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I would make the Warthog open topped, but with exta armour or something. Maybe every glancing hit doesn't cause damage directly, but makes it scatter D6 inches and roll as if in dangerous terrain? Makes more sense with the way a Warthog behaves.

I'm not saying the codex as he represents it is balanced, and I don't know how you're pulling that out of my words - but if it was implied, it was unintentionally. I'm saying that just because the names are the same as things in the IG codex, doesn't mean he's got to use the IG codex as a creation basis. Similarly, just because it's convenient to point to existing rules that do what you want, doesn't mean all of your rules have to be existing rules in order to make your codex.

"Well, if you're ignoring fluff for 'cool factor' then say so. As it stands, he is right. "

I'm not looking at fluff or cool-factor yet. We haven't even got there. I was addressing the apparent incoherency in his post, where he says he's not looking at it from a fluff factor, and then looks at it from a fluff factor.

"Chrisrawr, your mistake here is that you start with internal balance and you use external balance for points. However, the goal of a fandex (IMHO)is to play with an opponent--aka unless you are playing versus UNSC you are going to be up with another army book. "

My, I''ve tried to break apart what you're saying from what you've said here, but let me address it at its tone: Yes. Your eventual goal will be to use this in actual games, with actual people. To do so, it's got to A) Stand up on its own, with its internal balance. I.E, it's got to have a framework of units and options to make it interesting. Then, it's got to B) have internal balance, so that no single army composition will be obviously and inherently better than all of the others. Finally, and most importantly, it's got to C), be externally balanced against other codecies. This is why Points Costs are used to purchase your army - it's implied that 1500 points of one army will have similar abilities and fighting capabilities as 1500 points of another army - although this is not always true of GW codecies, it is something done easily enough with fandexes, via constant updates and erratas. If you didn't pull that from my previous post, it's going to be hard to miss here.

It's also the reason that Sanguine's Battle Rifle can be S4 with 3 shots, or his shotgun S6; if he prices it appropriately against other options of similar power - given the units able to take it and their roles within the codex - then there should be no argument against it, other than "I don't like" - which is perfectly fine, but has no bearing on its balance or viability. As you can see, so far my suggestions have been "I feel that fire rates could go up," and, "I feel points costs could go up." This is because I feel it's still a bit close to IG, but it's also too little points for too much get.

To repeat myself some more; there's nothing wrong with wanting to reskin IG with some fancy new toys, but a UNSC fandex trying to make its own feel shouldn't be limited to that role.

There, my point precisely. Yes, the UNSC weapons generally are better than there SM/IG counterparts bu they are a lot more expensive: for example a guardsman veteran (equal to a single marine) costs 7 points per model. For that points cost you get a bonus of plus one BS on top of a regular guardsman. Keep in mind a regular guardsman costs 5 points per model. For three points a model your getting a weapon with +1 strength on the lasgun. Fluffwise a lasgun has a rate of fire at around 550-600 rounds per minute. A halo Assault rifle has a rate of fire at between 800-850 rounds per minute. So to make the weapon fair I instead give the weapon an additional strength point instead of making it Assault 3. The Battle rifle in halo fluff has a rate of fire of 1000 rounds a minute while firing armour piercing Kurtz rounds. A boltgun, the counter-part to the BR is strength 4 AP 5, making it more powerful. The boltgun has a rate of fire of between 420-500 rounds per minute, half of the BRs rate of fire. To balance them I make the BR cost roughly 7-8 points on the model as a boltgun works out to only 2-3 points a model. When you think about it, even though these weapons are more powerful than their 40k counterparts they cost enough to make them fair points wise. Do you see my point? You can say they are not fair because they are ''too powerful'', perhaps they are but they are more than balanced when you look at points cost. All I'm saying is there is no limit to what you can do in 40k. You could make a special lasgun in your army for every model and make it strength 10 AP 1 Large blast, Assault 10 as long as it costs 1200 points a model.

Summarised:

1. 40k fluff and rules have nothing to do with each other in-game.

2. You can make any type of weapon you want as long as it is a lot more expensive than it's counter-part.

Thesanguinesword wrote:There, my point precisely. Yes, the UNSC weapons generally are better than there SM/IG counterparts bu they are a lot more expensive: for example a guardsman veteran (equal to a single marine) costs 7 points per model. For that points cost you get a bonus of plus one BS on top of a regular guardsman. Keep in mind a regular guardsman costs 5 points per model. For three points a model your getting a weapon with +1 strength on the lasgun. Fluffwise a lasgun has a rate of fire at around 550-600 rounds per minute. A halo Assault rifle has a rate of fire at between 800-850 rounds per minute. So to make the weapon fair I instead give the weapon an additional strength point instead of making it Assault 3. The Battle rifle in halo fluff has a rate of fire of 1000 rounds a minute while firing armour piercing Kurtz rounds. A boltgun, the counter-part to the BR is strength 4 AP 5, making it more powerful. The boltgun has a rate of fire of between 420-500 rounds per minute, half of the BRs rate of fire. To balance them I make the BR cost roughly 7-8 points on the model as a boltgun works out to only 2-3 points a model. When you think about it, even though these weapons are more powerful than their 40k counterparts they cost enough to make them fair points wise. Do you see my point? You can say they are not fair because they are ''too powerful'', perhaps they are but they are more than balanced when you look at points cost. All I'm saying is there is no limit to what you can do in 40k. You could make a special lasgun in your army for every model and make it strength 10 AP 1 Large blast, Assault 10 as long as it costs 1200 points a model.

Summarised:

1. 40k fluff and rules have nothing to do with each other in-game.

2. You can make any type of weapon you want as long as it is a lot more expensive than it's counter-part.

All fair enough; but, at the same time, you do want to take the fluff into consideration, or you're gonna get a lot of nerd rage and little constructive criticism, plus actually trying to play with rules that seem to contradict major points of fluff will not get you many opponents.

For instance; the bolter is S4 because it fires, essentially, RPGs. Making the battle rifle S4 will irritate a lot of people, I guarantee. Furthermore, you're working off of established fluff and slotting it into established fluff; yes, you COULD make the models superpowerful, and with appropriate points costs it would still be balanced and playable against normal 40k models, but doing so in this kind of situation is, at least IMO, inappropriate.

@zerker so why does my shuriken launcher have S4? Or my pulse rifle have S5? Remember, S5 is so much stronger than marines that you have to use VERY ANGRY marines charging at someone to represent it. But also remember that those very angry marines in powered armour using hyperservos are just a tad weaker than VERY ANGRY large mutant humans charging at someone, who happen to be as strong as a turret-mounted laser.

What I'm saying is that the game rules are used to represent a balanced game, not fluff - and that any attempts at rectifying the two would result in GW selling less models - i.e. it's never going to happen.

chrisrawr wrote:@zerker so why does my shuriken launcher have S4? Or my pulse rifle have S5? Remember, S5 is so much stronger than marines that you have to use VERY ANGRY marines charging at someone to represent it. But also remember that those very angry marines in powered armour using hyperservos are just a tad weaker than VERY ANGRY large mutant humans charging at someone, who happen to be as strong as a turret-mounted laser.

What I'm saying is that the game rules are used to represent a balanced game, not fluff - and that any attempts at rectifying the two would result in GW selling less models - i.e. it's never going to happen.

Your shuriken launchers have S4 because they are firing monomolecular throwing stars, which is just about as ridiculous as a grenade launcher SMG. Your pulse rifle is S5 because it is firing plasma, like a plasma gun, but a bit less of it.

You might want to re-read my post above, because I agreed with everything you just said. I then ADDED that it is, regardless of all that, still valuable to pay at least lip service to the fluff, because doing otherwise results in nerdrage and wangst.

if you are playing Halo on heroic "the way halo is supposed to be played", you notice that if you shoot an assault rifle at a Brute, you need to empty your clip to kill him
in this case Brutes can represent Space Marines.
So how does a S4 weapon need so much firepower against a T4 opponent?
This is why the Assault Rifle should be S3.
Now the strength of the Battle Rifle is good at S4, because it is supposed to use armour penetrating ammunition. or maybe make it S3 AP4 or something similiar to that.

Well, technically a brute has nothing on a space marine. fluffwise. You're looking at a primate using calcium ion pumps and no mechanical augmentations, fighting a man who can lift a tonne unaided, in a suit that's meant to haul around spaceship parts. The marine can literally just back-hand through the brute's face without pause in the firing of his Bolter, which is also ripping apart brutes.

But of course if we made Marines that strong in the table top, you'd only be able to field a few of them. And that. doesn't. make. $m$o$n$e$y$.

As well, in the halo games, an assault rifle will take a good chunk of clip to remove a grunt, while a battle rifle kills grunts in 1 hit and brutes in 2-3.
-
In the books, MC removes 3 grunts with 3 bullets from the assault rifle. You do the math on why "We made a game that's fun and balanced to play, with a bunch of different weapons that affect different enemies differently" doesn't always line up with "Our fluff is awesome to read."

A brute isn't anything compared to a space marine, at the same time a spartan (fluff wise) is equal to a 100 brutes. A space marine is probably Equal to around 10-20 brutes before they would probably charge him in berserker mode and tear him, limb from limb and then eat him like, NOM NOM NOM. A spartan can avoid getting eaten because of his more advanced reflexes. Sure, a space marine is faster than a human but your still gonna see him come for you in bulky power armour, For Dah Emprah!!! A spartan is much faster and stealthier than a space Marine. His Mijolnir armour weighs in at roughly 500kg, less than a quarter of what a space marines power armour weighs (2250kg BTW). See so a spartan is better than a space marine in power armour against certain enemies (eg. Orks) but space marines are better than Spartans in fighting enemies like eldar and the like. The stats for the Spartans are perfectly fair.

You are missing a lot of points in that post. First, just consider the weight you mentioned. How much stronger is 1700 kg of advanced material even by todays standard? Quite a bit. Now, in the same paragraph, you mention monkeys ripping said armor "limb from limb" right? I doubt they could even knock a space marine down without a pack.

Also, you mentioned rate of fire for your weapons stats earlier. You seemed to gloss over bullet to bolter size difference. Consider a frag nade in 40k is s3 on grenade launchers. Thus, a bolter is worse than a frag grenade. In your stats you have a plasma nade at a completely unbelievable s8, but this can never kill your even more unbelievable spartans. However in halo we see 1 plasma grenade 1 shot spartans all the time.

So forget even comparing halo to 40k, you need a lot more work just to get halo to compare to halo.

No a space marines armour is NOT made of any advanced material other than adamantine. If you know any of the space marine background you will know that since the introduction of Mk4 PA the space marine suits have been made of common substitutes which makes the weight increase. This is why most chapters hold pre-mk4 suits as a religious artifact. Because they are so much more powerful. Mijolnir armour is very special, there are only 100 suits in existence. They are made of highly advanced materials which help reduce weight, they come with an A.I which can run the suit and say control a starships cannons with efficiency far beyond that of any human or space marine.
Yes there is only 75 Spartan IIs in existence and only 180 spartan IIIs remaining. They have also got over twice as much training.
All the Spartans put together is easily equal to a chapter of SM.


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Also a bolter fires 75. Godwyn rounds. An assault rifle fires 7.62mm 308. NATO rounds, so at half the caliber of the bolter but with twice the rate of fire, personally I think that that is perfectly fair fluff wise. And that's nothing because a BR fires 9.15mm 45. Rounds at almost twice the rate of fire. Get bigger again, A heavy Bolter fires .155 Godhammer shells at 650 rounds a minute as a M-246-H fires 12.7mm 50. NATO AP rounds at 1800 rounds per minute. That's a third of the power at three times the rate of fire. See all these weapons are equal in their own way.

What? Over twice as much training as space marines with centuries of experience, infinitely more advanced genetic and bionic augmentations, and again, even with the less advanced substitutes, wearing power armour that can heft and move spaceship parts, and at full speed, has the stopping power of a modern-day bulldozer fired out of a battle-cruiser main artillery cannon?

The only comparable weaponry that the UNSC has to the Imperium is the MAC cannon, because the writers at Bungie decided they were going to BREAK PHYSICS and have the round's fluff carry orders of magnitude more kinetic energy than it would if you broke it into antimatter and fired it at something. if its fluff were accurate, this thing would be wrecking ENTIRE SUNS, not covenant ships.

But again, this is fluff. For TT purposes, in order to keep away from just being an IG or SM clonedex, weaponry should be a mixture of decent rate of fire, decent strength and ap, decent BS, and high cost - something that feels right from both a flavour, and balance perspective imo.

chrisrawr wrote:What? Over twice as much training as space marines with centuries of experience, infinitely more advanced genetic and bionic augmentations, and again, even with the less advanced substitutes, wearing power armour that can heft and move spaceship parts, and at full speed, has the stopping power of a modern-day bulldozer fired out of a battle-cruiser main artillery cannon?

The only comparable weaponry that the UNSC has to the Imperium is the MAC cannon, because the writers at Bungie decided they were going to BREAK PHYSICS and have the round's fluff carry orders of magnitude more kinetic energy than it would if you broke it into antimatter and fired it at something. if its fluff were accurate, this thing would be wrecking ENTIRE SUNS, not covenant ships.

But again, this is fluff. For TT purposes, in order to keep away from just being an IG or SM clonedex, weaponry should be a mixture of decent rate of fire, decent strength and ap, decent BS, and high cost - something that feels right from both a flavour, and balance perspective imo.

Could not have put it better myself
Plus, 40k is set FAR after halo. Like saying a caveman could match modern soldier in straight out tactical warfare.

Something else, you said the bolter had twice the caliber. Well by area, 2 times the radius is 4 times the size. Then add in the increased length, and you are looking at about 8 times the shell with twice the diameter. So consider that even if the bolter is firing half as fast (and rate of fire doesnt matter anyway) each shot has 8x the size. Whats more, shell size of the bolters size is large enough to carry explosive rounds instead of just kinetic energy rounds.

DevianID wrote:Something else, you said the bolter had twice the caliber. Well by area, 2 times the radius is 4 times the size. Then add in the increased length, and you are looking at about 8 times the shell with twice the diameter. So consider that even if the bolter is firing half as fast (and rate of fire doesnt matter anyway) each shot has 8x the size. Whats more, shell size of the bolters size is large enough to carry explosive rounds instead of just kinetic energy rounds.

Good point...

Mijolnir mk1-3 suits (which 4-6 are based in) were designed and later used to build forerunner/UNSC hybrid warships. Many suits were modified with a M246 HMG to give them combat ability. A Spartans genetic implants are more advanced than space Marines ones. They are based off forerunner genetic profiles that were found in the networks inside the artifact on reach. As I said before, UNSC Spartans and their Mijolnir armour is more advanced and more powerful than any power armour suit used by space marines. But in contrast their is 100 Mijolnir suits and there is 1,200,000 power armour suits. So most probably the reason for the sharp decrease in quality of SM suits is because of Cost or perhaps the resources needed to produce pre-mk4 suits were needed to build more important war machines like Titans and Super-heavy Tanks which use those same materials. After all many of the suits in use during the 41st millennium were made or updated during times of great need. (HH and Civil wars. Things like that).



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TheRobotLol wrote:

chrisrawr wrote:What? Over twice as much training as space marines with centuries of experience, infinitely more advanced genetic and bionic augmentations, and again, even with the less advanced substitutes, wearing power armour that can heft and move spaceship parts, and at full speed, has the stopping power of a modern-day bulldozer fired out of a battle-cruiser main artillery cannon?

The only comparable weaponry that the UNSC has to the Imperium is the MAC cannon, because the writers at Bungie decided they were going to BREAK PHYSICS and have the round's fluff carry orders of magnitude more kinetic energy than it would if you broke it into antimatter and fired it at something. if its fluff were accurate, this thing would be wrecking ENTIRE SUNS, not covenant ships.

But again, this is fluff. For TT purposes, in order to keep away from just being an IG or SM clonedex, weaponry should be a mixture of decent rate of fire, decent strength and ap, decent BS, and high cost - something that feels right from both a flavour, and balance perspective imo.

Could not have put it better myself
Plus, 40k is set FAR after halo. Like saying a caveman could match modern soldier in straight out tactical warfare.

Have you heard of the age of strife during the 29th millennium? This is where humanity lost almost all of their tech. Modern imperial technology is based on these designs. But the adeptus mechanicus isn't smart enough to work out how to reproduce barely any of their old technology. Put simply the imperiums tech is at a very similar stage to halo tech. (Including forerunner hybrid tech).

< Taken by the void dragon. >

@Thesanguinesword your post is based on so many 40k and halo misconceptions or flat-out falsehoods that I don't even know where to begin. Let's just say that the forerunners had nothing on mankind during 20-30m, space marine genetics are modified with the geneseed of actual, living gods, and all of humanity's lost technological innovation is safely stored on mars, behind imperial sanctions and secured with threat of heresy, until gak goes down near Tera.

As someone who was actively involved in Halo 1-3's "Fluff reveal" cycles, with a signed copy of the comic, and an RRS feed to any fluff updates on the Halo Universe, I feel, if not qualified, then fairly sure that the only thing that's unmatched or beaten in the comparison between worlds is the MAC cannon, simply because, as stated, it Breaks. Physics. By Orders of Magnitude. No numbers given are as over the top in either setting than those given for the MAC cannon rounds. 10 ships with MACs against any 10 ANYTHINGS in either universe should, from the numbers given, be able to vapourize their opponents' gak in an instant. Accidental, glancing hits against, say, a planet in the vicinity of, say, a solar system, should be enough to do in their shipbound enemies. The radiation of such an event alone would be enough to carry a good chunk of their enemies to the beyond.

The person who wrote the numbers for it freely admitted it was a mistake in which he replaced "joules" with "Megatonnes", but that now that it's there, he's not at liberty to remove it. (For reference, 4.184e+15 joules is a single megatonne.)

Yes the ad.mech has the pre-strife tech but only 1 or 2 examples of it stored on mars.
And I think I know the 40k and halo fluff. I've read and have every single book in the HH as well as the blood angels books and ultramarines omnibus. Basically I've got about fifty BL books including a signed copy of Horus Rising.
I've Got every single halo game and book. I finished re-reading them a little while before I made this fandex.

Don't forget very commonly BL authors like to change fluff to suit the book they're writing all the time. It could quite possibly be we've just read different books or sources.

Also: STOP GOING OFF TOPIC PLEASE! Not everybody but some people are having a flame war.

Sanguine, I understand that you looked into some figures when coming up with values for your stats. But, consider that Halo is a game and 40k is a game. If you want the Halo game to work in the 40k game, you need to use the Halo game as a base right? Not the fiction.

Now one thing I noted is that your plasma grenade does not, on a good hit, penetrate the armor of a spartan. This is a pretty core concept of the Halo game, is it not? You have removed this. Thus, without going any further, your tabletop game is not consistent to the actual halo game. The Halo game, as I mentioned, is the main source people have and draw on when it comes to Halo.

There are ways to accurately model the damage and armor saves of the UNSC forces using the halo game. A lot of work has already been done, in fact, detailing exactly how much damage it takes to kill a spartan with each weapon, and killing UNSC troopers is also pretty easy to figure out with just a few minutes spent either playing the game or looking up stats on the internet.

What if you make your own Halo tabletop game, like GW did with Lord of the Rings?

You could then tweak the 40k rules to your liking and not have any Space Marines to compare with Spartans.

A few things. One your saves are off. A UNSC marine should get a 6+ but 5+ is alright. A 5+ represents armor that stops .50 cal rounds. Marine armor doesnt. ODST should get a 5+ tops. They were only just slightly better then marine armor. SPI should be a 4+. Mjorlir should be a 3+ no invul. Its good, but not tactical drednaught good. Plus energy shields isnt a good rule.

A standard marine should have same as a guardsman. That represents a trained soldier. Which means you lower your BS but your ld should be 7, with sgts 8.

ODST should equal a veteran guardsman so drop the ws back to 3. Ditto on Int. Even sisters who trained since birth are Int 3.

Assualt Rifle should equal lasgun
SMG should be str 3 ap -. Assualt 3.
Magnum should equal laspistol
Shotgun should be str 3 ap - assualt 2
Battle rifle, longer ranged lasgun. Rapid fire.
DMR isnt that the single shot battle rifle?
Sniper should be a sniper rifle. Wounds 4+ ap 6 sniper.

Grenade launcher should be the same as gauards.
Rocket launcher should equal missile launcher
Spartan laser is not equal or even better than a lascannon so str 7 ap 3 heavy 1.
HMG is a heavy stubber str 4 ap 6.

LAAG should be a punisher cannon. Just for funsies.
Scorpion, a leman russ cannon is bigger so it should be str 7 ap 3 small blast.


You know what, this is as far as i go. I read the rest, no way would i play this. Its not compatible. The UNSC is basically a poorly equiped imperial guard army. You are trying to make it a psuedo space marine army. And then your trying to make spartans better then marines, which is worse. I hate marines, but really GW wrote them to be the baddest generic space marine there is, and halo spartans dont match up.

TLDR UNSC = poor mans ig. Spartans = poor mans space marines.

No, the armour (besides Mijolnir which I made very powerful because it was for the spartan unit and I wanted to have them with really powerful equipment, mainly cause they are a ''single use glass hammer'' as my friend said a couple of days ago ((this referring to the Spartans only being useful at one area of the battlefield, their not fast enough to get around the field and have relatively short ranged weapons))) is perfectly fine, fluff wise.

In halo fluff and games marine armour can withstand 3 or 4 plasma bolts before melting. By the way if you have read books set before 2537 the marines can't withstand 1 plasma bolt. The current plasma proof armour entered service in 2537.
ODST Combat armour was designed to comepletely deflect bullets (it's outer shell is made of titanium) and the inner shell is made of Super-heat resistant gel. In the fluff capable of withstanding 5-6 plasma bolts and up to 50 bullets (depends what caliber of course). In 40k Space marine powered armour ant withstand 1 bolt of plasma. Of course in 40k the projectile is a whole lot bigger. SPI armour is ODST armour witha built in battery allowing a stealth field and jamming, with later models incorporating an energy shield projector. All UNSC forces in the fandex are the post-war UNSC forces. Mijolnir PAA is THE pinnacle in personal armour. Being made of the most advances materials in the galaxy. It has an outer Titanium/adamantine compound shell with 3 layers of ODST combat armour gel. Enabling the user to withstand between twenty to thirty plasma bolts of plasma and that's without energy shields. Of course that is in fluff terms, in game a marine can take around 20 bolts and an ODST taking about the same. SPI armour is never seen in game but it is described in Ghosts of Onyx and Halo: Evolutions as having similar abilities to Mijolnir armour but they are severely limited due to the armour being powered by A rechargeable battery located in the rear of the suit. If you are interested to see what SPI looks like or haven't read the books it looks like default Mijolnir with pilot helmet in Halo: Reach.

Right, Ive read the fluff of both. Im certain on the armor. And just because its plasma doesnt mean its the same plasma gun from 40k. 40k plasma removes the person. Covie plasma just kills. Id rank a plasma gun at str 3 ap - or maybe 6. Wh40k is so over the top that others cant really compete. If you want to play with the super marines and spartans its fine. But the unsc should play as a cheaper, poorly equiped Imperial Guard. Hence the poor mans ig.

plasma isnt all the same temperature or one universal substance- it can be all different temperatures or densities. The sun is made of plasma, so are those funny lights in those sciencey static electric glass sphere things.

He man, I had the same idea as you a little while back. Came up with a WiP codex: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/391354.page

Main problem I had was coming up with rules for special characters. And I didn't include Halo Wars units like you did. :\