines model as set forth by Guilliman is the nearly universally accepted standard.

Normal Space Marine recruits will be drilling with real and mock weapons from the beginning, not scrabbling around the surface of some death world with a stone knife. Remember, the Space Wolves are .1% of Space Marine Chapters. The Ultramarines and their successors are over 60%, and the vast majority of the remaining 30-39% are still Codex Chapters, at least in terms of recruiting, indoctrination, and training, if not organization. I'd imagine most planet based chapters would have "civilized" home worlds, as that benefits them the most by having the largest pool to draw recruits from. Having a death world like Fenris is actually relatively useless, since the skills the recruits as small children learn are largely irrelevant in the long run. You can foster killed instinct just as easily through training as through an uncontrolled and unmoderated process like feral tribal warfare/survival. The Space Wolves live on Fenris by accident of history. When selecting a homeworld for a newly created chapter, there's no incentive for the Admech to put them at a disadvantage by issuing them a planet with limited human capital.

YMMV indeed, I am willing to bet Cadian Whitehelm are as skilled as a scout, what with being able to strip a lasgun & co at the age of 10 or sooner.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:As always, mileage may vary, but it seems to be the industry standard to start selecting recruits at age 6-7, and the chapters that utilize older recruits (like the Space Wolves) are the exceptions, not the rules.

According to the Index Astartes, the creation process begins at age 10-14. Which kind of makes sense, as personally I'd have a difficult time accepting that young kids age 6-7 are already known as famous warriors in their tribe.
Whether this waiting time is because a child's body is unable to endure the intense modifications, or because the various Chapters are not thinking objectively and are looking for martial heroes rather than just compatible candidates ... I guess both explanations would make sense, though I think I would lean towards the latter.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Waiting until later doesn't make any sense. Any time past early childhood that isn't spent being indoctrinated is time wasted in the developmental cycle.

Yes. Since when do things in 40k have to make sense? The creation of a Space Marine being shrouded in mystery and superstition, and made less efficient by silly rituals that actually endanger the candidate's life without any benefit to the Chapter, is (I think) part of the overall theme.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:I'd imagine most planet based chapters would have "civilized" home worlds, as that benefits them the most by having the largest pool to draw recruits from.

Codex says the majority recruits from death worlds, though, for the aforementioned subjective and nonsensical reasons. Here, too, it would be part of the theme. The Astartes aren't meant to be 100% efficient. No Imperial army is. Hell, the Navy reloads giant cannons by hand, the Imperial Guard sends infantry tramplers to clear a minefield for their precious tanks, and the Sororitas' equipment is 50% bling, 50% useful. Isn't this part of what makes this setting so Grimdark!

But as you said, mileages may vary. It all depends on which books you're looking at, as the different sources can do a great deal about forming one's perception of the setting. Not to mention that there are so many things simply open to interpretation, which is where personal preferences would kick in. Some like their Space Marines to be more epic and godlike, others like them to be more gritty and flawed.

Harker's abs have the same protection as advanced body armor from one of the most advanced races in the galaxy

Reading this made me think of how much more awesome the Expendables would be featuring Harker.

All im going to say is that regardless of whether or not someone has been raised to be a soldier all their life that dosent mean they will be good at being a soldier. When it comes down to it certain people, regardless of their background, seem to have some ability to become human killing machines. Just look at Audey Murphey, Alvin York, or heck, even Ted Williams or Jimmy Stewart. Relatively normal guys who when sent to war, totally badassed out and became some sort of super soldiers.

So, what im getting down to is it dosent matter how much training, gene manipulation, or even fancy guns, its all about that ability for someone to have that killer instinct, or as we have called it "badassery" something that Harker carries around in a wheelbarrow, and the average space marine, despite his awesomeness, may not have in abundance.

Also, by that extension, Tau lack the killer instinct, giving them merely a BS 3 despite their badass weapons.

Painbiro wrote:Reading this made me think of how much more awesome the Expendables would be featuring Harker.

"Movie Guard" rules with Harker, Marbo and Straken.

You know you wanna.

He does have a point, sort of. Being a Scout is basically the Space Marines' Prep School, and the experience they collected before being recruited will be of some use, but considering the doctrinal differences between a Chapter of Adeptus Astartes and a Hive gang or a bunch of Feral World barbarians armed with clubs and spears, it is new territory for them.
Psycho-indoctrination should be able to ease the transition, however, with much knowledge being lasered directly into peoples' brains.

Well no he doesnt since by that very same logic I can claim Harker is just a noob to. You see everybody are noobs at start and a scout, harker, even the emperor himself was at start a noob. Sure a 1 year old scout in the field has "only" in house training (damn hard too) but a scout can also be 30-50 years old (Abnett) and thus make for an even more skilled and experienced warrior then the Harker individual who I cant hardly see running around shooting a heavy bolter one handed at the age of 60+.

New territory doesnt matter the slightest, its children we are talking about and far from normal transition methods. Take a little kid and have him undergo traumatizing physical changes and a brainwashing psycho regime on top of that and previous background matters exactly nada.

Naturally, but only because the Space Marines believe that it would somehow make for better Marines, not because it would make for more Marines.

Exactly.

If you are referring to the Index Astartes articles, then yes.
With the "Deathwatch background", are you referring to FFG's RPG? If so, then no. I see how much FFG's vision deviates from GW's own position, so personally I do not value those books as a source but stick solely to GW publications. Gives me a greater consistency.
Selection of choices is a huge problem in the fandom, and undoubtedly a source of a great many misunderstandings. I have a feeling that our opinions differ because of this, too.

Sources are the bane of pretty much all fluff debating sadly enough so I tend to follow a very simple hierarchy, canon fluff trumps everything and then going down to game-rulebook fluff and lastly novel fluff.

Even amongst novel fluff there is a big difference and it is here that experience being a fluff nut plays a factor. If you can distinguish between time of publishing + fluff knowledge of the author then you can pretty much put correct "truth-values" to novel fluff as well but no matter what, canon beats them all.
Thus if we like it or not deathwatch rule book fluff is more important then some BL novel since it is better controlled and researched.

What examples did you need in order to get more consistency by the way?

No, not at all. Otherwise the Index Astartes article would have pointed it out, considering the level of detail it goes into.

The IAs all point out to methods of recruitment and they are all to a chapter consistent with choosing strong and survivable stock from primitive and warlike societies (except ultras that deviate just a tad)

"The third consideration is mental suitability. The catalepsean node, occulobe, and sus-an membrane will only develop to a useable condition under the stimulus of hypnotic suggestion. A recruit must therefore be susceptible to this particular treatment. [...]"

"Although the Chapters are careful to select only the most suitable candidates, not all neophytes survive to become initiates. This is due in part to the degeneration of knowledge amongst the individual Chapters that makes screening procedures less effective than they once were. Nor are operational methods entirely satisfactory in some cases. In many Chapters, implant surgery is heavily ritualised and often accompanied by scarring, incantation, periods of prayer, fasting and all sorts of mystical practices which compromise medical efficiency."

Irrelevant since this quote doesnt touch civilized vs primitive.
Further on this is the third consideration, ergo: after physical strong.
Again, I am not claiming that this is the right way to go (clearly it isnt due to lack of knowledge, tradition, superstition etc) but this is how almost all chapters select.

That's not what GW says, though there are undoubtedly some Chapters that operate this way. Needless to say, their recruitment statistics would be suitably abysmal, except for those cases of sheer luck where a native population may sport a higher rate of compatibility.

Show me the source.
All IAs are consistent on this and they are canon fluff.
But yes it makes for some really big logical holes.
The way IAs describe the selection processes and with the time frames that are given the chapters would never in a million years be able to replace losses as fast as they actually do.
Looking at the BA selection process highlites this most of all.

The fact remains that Space Marine Chapters incur casualties. Of course the first step is, as you said, to promote Scouts into full Space Marines. Yet obviously this cannot go on forever, lest your Chapter will run out of Scouts pretty soon. And so a Chapter will have to come up with a minimum recruitment rate of Neophytes to secure its future, which means either adapting their selection process or ... well, refraining from going to battle until their numbers have recovered. But regardless of what they do, they cannot turn every individual they'd wish to recruit into a Space Marine, they can only take the best of those who are compatible. Which tends to be a very small part of the population, again going by GW sources.

And as I just said, those sources do tell a very illogical tale but this is nothing uncommon, there are gigantic mistakes baked into pretty much all fluff and the danger lies in taking canon fluff and "correcting" it by applying logic and thus altering it.

The selection process is a nice example of this.
One rulebook passage (canon fluff) is fairly logical about this whereas many IAs are not (also canon fluff) and I dont even deign to bring up novel fluff since it is so bad it is in some cases completely unusable.

See, perfect example for what I mentioned about outsourced products presenting a different idea than GW.

Thats why i mentioned it, I am not biased just sticking to only what I like and approve of, I like discussing fluff and the more we share the better it is.

Aaaaand this is where interpretation kicks in. Whilst I will agree that a Space Marine will ultimately be physically superior, this superiority does not have to extend to any and all areas concerning combat. I see this a lot - fans taking that "Space Marines are better" would supposedly automatically mean that "they are better at everything". They're not. Well, unless you look at the aforementioned outsourced products.

That is a question about definition. Naturally an accelerated scout-to-marine with "only" 20 years of age with 10 of them being devoted to training (worth some 30-40 years of "mortal" veteran training in itself)isnt going to be better at everything then a human can. The old martial artist blade master that had done nothing but perfected the way of the sword in his dojo for the last 50 years will kick the marines ass in a swordfight but I also gave this example to show that the very implants of a marine go to great lengths to equalize any skill differences.

Say we take this 20yo noob marine and put him against a 45yo samuraj sword master. The samurajs skill is far better but the marine is much faster both body and mind, to compensate plus the inhuman strenght behind the marines sword swing means the samuraj can only dodge and never block, its like blocking a freight train, it will go right through your own sword and the body behind it and even though the marine might get several sword thrusts through his body he doesnt care.

As for interpretation there isnt any doubt what so ever about the superiority in canon fluff, none what so ever. It is only after we go down to secondary and tertiary (novel) sources that all kinds of weird things happen such as marines getting owned by police officers or mass dying in greater numbers then their parent chapter even has brothers...not to mention never running out of ammunition

Also, the term "mortal" is actually a good hint at a certain degree of distortion concerning your perception of Space Marines. Space Marines are not immortal. Their lifespan may be 2-3 times higher than that of a normal man, and they may require a greater beating to kill,

This is not my perception, this is established canon fluff. I´m sorry if you dont like it but this is how it is.
The truth is that (canon) there is NO established maximum life span for marines. You say 2-3 times longer then a human, that´s just common veterancy in canon fluff. Logan is 500+, Dante is 1000+ ...is that 2-3 times?
Even lower lever fluff reflects this, HH series (that actually is considered more and more serious) even support this and now we have examples of "normal" marines (not warp distorted, not dreadnought) even reaching ages surpassing 10 000 years.
If you missed this simple piece of fluff you really ought to read all the IAs for starters.

but in the end they will still die just like anyone else.

No and unless you can find a canon source that explicitly says so then this is outright false.
The current accepted take on this is that the age limit is unknown due to nobody ever having time to find out.

It is primarily the novels and computer games that promulgate a much more heroic version of the Astartes as "gods of the battlefield"

Wrong. Canon fluff goes by the gods of war line, novels water things down.
I have a collection of over 130 novels on this universe, all IAs, all rulebooks, most rouge trader material, all dark heresy, rouge trader, deathwatch, graphic novel and what have you in my possession.
The vast and I mean vast with a capital "V" majority of downgraded "weaker" marine fluff stems from novels and sub canon sources.

And yes, my place looks like a fluff gurus wet dream

Quite possibly, but the average Scout and Devastator Marine may both lack these decades. Both positions are said to be "rookie jobs" within the Chapter, after all.

Ah..."may" is the magical word. You see when times are not desperate a scout can very well remain a scout for decade after decade. Thus making the scout and following dev marine (not all chapters follow the scout-to-dev by the way) far more experienced then even the most battle hardened catachan. But yes, considering pure niche skills like super jungle survival the catachan would surpass even a marine veterans since catachans rarely do anything else.

Whew, no problem.
I just fear that this is largely an issue resulting out of us "growing up" on different books.

Well I´ll have to correct you somewhat here
It is probably an issue of us growing up with a different number of books, you might have a bunch that show the fluff skewed to a certain direction but...I have them all (amongst other scifi fantasy etc books)!

Want to know which ones actually have the worst fluff? Its the FW imperial armour crap lol.


So, would be fun to hear your take on all this


Edit: novels mistake.

 Lynata wrote:
Lastly, let's keep in mind that Catachans are just badasses, better than the average Guardsman

The "average guardsman" is from Cadia, your argument is invalid.

Lynata wrote:

AndrewChristlieb wrote:Ah but your talking death worlds here, everyone is physically "better" than normal therfore the thing that would make them better is their mental aptitude.

Yes, and it has to be low enough so they are susceptible to hypno-suggestion, as GW said. This is not what makes them better warriors, it makes them better Space Marine candidates.
And no, people aren't "equally badass" just because they come from a Death World. You will still have those that stand out and those who won't even see their 10th birthday. See Catachan. I think it's safe to say that many Chapters would prefer the former to the latter, regardless of how smart he is.

I think you misunderstand my meaning here. Clearly the ones that dont live past 10 or whatever age wouldnt be considered... they would be dead... However the ones that are left when the chapter goes through its recruitments are going to be more physically able than the standard run of the mill human, they would have to be or they would have died... That said yes there will be people that stand out even among those that the chapter will look at as potential canidates.

Lynata wrote:

AndrewChristlieb wrote:remember the gene seed increases every physical attribute but not mental ones, that all in the teachings of the chapter and you cant teach a mentally deficent individual to be intellegent or witty or quick that ability has to be present already.

No it does not. Where did you read this?
Again, the Astartes prefer feral barbarians - to suggest that this stock of recruits already has the innate ability to become as smart as what is essentially a modern day warrior within a matter of years just because of the knowledge beamed into his skull is ... well, it just doesn't seem very feasible to me. Also keep in mind that the children recruited are still growing, so their bodies may be easily enhanced by the gene-therapy. This does not only extend to his muscles - how intelligent a person can be is also dependent on the structure of his brain. When it comes down to it, even cleverness is a physical attribute somewhere.

"The various implants cause vital changes in a Marine's physique and mental state."
- Index Astartes I : Recruitment and Initiation

Have a read through the implants again not one implant affects the marines ability to learn or their ability to think quickly with the exception of the Omophagea and obviously thats a special case. Affecting their mental state, sure thats easy anyones mental state is changing constantly but that has nothing to do with aptitude. Your mental state is what and how you perceive things what your beliefs are etc.., good examples of this is how marines are able to rest while awake or are able to shrug off pain more easily.

Barbarians are not stupid by any means they live in an uncivilised environment and in 40k the ones your refering to obviously live in very harsh areas but I dont see why you equate that with stupidity?

None of this really matters anyway if you want hulking tards for space marines so be it, my little toy soldies will happily out think yours .

To the question at hand tho I think its pretty obvious that Harker is physically more imposing than even the others from his world, his fluff spells that right out, he has learned to shut off his mind to pain and is both larger and much stronger than the standard human (all aspects shared with marines). Honestly tho if I had to pick anyone thing that makes him stand out is his for lack of a better term "badassedness". His fluff indicates he just does not care about anything but killing more stuff and if that means getting closer so he can shoot his gun hes going to do that, period. Plus hes 55pts by himself whats a Devistator, 30ish points with a heavy bolter?

 Pyriel- wrote:

Wrong. Canon fluff goes by the gods of war line, novels water things down.
I have a collection of over 130 novels on space marines, all IAs, all rulebooks, most rouge trader material, all dark heresy, rouge trader, deathwatch, graphic novel and what have you in my possession.
The vast and I mean vast with a capital "V" majority of downgraded "weaker" marine fluff stems from novels and sub canon sources.

And yes, my place looks like a fluff gurus wet dream

That's cute that you have magazines about cosmetics and makeup but what do that have to do with the fact that Harker is obviously way more badass than a Space Marine can ever hope to be? Pretty sad mate, they go through all this training and get this cool armor and they're still not as effective at firing a heavy bolter than some jacked dude who grew up in a man-eating jungle.

Sucks to suck!

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

 Pyriel- wrote:

Wrong. Canon fluff goes by the gods of war line, novels water things down.
I have a collection of over 130 novels on space marines, all IAs, all rulebooks, most rouge trader material, all dark heresy, rouge trader, deathwatch, graphic novel and what have you in my possession.
The vast and I mean vast with a capital "V" majority of downgraded "weaker" marine fluff stems from novels and sub canon sources.

And yes, my place looks like a fluff gurus wet dream

That's cute that you have magazines about cosmetics and makeup but what do that have to do with the fact that Harker is obviously way more badass than a Space Marine can ever hope to be? Pretty sad mate, they go through all this training and get this cool armor and they're still not as effective at firing a heavy bolter than some jacked dude who grew up in a man-eating jungle.

Sucks to suck!

Dude in the world of badass he may be better than a devistator at shooting his gun but there are many more badass marines than him.

Pyriel- wrote:Well no he doesnt since by that very same logic I can claim Harker is just a noob to. You see everybody are noobs at start and a scout, harker, even the emperor himself was at start a noob. Sure a 1 year old scout in the field has "only" in house training (damn hard too) but a scout can also be 30-50 years old (Abnett) and thus make for an even more skilled and experienced warrior then the Harker individual who I cant hardly see running around shooting a heavy bolter one handed at the age of 60+.

A 30-50 year old Scout won't be the average, though, which is what you actually field on the TT.

On a sidenote, Abnett writes a lot of funny things when the day is long. "Navigator-Servitors"...?

Pyriel- wrote:Sources are the bane of pretty much all fluff debating sadly enough so I tend to follow a very simple hierarchy, canon fluff trumps everything and then going down to game-rulebook fluff and lastly novel fluff.

40k doesn't have a "canon", the writers who work on this stuff flat-out said so. Sucks, but there ya go. I'm a stickler for consistency, so this makes things rather difficult for me. I think I've found a way to cope with it now, though, in simply limiting my perception to GW's vision. It is the origin, after all, and regardless how much individual licensed products may deviate from it, they will always stay somewhere in the vicinity, even when GW changes things (like with the Newcrons).

Pyriel- wrote:Thus if we like it or not deathwatch rule book fluff is more important then some BL novel since it is better controlled and researched.

That may be your personal opinion, but it isn't mine, seeing that it, and by extension a lot of the details in FFG's books, go against a lot of established GW material. Mechanically and fluffwise.

Pyriel- wrote:The IAs all point out to methods of recruitment and they are all to a chapter consistent with choosing strong and survivable stock from primitive and warlike societies (except ultras that deviate just a tad)

The recruitment article makes clear what is scientifically needed. That various Chapters add their own subjective requirements on top of this does not change anything.

Pyriel- wrote:Irrelevant since this quote doesnt touch civilized vs primitive.

You did see the Flesh Tearers quote I have thrown around two times now? Much better example for that comparison.

Pyriel- wrote:Show me the source. All IAs are consistent on this and they are canon fluff.

Looking back at what we were talking about, I think I must've misread you when I wrote that - given that it actually conflicts with what I was talking about myself @ unnecessary additional req's.
I blame the late time.

Pyriel- wrote:One rulebook passage (canon fluff) is fairly logical about this whereas many IAs are not (also canon fluff) and I dont even deign to bring up novel fluff since it is so bad it is in some cases completely unusable.

Hmm, I am not aware of significant differences between the codices and IA - do you remember specifics?

Pyriel- wrote:As for interpretation there isnt any doubt what so ever about the superiority in canon fluff, none what so ever. It is only after we go down to secondary and tertiary (novel) sources that all kinds of weird things happen such as marines getting owned by police officers or mass dying in greater numbers then their parent chapter even has brothers...not to mention never running out of ammunition

Well, Codex Planetstrike has Straken strangling a CSM Lord.
Granted, it's Straken ... but then again, you could say the same thing about Harker. Some humans are just better than others. Amongst the people of Catachan, who are already better than the average Guardsman, this might elevate a man to a remarkable level.
It's all about the idea of the gap that exists between normal men and Astartes being a bit blurry when it comes to such exceptions, I think.

Pyriel- wrote:The truth is that (canon) there is NO established maximum life span for marines. You say 2-3 times longer then a human, that´s just common veterancy in canon fluff. Logan is 500+, Dante is 1000+ ...is that 2-3 times?
Even lower lever fluff reflects this, HH series (that actually is considered more and more serious) even support this and now we have examples of "normal" marines (not warp distorted, not dreadnought) even reaching ages surpassing 10 000 years.
If you missed this simple piece of fluff you really ought to read all the IAs for starters.

Actually ...

"With their genetically enhanced bodies, Space Marines live extended lifetimes - if they do not fall in battle, they can easily live two to three times longer than a normal man, and sometimes far longer."
- 6E Rulebook p.181

I think the oldest Space Marine would be Commander Dante with his 1,100 years, no? At least that's what I recall from the BA Codex. I guess it's safe to say that it would chiefly be the Blood Angels and some if not all of their Successor Chapters that would fall under the above-mentioned exception; 1,000 years is supposedly not that rare for BAs at least.

Pyriel- wrote:Wrong. Canon fluff goes by the gods of war line, novels water things down. I have a collection of over 130 novels on space marines, all IAs, all rulebooks, most rouge trader material, all dark heresy, rouge trader, deathwatch, graphic novel and what have you in my possession. The vast and I mean vast with a capital "V" majority of downgraded "weaker" marine fluff stems from novels and sub canon sources.

I find that hard to believe, given that my impression of the Astartes is markedly less "godlike", and I am going solely by studio material.
That said, I suppose the codices may often contain segments that are quite open to interpretation as well, given that a lot of them contain "legends" or "sagas" rather than truths.
Conversely, of course some novels may represent SM/CSM as weaker (when the protagonists are fighting them), but the majority of Marine-centric novels are exaggerating. This is where the 8, 9 and 11 feet high Space Marines come from, after all.

Pyriel- wrote:Ah..."may" is the magical word. You see when times are not desperate a scout can very well remain a scout for decade after decade. Thus making the scout and following dev marine (not all chapters follow the scout-to-dev by the way) far more experienced then even the most battle hardened catachan.

Looking at the fluff and the rules, I guess the average Space Marine is supposed to represent the "desperate time" then.

Pyriel- wrote:Well I´ll have to correct you somewhat here
It is probably an issue of us growing up with a different number of books, you might have a bunch that show the fluff skewed to a certain direction but...I have them all (amongst other scifi fantasy etc books)!

Well, like I said, I don't put much stock in novels or the RPGs - even though I have the latter. I find the codices and WD articles that were released over the decades far more consistent than the outsourced material. Maybe you have more of the current stuff, but my collection stretches back over all editions of the game.
Admittedly, some of the very rare finds I only possess in digital format, if you get what I mean.

I'm mostly focused on IG and SoB, but have lots of SM info too. Few people know that my first minis were a box of Tactical Ultramarines.
Ultimately, almost all Imperial fluff offers something to me, hence I soak it all up like a sponge. Are you aware of the actual weight and protective qualities of Marine power armour, for example? Was explained in detail in the Codex: Angels of Death. And it is much less "impervious" than most Marine fans commonly assume.

Void__Dragon wrote:The "average guardsman" is from Cadia, your argument is invalid.

Hey, I'm just repeating what it said in Codex Catachans!

For what it's worth, "true" Cadian regiments are actually better than what we have in the standard IG 'dex as well. See Codex: Eye of Terror for the differences. As per that book, the Codex rules are representative of regiments that have already been campaigning for so long that they have become "diluted" by other forces they have absorbed over time. Explaining why you can field Ogryns in your Cadian army, which is something that apparently isn't done on Cadia itself.

AndrewChristlieb wrote:I think you misunderstand my meaning here. Clearly the ones that dont live past 10 or whatever age wouldnt be considered... they would be dead...

I think you misunderstood my meaning, actually.
I was referring to Death Worlders being different from one another, and even Death Worlds being different from one another. Perhaps Catachan is the most dangerous planet there is and even other Marine holdings cannot compete with that?

I did use a gakky way of expressing my train of thoughts, though, and apologise for that.

AndrewChristlieb wrote:Have a read through the implants again not one implant affects the marines ability to learn or their ability to think quickly with the exception of the Omophagea and obviously thats a special case.

I would say it is rather a lot of secondary effects promoting a better-developed brain. Even the first implant may already boost mental capacity when the blood is carrying more oxygen than normal.
And then there are the chemical and hormone-based therapies they are additionally subjected to.

AndrewChristlieb wrote:Barbarians are not stupid by any means they live in an uncivilised environment and in 40k the ones your refering to obviously live in very harsh areas but I dont see why you equate that with stupidity?

Hence why I have relativated the term in an earlier post. Arguably, though, the humans living on these worlds will have adapted to their environment and lifestyle, which means a focus on developing martial feats as opposed to an astute mind. You likely won't find any mathematicians amongst these tribes.

Evolution/devolution seems to happen at an increased rate within the 40k setting, so just like the native population will sport a greater genetical affinity to muscles and resilience, they conversely may also have a less-developed brain now? Though I suppose that is kind of reaching, given that some Astartes also recruit from more civilised worlds. It would thus seem to be more a matter of the individual's upbringing. But see what happens if you bring a "barbarian" into modern society - there have been attempts to do this with some native populations/individuals...

Either way, there's got to be some difference if a "simple mind" is required to accomodate the changes. You can't have that as a requirement and then turn around demanding them to solve puzzles. That's kind of contradictory.
Unless you compromise, like I said earlier, and are willing to recruit those that are maybe a little more smart and a little more strong over those that are the strongest, but aren't very clever. I think there's a lot of room for individual Chapters to go by.

in my opinion and i mean mine not saying its the final word so chill lol

harker is one mean son of a b***h ive been in the army 4 years now and done some tours and you would be suprised at what a man can do when under fire.

the way i look at it is a spacemarine should be able to kick the hell out of most things but............... that dosnt make a game now does it

anyway harker dosnt wanna be a spacemarine he wants to be master cheif

 Bobthehero wrote:
YMMV indeed, I am willing to bet Cadian Whitehelm are as skilled as a scout, what with being able to strip a lasgun & co at the age of 10 or sooner.

You'd think being able to strip a lasgun at age 10 would be an advantage in tabletop. Apparently they didn't bother training them to shoot

The "average guardsman" is from Cadia, your argument is invalid.

Well his point was valid since the average guardsman is light years from a cadian.
Cadian guardsmen are considered to be the best overall gurdsmen in the imperium, all other regiments aspire to Cadian standards but few even start to reach them.
Cadia is a fortress planet constantly assaulted by chaos, Cadians start to learn to be soldiers about the time they start to learn how to walk.

Have a read through the implants again not one implant affects the marines ability to learn or their ability to think quickly with the exception of the Omophagea and obviously thats a special case. Affecting their mental state, sure thats easy anyones mental state is changing constantly but that has nothing to do with aptitude. Your mental state is what and how you perceive things what your beliefs are etc.., good examples of this is how marines are able to rest while awake or are able to shrug off pain more easily.

Barbarians are not stupid by any means they live in an uncivilised environment and in 40k the ones your refering to obviously live in very harsh areas but I dont see why you equate that with stupidity?

Exactly and also proven again and again by canon fluff.

On a funny side note if you look at the implants they produce overall a warrior that is far from what is described as a space marine should be. Marines are said to be the ultimate shock troops but the implants actually produce the ultimate special forces infiltrator.

The same goes with the marine wargear and armour as described in the fluff.

None of this really matters anyway if you want hulking tards for space marines so be it, my little toy soldies will happily out think yours .

It´s all abut training and conditioning (the mind). As you said, it doesnt matter if you are a barbarian or a human living in a civilized world what kind of intelligence you end up with after the child phase after implantation and training.

Take a look at our own real world and IQ levels.
One of the lowest is in somalia where people have an IQ of 70 on average but why we can ask ourselves?

Will a somali child that grows up in west still retain the low IQ or will the additional protein in the diet and the western quality educational system (contrary to goat herding and poor food back home) produce a "normally" intelligent human as a grownup? Think about it.

That's cute that you have magazines about cosmetics and makeup but what do that have to do with the fact that Harker is obviously way more badass than a Space Marine can ever hope to be? Pretty sad mate, they go through all this training and get this cool armor and they're still not as effective at firing a heavy bolter than some jacked dude who grew up in a man-eating jungle.

Sucks to suck!

What´s cute is your pathetic fail at being witty, oh and that you seriously believe tabletop balance, special miniature point cost and rules reflect real fluff.
Your brilliant argumentation smells of a frustrated 15 year old so keep sucking and return when you have grown up .

A 30-50 year old Scout won't be the average, though, which is what you actually field on the TT.

On a sidenote, Abnett writes a lot of funny things when the day is long. "Navigator-Servitors"...?

No, tabletop has balanced rule/cost approaches, n o t h i n g reflects real fluff on the tabletop. Care to squeeze in 8 terminators into a landraider or explain why marines can only cover a distance that for their size resembles only half a football field over 6 turns?

If you want novel fluff to prove some points then by all means do, it´ll be awesome...marines run twice as fast as a rhino can go at full speed anyone?

As for funny fluff McNeil also wrote about pariah-servitors

40k doesn't have a "canon", the writers who work on this stuff flat-out said so. Sucks, but there ya go. I'm a stickler for consistency, so this makes things rather difficult for me. I think I've found a way to cope with it now, though, in simply limiting my perception to GW's vision. It is the origin, after all, and regardless how much individual licensed products may deviate from it, they will always stay somewhere in the vicinity, even when GW changes things (like with the Newcrons).

It is a common and accepted idea that certain fluff is more valid then other, suck it up and move along, what else can I say.
The fact that canon fluff is changed now and then is just in the nature of how the game is being produced and as for consistency that same canon fluff is far far more consistent then your equally valid so called novel fluff. Far more consistent and contrary to you I choose to actually stick with the more consistent fluff

That may be your personal opinion, but it isn't mine, seeing that it, and by extension a lot of the details in FFG's books, go against a lot of established GW material. Mechanically and fluffwise.

...and still being better then most novel fluff and its gigantic inconsistency holes of missing logic

By your definition there is really nothing else to discuss, you have read your 10 books and stick by what´s in then and I have read my 100 books and stick by the sum of the material, we can claim everything between the earth and the sky and back it up with everything so this whole thing is pointless without an agreed on set of fluff.
It´s like arguing bibles by quoting all 20 copies with every one having inconsistencies with the others.

The recruitment article makes clear what is scientifically needed. That various Chapters add their own subjective requirements on top of this does not change anything.

No it makes clear what is clinically supposed to be done...and taking into consideration that everything that is being done is also tainted by tradition and lack of knowledge.
Nor is there any evidence of intelligence based on type of recruitement world present.

You did see the Flesh Tearers quote I have thrown around two times now? Much better example for that comparison.

Try again.

Looking back at what we were talking about, I think I must've misread you when I wrote that - given that it actually conflicts with what I was talking about myself @ unnecessary additional req's.
I blame the late time.

Lol I blame hunger myself (am hungry)

Hmm, I am not aware of significant differences between the codices and IA - do you remember specifics?

Since I am to lazy and to careful not to get pissed of by going back and re-read meters of text in a thread clogged by offensive jerks like little "vladsimpaler" please remind me, what example in the codices vs IAs are you referring to and If I remember or can look up I will.

Looking at the fluff and the rules, I guess the average Space Marine is supposed to represent the "desperate time" then.

Yes and no. Looking at rules the average marine gets killed by 18 grots so that would represent a lobotomized labour servitor but, and as for Harker (pay attention now vladsimpaler), balance and playability and nothing else rule the tabletop.

Looking at fluff that you claim is consistent the average marine will get killed by everything from a five household hive militia armed with las weapons to a terminator getting killed by a handful of medeval knights on horses to stupid mistakes like diving into nurgle goo without wearing a helmet to actually being badass enough to wade through a hundred dark eldar without a scratch to holding ones breath for over half an hour.

Oh and the consistent common fluff (you know the good and valid fluff, not the changing canon/rulebook fluff crap) also has stern and proud imperial fist marines performing sacrificial sorcery rituals on their own flesh.

Thus again, do you really want to go there outside canon fluff because as I said, we will end up having a really fun time using that lol

Well, like I said, I don't put much stock in novels or the RPGs - even though I have the latter. I find the codices and WD articles that were released over the decades far more consistent than the outsourced material. Maybe you have more of the current stuff, but my collection stretches back over all editions of the game.
Admittedly, some of the very rare finds I only possess in digital format, if you get what I mean.

I sure do
The up side of having all this crap is that it gives a better insight to what usually tends to be more consistent and what tends to be more unreliable, thus I tend to pick my sources amongst those that are more stable and also coming directly from the manufacturer of the game or direct licences rather then those that include sorcerous imperial fists

I'm mostly focused on IG and SoB, but have lots of SM info too. Few people know that my first minis were a box of Tactical Ultramarines.

Tactical ultramarines? You should be ashamed of yourself lol
So you like SoBs, did you read demonifuge? Its awesome.

Ultimately, almost all Imperial fluff offers something to me, hence I soak it all up like a sponge. Are you aware of the actual weight and protective qualities of Marine power armour, for example? Was explained in detail in the Codex: Angels of Death. And it is much less "impervious" than most Marine fans commonly assume.

It shares some of that quality in the rpg rulebooks and that is as it should be. Imagine a ton of marine with the ground contact of a pair of large feet assaulting through a muddy field, hehe.

Ever thought about the idiocy of how bolters are described in the fluff and the sheer inconsistency of marine wargear and tactics relative to marine implants?
It´s really laughable.

For what it's worth, "true" Cadian regiments are actually better than what we have in the standard IG 'dex as well. See Codex: Eye of Terror for the differences. As per that book, the Codex rules are representative of regiments that have already been campaigning for so long that they have become "diluted" by other forces they have absorbed over time. Explaining why you can field Ogryns in your Cadian army, which is something that apparently isn't done on Cadia itself.

Hell just froze over...we actually agree on fluff?
lol

I was referring to Death Worlders being different from one another, and even Death Worlds being different from one another. Perhaps Catachan is the most dangerous planet there is and even other Marine holdings cannot compete with that?

True but you are partially wrong on death worlders being different from one another. Yes they are but far less so then people would be on "peaceful" planets. Simple genetic selection makes for that.

I would say it is rather a lot of secondary effects promoting a better-developed brain. Even the first implant may already boost mental capacity when the blood is carrying more oxygen than normal.
And then there are the chemical and hormone-based therapies they are additionally subjected to.

Yes but future mental abilities that may or may not come to pass are far different to predict and plan for then simple physical attributes. The apotechary simply takes a sample and knows, genetic match or no match whereas the mental thing is more like, lets implant stuff and psycho condition and hopefully there will be a perfect memory popping out in the end.

Hence why I have relativated the term in an earlier post. Arguably, though, the humans living on these worlds will have adapted to their environment and lifestyle, which means a focus on developing martial feats as opposed to an astute mind. You likely won't find any mathematicians amongst these tribes.

Doesnt matter. IQ is only affected by four things: Lack of protein, lack of education, genetic selection and environmental poisoning.
Genetic selection takes far longer then those few thousand years (on average) that the primitives have been living on that death world.
Said deathworld will more likely breed higher then normal intelligence then not since intellect is vital for survival.
The primitives on the deathworld dont need to be primitives at all, see Nocturne, people survive by unsurpassed crafting and tech skills and not only sturdy physiques.
Intellect develops if proper food is given so the implantation really unlocks all of the humans abilities no matter background.

Evolution/devolution seems to happen at an increased rate within the 40k setting

Only in the term of psychic abilities.

Either way, there's got to be some difference if a "simple mind" is required to accomodate the changes.

Actually no.
In our own real world (lol) we have primitives with a low IQ, read up on IQ averages across the globe. Lets take one of the crappiest ones shall we, somalia. An average of around 70 IQ.

Now what happens if we take a somali kid and let him grow up in west? Will he still retain that low IQ?
No, he will contrary to back home where all the education he gets consists of hearding goats and eating crap food, be given western education and enough protein to enable the brain to develope fully.
Thus it matters not if we take a civilized child or a primitive child since the only outside thing that differs their inherit mental abilities is their genetic makeup and that takes far longer to manifest then even the time scales in the 40k universe.

over those that are the strongest, but aren't very clever.

Again, unless you (the chapter) deliberately pick idiots or inbread retards there is no lower intellect in a human simply because he comes from a primitive background. That child stands the same chances of becoming say a mathematician like the civilized child, given the same tutoring and nutritients.

the way i look at it is a spacemarine should be able to kick the hell out of most things but............... that dosnt make a game now does it

Exactly, that´s why we have grots that can beat a marine and overrun a cathachan position

Pyriel- wrote:No, tabletop has balanced rule/cost approaches, n o t h i n g reflects real fluff on the tabletop. Care to squeeze in 8 terminators into a landraider or explain why marines can only cover a distance that for their size resembles only half a football field over 6 turns?

The fluff has been written around the tabletop - just because it is abstracted doesn't change the connection. Thus, the Land Raider is apparently simply large enough, and the Space Marines covering that distance are not running in a straight line but actually do a tactical advance with kneeling, signaling all-clear's, covering each other, and so on.
For the tabletop, I've always been of the opinion that just because you don't see it doesn't mean it does not happen. Just because you roll a single attack doesn't mean your Guardsman just gave off a single shot, for example. It's just like in Pen&Paper RPGs, some of whom even spell it out with stuff like melee combat not just meaning two guys standing still and hacking at each other.

Pyriel- wrote:As for funny fluff McNeil also wrote about pariah-servitors

I hope that was just another Black Library novel.
Though, thinking about it, I'm not even sure it would actually conflict with anything that was previously published. Of course the Servitor will still be just a drone, but I'm not sure the process would actually neutralise his "blankness", which seems to be an innate ability not actually requiring conscious thought (unlike the psychic powers of, say, a Navigator).

I'm not 100% sure when it comes to psychic powers fluff, though, so maybe someone else wants to add something to this assessment.

Pyriel- wrote:It is a common and accepted idea that certain fluff is more valid then other, suck it up and move along, what else can I say.

It may be a common idea, but that doesn't make it right - and it breaks down as soon as you ask people which of the novels are okay and which aren't. Isn't the "Abnettverse" in particularly relatively controversial?

Pyriel- wrote:The fact that canon fluff is changed now and then is just in the nature of how the game is being produced and as for consistency that same canon fluff is far far more consistent then your equally valid so called novel fluff. Far more consistent and contrary to you I choose to actually stick with the more consistent fluff

Err... now I'm confused about what you mean. You actually agree with me that GW is more consistent than BL/FFG/FW?
Or have you just set FFG's licensed products apart from BL's licensed products, elevating the former to the same rank you confer to GW's own material?

Pyriel- wrote:...and still being better then most novel fluff and its gigantic inconsistency holes of missing logic

That much is true, though I should point out that the RPG suffers from quite a number of inconsistencies that sprung up as FFG picked up the license from Black Industries. Off the top of my head, I remember the number of Battle Sisters in the Calixis Sector jumping from 50 to well over a thousand as "Blood of Martyrs" was released.
And as far as missing logic is concerned, I'm still at a loss for why it is apparently so incredibly difficult for people to operate Astartes-grade weaponry when they have no problem dealing with larger and heavier tools. Apparently the Imperium is simply unable to procure the best equipment for its Inquisitors.

Pyriel- wrote:By your definition there is really nothing else to discuss, you have read your 10 books and stick by what´s in then and I have read my 100 books and stick by the sum of the material, we can claim everything between the earth and the sky and back it up with everything so this whole thing is pointless without an agreed on set of fluff.
It´s like arguing bibles by quoting all 20 copies with every one having inconsistencies with the others.

Well, it's a little more than 10, but I agree with your analysis of the situation.
Actually, our discussion may be a perfect example of Gav Thorpe's comment regarding 40k and canonicity:

"Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."

I don't really like settling an argument with a "let's agree to disagree", but seeing that we're simply operating by different sources there's nothing else we can do. We just grew up on different books forming different perceptions, and when neither of us prefers the other's take on the 'verse...

Pyriel- wrote:Nor is there any evidence of intelligence based on type of recruitement world present.

The "simple minds" bit is evidence enough, at least for me.
Of course I can point out when I find more quotes like this; I'm fairly sure there would have to be some and I just don't remember right now.

Pyriel- wrote:Since I am to lazy and to careful not to get pissed of by going back and re-read meters of text please remind me, what example in the codices vs IAs are you referring to and If I remember or can look up I will.

You were talking about the selection process, and then mentioned a supposed existence of significant differences between Index Astartes and some Codex. I'm not saying I don't believe you (I tend to think that current codices are much less "historically accurate" given that they read more like aggrandized hearsay), but I didn't notice anything myself. So if I have missed anything, I always appreciate stuff being pointed out.

Pyriel- wrote:Yes and no. Looking at rules the average marine gets killed by 18 grots so that would represent a lobotomized labour servitor but, and as for Harker, balance and playability and nothing else rule the tabletop.

I'm sure this perception is much more in line with how Marines are depicted in the novels, but I see it differently. Again, I will point towards simple abstraction (for example, even a "neutralised" model does not necessarily mean the Marine is actually dead). Also, couldn't Harker get killed by those same 18 Grots as well?

Pyriel- wrote:The up side of having all this crap is that it gives a better insight to what usually tends to be more consistent and what tends to be more unreliable, thus I tend to pick my sources amongst those that are more stable and also coming directly from the manufacturer of the game or direct licences rather then those that include sorcerous imperial fists

That sounds a lot like personal preferences, though. Even you would have to admit that.

Pyriel- wrote:Tactical ultramarines? You should be ashamed of yourself lol
So you like SoBs, did you read demonifuge? Its awesome.

What can I say, I was young and they looked cool.
That said, I actually still think the Ultras are rather cool. Not my favourite Chapter, but I don't subscribe to the "smurf hate" that seems to be rather common around here either. Perhaps this is one of the few cases where I just happen to see weaknesses where other people don't. Maybe that's why I also think Space Marines in general are less powerful than other fans would depict them. Could be connected.

Regarding Daemonifuge, yes I did, and I loved it. Apart from being one of the very, very few books about the SoB (for many years the only one, actually) I also totally dig the visual style. Very fitting for the grimdark 41st millennium.
Funny that you mention it, actually. I just happened to read it again just two days ago.

Pyriel- wrote:It shares some of that quality in the rpg rulebooks and that is as it should be.

You mean FFG's Deathwatch RPG? I recall Space Marines becoming largely invulnerable against boltguns there once they hit Toughness 50+. Probably part of the reason why they made Astartes bolters more powerful - contrary to how it is handled in GW's own Inquisitor RPG. Oh, and of course why they came up with Horde rules, just so that the players may actually feel challenged once in a while when facing an army of Guardsmen.

Pyriel- wrote:Ever thought about the idiocy of how bolters are described in the fluff and the sheer inconsistency of marine wargear and tactics relative to marine implants?
It´s really laughable.

Hmm, what exactly are you referring to with that comment?

Pyriel- wrote:True but you are partially wrong on death worlders being different from one another. Yes they are but far less so then people would be on "peaceful" planets. Simple genetic selection makes for that.

I don't think so. Each Deathworld will have a unique environment, and people there will adapt to it. Some will become stronger, others develop a resistance against toxins, yet others become more agile, ...
And there may be cases where a Deathworld may even be far more dangerous from another Deathworld with a seemingly similar environment. Someone from one of those pacified civilised worlds would die on both, but perhaps normal Deathworlders would also quickly die on Catachan? Just a thought.

Pyriel- wrote:Yes but future mental abilities that may or may not come to pass are far different to predict and plan for then simple physical attributes. The apotechary simply takes a sample and knows, genetic match or no match whereas the mental thing is more like, lets implant stuff and psycho condition and hopefully there will be a perfect memory popping out in the end.

Another reason for why they wouldn't bother with puzzles, then.
For what it's worth, "trial and error" fits to what I've read about the creation process so far.

Pyriel- wrote:Doesnt matter. IQ is only affected by four things: Lack of protein, lack of education, genetic selection and environmental poisoning.

All four of these factors are rather likely to be influenced by living on a Deathworld. Or in the Underhive.

Pyriel- wrote:Genetic selection takes far longer then those few thousand years (on average) that the primitives have been living on that death world.

Comparing Catachan to Cadian bodies, I find that hard to believe.
This is 40k, people even "devolved" into Ogryns and Ratlings over the course of a couple thousand years. It's not just psychic powers that mutate this fast.
If in doubt, blame Chaos and/or the Warp. *shrugs* Maybe there's some truth to what the Imperial Creed preaches after all.

Pyriel- wrote:The primitives on the deathworld dont need to be primitives at all, see Nocturne, people survive by unsurpassed crafting and tech skills and not only sturdy physiques.

As I said, not all Deathworlds are the same; I don't think I would call Catachans primitive either. But when the books tell me that Deathworlds are preferred because of their more primitive inhabitants, then this tells me that it seems to be at least a common trait.

Pyriel- wrote:In our own real world (lol) we have primitives with a low IQ, read up on IQ averages across the globe. Lets take one of the crappiest ones shall we, somalia. An average of around 70 IQ.
Now what happens if we take a somali kid and let him grow up in west? Will he still retain that low IQ?
No, he will contrary to back home where all the education he gets consists of hearding goats and eating crap food, be given western education and enough protein to enable the brain to develope fully.

I do think that it is fairly important at what point in time you would take that kid and transfer him into a more "civilised" environment.

Though I don't think this is actually worth discussing - I mean, regardless of how that kid may develop, he would obviously have his original low IQ by the time you would take him.
Just like a new recruit of the Space Marines, who also wouldn't be able to utilise that very same low IQ to solve complicated puzzles just as much.

And ... sheesh, add names to your quotes. With such long posts it becomes difficult to know who you're talking to!

 Testify wrote:
You'd think being able to strip a lasgun at age 10 would be an advantage in tabletop. Apparently they didn't bother training them to shoot

Statistically half of their shots fired will hit.

That's actually far better than bullets fired to bullets landed ratios IRL.

A system based on d6 rolls and stats 0-10 doesn't leave much room for variation to start with. You might notice that marines are S4 both with and without their power armor, for example. Standard IG troopers are S3, same as a hulking ork or dancing eldar. Harker's S4 might be less than a marine, or perhaps more. Maybe he's a mutant among men with increased muscle density even beyond what the controlled Astartes creation grants?

As for Harker and Relentless I guess he just never cared for standard battle doctrine where you'd have the heavy bolter set up as a support weapon. He's been practicing it for a long time, probably wasting a whole lot of ammo in the process. Your average marine isn't going to come up with the idea to begin with, as that would be against doctrine and a waste of ammo to boot - a serious offense against the Codex.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Testify wrote:
You'd think being able to strip a lasgun at age 10 would be an advantage in tabletop. Apparently they didn't bother training them to shoot

Statistically half of their shots fired will hit.

That's actually far better than bullets fired to bullets landed ratios IRL.

1:Conscripts (whiteshields) are BS5, so only 33% of their shots hit.
2: 1 dice does not = 1 shot. Game abstraction. I should hope that my fully automatic heavy bolters shoot more than 45 rounds over the course of about half-an hour of intense fighting (assuming a game turn is 2-5 minute period). Punisher cannon rolls 20 dice in turn. It's real life equivalent, the Gau-8 fires 70 rounds in a second.
3: Theyre shooting lasers! No recoil, no dropoff, no wind to worry about. And they still cock it up :p

Spetulhu wrote:A system based on d6 rolls and stats 0-10 doesn't leave much room for variation to start with. You might notice that marines are S4 both with and without their power armor, for example. Standard IG troopers are S3, same as a hulking ork or dancing eldar. Harker's S4 might be less than a marine, or perhaps more.

True. In the end, S4 just means Harker is closer to a Marine than to a normal man.

Not to mention that S isn't even actually just "Strength", or is it? As far as I've read, it just seems to be part of how good they are at close combat, other parts being WS, T and Initiative (as well as any special rules ofc). S can mean they hit like an ox, or that they know where it hurts the most, or that their fighting style somehow makes their blows more destructive. Basically, the stat just represents the end result of how much hurt they dish out when an attack hits, not even just physical prowess.
Though there does exist some solid tiering when puny Cultists are S2, normal soldiers are S3 and Harker + Astartes are S4. Yet, the actual gaps between these tiers are pretty much up to interpretation.

 Lynata wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:A system based on d6 rolls and stats 0-10 doesn't leave much room for variation to start with. You might notice that marines are S4 both with and without their power armor, for example. Standard IG troopers are S3, same as a hulking ork or dancing eldar. Harker's S4 might be less than a marine, or perhaps more.

True. In the end, S4 just means Harker is closer to a Marine than to a normal man.

Not to mention that S isn't even actually just "Strength", or is it? As far as I've read, it just seems to be part of how good they are at close combat, other parts being WS, T and Initiative (as well as any special rules ofc). S can mean they hit like an ox, or that they know where it hurts the most, or that their fighting style somehow makes their blows more destructive. Basically, the stat just represents the end result of how much hurt they dish out when an attack hits, not even just physical prowess.
Though there does exist some solid tiering when puny Cultists are S2, normal soldiers are S3 and Harker + Astartes are S4. Yet, the actual gaps between these tiers are pretty much up to interpretation.

I thought cultists were S3? That's what it said on that DV sheet for chaos units in one of the rumor threads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 McGibs wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Testify wrote:
You'd think being able to strip a lasgun at age 10 would be an advantage in tabletop. Apparently they didn't bother training them to shoot

Statistically half of their shots fired will hit.

That's actually far better than bullets fired to bullets landed ratios IRL.

1:Conscripts (whiteshields) are BS5, so only 33% of their shots hit.
2: 1 dice does not = 1 shot. Game abstraction. I should hope that my fully automatic heavy bolters shoot more than 45 rounds over the course of about half-an hour of intense fighting (assuming a game turn is 2-5 minute period). Punisher cannon rolls 20 dice in turn. It's real life equivalent, the Gau-8 fires 70 rounds in a second.
3: Theyre shooting lasers! No recoil, no dropoff, no wind to worry about. And they still cock it up :p

I think you mean BS2. BS5 would make them as good as Chapter Masters.

The fluff has been written around the tabletop - just because it is abstracted doesn't change the connection.

Sure there is a connection, after all that is what the game is about but the level of absurd fluff skewing in order to make for a tabletop balance should never be forgotten since it permiates the game in every mini or unit.
Even unit movement is far of no matter how tactically a marine is moving his 6 inches that dark eldar super skimmer is still crap-all super slow compared to what it would be in real fluff.

For the tabletop, I've always been of the opinion that just because you don't see it doesn't mean it does not happen. Just because you roll a single attack doesn't mean your Guardsman just gave off a single shot, for example. It's just like in Pen&Paper RPGs, some of whom even spell it out with stuff like melee combat not just meaning two guys standing still and hacking at each other.

I agree but that guardsman attack is also extremely skewed to fit table balance. After all what real fluff has a fully armoured marine being beaten by 18 grots?

I hope that was just another Black Library novel.

Yes Although I actually hoped it would translate into the GK codex, that would have been a cool unit I think.

Though, thinking about it, I'm not even sure it would actually conflict with anything that was previously published. Of course the Servitor will still be just a drone, but I'm not sure the process would actually neutralise his "blankness", which seems to be an innate ability not actually requiring conscious thought (unlike the psychic powers of, say, a Navigator).

Unfortunately there is no fluff on this afaik.

I love to discuss things like that such as how would a personal force field logically work etc
(care to start?)

It may be a common idea, but that doesn't make it right - and it breaks down as soon as you ask people which of the novels are okay and which aren't. Isn't the "Abnettverse" in particularly relatively controversial?

And yet it must be done or else no fluff discussions what so ever could progress out of the sandbox level.
Abnettverse is time line dependent, his earlier words are pure ridicule from a fluff pov, his later are far better.
Want to read of real hilarious marine "fluff" then you dont need to go further back then the ghosts books. Nice books but now an then I almost weep due to the crappy fluff.

Err... now I'm confused about what you mean. You actually agree with me that GW is more consistent than BL/FFG/FW?

Oh boy, hell frooze over again
Yeah GW (by that I mean direct GW productions like codexes, rulebooks or directly GW controlled license productions etc) are more consistent then novels.

Or have you just set FFG's licensed products apart from BL's licensed products, elevating the former to the same rank you confer to GW's own material?

I see the rpg books as closer to GW canon fluff since they have to be or else people would be upset to read about rule options to turn your disciplines IF marine into a sorcerous dabbler.
But the FFG things also suffer from the same balance weakness as does GWs tabletop game and rules. They have to otherwise people wouldnt like to play it due to inbalances. Even if you know nothing about that a quick glance at the weapon stat charts will provide you with gigantic clues and lots of laughter.

That much is true, though I should point out that the RPG suffers from quite a number of inconsistencies that sprung up as FFG picked up the license from Black Industries. Off the top of my head, I remember the number of Battle Sisters in the Calixis Sector jumping from 50 to well over a thousand as "Blood of Martyrs" was released.

The FFG sourcs are very good if you know enough to be able to part the crap from the good stuff. They also include new things and build on GW stuff in wonderful ways.
How many inquisitors are there in the imperium?
How big is the average sector?
Meaning you now will know how many sectors the Imperium actually consist of meaning that all the exaggerated stuff we read about regarding the bloated administratum is no longer as exaggerated any more and going back to GW fluff is a far more rewarding reading experience.

And as far as missing logic is concerned, I'm still at a loss for why it is apparently so incredibly difficult for people to operate Astartes-grade weaponry when they have no problem dealing with larger and heavier tools. Apparently the Imperium is simply unable to procure the best equipment for its Inquisitors.

There are countless of threads about this. A pretty easy topic if you have some engineering or scientific background actually.

We could start if you want to but be warned, these threads tend to blow up pretty fast.

"Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."

Not true. Some interpretations are more "valid/logical" then others and some are plain wrong. Look up land raider armour properties in the imperial armour books, its one of those *sigh* moments.

I don't really like settling an argument with a "let's agree to disagree", but seeing that we're simply operating by different sources there's nothing else we can do. We just grew up on different books forming different perceptions, and when neither of us prefers the other's take on the 'verse...

...then there´s only logic left to hold on to. Something every person without to much bias and with enough IQ can easily do. I am sure we both can agree on a lot of things just by applying these simple rules.

You were talking about the selection process, and then mentioned a supposed existence of significant differences between Index Astartes and some Codex. I'm not saying I don't believe you (I tend to think that current codices are much less "historically accurate" given that they read more like aggrandized hearsay), but I didn't notice anything myself. So if I have missed anything, I always appreciate stuff being pointed out.

Hmm, dont recall this but as far as I know codex doesnt really cover recruitment as well (if at all) as the IAs do, those are considered the holy bible on space marine background and pretty much all cover recruitement in detail. The consistency ties in with the implants article but covers more of the psychology and needs of various chapters. The inconsistencies are between the IAs and novel fluff and those are pretty big at that giving of totally inaccurate numbers when it comes to casulties and building up time frames.

I'm sure this perception is much more in line with how Marines are depicted in the novels, but I see it differently. Again, I will point towards simple abstraction (for example, even a "neutralised" model does not necessarily mean the Marine is actually dead). Also, couldn't Harker get killed by those same 18 Grots as well?

But it isnt since some novel fluff says they are this weak and other novel fluff says they are tougher by magnitudes.
The only fluff that is reasonably consistent is GW/canon fluff and that says they really are tough as a ton of nails and a horde of grots would be below their pride to even care about.
Grots are children armed with nothing (mostly) and simple crude pistols and forks some times (not talking about tabletop here) but yet skill wise they are equal to tabletop catachans. Explain that

That sounds a lot like personal preferences, though. Even you would have to admit that.

Probably but I stand by the fact that I consider the range of fluff sources that depicts an IF marine as a sacraficial sorcerous warp dabbler are less valid then sources like the IAs that at least are consistent.
Maybe you call it bias, I call it logic and common sense.

That said, I actually still think the Ultras are rather cool. Not my favourite Chapter,

I like the new ultras when GW finally gave them a proper colour scheme of grimdark blues and dulled bronze. I couldnt stand the old ultras that were always painted with bright blues, alarm red and lemon yellows...awful.

You mean FFG's Deathwatch RPG? I recall Space Marines becoming largely invulnerable against boltguns there once they hit Toughness 50+. Probably part of the reason why they made Astartes bolters more powerful - contrary to how it is handled in GW's own Inquisitor RPG. Oh, and of course why they came up with Horde rules, just so that the players may actually feel challenged once in a while when facing an army of Guardsmen.

As I said...balance is more important over fluff in the DW rpg books.
Again, look at the weapon stats and weep. And again, this is why you cant play "real" fluff marines in DW since it would be fair to the guy playing that naked primitive barbarian wielding a spear and bow. It´s really sad but this is the way it is to appeal to the mass rather then to a niche of fluff nuts. You have to sell the stuff after all.

Hmm, what exactly are you referring to with that comment?

Oh boy, this is a really huge topic and we really ought to start something new only about this but in short (very short) think about what a marine does in the fluff and compare it to how his weapons function and then compare this to what his implants are actually meant to do and you´ll see a whole world of logical holes.


Modus operandi is for short and ultra violent actions.
Weapons are for short and ultra violent actions.
Implants are for long term low key operation.
In the cases of long term missions the weapons are still geared toward short term shock value.

It´s like building an army of marathon runners and equipping them with 6 shooter pistols and putting them in a boxing ring.

I don't think so. Each Deathworld will have a unique environment, and people there will adapt to it. Some will become stronger, others develop a resistance against toxins, yet others become more agile, ...
And there may be cases where a Deathworld may even be far more dangerous from another Deathworld with a seemingly similar environment. Someone from one of those pacified civilised worlds would die on both, but perhaps normal Deathworlders would also quickly die on Catachan? Just a thought.

I explained myself wrong I see. What I meant was there will be less difference between the death worlders themselves as in a less broad spectrum on abilities in their own society/genepool then compared to a population on a peaceful planet where less danger allows for a broader spectrum of types to survive since you dont have that "weakness cap" always culling the part of the population that isnt specifically tailored to survive the environment.

Another reason for why they wouldn't bother with puzzles, then.
For what it's worth, "trial and error" fits to what I've read about the creation process so far.

Yes. Gather a large bunch of the "seemingly" strongest and let then run the gauntlet through the culling that the chapter believes takes away the least desirable specimens and then hope enough of the rest makes it through the final genetic compability screen. Reason the screen if not applied beforehand is that even those that fail can be used as chapter serfs, after all they are strong and as serfs they wont be needing the genetic compability.

All four of these factors are rather likely to be influenced by living on a Deathworld. Or in the Underhive.

Yes but only ONE of those factors will really affect the IQ of a grownup. Hence it doesnt matter to a chapter as long as they only take little children.

Comparing Catachan to Cadian bodies, I find that hard to believe.
This is 40k, people even "devolved" into Ogryns and Ratlings over the course of a couple thousand years. It's not just psychic powers that mutate this fast.
If in doubt, blame Chaos and/or the Warp. *shrugs* Maybe there's some truth to what the Imperial Creed preaches after all.

Exactly, other things like warp etc cause faster mutations hence why you dont see any marines recruiting from catachan stock.
Natural and unhindered selection will not (in real life) produce catachans.
Why arent lost amazon tribes looking like a bunch of rambos you think?
Sure people from kenya run much faster then innuites (genetic difference) and innuites can handle cold far better then kenyans but as I said, these genetic traits are not the result of a few thousand of years but far far longer time periods.

As I said, not all Deathworlds are the same; I don't think I would call Catachans primitive either. But when the books tell me that Deathworlds are preferred because of their more primitive inhabitants, then this tells me that it seems to be at least a common trait.

And the same books also tell that the reason is because the primitives tend to have a more warlike mentality. Thus the children will be more likely to be strong then from a society that likes fluffy bunnies.
And secondly the chapter that selects likes a warlike society, not because it is needed but because there is a simply link between what they do themselves.
Look, a a tribe that loves the colour red, we love the colour red too, how nice is that, lets go and recruit some...oh they are strong too since weak die of early on, even better for us.
Far more likely then, look a peace loving society of pinko leftie liberals, we hate peaceniks, lets not recruit from there due to out instinctive dislike of them because we are so steeped in tradition and superstition.

I do think that it is fairly important at what point in time you would take that kid and transfer him into a more "civilised" environment.

Remember, the geneseed really transforms the body and mind into something entirely different.

And ... sheesh, add names to your quotes. With such long posts it becomes difficult to know who you're talking to!

This time...only you my friend



.....aaaaand McGibs here:

3: Theyre shooting lasers! No recoil, no dropoff, no wind to worry about. And they still cock it up :p

It can be argued that the ionized tunnel that collapses with a crack of slamming air after the laser beam is turned of will cause some sort of physical disturbance.

Pyriel- wrote:I agree but that guardsman attack is also extremely skewed to fit table balance. After all what real fluff has a fully armoured marine being beaten by 18 grots?

The fluff that says that Marine power armour only reduces injury risk against most common small arms by 50-85% springs to mind. Grot Blastas seem to be surprisingly harmful, having the same punch as a lasgun as per their profile. I blame the Waaaghfield.

Pyriel- wrote:I love to discuss things like that such as how would a personal force field logically work etc
(care to start?)

Always, but I guess we should move to a separate thread or PMs for that.
I really like to delve into technical details as well - though of course there is a point where we can only continue with "technobabble" instead of actual science. To me, the most important thing was always if it just sounds reasonable enough, though.

Pyriel- wrote:And yet it must be done or else no fluff discussions what so ever could progress out of the sandbox level.

Yet the value of this fluff seems very arbitrary, no? I mean, in the end his words are no more important than our own. We may as well make up our own stuff.
Actually, I think most of us already do, by cherrypicking from the books they like and dismissing what they don't.

Interesting bit about Abnett's writing having evolved, though. I wasn't aware of his style having changed over the years.

Pyriel- wrote:Want to read of real hilarious marine "fluff" then you dont need to go further back then the ghosts books. Nice books but now an then I almost weep due to the crappy fluff.

Because Marines are not the protagonists there for once, which means they die easier?

Pyriel- wrote:I see the rpg books as closer to GW canon fluff since they have to be or else people would be upset to read about rule options to turn your disciplines IF marine into a sorcerous dabbler.

*I* am upset about Sisters of Battle being turned into Guardsmen +1 there.

Pyriel- wrote:But the FFG things also suffer from the same balance weakness as does GWs tabletop game and rules. They have to otherwise people wouldnt like to play it due to inbalances. Even if you know nothing about that a quick glance at the weapon stat charts will provide you with gigantic clues and lots of laughter.

Actually, to me it seems that both balance and fluff compatibility were sacrificed to make Marines more awesome there, in what seems to me to be an attempt to increase appeal to their fans.

Pyriel- wrote:The FFG sourcs are very good if you know enough to be able to part the crap from the good stuff.

You mean like just cherrypicking some inspiration from there rather than blindly adopting it all? Yeah, that could work, of course. I've done so in the past, and even from BL novels, at least regarding stuff that made sense to me and I see as compatible to my perception of the overall 'verse. This isn't the fluff I preach about on dakka (far easier to just debate things using the GW "common ground"), but it is something I keep for my own "customized" vision of the 41st millennium, so to say.

Pyriel- wrote:There are countless of threads about this. A pretty easy topic if you have some engineering or scientific background actually.

I know there are countless threads about this - I picked many of those supposedly perfect explanations apart with my comments, sometimes by pointing to how stuff works in the real life, sometimes by pointing out what GW wrote about the issue.
If you want to risk it, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Pyriel- wrote:Not true. Some interpretations are more "valid/logical" then others and some are plain wrong. Look up land raider armour properties in the imperial armour books, its one of those *sigh* moments.

Oh, I know what you mean, but even though we as individuals may sigh about it and regard it as "obviously wrong", that'd still be a personal opinion. And I think that's what Gav meant. It's a Sci-Fi-Fantasy-setting and anything, up to the most ludicrous stuff is possible. Even female Space Marines, not that I would want them.
It's just that most often when people point out something as "wrong", they actually want to say "this book which I like a lot says otherwise, and I don't care what your book says even if it comes from the same publisher".

Pyriel- wrote:The inconsistencies are between the IAs and novel fluff and those are pretty big at that giving of totally inaccurate numbers when it comes to casulties and building up time frames.

Ah, that I can believe. Novel authors are often different people, after all, though even if they are former GW designers they would miss the "team consensus" factor. I would just be surprised if IA and Codex fluff would be notably conflicting. When it comes to novels, I've seen a lot of weird stuff.
Or shall I say, remarkably different interpretations.

Pyriel- wrote:The only fluff that is reasonably consistent is GW/canon fluff and that says they really are tough as a ton of nails and a horde of grots would be below their pride to even care about.
Grots are children armed with nothing (mostly) and simple crude pistols and forks some times (not talking about tabletop here) but yet skill wise they are equal to tabletop catachans. Explain that

Actually, I just took a look at the Ork Codex, and from what I can see it's a horde of idiots, but dangerous idiots who can certainly become a threat if they don't mess up for once. "Provided they remember which way round to hold it" (their guns), as the Codex flat-out states.

Pyriel- wrote:Modus operandi is for short and ultra violent actions.
Weapons are for short and ultra violent actions.
Implants are for long term low key operation.
In the cases of long term missions the weapons are still geared toward short term shock value.
It´s like building an army of marathon runners and equipping them with 6 shooter pistols and putting them in a boxing ring.

I don't actually see the problem there. I see most of the implants as something that will come in handy when, for some reason, the Marine is required to fight for an extended period of time. It's like a backup safety measure to ensure they keep fighting at peak performance even if things turn to sour.
Additionally, keep in mind that the Creation Process was invented by an Emperor who intended to field entire Legions of these guys in a long and bloody campaign to conquer the entire galaxy. Space Marines weren't intended to function as high-mobility shock troops back then, this is simply a role they slowly evolved into in the many millennia after the Horus Heresy, both due to their drastically decreased numbers as well as various Imperial policies essentially changing their job description.

Pyriel- wrote:I explained myself wrong I see. What I meant was there will be less difference between the death worlders themselves as in a less broad spectrum on abilities in their own society/genepool then compared to a population on a peaceful planet where less danger allows for a broader spectrum of types to survive since you dont have that "weakness cap" always culling the part of the population that isnt specifically tailored to survive the environment.

Ah, you mean between the natives on a single Deathworld, not comparing one type of Deathworlders to another? Okay, simple misunderstanding. And yes, I agree.

Pyriel- wrote:Yes but only ONE of those factors will really affect the IQ of a grownup. Hence it doesnt matter to a chapter as long as they only take little children.

That brings us back to the Chapter having to choose between recruiting early, or recruiting based on "warrior traits", though. You likely won't find heroes amongst a bunch of 6 year olds, at least not heroes in the sense as the Codex fluff makes it sound to be. When the Chapters wait until some kid actually becomes a popular boar slayer or whatever, he will have retained his primitive mind.
But this still fits to the Flesh Tearers stuff.

Pyriel- wrote:Exactly, other things like warp etc cause faster mutations hence why you dont see any marines recruiting from catachan stock. Natural and unhindered selection will not (in real life) produce catachans. Why arent lost amazon tribes looking like a bunch of rambos you think?
Sure people from kenya run much faster then innuites (genetic difference) and innuites can handle cold far better then kenyans but as I said, these genetic traits are not the result of a few thousand of years but far far longer time periods.

To be honest, I think the writers of the setting simply didn't bother with this little detail. And since when don't Space Marines recruit "mutants"? They have Psykers in their own ranks, and a number of Chapters boast rather obvious geneseed mutations.

I really don't think anybody in the Imperium would actually call Catachans mutants.

Pyriel- wrote:And the same books also tell that the reason is because the primitives tend to have a more warlike mentality. Thus the children will be more likely to be strong then from a society that likes fluffy bunnies.
And secondly the chapter that selects likes a warlike society, not because it is needed but because there is a simply link between what they do themselves.
Look, a a tribe that loves the colour red, we love the colour red too, how nice is that, lets go and recruit some...oh they are strong too since weak die of early on, even better for us.
Far more likely then, look a peace loving society of pinko leftie liberals, we hate peaceniks, lets not recruit from there due to out instinctive dislike of them because we are so steeped in tradition and superstition.

Whilst all of this is obviously correct and quite in line with what I've said all the time, it still leaves out the mental requirement for a simple mind - the thing we've been argueing about, and which was just as much connected to Deathworld populations as the warlike trait.

Pyriel- wrote:It can be argued that the ionized tunnel that collapses with a crack of slamming air after the laser beam is turned of will cause some sort of physical disturbance.

I think this is one of the Black Library ideas that I actually adopted because it just made sense.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:I thought cultists were S3? That's what it said on that DV sheet for chaos units in one of the rumor threads.

If so then they received a buff. I'm fairly sure they used to be S2!
Chaos players correct me if I remember wrong.

The fluff that says that Marine power armour only reduces injury risk against most common small arms by 50-85% springs to mind. Grot Blastas seem to be surprisingly harmful, having the same punch as a lasgun as per their profile. I blame the Waaaghfield.

And we all know how well that moronic take on fluff was received by the 40k fans after Counter and Swallow released their marine novels

Always, but I guess we should move to a separate thread or PMs for that.
I really like to delve into technical details as well - though of course there is a point where we can only continue with "technobabble" instead of actual science. To me, the most important thing was always if it just sounds reasonable enough, though.

Fair enough. I´ll let you decide.

Yet the value of this fluff seems very arbitrary, no? I mean, in the end his words are no more important than our own. We may as well make up our own stuff.
Actually, I think most of us already do, by cherrypicking from the books they like and dismissing what they don't.

Interesting bit about Abnett's writing having evolved, though. I wasn't aware of his style having changed over the years.

Not so arbitrary imo. There are far far worse things in real life such as the law and still people manage to debate it.

Abnett has evolved his take on fluff was what I meant. Reading his description of marines when he started and reading his take on the very same marines in his HH novels is like night and day.

Because Marines are not the protagonists there for once, which means they die easier?

That would make for such a crappy excuse for a guy of Abnetts caliber that I simply refuse to believe it

*I* am upset about Sisters of Battle being turned into Guardsmen +1 there.

1: The early rog books were more all-in-one and just recently are there more specific releases. The same is said about guardsmen, they are pretty weird in the DH book but that is on purpose as they will get their own book (guardsmen rpg book, can you imagine that ) soon enough.

2: Have you read the SoB/ecclestariarch rule book?

3: You should be more upset by the codex fluff turning SoB into anti deamon paste in the GK codex. lol

Actually, to me it seems that both balance and fluff compatibility were sacrificed to make Marines more awesome there, in what seems to me to be an attempt to increase appeal to their fans.

Oh god no, no nononono!
They are made more awesome to get the feeling of power for a beguinner player group but fluff wise they are toned down so much its ridiculous.

Shoot an astarted bolter point blank at a naked noob accolyte and he will survive, barely but he will. Is that fluff? In your novels that you want to use as sources bolters make people explode, loose arms and heads in red misty effects with every shot.

Look at other rpg book toned "balances" like a guardsman sniper vs an ork boy. If the guardsman stands right in front of a naked ork that is tied to a tree and empties his whole sniper long las magazine in the face of the ork hitting with every shot he might actually even kill the ork.

Las gun vs plasma pistol?
You DO know what plasma weapons do in the fluff (as well as tabletop) right? In novels as well as more canon sources plasma shots go right through armoured marines...in the rule books they are basically water pistols shooting lukewarm water and bows and arrows do as much damage as lasguns.

If you add experience points to the human accolyte and the space marine you´ll also see a funny effect, the accolyte becomes godlike and can eat squads of marines for breakfast. My own and my friends by now very high level accolytes (still only human) cant play the game unless the opposition consists of warbands of word bearer marines and even then those two characters go through entire squads in combat situations. Dodge, skills etc become completely absurd at higher levels.
We had a deathwatch marine joining our gaming group and gave him 10k starting xp to have him fit better in and the result was that he quit after three sessions since his marine character was so much weaker then the rest of us "humans" that it simply wasnt fun playing.

It is all well and fine and is there for balance since a player might want to play a space marine another player wants a bow and arrow barbarian and another a lasgun guardsman and the whole group needs to be more or less on the same power level in order to be able to play together without anyone feeling to far behind or in front. Its all toned to be fun as it the tabletop.

You mean like just cherrypicking some inspiration from there rather than blindly adopting it all?

Not really, you might notice that I contradict myself and give examples that help you out too. Had I just been picking what suits me I would not do that but this discussion is about fluff and not about withelding fun facts from each others.
Lets take magic the gathering as an example.
A noob gets a bunch of cards and is told to pick out what is good (useful) and what is not. He will pick what he thinks is cool (nice pictures and big attack values on creatures) that is the equivalent to a noob picking from the rpg books.
On the otehr hand you can take a veteran gamer, he can take a glance at a new magic expansion and instinctively know which cards to pick and which are crap since his overall knowledge of the game gives him a far better insight in what is "real/useful".

I know there are countless threads about this - I picked many of those supposedly perfect explanations apart with my comments, sometimes by pointing to how stuff works in the real life, sometimes by pointing out what GW wrote about the issue.
If you want to risk it, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Would love to but I say lets give it a shot and try an open thread about it and hope the mods can sort the gak out of it. Who knows maybe it´ll end up like this discussion, informative, free from crap and harsh words.
If it crashes and burns we could always try PM.

Oh, I know what you mean, but even though we as individuals may sigh about it and regard it as "obviously wrong", that'd still be a personal opinion. And I think that's what Gav meant. It's a Sci-Fi-Fantasy-setting and anything, up to the most ludicrous stuff is possible. Even female Space Marines, not that I would want them.
It's just that most often when people point out something as "wrong", they actually want to say "this book which I like a lot says otherwise, and I don't care what your book says even if it comes from the same publisher".

It´s easier in tech threads since the guy saying plasma is rainbow coloured because he read it in a childrens book can easily be placed in the less valid compartment then the guy who actually works with plasma at his lab.

Ah, that I can believe. Novel authors are often different people, after all, though even if they are former GW designers they would miss the "team consensus" factor. I would just be surprised if IA and Codex fluff would be notably conflicting. When it comes to novels, I've seen a lot of weird stuff.
Or shall I say, remarkably different interpretations.

Hehe, I pretty much gave up on certain novel fluff after having the IA place a casualty rate of blood angels at some 1 marine a year on average and then Swallow came along and killed of 2000 blood angel marines in a month. lol
But on a more serious note this is another example on how easy it really is to sort out valid fluff from non valid.

I don't actually see the problem there. I see most of the implants as something that will come in handy when, for some reason, the Marine is required to fight for an extended period of time. It's like a backup safety measure to ensure they keep fighting at peak performance even if things turn to sour.
Additionally, keep in mind that the Creation Process was invented by an Emperor who intended to field entire Legions of these guys in a long and bloody campaign to conquer the entire galaxy. Space Marines weren't intended to function as high-mobility shock troops back then, this is simply a role they slowly evolved into in the many millennia after the Horus Heresy, both due to their drastically decreased numbers as well as various Imperial policies essentially changing their job description.

A very good point! Thanks.
Although it still doesnt explain why give a long range endurance soldier a big shock weapon with 30 bullets. LOL

I have my own theory on bolter weapons since fluff wise they will just not work in the field. Not in a thousand years.

Ah, you mean between the natives on a single Deathworld, not comparing one type of Deathworlders to another? Okay, simple misunderstanding. And yes, I agree.

Yeah, my bad.

That brings us back to the Chapter having to choose between recruiting early, or recruiting based on "warrior traits", though. You likely won't find heroes amongst a bunch of 6 year olds, at least not heroes in the sense as the Codex fluff makes it sound to be. When the Chapters wait until some kid actually becomes a popular boar slayer or whatever, he will have retained his primitive mind.
But this still fits to the Flesh Tearers stuff.

Nah, it´s not that bad. Take a bunch of kids from a culture that rhymes with your own views and amongst those will rise heroes from sheer numbers and chance. No need to "wait" till you see more developed traits.

On the other hand examples in the fluff actually handle this problem (transforming half starved idiots into super intelligent marines) with some BA and BT fluff.

To be honest, I think the writers of the setting simply didn't bother with this little detail. And since when don't Space Marines recruit "mutants"? They have Psykers in their own ranks, and a number of Chapters boast rather obvious geneseed mutations.

And one highly popular chapter even takes irradiated semi mutants as initiates, hehe.

Whilst all of this is obviously correct and quite in line with what I've said all the time, it still leaves out the mental requirement for a simple mind - the thing we've been argueing about, and which was just as much connected to Deathworld populations as the warlike trait.

Well there IS after all a perfect canon example of the geneseed actually not needing a mentally superior candidate in order to turn out a perfectly functional marine.

Pretty sure my Harker looks my Marines in the forehead. He's actually bigger than they are. Scary dude... the Emperor wills that Harker is badder than a marine.

Pyriel- wrote:And we all know how well that moronic take on fluff was received by the 40k fans after Counter and Swallow released their marine novels

I haven't read those. I was referring to Codex fluff, actually.

Pyriel- wrote:1: The early rog books were more all-in-one and just recently are there more specific releases. The same is said about guardsmen, they are pretty weird in the DH book but that is on purpose as they will get their own book (guardsmen rpg book, can you imagine that ) soon enough.
2: Have you read the SoB/ecclestariarch rule book?
3: You should be more upset by the codex fluff turning SoB into anti deamon paste in the GK codex. lol

1. The all-in-one Sororitas actually make sense, considering that it's one big organisation and they all went through the same Schola training. BoM's idea of instead using the Adept class as a template for Non-Militant Sisters is lightyears away from what I'm used as per GW's fluff. Also, that wasn't what my criticism was directed at.
2. Yes, of course I have. And the Inquisitor's Handbook does a better job at presenting a Sororitas character. I'm not fond of the "space magic" idea that was retroactively inserted with BoM, I don't like the extended separation of the Orders, I don't like the unnecessary inconsistencies in the equipment, and I don't like the unnecessary bump of the number of SoB in their custom sector from 50 to over a thousand. The latter suits well with FFG's idea of turning Sororitas into Guardsmen +1, though.
3. I don't mind that at all. If anything, this incident only goes to show that the Grey Knights are willing to do anything in the name of their cause. Big surprise there (yes that's irony). I actually rather like it, as it reinforces the perception of the Sisters' purity.

Also, "Only War" is pretty cool, mechanicswise. Another bunch of stuff that is inconsistent with GW's idea (female Vostroyans, single Storm Troopers attached to normal squads, etc), but I had a blast playing the beta and the rules are incredibly easy to adapt for other stuff. Have you played it yet?

Pyriel- wrote:Oh god no, no nononono!
They are made more awesome to get the feeling of power for a beguinner player group but fluff wise they are toned down so much its ridiculous. Shoot an astarted bolter point blank at a naked noob accolyte and he will survive, barely but he will. Is that fluff? In your novels that you want to use as sources bolters make people explode, loose arms and heads in red misty effects with every shot.

lol, how is that a problem with Marines only? Do you really want to tell me that it's okay if a "civilian" bolter does that, but utterly scandalous when it happens to the Almighty Astartes?

In the Deathwatch RPG, which is supposedly oh-so-toned-down, four player teams regularly chew through stuff like Hive Tyrants within seconds (though I believe this has gotten a bit less frequent after the heavy bolter nerf). Horde Rules have them blast apart dozens if not hundreds of enemy troops by artificially nerfing the opposition to explode when a single Wound is dealt. Stacking bonuses allow for Marines to bash their bare fists through tank armour, and Cheat- ... I'm sorry, Squad Mode lets them attack twice in a round or negate lascannon blasts by magically distributing the damage of that single shot onto the entire team to be 100% absorbed by their armour and overpowered Unnatural traits.

I guess our perceptions of the awesomness of Space Marines are just really, really not compatible.

Also, since when do I use novels as sources? I don't. Actually, I am fairly adamant at consistently argueing against this trend, because those novels - just like any licensed publication - are just another "custom interpretation" of the setting in a huge ocean of already conflicting sources. When I'm debating fluff on dakka, I stick to direct Games Workshop material only. Codices, rulebooks, magazines, website. That's it.

Pyriel- wrote:If you add experience points to the human accolyte and the space marine you´ll also see a funny effect, the accolyte becomes godlike and can eat squads of marines for breakfast.

I'm sorry, but unless this Acolyte is using the broken Ascension Psyker rules or is a just-as-broken Vindicare Assassin, this is groxgak. Experience points change little about the damage potential of a character's weaponry, and unless your Acolytes are lugging around lascannons I don't really see how they could compete. Hell, even "civilian" bolter rounds are completely negated by Marine armour and Unnatural Toughness, that broken trait which is quite capable of making the naked Marine tougher than the armour he wears.

Pyriel- wrote:Not really, you might notice that I contradict myself and give examples that help you out too. Had I just been picking what suits me I would not do that but this discussion is about fluff and not about withelding fun facts from each others.
Lets take magic the gathering as an example.
A noob gets a bunch of cards and is told to pick out what is good (useful) and what is not. He will pick what he thinks is cool (nice pictures and big attack values on creatures) that is the equivalent to a noob picking from the rpg books.
On the otehr hand you can take a veteran gamer, he can take a glance at a new magic expansion and instinctively know which cards to pick and which are crap since his overall knowledge of the game gives him a far better insight in what is "real/useful".

I see. In that case I will have to say that the RPG is a poor start for someone who is new to the franchise, though. GW's own fluff conflicts with the info in the RPG on some very important details, so to me - someone who values GW more highly than anything else for being the center and origin of it all - those books give a flawed impression of the setting. It's a cool impression and arguably more detailed, but it doesn't line up on all aspects with what we get told in the codices etc.

Of course people are perfectly free to simply value FFG's fluff higher than GW's, but in the end they have to choose. I also have a feeling that a player's first impression will be fairly important to how his or her perception of the setting is formed.

Pyriel- wrote:Would love to but I say lets give it a shot and try an open thread about it and hope the mods can sort the gak out of it. Who knows maybe it´ll end up like this discussion, informative, free from crap and harsh words.
If it crashes and burns we could always try PM.

Alrighty. Where to?

Pyriel- wrote:Hehe, I pretty much gave up on certain novel fluff after having the IA place a casualty rate of blood angels at some 1 marine a year on average and then Swallow came along and killed of 2000 blood angel marines in a month. lol
But on a more serious note this is another example on how easy it really is to sort out valid fluff from non valid.

That process of sorting things out is still personal preference, though. When it comes down to it, there is no absolute truth in this setting. Only a "style".
As for the Blood Angels bit ... well, without having read that novel, occasionally a Chapter gets thrown into huge conflicts that take a heavy toll on them. It's not average, but it happens. *shrugs*
On the flipside, I checked the IA article on them and found no mention of this suspiciously low casualty rate. Are you sure you remember correctly? The only thing of note that I did find in this regard was the line "should they survive the battle, they will probably die of their wounds afterwards, once the frenzied slaughter is past" for the Death Company. So unless you think that the Death Company only goes into battle once a year and consists of a single Space Marine, ...

Pyriel- wrote:Although it still doesnt explain why give a long range endurance soldier a big shock weapon with 30 bullets. LOL

Hmm, true. Bolters were in use ever since the Space Marines were created, I think.
Perhaps they just tend(ed) to have spare ammo nearby, like in their vehicles? I'm sure this is still the case even in M41 when it should only rarely be necessary. Also, a bolter is just a very impressive gun, even aside of its obvious shock value. Several dozen armour-piercing explosive shells in a package small enough that it can be wielded like a pistol or a small rifle by genetically enhanced soldiers with improved aim and reflexes? Sounds good enough to me. I mean, what other weapons could they even use? There's plasmaguns, but their destructive properties aside they are probably somewhat overkill for most enemies encountered during the Great Crusade, and have a much lower rate of fire.

Just trying to make sense tho. What was your idea? Or should we discuss that in the other thread?

Pyriel- wrote:Nah, it´s not that bad. Take a bunch of kids from a culture that rhymes with your own views and amongst those will rise heroes from sheer numbers and chance. No need to "wait" till you see more developed traits.

You mean just conscripting anyone that looks healthy enough and then see who makes it through the trials? That could work, but it's not what we are told about how the Chapters recruit, though. Most of them, anyways - I think the Salamanders do get them when they're a little younger, and based on a different set of requirements, but then use them as apprentice smiths until they're old enough for implantation.

Pyriel- wrote:And one highly popular chapter even takes irradiated semi mutants as initiates, hehe.

The Blood Angels? I just read their article, and had to blink as I read about the radiation bit.
Another thing I didn't know. I really need to finish reading their latest Codex.

Lobukia wrote:the Emperor wills that Harker is badder than a marine.

1. The all-in-one Sororitas actually make sense, considering that it's one big organisation and they all went through the same Schola training. BoM's idea of instead using the Adept class as a template for Non-Militant Sisters is lightyears away from what I'm used as per GW's fluff. Also, that wasn't what my criticism was directed at.
2. Yes, of course I have. And the Inquisitor's Handbook does a better job at presenting a Sororitas character. I'm not fond of the "space magic" idea that was retroactively inserted with BoM, I don't like the extended separation of the Orders, I don't like the unnecessary inconsistencies in the equipment, and I don't like the unnecessary bump of the number of SoB in their custom sector from 50 to over a thousand. The latter suits well with FFG's idea of turning Sororitas into Guardsmen +1, though.
3. I don't mind that at all. If anything, this incident only goes to show that the Grey Knights are willing to do anything in the name of their cause. Big surprise there (yes that's irony). I actually rather like it, as it reinforces the perception of the Sisters' purity.

Also, "Only War" is pretty cool, mechanicswise. Another bunch of stuff that is inconsistent with GW's idea (female Vostroyans, single Storm Troopers attached to normal squads, etc), but I had a blast playing the beta and the rules are incredibly easy to adapt for other stuff. Have you played it yet?

1: Not really, non militant sisters are far from the military template, they are actually scholars.

2: Still, no. However I agree on the space magic but this is just something they were forced to include from the codex and tabletop.
The orders are separated as it has to be and the numbers are perfectly in order. Having a thousand sororitas in the sector is actually an extremely small number and as such the (skill) comparison to the millions of guardsmen is pure ridicule.
Marines actually outnumber the sisters in the sector so what did you expect, sisters being more unique then astartes despite being sponsored by the second biggest and most rich organization in the entire Imperium?
Damn, you sound like Melissias stealth account

Single stormtroopers attached in squads makes sense from a casualty point of view. Depleted or new squads would get the best tutoring and thus be brought up in efficiency faster then normally possible. Good in times of need.

lol, how is that a problem with Marines only? Do you really want to tell me that it's okay if a "civilian" bolter does that, but utterly scandalous when it happens to the Almighty Astartes?

Not at all, it happens with everything, civvies are scaled up, marines down etc etc.
Besides if you want to talk pure bolters then yes, there are differences between bolters and bolters

In the Deathwatch RPG, which is supposedly oh-so-toned-down, four player teams regularly chew through stuff like Hive Tyrants within seconds (though I believe this has gotten a bit less frequent after the heavy bolter nerf). Horde Rules have them blast apart dozens if not hundreds of enemy troops by artificially nerfing the opposition to explode when a single Wound is dealt. Stacking bonuses allow for Marines to bash their bare fists through tank armour, and Cheat- ... I'm sorry, Squad Mode lets them attack twice in a round or negate lascannon blasts by magically distributing the damage of that single shot onto the entire team to be 100% absorbed by their armour and overpowered Unnatural traits.

As it should be...and it´s still toned down.
I imagine your take on fluff would pit 10 marines against 20 grots and call it even lol

I guess our perceptions of the awesomness of Space Marines are just really, really not compatible.

Exactamento mon ami!

I tend to follow GWs canon fluff where a company can assault and take over a whole world and a chapter can wade through a whole system.
I dont believe in the fluff where 1000 marines cant assault an ork held planet because there are 2000 grots and a slaver on the surface

There ARE after all only one marine per planet in the imperium contrary to the millions of guardsmen. If that is not "elite" then I dont really know what is.

Also, since when do I use novels as sources? I don't. Actually, I am fairly adamant at consistently argueing against this trend, because those novels - just like any licensed publication - are just another "custom interpretation" of the setting in a huge ocean of already conflicting sources. When I'm debating fluff on dakka, I stick to direct Games Workshop material only. Codices, rulebooks, magazines, website. That's it.

So...in exactly what codex are 10 marines overrun by 180 childr...I mean grots again?

I'm sorry, but unless this Acolyte is using the broken Ascension Psyker rules or is a just-as-broken Vindicare Assassin, this is groxgak.

Sorry but you are wrong.
Latest example in our group was the guardsmen specializing in melee (stormtrooper something). We pitted him against a black legion marine - no problems what so ever, the marine died, then against several world bearers, still no problem. When the accolytes finish the level climb in the DH book and are halfway up the ascention book, psychers or not, they are basically immune to space marines since skill, strenght and toughness are all far beyond the poor space marine who only has an unnatural trait going for him in two characteristics and that is not enough.

We can take this in PM if you want to.

Acolytes are lugging around lascannons I don't really see how they could compete.

A thunder hammer or fist will pretty much do any marine in if the accolyte put enough xp into WS and AG.

those books give a flawed impression of the setting. It's a cool impression and arguably more detailed, but it doesn't line up on all aspects with what we get told in the codices etc.

Ergo: you need to know enough in order to be able to pick out the logical parts. Same goes for novels, if you read a hundred then half will be utter gak, a few proper fluff and the rest somewhere in between. If you know your stuff you know which ones are good.

Of course people are perfectly free to simply value FFG's fluff higher than GW's, but in the end they have to choose. I also have a feeling that a player's first impression will be fairly important to how his or her perception of the setting is formed.

Gw fluff is more valid then FFG imo but both trump the majority of novels.

Alrighty. Where to?

Dunno, dunno if I even can since I´ll be going away soon and wont be able to be here on dakka as much, that would make for one helluva one sided monologue now wouldnt it

That process of sorting things out is still personal preference, though. When it comes down to it, there is no absolute truth in this setting. Only a "style".

If compared to gw fluff then no, it both is possible as well as easy to do.

As for the Blood Angels bit ... well, without having read that novel, occasionally a Chapter gets thrown into huge conflicts that take a heavy toll on them. It's not average,
On the flipside, I checked the IA article on them and found no mention of this suspiciously low casualty rate

Not directly but as with most fluff it is implied if you apply logic.
They recruit once every generation. Now what does that tell us logically speaking you think? That they recruit once every monday morning? No, a generation is vaguely equalled to some 20 years, maybe less for a death world.
Then the "handful" of survivors (again, what does that tell us, is it the same as tens of thousands or a "handful"?) are taken up and put into those vampire caskets (lol) to be transformed into marines/scouts. Then those few that survive to be full marines will, naturally, replace losses....every g e n e are a ti o n.

The thing that apply to this based on gw fluff is that chapters strive to uphold their numbers of a thousand brothers thus replacements will always strive to reach that number and the chapters size will by design (replacements) be made to be as stable and as close to a thousand as possible (on average).

Now apply logic to this and what number of average casualties per year do you end up with?

Perhaps they just tend(ed) to have spare ammo nearby, like in their vehicles?

Bolters...aaaaah
So the marine rushes in to that space hulk with no vehicle backup but a spare clip instead, now his sometimes days long fighting (as the mother ship awaits the boarders to take over the engines, or bridge or defenses) will be made possible by the usage of the incredible amount of 60 rounds.
LOL

Bolters as they are in all fluff, are simply an impossibility.

Modern day special forces some times carry 1000 rounds and often around 300 for non support guys and even that is calculated to last only one or two engagements...not gakking 30 rounds!!

can be wielded like a pistol or a small rifle by genetically enhanced soldiers with improved aim and reflexes?

Butbutbut...those genetic super soldiers arent THAT much better then a normal human, after all their armour isnt that good and pretty much anybody can outskill them as long as they specialize in something or what was it now again
lol

I mean, what other weapons could they even use?

Hmm, that is a hard one, I dont know...maybe gakking "logical" bolters that actually work with the way these super soldiers are supposed to wage war?

There's plasmaguns, but their destructive properties aside they are probably somewhat overkill for most enemies encountered during the Great Crusade

Not in the FFG rules they arent, hehe.
Toned down, remember?

Just trying to make sense tho. What was your idea? Or should we discuss that in the other thread?

Maybe later or in PM but tell you this, it is apparent that you belive in pink fluff and I believe in blue fluff, just our backgrounds so if we skip the whole power-level-fluff debate we can find room to fit in bolters instead but the problem remains, the topic of this thread isnt exactly accommodating.

You mean just conscripting anyone that looks healthy enough and then see who makes it through the trials? That could work, but it's not what we are told about how the Chapters recruit, though. Most of them, anyways - I think the Salamanders do get them when they're a little younger, and based on a different set of requirements, but then use them as apprentice smiths until they're old enough for implantation.

That´s how they used to work at least and some still do.
Most still use vast numbers of applicants and weed them out step by step and take the few that remain in the end. Amongst those are statistically speaking, the most quick witted and strongest. Then its just a matter of mathematics if a real "hero" emerges from one of these.

The Blood Angels? I just read their article, and had to blink as I read about the radiation bit.
Another thing I didn't know. I really need to finish reading their latest Codex.

Yeah, imagine, taking polluted, glowing mutants as initiates. Talk about geneseed remaking things.
The one and only thing (logically speaking) that is really needed for a kid is to prove he has the sheer bloody minded determination and control over fear/pain in order to be made into a scout. forget muscles and intellect, the geneseed fixes that for you so it seems.

the Emperor wills that Harker is badder than a marine.

...but of course he does

Cuz his Heavy Bolters a named gun "PAYBACK"

Well now that there is this thread, I know that GW will release a FAQ that will now weaken Harker to the level lower than a scout marine. We all know that GW will never let a common man be better than their flagship ultra marines.

Pyriel- wrote:Not really, non militant sisters are far from the military template, they are actually scholars.

"The original Daughters of the Emperor were more than a community of warrior-women; they devoted themselves to a wide range of disciplines, through which, they believed they could better serve the God-Emperor of Mankind. These disciplines ranged from scholastic study and philosophical debate to medical care, and many of these traditions have survived in one form or another into the post-Age of Apostasy Adepta Sororitas."

"As the Orders are primarily based together at one of these two sites the Sisterhood as a whole is a far more homogenous organisation than many other institutions of the Imperium, such as the Adeptus Astartes or the Imperial Guard. Though Sisters spend many long hours in solitude or training, they are nonetheless part of a wider organisation than their own Order, and for this reason see themselves as members of the Adepta Sororitas as much as their own Order. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for a Sister to transfer from one Order to another, particularly in the case of a Sister who has become wounded or too old to fight transferring from an Order Militant to one of the non-militant Orders, such as the Orders Famulous or Hospitaller."
- WD #293

All Sisters, regardless of the Order they eventually end up in, are children of the Schola Progenium, where they will all undergo extensive military training and indoctrination. There is zero difference between the various progena, as a future Novice's place is chosen not before she begins this kind of training but how well she does in it. Thusly, the overlap should be considerable, and in the Inquisitor Handbook this was well-represented by having the various Militant and Non-Militant Order career paths only split off after the first few novice ranks.

Pyriel- wrote:Still, no. However I agree on the space magic but this is just something they were forced to include from the codex and tabletop.

No. Just no. Read the Codex. They specifically say that the Sisters' abilities may "seem miraculous for the unschooled".
In my opinion, this ambiguity is a rather important part of the appearance (and thus appeal) of the Sororitas. Their abilities are not "space magic" but the product of a combination of remarkable strength of will (fueled by their fanatism), a total lack of self-preservation and plain luck. All of the Acts of Faith in the tabletop can be reasonably explained. BoM broke with this ambiguity as they added stuff like the Sisters suddenly developing the ability to turn their eyes into flashlights and other silliness. This creates a whole new issue as all of this obviously requires the existence of actual "Divine Magic" within the wider setting. Which is something completely new, given that up until now, all the "magic" we have seen are actually just Warp-fueled psychic powers.
Unless, of course, you also want to ditch GW's fluff about Sisters being an anathema to said psychic powers. Personally, this just wouldn't be a version of the Sisterhood I'd find appealing. I prefer the original vision.

Also, what do you mean with "still, no"? If you wish to contradict me on something, do point it out.

Pyriel- wrote:Having a thousand sororitas in the sector is actually an extremely small number and as such the (skill) comparison to the millions of guardsmen is pure ridicule.

"An extremely small number"? That Preceptory of the Bloody Rose means that a whopping ~20% of an entire Major Order is present in the Calixis Sector. And there are only six such Orders in the entire galaxy! And that's not even all.

I'm not sure how large you think the Adepta Sororitas are, but if we were to go by GW fluff, their 2E Codex actually gave us detailed numbers of the six Major Orders Militant. The only unknown constant is the Minor Orders, but seeing how they average at around a hundred members each and far more spread out and considering who gets mentioned in GW's battle fluff all the time, it's clear that the Major Orders are playing the lead role throughout the Imperium. Much of this would, of course, simply have to do with their size and independence - a Minor Order's forces are simply not sufficient to engage in large scale conflict, which is why they usually see themselves limited to local purges, escort and guard duties or Inquisitorial assistance.

Anyways, look at this chart, then look at this chart and compare the numbers of Space Marines to the numbers of Battle Sisters. You see what I mean?

Pyriel- wrote:Marines actually outnumber the sisters in the sector so what did you expect, sisters being more unique then astartes despite being sponsored by the second biggest and most rich organization in the entire Imperium?
Damn, you sound like Melissias stealth account

I think you know little about the Adepta Sororitas, and you know little about the interpretations of both Melissia and me. The two of us have actually argued in the past about this very topic, for her estimation of their numbers is much closer to your claim than mine.

By the way, there's even less Storm Troopers than there are Battle Sisters. Sometimes, the level of power simply does not equal the level of distribution.

Pyriel- wrote:Single stormtroopers attached in squads makes sense from a casualty point of view. Depleted or new squads would get the best tutoring and thus be brought up in efficiency faster then normally possible. Good in times of need.

That's how it is explained in the Only War book, and it makes sense. Until you look deeper at GW's own fluff on the subject.
Storm Troopers are trained for high mobility insertion, that's why their regiment is one of the few with their own Valkyries. I'm sure they could show people a trick or two, but at the end of the day, having a Storm Trooper in a footslogger or tank brigade is like putting a surgeon into a butchery. It is obvious that FFG went for this option solely because they wanted Storm Troopers to be a viable class outside pure ST squads, though I think they could have achieved the same result more elegantly. For example by saying that the ST is actually the sole survivor of his team, and he temporarily sticks around the other PCs for the duration of the campaign when he'll be recalled. Or alternatively, simply have them not be Storm Troopers but Grenadiers. Almost the same thing with a different name, and allowing for much more freedom as these guys actually differ from regiment to regiment so you can come up with all sorts of crazy stuff, including an "exchange program" where you put one of them as mentor or team leader into a squad of normal troops.

Pyriel- wrote:Not at all, it happens with everything, civvies are scaled up, marines down etc etc.
Besides if you want to talk pure bolters then yes, there are differences between bolters and bolters

How exactly are "civvies scaled up" when a "civilian" cal .75 armour-piercing explosive shell has the same negligible effect you just bemoaned? Are you certain you're not a little biased there? I also don't see how Marines can be scaled down when they are provided a resilience so greatly conflicting GW's fluff.
And yes, there are differences between bolters and bolters - but not in the damage they do. A caliber .75 explosive bolt is a caliber .75 explosive bolt. Simple as that. *If* you want to follow GW's fluff on the subject.

Pyriel- wrote:There ARE after all only one marine per planet in the imperium contrary to the millions of guardsmen. If that is not "elite" then I dont really know what is.

Why do you have to equate "elite" to "godlike"?
There's only 10.000 Storm Troopers in the galaxy. Man, that must mean they are so much more badass than the Astartes!

I just can't follow you there. Perhaps it's because I generally prefer the more "down-to-earth" fluff I am used from having read all those GW books.

Pyriel- wrote:So...in exactly what codex are 10 marines overrun by 180 childr...I mean grots again?

Come again? You brought up the grots, you tell me what you mean by it.

Pyriel- wrote:Latest example in our group was the guardsmen specializing in melee (stormtrooper something). We pitted him against a black legion marine - no problems what so ever, the marine died, then against several world bearers, still no problem. When the accolytes finish the level climb in the DH book and are halfway up the ascention book, psychers or not, they are basically immune to space marines since skill, strenght and toughness are all far beyond the poor space marine who only has an unnatural trait going for him in two characteristics and that is not enough.

Explain. I just don't buy it. Regardless of how well a character can dodge, evasions are still limited per turn. And regardless of how many XP you put into Strength or Toughness, humans cap out at a lower level than (C)SMs.
What weapons and armour were your Acolytes carrying, exactly? How were your Word Bearers equipped?

Pyriel- wrote:A thunder hammer or fist will pretty much do any marine in if the accolyte put enough xp into WS and AG.

Ah, rare examples of weapons that can actually pose a threat to FFG's Marines. And for some reason that weapon is still weaker than the DW version. I still don't see the problem, though - what were the enemy NPCs doing, exactly? Even their crappiest weapons should have been able to dish out significant damage against the players. Also, what exactly do you expect from a guy wielding a Thunder Hammer?

Pyriel- wrote:Dunno, dunno if I even can since I´ll be going away soon and wont be able to be here on dakka as much, that would make for one helluva one sided monologue now wouldnt it

Oh, alrighty then - I'll likely still be here when you come back, maybe then.

Pyriel- wrote:Not directly but as with most fluff it is implied if you apply logic. They recruit once every generation. Now what does that tell us logically speaking you think? That they recruit once every monday morning? No, a generation is vaguely equalled to some 20 years, maybe less for a death world. Then the "handful" of survivors (again, what does that tell us, is it the same as tens of thousands or a "handful"?) are taken up and put into those vampire caskets (lol) to be transformed into marines/scouts. Then those few that survive to be full marines will, naturally, replace losses....every g e n e are a ti o n. The thing that apply to this based on gw fluff is that chapters strive to uphold their numbers of a thousand brothers thus replacements will always strive to reach that number and the chapters size will by design (replacements) be made to be as stable and as close to a thousand as possible (on average). Now apply logic to this and what number of average casualties per year do you end up with?

Not a bad train of thought - nice research.
In context with the remaining fluff this also tells me that the Blood Angels seem to go into battle very rarely, compared to other Chapters. Replacing combat losses from a larger battle must take centuries for them. Then again, I guess this coult be part of the greater theme in 40k, about millennia not meaning much.

Pyriel- wrote:Bolters...aaaaah So the marine rushes in to that space hulk with no vehicle backup but a spare clip instead, now his sometimes days long fighting (as the mother ship awaits the boarders to take over the engines, or bridge or defenses) will be made possible by the usage of the incredible amount of 60 rounds. LOL Bolters as they are in all fluff, are simply an impossibility.

"A" spare clip? I think I've read something about 3 once. Could've been in the Inquisitor RPG material.

Pyriel- wrote:Modern day special forces some times carry 1000 rounds and often around 300 for non support guys and even that is calculated to last only one or two engagements...not gakking 30 rounds!!

1.000? Where did you read that? You realise that this is 15 kilograms in bullets and clips alone? Maybe if a Delta Force team goes into the jungles for a week, but you can hardly relate this to a mission into a Space Hulk that is supposed to last a few hours, tops. A vest usually has pouches for about 4-8 magazines (8 if you put two in a pouch); I don't really see soldiers just stuffing extra ammo into their backpack unless they know they'll be out in the field for a while.
Also, don't forget that Marines excel in close combat. This is actually the area where they dominate.

Pyriel- wrote:Hmm, that is a hard one, I dont know...maybe gakking "logical" bolters that actually work with the way these super soldiers are supposed to wage war?

You mean by self-producing their ammunition? Not sure the IoM has invented Star Trek replicators yet.
Boltguns are just the best there is for this job. If you're concerned about ammunition, the alternative would be a lasweapon - yet to achieve comparable firepower you'd have to go for a backpack-powered hellgun, but then you'd get to ammunition problems again ... vicious cycle!

Pyriel- wrote:Not in the FFG rules they arent, hehe.
Toned down, remember?

I thought we were discussing the tabletop and its fluff here.
In the RPGs, yes, weapons are toned down because players would otherwise complain about getting onehitkilled all the time. And just in case you forgot, this applies not only to Space Marine weapons.
Or rather ... no, it's not that the weapons were toned down, but rather that all the characters were beefed up. In real life there is no such thing as a Toughness Bonus completely negating a knifeslice, or characters having hit points which magically soak any damage before you actually get an injury.
The Inquisitor RPG did it a bit better, I think. There, characters don't have hitpoints at all, and Toughness Bonus only works as a buffer in-between Critical levels. A bit deadlier, but also a little more realistic.

Lungpickle wrote:Cuz his Heavy Bolters a named gun "PAYBACK"

Wait, for real now? I must've missed that. Nice.

 martin74 wrote:
Well now that there is this thread, I know that GW will release a FAQ that will now weaken Harker to the level lower than a scout marine. We all know that GW will never let a common man be better than their flagship ultra marines.

Tell that to Yarrik

It's a game mechanic. It would seem ridiculous if they acknowledged that a special character whose entire point was strength was only as strong as a nameless infantryman from another army.

"The original Daughters of the Emperor were more than a community of warrior-women; they devoted themselves to a wide range of disciplines, through which, they believed they could better serve the God-Emperor of Mankind. These disciplines ranged from scholastic study and philosophical debate to medical care, and many of these traditions have survived in one form or another into the post-Age of Apostasy Adepta Sororitas."

"As the Orders are primarily based together at one of these two sites the Sisterhood as a whole is a far more homogenous organisation than many other institutions of the Imperium, such as the Adeptus Astartes or the Imperial Guard. Though Sisters spend many long hours in solitude or training, they are nonetheless part of a wider organisation than their own Order, and for this reason see themselves as members of the Adepta Sororitas as much as their own Order. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for a Sister to transfer from one Order to another, particularly in the case of a Sister who has become wounded or too old to fight transferring from an Order Militant to one of the non-militant Orders, such as the Orders Famulous or Hospitaller."
- WD #293

All Sisters, regardless of the Order they eventually end up in, are children of the Schola Progenium, where they will all undergo extensive military training and indoctrination. There is zero difference between the various progena, as a future Novice's place is chosen not before she begins this kind of training but how well she does in it. Thusly, the overlap should be considerable, and in the Inquisitor Handbook this was well-represented by having the various Militant and Non-Militant Order career paths only split off after the first few novice ranks.

First of all not all subtle options of various orders are or can be translated into rules. We dont have guardsmen on the tabletop with BS4 an WS4 amongst a squad of normal guardsmen with BS3 just because in reality there are bound to be really grizzled old veteran guardsmen mixed in here and there amongst normal beguinner guards.

Second: Old, millenia old structures of the daughters of the emperor cant be used to justify things with the sisters of battle of "today" as all organisations change.
We dont see the inquisition today being the same as it was back when the Man himself started it.

So all in all this is a moot point if soem sisters overlap or not etc.

No. Just no. Read the Codex. They specifically say that the Sisters' abilities may "seem miraculous for the unschooled".
In my opinion, this ambiguity is a rather important part of the appearance (and thus appeal) of the Sororitas. Their abilities are not "space magic" but the product of a combination of remarkable strength of will (fueled by their fanatism), a total lack of self-preservation and plain luck. All of the Acts of Faith in the tabletop can be reasonably explained. BoM broke with this ambiguity as they added stuff like the Sisters suddenly developing the ability to turn their eyes into flashlights and other silliness. This creates a whole new issue as all of this obviously requires the existence of actual "Divine Magic" within the wider setting. Which is something completely new, given that up until now, all the "magic" we have seen are actually just Warp-fueled psychic powers.
Unless, of course, you also want to ditch GW's fluff about Sisters being an anathema to said psychic powers.

Nope.
As you said yourself:
"seem miraculous to the uncshooled".

As in many instances of fluff a simple force field when activated will be seen as a miracle and protection by the divine by the 99.99% of primitive, superstitious populace.

As for the fluff on sisters being anathema to psychic powers I dont take that seriously. Their faith is anathema to a certain degree to the demonic but that´s all. As for the anti psycher thing is is simple tech and wargear suited to catch and battle psychers (it´s even represented in the inq wargear options in various codexes).

Also, what do you mean with "still, no"? If you wish to contradict me on something, do point it out.

Dont remember, I do have a life and job and so on and as you might have noticed I havent even been able to pop in here to write a reply until today

"An extremely small number"? That Preceptory of the Bloody Rose means that a whopping ~20% of an entire Major Order is present in the Calixis Sector. And there are only six such Orders in the entire galaxy! And that's not even all.

Fluff evolve, fluff do contradict and fluff is subjected to personal filters various authors have, I know that, you know that so what´s the problem?
I never stated that fluff is not contradicting. You should try the imperial armour crap for some good laughs though

I'm not sure how large you think the Adepta Sororitas are, but if we were to go by GW fluff, their 2E Codex actually gave us detailed numbers of the six Major Orders Militant.

Moot point. Backing a light year in order to prove a point is pretty much pointless.
How about me going even further back and telling you that all space marines are simple criminals, Guilliman was a normal guardsman general and the space wolves super fortress, "the fang" was just a sandy collection of buildings that looked like a worn down foreign legionnary outpost on a small mountain top?

Plus, I claim all these to be true fluff simply because they predate your 2E argumentation.

Thus...how long back do you want to take your fluff arguments?

Stay on target and dont deviate to much or else we can scrap this discussion right away.

The only unknown constant is the Minor Orders, but seeing how they average at around a hundred members each and far more spread out and considering who gets mentioned in GW's battle fluff all the time, it's clear that the Major Orders are playing the lead role throughout the Imperium. Much of this would, of course, simply have to do with their size and independence - a Minor Order's forces are simply not sufficient to engage in large scale conflict, which is why they usually see themselves limited to local purges, escort and guard duties or Inquisitorial assistance.

Could be as simple as their numbers having been upped a great lot by the year very last year in the calendar.
The church does have the resources without even having to blink.

Anyways, look at this chart, then look at this chart and compare the numbers of Space Marines to the numbers of Battle Sisters. You see what I mean?

Are you joking or do you take me for a complete imbecile?
You are showing me how many various forces were taking place in a certain battle and this is supposed to be some sort of proof?

Let me counter this with something equally ridiculous:
There are 500 000 swedes in gothenburg this year and the city has 600 000 people living there...this thus means there are 5 billion swedes in the world since the world consists of 6 billion people.
Brilliant logic.

According to you there are zero space marines in the Imperium as long as I can show you some chart that rabbles up all the guard regiments that took place during a certain battle where no space marines took part in (nor sisters).
lol

I think you know little about the Adepta Sororitas, and you know little about the interpretations of both Melissia and me. The two of us have actually argued in the past about this very topic, for her estimation of their numbers is much closer to your claim than mine.

Had you actually known what she believes you would be very quiet about her and sisters. We had our debates way before we even joined this forum.
According to her sisters are more skilled then marines, should be just as strong on the tabletop and also come equipped with landspeeders and...drop pods of all things.
So allow me to laugh really loud when you compare your, hers and mine take on sisters because a bigger and more biased person on that topic then her is I would say, impossible to find.

By the way, there's even less Storm Troopers than there are Battle Sisters. Sometimes, the level of power simply does not equal the level of distribution.

Mmm, right. Because you found yourself a chard showing the resources of one battle...good luck with that.

but at the end of the day, having a Storm Trooper in a footslogger or tank brigade is like putting a surgeon into a butchery.

No. At the end of the day this is just another of GWs fluff blunders.
After all our own special forces of today are attached to ragtag afghan militias in order to train and evaluate them to be able to stand on their own.
Forgot about that one did we...

Back to the topic of logic applied to guard fluff: yes having a stormtrooper leading a guard squad would be a sane thing to do. Storm troopers dont always drop out from valkyries, some times they have less dangerous duty and some times they are not even needed in a certain part of the fighting. Used as trainers in those times they would be a very valuable resource.

How exactly are "civvies scaled up" when a "civilian" cal .75 armour-piercing explosive shell has the same negligible effect you just bemoaned? Are you certain you're not a little biased there? I also don't see how Marines can be scaled down when they are provided a resilience so greatly conflicting GW's fluff.

That is just your personal take on fluff with marines being weak and having paper armour.
Canon fluff has them tough as nails, sorry.
Again, you forgot to provide me with the sources that show how a marine gets his behind kicked by 18 grots, I am still waiting and accordingly to you that shouldnt be a problem beeing how oh so weak marines are in (your) fluff.

And yes, there are differences between bolters and bolters - but not in the damage they do. A caliber .75 explosive bolt is a caliber .75 explosive bolt. Simple as that. *If* you want to follow GW's fluff on the subject.

Far from simple as you want to make it. Not in the RPG rules and not if real life logic is applied, then there is damage difference.

Why do you have to equate "elite" to "godlike"?

I´m not. Were they godlike they wouldnt die all that much. The primarchs were godlike and only a handful died in the end.
Why do you have to lower marines to simply being beefy guardsmen in heavy carapace armour when all canon fluff tells you otherwise?
Is it your heavy anti marine bias shining through here maybe

There's only 10.000 Storm Troopers in the galaxy. Man, that must mean they are so much more badass than the Astartes!

Your own logic of:
There are only 10 sisters of battle present in this fight...that must meant there are really really few of them in the whole wide galaxy, is so much better

Perhaps it's because I generally prefer the more "down-to-earth" fluff I am used from having read all those GW books.

Yep, that´s right on the spot.
To bad you choose to follow Counter and Swallow (et al) instead of GW IAs and codexes. Sad really but everyone is entitled to their own opinions about fluff, it´s part of the fun in this hobby.

Come again? You brought up the grots, you tell me what you mean by it.

No, you brought up marine power levels on the tabletop being close or the same as "real fluff" marines. Ergo: 18 grots kill a marine, a power level you also hinted about mentioning other "novels" that share this take on fluff.
Thus AGAIN, I ask you to provide proof that your take is how it is, where in canon fluff are marines so weak that police officers kick their butt 2:1, lightly armed hive militia pose lethal danger to marines and medeval cavalry armed with wooden and metal melee weapons can cut down terminators.
And please dont flee from this by simply claiming you dont know what canon fluff is.

Simply reading how a kid becomes a space wolf would put all noting of "weak" out the window but you still stand here claiming that tabletop fluff is basically how marines are.
I simply lack words to express my total lack of comprehention for this kind of reasoning so lets just agree to disagree on pretty much everything shall we?
Continuing this debate with such different takes on fluff is not only pointless but also a waste of time.

We could start a how-does-bolters-work-from-a-scientific-perspective thread instead and maybe something better will come out of it.

Explain. I just don't buy it. Regardless of how well a character can dodge, evasions are still limited per turn. And regardless of how many XP you put into Strength or Toughness, humans cap out at a lower level than (C)SMs.
What weapons and armour were your Acolytes carrying, exactly? How were your Word Bearers equipped?

It takes so few xp to beef up the stats of a human accolyte vs the huge amounts to beef up a marine that in due time the starting bonus a marine gets is not only overtaken but completely massacred.

A marine is also rarely found with access to lightning attack and swift attack and even if the have those, depending on what rules are followed (DH, DW etc) the dodge grants different amounts of saves from attacks from one source per turn.
Meaning if there is only one accolyte vs one marine the accolyte, if he has enough xp will simply dance around the marine who will have worse WS, fewer attacks and far far worse dodge then the accolyte. Initiative is also far easier to obtain for the accolyte then the marine (double I).
Mathematically speaking the accolyte will dodge so much more and hit so much more then the marine that the toughness and armour bonuses wont matter much.

In our latest example the gear was:
Accolyte: carpace armour, thunderhammer.
Marine: Power sword, power armour.

Here I was, the GM who wanted to add some danger to the stormtrooper player and a chaos marine challenged him (thinking he was a cultist leader) on a duel...and the embarassing thing was seeing the stormtrooper promptly beating the marine unconscious.

As I said, we have been playing pretty much on a constant basis ever since the fist DH rule book got out (have you?) and the general consensus in our and two other gaming groups here is that in high level (ascention) gaming nobody, n o b o d y, wants to play marine characters because tehy are simply treated like easy killable noobs that must always stay at the back while the accolyte group handles big threats like deamon princes, possessed etc.

Oh, alrighty then - I'll likely still be here when you come back, maybe then.

Would be fun but lets change topic, this extremely different take on fluffs starts to irritate me. There is no point in this any more.

Not a bad train of thought - nice research.
In context with the remaining fluff this also tells me that the Blood Angels seem to go into battle very rarely, compared to other Chapters. Replacing combat losses from a larger battle must take centuries for them. Then again, I guess this coult be part of the greater theme in 40k, about millennia not meaning much.

Thanks
No, since nowhere is it stated that the BAs avoid combat then the above, taken directly from the IA, must mean that tehy really die (on average) on very rare occasions. Logic dictates that this is due to them being tough as nails and having good wargear/protection. Having weak Ben Counter marines would simply not compute.

Further on reading the SW IA the same conclusions can be reached. The fang doesnt simply team with long lines of applicants having made the continent spanning tansformation trekk, no, this is a rare happening that sees the marines gather in numbers to "greet" the newly arrived initiate. These rare initiates then must survive the implantation and training process to even reach a pack of blood claws and over the long years and decades the blood claws and others take losses those slowly arriving initiates have to perfctly balance the losses taken with new marines added...and we all know space wolves dont avoid battles lol

Speaking of novels, just as there are those that treat marines basically like cannon fodder there are also those that elevate the power levels of marines far far above what the IAs state to the point of comical ridicule. Some novels have all fluff torn to shreads in order to highlite just how godlike "our" protagonists are.

"A" spare clip? I think I've read something about 3 once. Could've been in the Inquisitor RPG material.

Not only that but the sheer weight of bolt rounds as they are in the fluff is just beyond ridiculous.
The weapon as described is simply put the single most ineffective battle field personal weapon system ever created by mankind.

1.000? Where did you read that?

SEAL machinegunner.

You realise that this is 15 kilograms in bullets and clips alone?

Now up those bullets to .75 cal and see how much they would weigh

Also, don't forget that Marines excel in close combat. This is actually the area where they dominate.

Ah but here´s the issue...what about recon operations? There are tons of fluff of marines being behind enemy lines for ages.
Also, what if the marines unit is beyond resupply range?

You mean by self-producing their ammunition? Not sure the IoM has invented Star Trek replicators yet.
Boltguns are just the best there is for this job. If you're concerned about ammunition, the alternative would be a lasweapon - yet to achieve comparable firepower you'd have to go for a backpack-powered hellgun, but then you'd get to ammunition problems again ... vicious cycle!

I´d go for energy over hard rounds any day.
If mortal hellguns are AP3 in the TT then how hard would it be to up them to S4 for a marine sized version?
Also energy can be recharged over time, so all your 1000 shots are spent, let the power armour backpack recharge them or even the sun can do it given time behind enemy lines.

Whereas your 60 bolt rounds are spent in the first 5 minutes after contact with that roaming ork warband and now you still have 2 more months behind enemy lines and you are forced to fight with small rocks and combat knives. Logical indeed.

In the RPGs, yes, weapons are toned down because players would otherwise complain about getting onehitkilled all the time. And just in case you forgot, this applies not only to Space Marine weapons.

That´s what I have been saying all along.
Besides all the weapons and all characters are equalized to a certain degree not to create to much "unfairness" and as I already pointed out, this so called "balance" evaporated up there in the high xp bracket gameplay.

We even have to retort to house rules adding weapon damage if there is unspent Pen values.

Pyriel- wrote:First of all not all subtle options of various orders are or can be translated into rules. We dont have guardsmen on the tabletop with BS4 an WS4 amongst a squad of normal guardsmen with BS3 just because in reality there are bound to be really grizzled old veteran guardsmen mixed in here and there amongst normal beguinner guards.

Actually, we can and we do. There are specific rules for pure Cadian regiments in the Codex Eye of Terror and there are rules for pure Catachan regiments in the Codex Catachans. The Codex IG represents "mixed" regiments whose cultural identity has been diluted by the influx of replacements from other units.
Furthermore, these "subtle options" exist in both the IH as well as the BoM - IH just did a better job at it because arguably a Sister Hospitaller's novitiate will be somewhat more similar to that of a Battle Sister than a Adept's first day at the Adeptus Terra librarium. I don't even know how this can be put into question.

Also, you are contradicting yourself, considering that you have just claimed that "non militant sisters are far from the military template, they are actually scholars" - and now you're telling me there shouldn't be a difference?
I really don't mind if you forget bits of what you talked about earlier (especially as it's been quite a few days since your last post), for I can have memory blackouts as well. However, making a u-turn like this makes me think you don't actually have a solid position on the subject but just go on disputing whatever I say.

Pyriel- wrote:Second: Old, millenia old structures of the daughters of the emperor cant be used to justify things with the sisters of battle of "today" as all organisations change.
We dont see the inquisition today being the same as it was back when the Man himself started it.

"It has been observed that the different Adepta Sororitas Orders do not display any great divergence from one another in terms of combat doctrine or organisation, as do many Space Marine Chapters and Imperial Guard regiments. Such differences arise, in the case of the Astartes, from the strong genetic link with the Chapter's Primarch or in the case of the Imperial Guard, as a result of combat doctrines unique to the culture from which the regiment was raised. The Adepta Sororitas can trace the routes of its doctrines to a single source - the San Leor temple of the Daughters of the Emperor - and their teachings have remained largely unchanged since that time."
- WD#293, the Liber Sororitas

Do you have any fluff to back up your position or is it all just personal opinion?

Pyriel- wrote:Nope. As you said yourself: "seem miraculous to the uncshooled"

You're contradicting yourself again...
To refreshen your memory: You were claiming that the Sisters really do pull off some fancy space magic with their Acts of Faith, to which I countered that it's not actually miracles, it just looks that way to the superstitious.

Pyriel- wrote:As for the fluff on sisters being anathema to psychic powers I dont take that seriously. Their faith is anathema to a certain degree to the demonic but that´s all. As for the anti psycher thing is is simple tech and wargear suited to catch and battle psychers (it´s even represented in the inq wargear options in various codexes).

Well, that's your personal opinion, but not what GW says. If it were some kind of wargear it would be mentioned or at least hinted at somewhere, and surely not exclusive to Battle Sisters alone.

Furthermore, from GW's own Inqusitor RPG rules:
"Acts of Faith are not counted as psychic powers, and so may not be nullified."
"No Adepta Sororitas character will ever have psychic powers of any sort."

Pyriel- wrote:Fluff evolve, fluff do contradict and fluff is subjected to personal filters various authors have, I know that, you know that so what´s the problem?

No problem, aside from you attempting to force your preferred version of the fluff (FFG's) over mine, when I'm complaining that the "old" numbers in Dark Heresy were far closer to GW's version than what BoM brought us after FFG took over.

Pyriel- wrote:Moot point. Backing a light year in order to prove a point is pretty much pointless. How about me going even further back and telling you that all space marines are simple criminals, Guilliman was a normal guardsman general and the space wolves super fortress, "the fang" was just a sandy collection of buildings that looked like a worn down foreign legionnary outpost on a small mountain top? Plus, I claim all these to be true fluff simply because they predate your 2E argumentation.

How is that a moot point? You do realise there's a difference between GW retconning their own stuff and somebody else doing that? Also note that GW still sticks to these old numbers:

"The Adepta Sororitas are divided into several major Orders Militant, the fighting strength of each numbering several thousand warriors."
- 6th edition Rulebook

Note how it says "thousands", not "tens of thousands", "hundreds of thousands", "millions" etc.

Pyriel- wrote:Thus...how long back do you want to take your fluff arguments?

Me? My personal policy is: anything by GW is valid until contradicted by GW. Regardless of how far back it goes.
Just for laughs, 1st Edition fluff about the Adepta Sororitas was confirmed as "still valid" by the time the Witch Hunter Codex was released. Says so in the designer's notes.

Pyriel- wrote:Stay on target and dont deviate to much or else we can scrap this discussion right away.

Hey, it's you who was branching off, I reacted because you keep tossing me things I cannot let stand uncommented.
For what it's worth, the one thing we do agree on - that officially there is no "true" fluff that trumps anything else - pretty much provides a good finisher for the whole debate, as it renders everything we say a matter of personal preferences.

Pyriel- wrote:Could be as simple as their numbers having been upped a great lot by the year very last year in the calendar.
The church does have the resources without even having to blink.

We can talk about fluff, or we can talk about your personal opinion - but I'm not sure what worth that would have.

Pyriel- wrote:Are you joking or do you take me for a complete imbecile? You are showing me how many various forces were taking place in a certain battle and this is supposed to be some sort of proof?
Let me counter this with something equally ridiculous: There are 500 000 swedes in gothenburg this year and the city has 600 000 people living there...this thus means there are 5 billion swedes in the world since the world consists of 6 billion people. Brilliant logic. According to you there are zero space marines in the Imperium as long as I can show you some chart that rabbles up all the guard regiments that took place during a certain battle where no space marines took part in (nor sisters).

Considering that those are the two biggest fights of the entire Imperium at the time, I do believe they give a fairly good impression of how many resources the various organisations would be able to contribute, yes.

It's common sense, and I think you need something better than so obviously unfitting comparisons to counter it.

Pyriel- wrote:[...] and also come equipped with landspeeders and...drop pods of all things.

You mean these drop pods?

Pyriel- wrote:So allow me to laugh really loud when you compare your, hers and mine take on sisters because a bigger and more biased person on that topic then her is I would say, impossible to find.

Perhaps, but she knows more about the Sisters than you do.

Pyriel- wrote:Mmm, right. Because you found yourself a chard showing the resources of one battle...good luck with that.

Two battles. The biggest battles of M41.
Do you have any charts? No? Didn't think so.

Pyriel- wrote:No. At the end of the day this is just another of GWs fluff blunders.

Says your personal opinion again. There must be a lot of "GW fluff blunders" to you. Or maybe it's just that GW does, after all, present a different version of 40k than the one you have adopted? One inspired more by various outsourced products such as the new RPG or various novels?

Pyriel- wrote:After all our own special forces of today are attached to ragtag afghan militias in order to train and evaluate them to be able to stand on their own. Forgot about that one did we...

What sort of argument are you trying to make here?
"This is how we do it in the 21st century, this means that this is how it's gotta be in M41 as well!"

Pyriel- wrote:Again, you forgot to provide me with the sources that show how a marine gets his behind kicked by 18 grots, I am still waiting and accordingly to you that shouldnt be a problem beeing how oh so weak marines are in (your) fluff.

Regardless of how oh so strong Marines are in your fluff, I did actually mention the Codex: Angels of Death and its dissertation about Marine power armour, and how it is unable to completely prevent the wearer being injured by the most common small arms of the battlefields of the 41st millennium. As per the Codex, Grot weapons are comparable to lasguns, which are arguably amongst the most common weapons. I hope you see the connection.
But maybe you have some sources by yourself that state how and why a Marine should be invulnerable to those 18 grots?

Pyriel- wrote:Far from simple as you want to make it. Not in the RPG rules and not if real life logic is applied, then there is damage difference.

Which RPG rules? GW's own RPG does confer identical damage to them. It's FFG who is deviating here.
Also, what sort of "real life logic" would that be? The part where it's not a problem for a human being to use a shotgun of comparable caliber and kinetic energy discharge? Or the part that adds the potential for recoil compensation on top of this?
Damage differences require two distinct projectiles. These only exist in FFG's version of the setting, whilst GW fluff specifically points out (and I quote from the 3E 'dex) "weapons the equal of any Space Marine Chapter". Deal with it.

Pyriel- wrote:I´m not. Were they godlike they wouldnt die all that much. The primarchs were godlike and only a handful died in the end. Why do you have to lower marines to simply being beefy guardsmen in heavy carapace armour when all canon fluff tells you otherwise? Is it your heavy anti marine bias shining through here maybe

It's you who is biased, though I realise that of course you won't see it that way, just like I won't agree to your assessment.
I will point out, however, that one of your "godlike" Primarchs was defeated by a bunch of random CSMs, so perhaps you shouldn't take these things so literal.

Also, I actually feel insulted by your attempt to twist my words into something I'd never agree to. Good job.

Pyriel- wrote:

There's only 10.000 Storm Troopers in the galaxy. Man, that must mean they are so much more badass than the Astartes!

Your own logic of: There are only 10 sisters of battle present in this fight...that must meant there are really really few of them in the whole wide galaxy, is so much better

Actually, it is, considering that we usually do not compare "X present in a single location" to "X anywhere" ...

You know what, let's just stop here. I give up, it's no use pursueing this further. I could spend another hour reading the rest of your post, but I did too much already.

Because Harker is descended from Sgt. Robert Steven Savage.

 TheAngrySquig wrote:
Harker's abs have the same protection as advanced body armor from one of the most advanced races in the galaxy

Flak armour from the Imperium? Wat?

It's a combination of things. Primarily experience. He's been doing it for so long it's natural for him. I doubt a space marine is even allowed to shoot his heavy weapon on the move per the index astartes.....

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
There are hundreds of thousands of Space Marines, but there is only one Sgt Harker.

Says it all. lol

Fact: Snikrot is more badass.

Because a special character should be better than a regular trooper even if he really isn't.

The answer is simple: guardsmen are awesome, space marines are weak. Unfortunately GW can't represent this situation on the table, they had to give marines 4's in everything or nobody would play such a boring army. Fluff-wise the average guardsman is a far more dangerous opponent than a screaming idiot with a chainsword, so it's only right that a hero of the Catachans (who are superior to the average guardsman) should be able to do things no mere marine could even dream of. You should just be glad that GW has never released any Krieg characters and really made marines cry.

PS: The Horus Heresy started because the Emperor wouldn't let the primarchs join the Death Korps. The loyalists felt that they should accept their inferiority with dignity and help in whatever limited capacity they could, while Horus was outraged that the Emperor didn't love him enough and swore that if he couldn't be a guardsman then nobody could and the galaxy would burn.