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.

I was playing against Space Marines the other day on a swampy board and we were deciding on what will be difficult terrain... A thought popped in my head...

How do Space Marines cross terrain that cannot support weight when they weigh nearly a ton each... With that thought, an building that qualifies as a Ruin should not be able to hold a space marines weight... I know that Fluff should not get in the way of the rules but I was wondering if they have something in the fluff that would allow them to travel through a marsh or not fall through the second story floor of a boat/ruins...

Well you have to remember that buildings in the future will be way stronger to support wieght. But if your playing on a swamp you could make the land within one inch of the swamp lake dangerous terrain for SM representing quick sand.

Soft ground would suck really badly for marines. Their feet aren't much bigger than normal so their ground pressure would be huge. And for walkers (especially marine dreads). And now that I think about it, most 40K tanks have really narrow tracks.

I think it would be quite reasonable to make very swampy ground dangerous or even impassible to marines, termies, mega-nobs, walkers, etc. You may also want to make it more dangerous to tracked vehicles (e.g. imob on 1-2).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

penut the butter wrote:Well you have to remember that buildings in the future will be way stronger to support wieght. But if your playing on a swamp you could make the land within one inch of the swamp lake dangerous terrain for SM representing quick sand.

Why would buildings be stronger? On the off-chance that a marine might come by?

Different, presumably better construction methods/materials.

An average guardsmen with full kit, weighing 100 kilogram and having two feet of approx. 0.03m² each (30cm x 10cm) has a ground pressure of roughly 16,1 kN/m².

I gave the Marine some bigger boots (45cm x 15cm) and only made him 600 kilogram heavy...still, his ground pressure is at 43,6kN/m², that is 270% of the guardsmen's pressure.

I thought bigger boots would have a greater impact, but as it looks, yeah. Any kind of heavy infantry has a major disadvantage when it comes to soft ground. Don't forget the Tau battlesuits, those things look like they weigh much more than a Space Marine and their feet are rather small, too.

Hey, that could give nice tactical possibilites for different troop choices if you want to introduce this into your gameplay!

Tau using the swift kroot to infiltrate through a swamp-forest, which is impassable to the heavy Marines they are fighting...recon guardsmen advancing through wet plains at great speed, while traitor marines and their crazed cybots are having trouble to get into position for a counterattack because they sink in all the time...

...it IS stated in the rulebook somewhere that terrain can only be difficult for certain units. I think it would be really cool to have some terrain that is impassable/dangerous to most MEQs and battlesuits, while only difficult or even normal to kroot, normal orkyboz or Imperial Guard. You could have some Catachan Jungle Fighters attack a Chaos battleforce from the treeline of a swamp forest, almost not visible (camo cloaks, 3+), while the Chaos Marines can only shoot back, because any advance into the terrain of the jungle fighters would leave a big heap of them up to the shoulder pads in mud. Hm, like that.

Different, presumably better construction methods/materials.

Given the general technology state of 40K and the apparent tendency of all buildings to have two sides completely disintegrate whenever there's fighting in the area then I'd have to suggest the opposite.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Witzkatz wrote:
I thought bigger boots would have a greater impact, but as it looks, yeah.

Yep, they really don't.

I had a trip a few years ago where we arrived to find record-breaking rain. A lesson in bog-running was given to everyone and the difference between people was quite suprising. The guys who were under 60kg could skim across quite nicely. The big guys (90kg+) had no chance, even though they all had much bigger feet.

Witzkatz wrote:Don't forget the Tau battlesuits, those things look like they weigh much more than a Space Marine and their feet are rather small, too.

Yeah, but they've got jetpacks. They can essentially hover.

GW has something in their lizardman information on their site about swamps. I think something like that would be perfect for swamplands in 40k too.

Here it is:

Swamps count as difficult terrain. In addition, every model in a unit that enters a swamp must take an armour save. The more armour he wears the more at risk a warrior is, so for each armour save passed a model is removed as casualty. If a model has a Scaly Skin save, this is not counted towards this test, and models with no armour at all are nimble enough to avoid the hazard.

As someone else said they could use jumppacks. I think more realistically though they would just avoid fighting in swampy areas or develop hovering platforms to stand/fight on that would keep them out of the muck. The same question is posed for water where they would sink like a rock and would probably have some sort of instantly deployable bridge (like our armies of today already have) or rafts/etc.

The armor save for swamp-walking is a cool idea if it were changed slightly for 40k and I think things like models with invul only saves would need to be taken into account, but it could make for an interesting/unique game.

Scott-S6 wrote:Soft ground would suck really badly for marines. Their feet aren't much bigger than normal so their ground pressure would be huge. And for walkers (especially marine dreads). And now that I think about it, most 40K tanks have really narrow tracks.

I think it would be quite reasonable to make very swampy ground dangerous or even impassible to marines, termies, mega-nobs, walkers, etc. You may also want to make it more dangerous to tracked vehicles (e.g. imob on 1-2).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

penut the butter wrote:Well you have to remember that buildings in the future will be way stronger to support wieght. But if your playing on a swamp you could make the land within one inch of the swamp lake dangerous terrain for SM representing quick sand.

Why would buildings be stronger? On the off-chance that a marine might come by?

No you idiot because technology is always constantly improving. Would you want a slighty stronger building that could with stand earthquakes a little better or would you want a building that could withstand an earthquake completly?

Temper temper

In White Dwarf #296 from September 2004 there are some rules for fighting in swamps. The gist of it is a unit can only move as far as its armour save. So a guardsmen with a 5+ save can move five inches while a terminator with a 2+ can only move two inches. It also had some other stuff for vehicles and what not.

I'm really liking the swamp rules... construction of swamp terrain may be in my future...

In the Heresy novels, sorry to tired to look up citations right now, Horus leads the Luna Wolves in person against the forces who are rebelling against the emperor. Instead of finding a forset they find a swap full of soon to zombies. In the book they quickly leave the IG troops behind. The weight just presses down until it reaches bedrock or enough stuff gets compressed to create good footing.

I know, never let reality get in the way of a good game

In a Space Wolves novel, Ragnar's armor pulls him down while he was in a river when he fell in, but I BELIEVE (Don't quote me) he was strong enough to pull himself back up with the combination of it and an explosion or something. His armor did leak a bunch though because of the holes from shots and wounds. So yeah...

Also, the Raptors, a successor chapter, were originally a blue-yellow armored group. They then got trapped on a swamp planet for several years with orks or something around them. They were saved by a battle barge later. But yeah, it goes to show it's not impossible.

penut the butter wrote:Well you have to remember that buildings...

COME WITH STAIRS!!!

penut the butter wrote:
No you idiot because technology is always constantly improving. Would you want a slighty stronger building that could with stand earthquakes a little better or would you want a building that could withstand an earthquake completly?

You need to calm down, you're not doing yourself any favors by flaring up like a child because you disagree with someone.

Gadhip wrote:In White Dwarf #296 from September 2004 there are some rules for fighting in swamps. The gist of it is a unit can only move as far as its armour save. So a guardsmen with a 5+ save can move five inches while a terminator with a 2+ can only move two inches. It also had some other stuff for vehicles and what not.

Good to know they still have some worthwhile articles in white dwarf mags. The last one I bought was terrible. I just wish they would post more articles up for free download from the good WD articles, but I guess that reduces the already lower subscription count.

Die on an AS? Wait, so expensive troops you take for resilience would get penalized? Seems a tad unfair. What would offset this for armies like marines that can't take anything with less than a 4+ save. Or necrons.

The movement penalty is interesting. But in the 41st millennium, surely advanced troops would bring gyro floation stabilizers or other such gizmology to compensate. Thus, just treat it as difficult (and maybe impassable for vehicles). If its so dangerous you get sucked up instantly, then well, gee, maybe treat it as dangerous terrain.

Simple.

penut the butter wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:Why would buildings be stronger? On the off-chance that a marine might come by?

No you idiot because technology is always constantly improving. Would you want a slighty stronger building that could with stand earthquakes a little better or would you want a building that could withstand an earthquake completly?

Firstly, technology is not steadily improving in the 40K background, they're still trying to recover/maintain lost technology. In fact, technology is declining as things like large plasma cannons are becoming less common.

Secondly, why would you make a floor significantly stronger than it needed to be? Marines have a large ground pressure and the ability of a floor to withstand that has nothing to do with the building's ability to withstand earthquakes.

Brush up on your structural engineering, your knowledge of the 40K background and your manners.

Modern buildings, whilst we have the technology to make them structurally stronger, can typically be weaker than they were in the relatively recent past as we can build them to within more precise tolerances and remain safe. Being able to work to tighter tolerances also allows those same buildings to use less materials and therefore be both cheaper in terms of both monetary cost and resources required.

Buildings don't get stronger, they get cheaper.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, the weight-bearing ability of a building bears almost no relationship to its earthquake resistance, and I say that with the back-up of a Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering, the final project of which was a vibration engineering project. Half the papers I based my own work on were written by Japanese guys with their focus on earthquake management.

Scott-S6 wrote:

penut the butter wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:Why would buildings be stronger? On the off-chance that a marine might come by?

No you idiot because technology is always constantly improving. Would you want a slighty stronger building that could with stand earthquakes a little better or would you want a building that could withstand an earthquake completly?

Firstly, technology is not steadily improving in the 40K background, they're still trying to recover/maintain lost technology. In fact, technology is declining as things like large plasma cannons are becoming less common.

Secondly, why would you make a floor significantly stronger than it needed to be? Marines have a large ground pressure and the ability of a floor to withstand that has nothing to do with the building's ability to withstand earthquakes.

Brush up on your structural engineering, your knowledge of the 40K background and your manners.

Sorry but technology is better in the 41st millenium is better than technology in the year 2009.
and on your floor question have you actually seen the buildings? Ruins everywhere. Natural disasters happenning every half-hour, I think it would be better if they made them stronger

Suspensors. That's also how Titans manage to move around without falling over, being structurally unsound, and sinking into the ground, by using the secondary effect of their Holtzmann-field VOID generators. Of course, this means that the resources for suspensor technology is getting more and more stretched: so no more new Titans, as existing production shrinks due to loss of Forge Worlds and primarily goes to smaller applications like Power Armour and Terminator Armour.

actually Space Marine have huge feet and the ruins there must of been a combinatoin of some sort of old ceramite and Space Marines armour is ceramite so the ruins would be able to hold them but perhaps not for long...

/-.-\Halo/-.-\ wrote:actually Space Marine have huge feet and the ruins there must of been a combinatoin of some sort of old ceramite and Space Marines armour is ceramite so the ruins would be able to hold them but perhaps not for long...

Heres a clue mate... if people have mathmatically calculated things and applied science to their greater understanding of the 40k universe, dont say things without any proof or reasoning.

I think the two sets of rules already proposed would be perfectly aceptible: role armosave, if you pass you die, or movement equels armore save. Just depends what you and ur oponent agree on and how many men ur willing to let drwon

corpsesarefun wrote:Heres a clue mate... if people have mathmatically calculated things and applied science to their greater understanding of the 40k universe, dont say things without any proof or reasoning.

Wait a minute I have the proof and reasoing beacuse ive read most things you can read about Space Marines and Some about warhammer and know you should understand that i know about this and you can go and shove your applied science and calcuated reasoing up where the Sun doesnt shine anyway I understand the Fact about the scince being put in Im not saying they will not sink and I didnt say they will be able to stand in the ruins forever i said it can stay for some time before it collapses and i said it was ceramite beacuse the main building source for the imperuim is ceramite. If you dont belive me do you know the first armour Space Marines ever wore? It was plates of steel.

Jesus fecking christ on a pogostick, end a sentence once in a while.

/-.-\Halo/-.-\ wrote:Wait a minute I have the proof and reasoing beacuse ive read most things you can read about Space Marines and Some about warhammer

Really ? Hmm, Rogue Trader as well ? The original Space Marine novel ?
Just because you can read (hopefully better than you spell), doesn't mean you're the expert on the Imperium and it's construction techniques, particularly given the variety of cultures and materials used by them. Not everything occupied by humans is made from the same materials as a City Hive (at least, I'm pretty sure that feral worlders don't pour concrete !)

/-.-\Halo/-.-\ wrote:and know you should understand that i know about this and you can go and shove your applied science and calcuated reasoing up where the Sun doesnt shine

Do try to be polite, it IS a mandate of the site's rules after all.

/-.-\Halo/-.-\ wrote:i said it was ceramite beacuse the main building source for the imperuim is ceramite.

Oh ? I'm so glad you told us, I was beginning to think that the oft mentioned Ferrocrete had something to do with a blending of the properties of Iron and Concrete (Possibly by adding something called a Reinforcing Bar, or Rebar, skeleton within a concrete structural component such as a pillar or poured concrete floor)

/-.-\Halo/-.-\ wrote:If you dont belive me do you know the first armour Space Marines ever wore? It was plates of steel.

No, really ? You mean they didn't always wear marmite, sorry, Ceramite ?

A few tips for you, mate :

1) Learn to spell.
2) Learn to punctuate.
3) Learn the site rules.
4) Learn how to use the Quote function.
5) Learn, and I really mean this, that no matter how smart you think you are, someone will ALWAYS come along who knows a little more (Yes, even to a smart-arse like me). When that happens, don't spit the dummy, try to learn something instead.

That was quite probably the longest and most well-constructed telling-off I've ever seen. Kudos!

Shelegelah wrote:That was quite probably the longest and most well-constructed telling-off I've ever seen. Kudos!

... Sigged !

Thanks, Shelegelah.

As a father of 5 I'm always using a telling-off as a chance to teach the kids, so I guess I slipped into Father-Mode there