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I blame the terminators for not wearing helmets half the time to look cool. Forget going through the armor, go for the FACE!

One, I love how there is two completely different conversations going on right now. You car people made my day

ANYWAYS...I feel that it would be more of genestealers hitting again and again. Weak points could be a possibility, but not likely. I feel that it would have to be repeated blows that eventually broke through the armor, not one swipe. Just wave after wave of chitin cutting chinks into the armor, much like a ax into a tree.

Thank you for clarifying the car weights. I was pretty flustered reading all that half ton nonsense.

If you want to compare terminators and genestealers, you need to pick an aspect to compare. You can't use a licensed video game + fluff + one aspect of tabletop. All three will have vastly different explanations. Examples: licensed video game where you win in the end; codex in which both parties profess how wonderful their unit is; table top rules and stat lines. etc

It is only odd if you think each dice = 1 attack. Now if you think each dice = 6 or so attacks with the roll being the one attack out of the hits likely to do damage. It get easier to accept.

 ThePrimordial wrote:

I'm going to go ahead and say that most cars weigh more than that...

You got a lot of cars that weigh that much. Most big trucks only weigh 1750 pounds.

Um, wtf are you talking about? A lot of big trucks like the Ford F-350, etc. are pushing 7000 lbs. My M3 coupe is over 3000lbs, and it's far from a large car.

Anyway, in the Space Hulk video game, a genestealer basically insta-kills any Terminator it comes into contact with.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
What the hell is that sedan made out of? Depleted uranium?
Also a 5 person car? You crazy brits.
A model 2500 extended cab truck is 3/4 of a full ton, and most "car" style cars are 1000-1500 pounds.
I now realize I was using short tons. Large trucks are normally considered about 2250- 2500 pounds.

See here sir you are missing some zeros https://www.google.com/search?q=average+weight+of+a+car&oq=average+weight+of+a+car&aqs=chrome..69i57j5j0l2.5833j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> https://www.google.com/search?q=average+weight+of+a+car&oq=average+weight+of+a+car&aqs=chrome..69i57j5j0l2.5833j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Da_Boss wrote:
One, I love how there is two completely different conversations going on right now. You car people made my day

ANYWAYS...I feel that it would be more of genestealers hitting again and again. Weak points could be a possibility, but not likely. I feel that it would have to be repeated blows that eventually broke through the armor, not one swipe. Just wave after wave of chitin cutting chinks into the armor, much like a ax into a tree.

And add that to how fast the genestealers are supposed to be, yeah I can see them throwing an overwhelming number of attacks, until one manages to go through.

It's possible that it isn't so much that Genestealer claws can go through Terminator armor like a hot knife through butter but it's moreover just a bad match up for the terminators. A genestealer can easily dodge his powerfist attacks and go for the weak spots in a flurry of blows.

It's like calling a Land Raider weak because a monstrous creature can kill it. Makes you think that it would be a better idea to send in guardsmen with flamers into space hulks. They'll die as easy anyway but at least they aren't wearing nigh irreplaceable armor.

 Flinty wrote:
Toughness, strength and hardness are different things. Carbon nanotubes are strong, but only in tensile resistance. Diamond is hard. Diamond cutting across CNTs will shred them.

This is the truth of the matter. It doesn't matter if you are wearing armour that can let you walk through a sun and do a back flip afterwards. If the hardness of the material is less than the hardness of the blade cutting it then it will be cut. This is fact. Diamond is famous for it's hardness but I have been in a lab where a diamond was dropped and broken on a concrete floor (expensive day as that was a 2,000 usd lab grade diamond). Nylon is a perfect example of toughness as it is extremely difficult to tear but pretty easy to cut. Obviously plasma guns and melta weapons exceed TDA limits in ionization and heat resistance, respectively.

Genestealers are able to rip through Terminator armor through a combination of hitting vulnerable joints, their specially designed claws, and their insane strength.

Without all of those components, a genestealer wouldn't be able to do it. If he was simply trying to get through several inches of Ceramite and Adamantium it would take him forever, but there are weak spots.

And even with those weak spots, the armor still has a chance of defeating the rending claws. This is represented by the Invuln save.


TDA has a 5+ invuln to represent just how tough it is. Its not that it has an energy field, its just that its that good at protecting you.

The TT game makes concessions because it cannot accurately represent everything. Go play a 40k RPG to get a better idea of how much TDA actually protects you, and how good Genestealers are at eating face.

I seem to remember in the Inquisitor RPG/Skirmish game, they released stats for a genestealer in some gw source, and we tried it out originally with 2 of them, but found out quickly 1 was enough..genestealers are the Xenomorphs of 40k...and are scary nasty.

Before I read the whole diamond hard talon blurbs, I always imagined that Tyranids were bio-weapons all the way down to the core, with bacteria that consumed a specific amount of chitin from their talons to keep them at a almost mono-molecular level, so they tore through stuff with ease, and when dead their bodies became bio bombs of disease and flesh eating microbes....ahh the days of rampant youthful imagination.

Grey Templar wrote:The TT game makes concessions because it cannot accurately represent everything. Go play a 40k RPG to get a better idea of how much TDA actually protects you, and how good Genestealers are at eating face.

Although it should be pointed out that the different RPGs also offer wildly varying experiences in representation.

Naked Marines in FFG's RPGs are commonly as resilient as the armour they'd wear simply due to the way how the Toughness stat works in their ruleset, and immune to a whole lot of things because those two layers of protection stack. Conversely, in GW's Inquisitor RPG, where Toughness does not neutralise attacks entirely but "only" softens the injury they leave, you can still take on an Astartes just with a lasgun. You have a rather low chance of punching through the armour (11 or 12 on 2d6), and you need to injure him multiple times, but you can do it.
This is also why FFG needed two different sorts of Genestealers - their Marines are too tough for the ones they added as enemies for Dark Heresy characters.

[edit] Does anyone know if TDA actually ever received stats in Inquisitor, by the way? I'm kinda curious now!

Was Tyrus (spelling error probably) in TDA or just PA?

Just fancy powerarmor, I don't remember any Inq Terminator stats , but who knows the fan base for the game expanded it a bit after GW abandoned it.

I remember a picture in the 3rd edition rulebook where a lictor had its flesh hooks burred in the chest plate of a terminator. The terminator didn't seem particularly bothered about it though.

I figure it just has to do with the nids being so quick that they'll eventually erode the armor.

The Tyranids assimilated the "aliens" long ago, so their bleeding nails go through anything!

Marine Hudson "this can't be happening man!"

In the Word Bearers novels, genestealers tore through Terminator and Power Armor like tissue paper and could pop a marine's skull with an almost instantaneous squeeze or swat off your hands. Pretty much anything the Rending Claws met, they'd go through with about the same ease as a power weapon. When a possessed Chaos Space marine and Genestealer fought, while the Possessed marine came off the victor, his breastplate was hanging off of him in flaps. The claws of the genestealer also managed to puncture and nearly tear off TDA pauldrons and scraped furrows as deep as their claws were into blast doors.

Effectively, armor of any sort was useless against rending claws, it's just that Terminators had more metal between them and a horrific death than Power Armor.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Terminator armor doesn't have a power field. Its invulnerable save was an extension of the fact that they used to role their save on 2D6 and a 2+ on a D6 just wasn't as tough as the armor actually is supposed to be.

Its not so much an extension as a rollback to 1st edition. In 1st edition the rule was a 2+ armour save which could be modified no worse that 6 - this being attributed to the armour itself. All Terminators then had the option to take a force field which gave them a 5+ Invulnerable. 2nd editions 2d6 roll was a simplified replacement to this, whilst the modern rules are a roll back to the original rules.


Regarding Genestealers, the original Space Hulk had several pieces of art of Genestealers literally grabbing Terminators heads. Terminator armour is designed to survive atmospheric pressure, intense heat and high power cannon shells, but the neck joints aren't designed to prevent them being rotated 180 degrees..

The old Space Hulk computer game had a great intro graphic of a 'stealer attacking a terminator - the terminator swung his power fist ineffectually and the Genestealer landed a flurry of blows, eventually ripping his helmet off and mauling his face. I always assume as a rule of thumb that when things like melee attacks or lasgun rounds go through something like terminator armor, they aren't punching through so much as finding weak points. Even for genestealers, the fluff on their claws going through power armor like butter makes no sense. It's much easier to imagine their speed, strength, and deadly claws combining to let them find and tear open the flexible joints and such, shredding the marine inside piece by piece.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Terminator armor doesn't have a power field. Its invulnerable save was an extension of the fact that they used to role their save on 2D6 and a 2+ on a D6 just wasn't as tough as the armor actually is supposed to be.

From Lexicanum


Cataphractii Pattern [8] : this pattern of Tactical Dreadnought Armour was among the first issued to the Space Marine Legions.[11] The Cataphractii pattern was used towards the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, both by the Space Marine Legions and the Adeptus Custodes. Although it bears similarities to the Indomitus pattern used in M41, it is set apart by a number of features such as the large, layered pauldrons, the pteruges protecting the elbow and thigh joints[9], and a helmet resembling that of Mark II power armour. Although it was rare before the Horus Heresy, some Legions, such as the Iron Hands, possessed a large number of suits.[9] It was functionally distinct from other patterns, bearing additional plating and shield generators, which resulted in severe straining of the suit's exoskeleton and reduced the wearer's movement speed, resulting in its decline among some Space Marine Legions during the early battles of the Heresy.[11]

Emphasis mine. Not the word additional, which means that other suits do have shield generators.

I think the way that sentence is constructed puts "additional" as only modifying "plating". That's how I read it anyway.

Maybe slightyl different grammar. To me it reads as applying to both. In any case, there we have at least 1 pattern with shielding.

Also, 10 teeth say that this is not from a GW core studio source.

You lose your teeth. Lexicanum puts the source as being Horus Heresy Book 1: Betrayal

I count Forge World as being a primary source on par with GW.

Then I get to keep my teeth. Different people writing different fluff. /shrug

No you don't. Forge World is a Core Studio Source.

Q1. IS FORGE WORLD PART OF GAMES WORKSHOP.
A1. Yes, but we operate as a small (but perfectly formed) separate division from the company that makes and sells the main Games Workshop range of products.
- http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Home/Frequently_Asked_Questions.html

It's a bunch of different people with their own website and their own trademark operating under the GW umbrella. "Core GW" is games-workshop.co.uk and the designers currently writing the Codex books.

Which also helps to explain fluff contradictions such as FW's blue Sororitas or las rounds "ricocheting" off power armour. It's different writers, and as Gav Thorpe once pointed out, this means different interpretations of the 'verse. The same goes for all the Black Library novels, given that BL too is part of the greater Games Workshop company. Arguably doesn't change anything about the fluff it churns out.

Which brings us back to Terminator armour, which still has never been mentioned to have a shield generator in a Codex or WD article.

The answer was yes, you lose the teeth.

core =/= separate
core =/= division

Your continent is part of the Earth, that does not make it Earth's Core.

Didn't GW state that all "canon" is canon as long as it comes from an official source? Ie, GW, FW, BL or a RPG like FFG? Essentially saying anything not fanfiction is canon? Which totally debunks the whole "core" arguement?