Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Kilkrazy wrote:Does it not shoot low velocity bullets that are sped up by a rocket after leaving the barrel?
Correct, it does not. Because then it'd be unable to penetrate flak armor at close range.
It shoots HIGH velocity shells, which then ignite the rocket fuel after leaving the barrel to maintain speed and heading over distance.
Except that GW's Wargear book very clearly states that the projectile is shot at, and I quote, "low velocity".
Perhaps we should accept that this is a sci-fi setting, where a miniature rocket motor apparently is powerful enough to accelerate a projectile to superior speed in a split-second because of technobabble.
Well, the closest we have in the real world was the Gyrojet, and that left "the barrel with low energy, and accelerates until the fuel is exhausted at about 60 feet (20 m), at which point the rocket has a velocity of about 1250 feet per second (FPS), slightly greater than Mach one". That's within 60 feet!
The point is that bolt rounds are high velocity shells after they have left the barrel, not before - bolt guns are intended to be low recoil weapons, otherwise why bother having the round rocket-propelled? If recoil wasn't a problem you'd just make it a bloody great conventional round and sod any puny human who tries to fire it.
"Bloody typical, they've gone back to metric without telling us."
"As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh haven't you?"
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
farmersboy wrote:The point is that bolt rounds are high velocity shells after they have left the barrel, not before
Except that doesn't explain the recoil, which is canon.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/08/16 18:23:59
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
farmersboy wrote:The point is that bolt rounds are high velocity shells after they have left the barrel, not before
Except that doesn't explain the recoil, which is canon.
Ah, that depends on which canon you're going by...
"Bloody typical, they've gone back to metric without telling us."
"As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh haven't you?"
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
farmersboy wrote:Ah, that depends on which canon you're going by...
The recent canon, not the ancient stuff which has long since been superceded.
If I wanted to use ancient stuff, I'd go around saying Space Marines are afraid of Sisters of Battle who go around casually killing off Space Marine chapters that prove disloyal.
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
If we're going to go that route, then it doesn't matter whether or not they fire cased, caseless, gyrojet, autocannon or mini-Terminators with hand grenades, as there is no "canonical" answer... if we're assuming that "everything is canon".
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
I'm aware that those comments aren't exactly common knowledge - half a year ago I was going by the "it's all canon" assumption myself. Yet that cannot be true when one book says something and another says the opposite (Aaron's blog was quite enlightening on this), so I went hunting for actual citations.
The "it's all canon" thing is, in my opinion, just as much hearsay as half the fans claiming Marines are 8+ feet (despite Jes Goodwin saying otherwise) or the BA having gotten their full book just "a few months" after the WD 'dex.
Bottom line, when even Andy Hoare - who is currently writing for FFG, if I may add - says that that "there's no obligation to adhere to a 'true' representation of the setting", then that pretty much negates those products' value as reliable sources of information for a uniform representation of the setting.
The caseless thing is very well and debunked by now, though. There ARE caseless bolter ammunitions, IIRC, but they're special ammo.
Evocatus wrote:Wow. Things just got super serious in here.
There's a good reason why Lynata has been on my ignore list for a while now..
KamikazeCanuck wrote:AFAIKGW has said it's all canon.
Pretty much. GW doesn't entirely care-- they like it when it's vague. Still, even GW has its retcons. Squats ,for example.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/08/16 21:14:25
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
Yep, that's the thing... we can only go with "canon" established by latest-edition-of-something-related-to-the-topic, but that can have it's own problems.
What happens when two books, identical edition, print conflicting information? Is the pub date of the book the trump card? That seems, to me, to make the most sense, though given the way GW publishes books, might not be entirely accurate.
I would pass it off to "maybe in your world..." explanations, as different GMs/Refs/Players/Groups are going to have different interpretations of rules and fluff.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Psienesis wrote:If we're going to go that route, then it doesn't matter whether or not they fire cased, caseless, gyrojet, autocannon or mini-Terminators with hand grenades, as there is no "canonical" answer... if we're assuming that "everything is canon".
Only if you can find a recent example of them firing mini-terminators with hand grenades.....
Overall I think people sometimes have the wrong attitude about canonicity. 40K is an expansive enough universe were almost anything is possible. We should be thinking about about ways how it is possible for things to work rather than how they contradict (much of which is blown out of propartion) anyway.
Quite so - which is why I personally like to come up with "excuses" on how things can be made to fit. Actually, judging from the comments of Andy Hoare, Aaron Dembski-Bowden and Gav Thorpe or that interview with George Mann, that degree of freedom and artistic license is quite appreciated.
Andy Hoare wrote:I understand that Tolkien took decades developing his setting before publishing the stories set within it, and still made mistooks. 40k is an ever-evolving setting designed first and foremost to house a really cool game, and as such things don’t always mesh or translate, or they (actually very occasionally) get changed outright. I know which I’d rather be reading and writing
Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote:Within the possibility of endless interpretation lies the potential for freedom. What matters is respecting the source material, contributing to it, and sticking to the theme. And that ties right back into my first column, because no matter who’s writing the details, 40K has some unalterable themes, etched in the stoniest of stone. They’re the key. They’re what matter most.
Get the atmosphere right, and you’re halfway there.
I admit I'd still wish for a stricter "control" over the setting and for a more "solid" background, but I can see the points of these authors, too.
What is a problem, of course, is when some of these interpretations outright clash with the aforementioned "unalterable themes" - and, personally, I feel this is the case with DH's treatment of bolt weaponry. Be it because they are far more prevalent there than GW fluff makes it sound like, or because the Sisters get robbed of the equipment equality that was mentioned time and again throughout the years in the studio material.
I wish for tighter editrial control too. And I'm going to assume Andy Hoare purposely misspelled mistake there
Anyways, the bolter thing is not one of these issues. It makes no sense that Astartes would use the same bolters as people. Their fingers wouldn't even fit in the trigger guard. It simply makes sense that humans would have guns made ergonomically for them and Astartes for them.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:It simply makes sense that humans would have guns made ergonomically for them and Astartes for them.
Absolutely. I'm "just" complaining about the supposed (going by some of the licensed sources) inequality in terms of efficiency, given that GW material specifically pointed out that the weapons of Astartes and Sororitas are equal.
I'd also expect most if not all Astartes patterns to be somewhat larger (though not by much, given that size differences are not as pronounced as often assumed - see the earlier remark about Marine heights) and sport the aforementioned additional armour and/or contain a few gadgets that are not present in the basic models.
You know, like the WH Codex pointed out the differences between Marine and Sororitas power armour: same armoured protection, but Astartes get more tools.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/08/16 22:46:11
In DH, anyway, the Deathwatch standard-issue boltgun is leagues superior to the standard-issue Godwyn-pattern boltgun the Sisters carry.
The DWSM from DH are, basically, Fluff-Marines made playable characters. Yes, you can play a Sister, too, and get some really nifty abilities (not just the Faith-based powers, but just regular talents and such)... a Sister is no match for a Space Marine in any reasonable manner, and under no "regular" combat scenario would ever be able to defeat a Marine, unless we're talking Canoness vs scrub-Marine... and even then, it will be a hell of a battle.
Maybe if the Marine were naked, and asleep, and the Sister in a sound-silencing cone, with a battleship strapped to her arm... then, maybe...
That said, with the canonicity as fluid as it apparently is... well, we can have Chaos BTs, Daemon Prince GKs, Termies doing kung-fu backflips, and Sisters throwing themselves onto the chainswords of passing Space Marines... with no one really being able to say anything about it, outside of personal opinion.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:I see. Surely, we are not talking about that big of a difference? Couldn't it simply be attributed to a higher muzzle velocity on a bigger gun?
Ruleswise, the difference in FFG's RPG is about 33% of raw damage. On average, a "civilian" bolter would do ~10 damage, the Astartes one would do ~15. Just for a fun comparison, lasguns do ~8, which means the civilian bolters are closer to las weapons than the bling the Astartes get tossed, at least in terms of raw damage (there are still differences in armour penetration, should the target wear armour).
The civilian bolter profile gives us a peak damage of 15 damage with a penetration of 5, totaling 20 damage against a target wearing power armour. Unfortunately, the broken Unnatural toughness and the superior armour of a Marine makes him pretty much invulnerable to this, so unless you're rolling a 10 and do a critical hit, you can't even wound one, bolter or no. That would pretty much negate the Sororitas' ability to engage rogue Marine Chapters, which has been part of their job description for years.
Those are just balancing issues preventing proper crossover games, though. A larger problem is that this disparity is also deeply rooted in the game's fluff, specifically in certain texts of the DH and DW core rulebooks establishing that Marine equipment is >>> anyone else, regardless of whether you're a Lord Inquisitor, a senior Mechanicus Tech-Priest or the Prioress of Ophelia VII. Which clearly contradicts what GW themselves have written on the subject.
The cause of this is likely a general problem within the game system in that characteristics advances can be gained too fast, forcing Astartes into even higher levels to maintain a difference, and in the so-called Unnatural traits simply doubling one such characteristic, which makes for a pretty steep progression and results in naked Space Marines being tougher than the armour they wear.
It may also be certain authors' influence on the game's development, though, for Dan Abnett is notorious for making his Marines much larger than Jes Goodwin had originally defined them. It could well be that this played a part, too.
As far as muzzle velocity is concerned, according to GW the projectiles get shot at low velocity and only "speed up" after they left the barrel by using their rocket motors. The caliber remains the same, too, and we have official images of how a Marine bolt projectile looks like, and they are quite short in general (so you can't really go and say that Marine bolts are simply twice as long or some such stuff, because then everyone else would shoot balls).
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/08/16 23:12:24
Why does this canon, non-canon thing come up so often? I'm fairly certain that we all agree that codices and the like take precedence. Black Library books simple offer a lot more in-depth information, so they're useful for discussions about our games of toy-soldiers. It's getting to the point that I'm considering ignoring anything to do with the argument and continuing to use from Black Library regardless.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/08/16 23:32:08
Because 2 BL sources can differ on a point or topic not covered by the Codex.
At that point, who's to say which side is "correct"?
Based on what I read in a BL novel, Space Marines have pinky fingers the same size and shape of a police baton, the AdMech churns out brand-new Titans every year, and a frigate-class starship can be piloted by under 100 people.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Psienesis wrote:The DWSM from DH are, basically, Fluff-Marines made playable characters.
Actually the Deathwatch player characters start off as veterans, as generally only veterans are forwarded to the deathwatch. But a DH character of the same XP level would very likely be more talented in combat, while the marine would have better stats and biology. The Marine char and the DH char would have similar WS/BS stats most of the time-- Marines start of higher, but their stat increases cost more, and DH characters have more stat increases to purchase (most of which are quite a bit cheaper).
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/08/17 00:26:30
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
The Marine char and the DH char would have similar WS/BS stats most of the time
Maybe so, but a DH character of the same Rank isn't going to have Unnatural Strength, Unnatural Toughness, a dozen implanted biological systems, access to Astartes-class Power Armor and Weapons, or the Cohesion rating. Shoot, there is some DW gear that DH characters simply *cannot* get, regardless of Rank, if you're going strictly by-the-book.
Lynata wrote:The cause of this is likely a general problem within the game system in that characteristics advances can be gained too fast, forcing Astartes into even higher levels to maintain a difference, and in the so-called Unnatural traits simply doubling one such characteristic, which makes for a pretty steep progression and results in naked Space Marines being tougher than the armour they wear
This has been a failing of the Warhammer RPG franchise since the very beginning. At least, in this format, stats only advance by 5 points per purchase, and not 10, like they did in WHFRPG! The skin of a naked dwarf provided more defense than a suit of the stoutest platemail in the Empire!
Personally, I wish they would go with something like R.Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020 combat system. In that system, everyone had 40 "hit points", every 4 points moved you along a track rating a general sense of how wounded you were (Light, Serious, Critical, etc), once you had about 13+ points of damage, you were in danger of dying, and only the toughest of the tough could survive a "Mortal 5" wound (30+ damage, give or take).
Armor and an equivalent to the Toughness Bonus reduced damage as it does in DH, but you relied far more on your armor than you did on being a tough guy (or gal.).
In all honesty? DH should either double the AP of all armor sets and triple the dice-range of damage from weapons, or limit the TB to half the Toughness score, divided by 10. So, for example, a Toughness 65 character has a TB of 6, but under my system, it would be 3.
This keeps armor important (as the big stuff is providing you with AP you cannot really hope to meet) while still providing benefit to the really big guys (AdMech with far more ranks in The Flesh is Weak than is healthy, Ogryn, juiced-up IG...)as well as those with the Unnatural attribute talents, which would otherwise maintain their current effects (so that TB 3 becomes TB 6 again with Unnatural Toughness x2).
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Psienesis wrote:Shoot, there is some DW gear that DH characters simply *cannot* get, regardless of Rank, if you're going strictly by-the-book.
I suppose the majority of DW gear would be inaccessible due to the "Astartes" tag.
That's another miffy thing - the game doesn't even give you the chance to possibly grow strong enough like, say, a Sergeant Harker, it just says flat out no, no matter your actual characteristics. The puny Strength 20 Hive Noble has no issue whatsoever pewpewing about with his civilian bolter, but the Strength 60+ Catachan brute can't touch a Marine's pistol without that beast feeling like a fridge for him. If you put the guy into power armour, he might even surpass an unarmoured Marine Scout's Strength (if the latter rolled crappy during creation), and still he wouldn't be able to use that Scout's gun properly. The system just doesn't much sense even by itself in this regard.
I get that the game was going for bolters being more common as they are a signature weapon, but I think one single category and a general Strength requirement (like the 40+ on the Sacristan) would have been the better way. But that's just me.
Lynata wrote:Personally, I wish they would go with something like R.Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020 combat system. In that system, everyone had 40 "hit points", every 4 points moved you along a track rating a general sense of how wounded you were (Light, Serious, Critical, etc), once you had about 13+ points of damage, you were in danger of dying, and only the toughest of the tough could survive a "Mortal 5" wound (30+ damage, give or take).
Hmm, that's sort of like the Inquisitor RPG handled it, just that these stats were based on the character's Toughness - meaning they basically replaced traditional hitpoints in that surpassing one's Toughness (after armour) meant an automatic injury level. This is also an interesting way to simulate how a superior physiology would affect a game, whilst the absence of hitpoints meant injuries were more common if the character would just get shot at enough.
That anecdote from WFRP sounds bad, though.
In general, I think you're on to something about halving TB. Toughness already starts to become a problem as soon as people put on Carapace and become resistant to lasgun fire, but with Marines and their x2 bonus they just go into invul mode.
In a way, I think they didn't properly "map out" the individual character types' stats at the beginning of the game and just went building it up "on the go" - though this could also be the result of the developer team having changed during the transition from BI to FFG. Quite a number of people have noticed a "power creep" after that, and it is probably worth pointing out that the first Marine stats in the BI books gave them 2d10+0 bolters and AP8 armour, which was rather close to what other player characters used. The push to godmode did not come until DW, though the fluff texts already paved the way for them.
Anyways, if you look at the DH core rulebook, there's that neat little table outlining rough comparisons for characteristics between 1 and 100. And I think the system should have stuck with those and a 100 as an upper limit - making humans go from, say, 20 to 40 and Marines from 40 to 60, without any Unnatural traits as an additional bonus beyond this already higher range. A smaller progression means that the gap between characters will be somewhat smaller, too, which might actually open the doors for some proper crossovers like they happen in the fluff. In a way, I guess the end result would be similar to your half TB.
Err, but I guess we are digressing much from the original topic. By now it's pretty much just "what if" talk, anyways.
Psienesis wrote:Maybe so, but a DH character of the same Rank isn't going to have Unnatural Strength, Unnatural Toughness, a dozen implanted biological systems, access to Astartes-class Power Armor and Weapons, or the Cohesion rating. Shoot, there is some DW gear that DH characters simply *cannot* get, regardless of Rank, if you're going strictly by-the-book.
Go check the FAQed DW weapons.
Regardless, more likely than not, the DH characters will also have more talents and skills than the Astartes characters.
I'm not doubting that the Astartes are excellent combat characters, but they ARE rarely useful outside of combat, and humans CAN outdo them in terms of raw skill (and certainly primaris psykers can outdo librarians in terms of having more useful powers).
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
I imagine a normal human firing a bolter being something similar to this with the addition that once the round leaves the barrel it is further propelled by an additional ignition to target.
Still conjures comical images though... imagine this being full auto... lol!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/08/17 13:58:09
Frigian 582nd 
By now it's pretty much just "what if" talk, anyways.