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.

Cronch wrote:
...Also the whole argument is preposterous, humans are not "the best" at war, because we lack any point of comparison. Nothing else on this planet wages wars, so congrats, we're the best at the one thing we do. Talk about participation award.

Teeeeechnically, you're right. However, we've seen some higher primates engage in organized conflict (and I believe we've also observed similar behavior in some of the social insects as well). Give pack animals enough time and I'm sure they'll join the list (and if they're dolphins, they'll even independently discover war crimes into the bargain!).

OT: I don't mind the idea of battlesuits in 40k per se, but I'm a little concerned with the design team's apparent fondness for the babycarrier paradigm. I can see that kind of suit for Penitent Engines (due to the fluff), GSC (work vehicles), and maybe Guard (think the mechsuits from Avatar or that prospective third Matrix movie that was tragically cancelled at the last minute and certainly never saw a theatrical release). Regular Sisters or SM, though? That just seems off - you've already got powered armor, either stick with that or put in the extra effort/expense to have a full vehicle.

What it is, is an example of GW further undermining non imperial armies by incorporating their unique stuff.

The eldar have been undermined of their unique schtick's for decades, now it's the tau's turn...


GW will continue until every distinct non imperial faction's play style is represented in a power armoured human force.

Now waiting on a horde sister/marine army - perhaps a dark founding failed marine force with cheap power armour.

Battle suits are fine, I guess. Paragons are cool, but I wish they were a little bit more unique?

We brought machine guns to fight emus, and the emus won.

I don't mind walkers, 40k is already full of "rule of cool" elements. I think the "suit of power armor worn over a suit of power armor" concept of warsuits is dumber than a sack of Space Wolfs.

With regards to animals fighting wars, I know some apes fight wars, as do ants, and wolves have also been known to fight other packs over territory.

Hankovitch wrote:
We brought machine guns to fight emus, and the emus won.

I don't mind walkers, 40k is already full of "rule of cool" elements. I think the "suit of power armor worn over a suit of power armor" concept of warsuits is dumber than a sack of Space Wolfs.

This is exactly right, except for the wolves being dumb part. Dumber than a sniper round that allows indirect fire. There, that is better.

The open-topped SM and GK ones are awful and all the big Tau suits were a mistake from a narrative stand, but they look fine.

I think battlesuits can be cool.

Can be.

Not really a fan. Its all getting a bit Warmachine.

The new Sister models - especially the character - just seem a bit daft and off-theme to me.

To me, a scifi wargame has to have some sorts of mecha in it. I Blame Robotech/Macross/Battletech for it.

I have zero probs with all sorts of Walkers in 40K. If anything, I think there should be more variety in them. Back in Rogue Trader there were even rules for designing custom walkers.

Ideally, there should be a "Generic Imperial walker" kit which could make one walker, containing a shedload of different arms, legs etc for making custom walker suits.. these could be fielded by GSC for example, include industrial tools/appendages in the kit and so on. They'd be perfect for Necromunda as well.

I don't get the complaints about kits not fitting/ruining the look or feel of certain armies. You dont get to choose what GW does with their IP, but you do have full control over what you buy. You buy and field the models you like the look of, and ingore the rest. That's the beauty of it, even within a single faction, no two army needs to look exactly alike!

I don’t think these kind of suits are anything new, terminator armour used to be described as an exosuit. Dreadnoughts have almost always been a thing, as has the Imperial Guard Sentinel.

Individual models are hit and miss, the Tau suits really look great and fit so well with their aesthetic. The Invictor war suit I’m less keen on. Whereas I love the new SOB ones.

I can't unseen the Paragon (even more the special one) as alternate Armigers kit.

 General Kroll wrote:
I don’t think these kind of suits are anything new, terminator armour used to be described as an exosuit. Dreadnoughts have almost always been a thing, as has the Imperial Guard Sentinel.

Individual models are hit and miss, the Tau suits really look great and fit so well with their aesthetic. The Invictor war suit I’m less keen on. Whereas I love the new SOB ones.

It’s not so much the existence of “walkers” that I have a an issue with. It’s more the stylisation of certain battle suits that are basically a pilot inside a larger mech that is basically a big person. The SM first born dreds are big clunky units, where as the new SOB and the GK one is like a big person. GW has been trying to appeal to the Japanese market and you can easily see the that’s where the inspiration for them has come from. They just don’t feel 40K grimdark to me. As people have pint out the penitent engines are dark but a large Walker wielding a sword like an expert pugilist just doesn’t fit for me. At least not the imperium. And I know GW has had very few original ideas but this feels like genre fudging to me

And the exposed pilots are a snipers dream, but also in the choas of a 40K battle where there are bullets, laser beams, shootas, bombs and all stuff flying all over the place you would want to be exposed and make a massive target of yourself.

In a more realistic setting, mech suits would be most suited to urban combat. City fighting will 90% of the time result in two outcomes--long, costly, bloody street by street clearing or the complete destruction of the city, usually by artillery.

Of course, 40k renders this entirely moot by having power armor readily available, especially variants that can freakin' fly.

Dreadnoughts made (more) sense in fluff because they were piloted by a space marine that had been crippled, so the Chapter would have two choices--stuff him into a dreadnought if one were available or euthanize him to recover usable geneseed. You can imagine what this does for morale.

Then came the baby carriers... Do I believe that these could have come from the Dark Age of Technology where Iron Men could have been big enough to need something on that scale to fight them? Sure, Imperial Knights are pretty big, so why not. Heck, some of the recovered warsuits could have originally been iron Men chassis. Do I like it? Not particularly.

Tau I feel should get a pass on their crisis suits. It makes sense for them to develop a mobile, heavily armored suit that they can use to stand up against, among other things, Space Marines who can throw their fire warriors through concrete walls and have a fair chance of turning their tanks into swiss cheese in melee combat. Then the Ghostkeel and Riptide were introduced...

Although I guess the suits do help set the Tau apart thematically and playstyle from the Guard, so there's that at least.

Are we complaining about battle suits now when literally each faction has had a dreadnought equivalent for more than 20 years?

And TBH I love all the dreadnoughts equivalents: Dreadnoughts, hellbrutes, deff dreads, wraithlords, carnifexes, etc...

 Galas wrote:
Are we complaining about battle suits now when literally each faction has had a dreadnought equivalent for more than 20 years?

And TBH I love all the dreadnoughts equivalents: Dreadnoughts, hellbrutes, deff dreads, wraithlords, carnifexes, etc...

Yeah, were also complaining about models lacking helmets when the other sisters of battle walker has a whole ass unarmored nearly naked pilot strapped to the front.

Do you think, maybe, the sisters might have a tad bit of an impractical fanaticism vibe going on with their gak?

I think the complaint is more when the 'suit' becomes 'stilts and backpack' which leaves the pilot entirely exposed. Just shoot them in the fething face.

Aren't those war suits equpied with force fields and the no helmet version is just there for the esthetic. Saying shot it in the face works as much as saying one shot hit the tank in the periscope.

Altima wrote:
In a more realistic setting, mech suits would be most suited to urban combat. City fighting will 90% of the time result in two outcomes--long, costly, bloody street by street clearing or the complete destruction of the city, usually by artillery.

In a more realistic setting, large mechs would be ill suited to any combat. There are literally 0 advantages that a bipedal walking tank can provide over a tracked or wheeled [or theoretical hovering] tank, and it's worse in every metric.

The only use for bipedal combat vehicles is at the human scale [robots and powered armor] in order to navigate environments designed for humans [walk up stairs]. However, essentially none of these environments are designed for a giant, and a normal combat vehicle can navigate them just as well and be a more efficient and capable combat platform while it's at it.




As for the paragon warsuit, there are a couple of things I don't like about it:
1: where are her legs? Her hips are where the robot's mechanical hips are and she just doesn't have any legs. At least the baby carrier's pilot is obviously fit onboard it without having to mysteriously not have a lower half.
2: the mech's own legs and arms are very spindly, thanks to being shaped like a human leg.
3: and most importantly, I don't like the fact that it's of a unibody construction instead of a frame with armor attached. While it's technically a better design since it doesn't leave like everything exposed and may be more generally structurally stable after sustaining damage, it looks notably different from the other 'mechs in 40k.

As a side note, I also don't like the High Lord in a battlesuit.
The high lord should be legislating, and even if she takes to command an army, she's not a captain or something leading a company and making tactical scale decisions from the front. She should be in a command post where she can monitor the situation across the entire group of forces under her control and make strategic decisions for the army and let her subordinates do their job. Commanders should be in the position required to have the highest degree of awareness about their entire command and to effectively command their entire command. For a company commander, this is at the front, but for the commander in chief of a military overseeing wars on many fronts across many theaters, this isn't anywhere near any frontline.

Karol wrote:
Aren't those war suits equpied with force fields and the no helmet version is just there for the esthetic. Saying shot it in the face works as much as saying one shot hit the tank in the periscope.

Actually, yes. Just like the eldar warwalkers have energy shields and most characters like marine captains have energy shields.


I'm a 100% helmts all the time guy but to have people in {PRESENT DAY} of {PRESENT YEAR} complaint about miniatures with exposed heads when most have options for helmets and bare heads is just tiresome.

We all know a tactical sargeant has no reason to not have a helmet. But for people they look cooler that way. Let them have fun.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think the complaint is more when the 'suit' becomes 'stilts and backpack' which leaves the pilot entirely exposed. Just shoot them in the fething face.

Moms toy the styling for me, drednoughts might be bi pedal but at least some thought went into giving them specific weapons that take advantage of the the fact it’s a walking machine.

Giving a big Walker a big sword because the person piloting it would use a big sword if they weren’t in the battle suit is just a look I don’t like.

And some of them just don’t suit 40K

The penitent engines might have nearly naked pilots but that’s part of their penance isn’t it? They are meant to suffer and that is grim dark.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Altima wrote:
In a more realistic setting, mech suits would be most suited to urban combat. City fighting will 90% of the time result in two outcomes--long, costly, bloody street by street clearing or the complete destruction of the city, usually by artillery.

In a more realistic setting, large mechs would be ill suited to any combat. There are literally 0 advantages that a bipedal walking tank can provide over a tracked or wheeled [or theoretical hovering] tank, and it's worse in every metric.

The only use for bipedal combat vehicles is at the human scale [robots and powered armor] in order to navigate environments designed for humans [walk up stairs]. However, essentially none of these environments are designed for a giant, and a normal combat vehicle can navigate them just as well and be a more efficient and capable combat platform while it's at it.

I don't know about zero advantages. There are probably terrain types where legs work better than treads or wheels, and having something that's not so constantly noisy as a loitering flying thing might be useful. There's probably a tactical advantage to a firing platform that can change it's elevation on the fly as well. The walking technology is getting reeeally good, AI situational awareness is getting better and AI reactions are stupid fast. Will it ever be practical enough to invest in? Seems a little niche to me . . . but I think there's room for something there.

To be clear I'm thinking ED-209ish scale. Something that can navigate tight spaces and weird terrain (rubble) but carry heavier armor and ordinance than a man-sized bot.

No Insectium7! Tanks are better and bipedal structures of combat will NEVER advance enough to be better at any role!

Everybody knows chariots are the peak military weapon.

 Galas wrote:
No Insectium7! Tanks are better and bipedal structures of combat will NEVER advance enough to be better at any role!

Everybody knows chariots are the peak military weapon.

Tbf tanks, wheeled vehicles and flying systems have many, many advantages. I just think that there may be niche applications for legged things now that the technology is near-available.

40k naturally gets a pass because it's a fictional universe that has exotic technology and doctrines. That said I'm not a big fan of many of the newer walker-things, although mostly for aesthetic reasons. The Knights usually look great though.

 Galas wrote:
No Insectium7! Tanks are better and bipedal structures of combat will NEVER advance enough to be better at any role!

Everybody knows chariots are the peak military weapon.

This isn't a matter of "technology needs to advance". It's more of a matter of "there's nothing to be gained". It doesn't offer improvements in any measurable [like armor, mobility, or firepower] or less-measurable [like ergonomics, logistics, and volumetric efficiency]. This is a matter of physics and requirement analysis. Seriously, ask yourself "what capability would giving my tanks legs give my tank?" The answer is, in fact, none.

Talking about protection first, consider the protected area of a normally shaped combat vehicle, versus a vehicle oriented like a human. Observe that the front face of the 'mech is drastically larger for a similar volume than that of the conventional vehicle, and it's not advantaged when it comes to the sides either. This means that for the same mass of armor, the 'mech will have less thick armor, because it has to armor a greater area. This is basic math. If you invent superior armor, you can apply it to a normally formed combat vehicle for greater results.

Second, there's maneuverability, with a bunch of points:
A combat vehicle exerts a ground pressure equal to the quotient of it's weight divided by it's ground contact area. For a tracked tank, this is the area where the tracks are touching the ground, for a 'mech this is the soles of the feet [specifically, the sole of one of it's feet, because even though it has two, it supports it's entire weight on one when moving]. Ground pressure determines what terrain a vehicle can cross, higher ground pressure is bad and means you'll sink into soft ground and become bogged, this is one of the reasons tanks have tracks in the first place instead of wheels. So a 'mech would have a smaller ground contact area [or one foot would need to be the size of the entire ground contact area of both tracks of a tank], and thus a higher ground pressure, and be less capable in off-road terrain.

There's also speed. A wheeled or tracked vehicle has the capability to be a lot faster. It's fairly simple to visualize. A walker's speed is governed by it's stride length, and it needs to take discrete steps. It can't carry it's inertia, and is in a process of continously accelerating and decelerating to a stop and then reversing it's various parts to move. A wheeled or tracked vehicle spins a thing in a continuous smooth motion for a much more efficient movement. And the top speed; the whole striding thing is a drastic limiter on the speed of a 'mech, and while a tracked vehicle is also limited by the dynamics of the belt-of-links [which will experience significant stress and also absorb a lot of energy vibrating and whipping around at high speed], and wheeled vehicle is essentially limited in speed by the torque of the motor.

Obstacle crossability is the primary "reason" that is proposed for why someone would desire a large bipedal combat walker, but it's not a very good one. It's largely less proficient in slope climbing, is more limited in where it can actually put it's feet down making it less capable on uneven ground, etc. A tracked or wheeled system is a lot better at navigating rubble and broken ground than footpads due to a greater ability to shape to the ground. The supposed ability to "step up" like it's ascending a staircase in its scale is it's only theoretical advantage, but such environments only really exist in the minds of imaginative people who want giant robots to fight. They don't even occur in human-constructed environments because to the surprise of nobody, we don't generally build staircases sized for giants.

And I won't even mention mobile stability for firing.


As for noise, a 'mech is going to be as loud or louder than a tracked or wheeled tank, since it has the same engine noise but a lot more mechanical parts moving and connecting with each other, not to mention the footfalls will have much more noise than conventional propulsion. AI control can react just as fast or faster with a turret, since it's moving an object with a lower moment of inertia with better torque on a more stable platform.

As for elevating the weapons mount, while height is generally a tactical disadvantage for a war machine, if it became such that the ability to elevate the firing point of the weapon was an overriding tactical desire, an armature or elevating hydraulic track on a conventional unit would provide superior capability at reduced weight and complexity.






Walking legged things offer a meaningful advantage only essentially in environments constructed for them, like inside of human dwellings. This means that bipedal human scale robots are valuable, but unless we start building structures to be convenient staircases for the Attack of the 50' Woman, then there isn't an advantage for feet on a tank.





All of this is largely besides the point, because science fiction is motivated by "rule of cool", not "rule of practical". I don't mind 'mechs in games and media.

Deadnight wrote:
It's got nothing to do with the human form being perfect Karol, it's to do with our brains and our use of tools. One on one, nsked, in a fight against most predators, humans are the food.

Nonsense. Evolution wouldn't push multiple bipedal forms for eight million years if it was anywhere near true. Add another half million when our 'tools' were basically a stick, a rock, and waving arms in the air, and if it wasn't any good we would have went extinct long ago. Our ""naked"" ancestors caused massive mass extinction all over the planet long before we invented writing or wheel.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Also, humans are in NO WAY the most dominant form on earth. The average animal on the planet earth is a beetle. There are trillions upon trillions upon trillions of beetles compared to about seven billion humans. And unlike us, it seems like beetles can actually sustain those numbers without causing their own mass extinction like we're currently working on.

Sustain? You might want to check again, because humans are kicking their ass without even trying (sadly):

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-half-a-million-insect-species-extinction-scientists.html

 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, its kind of like, the united states military research complex is run by what are effectively children given a budget the dwarfs the GDP of many fully developed nations on earth, half the stuff they come up with is just gak they saw in a movie and thought was badass and not even one time have they tried to seriously pitch any kind of humanoid walking vehicle, for the exact same reason why they've never tried to make a vehicle that presents its largest basic surface of construction in the direction of incoming enemy fire and places its smallest basic surface on the ground.

You were saying?

 Irbis wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
It's got nothing to do with the human form being perfect Karol, it's to do with our brains and our use of tools. One on one, nsked, in a fight against most predators, humans are the food.

Nonsense. Evolution wouldn't push multiple bipedal forms for eight million years if it was anywhere near true. Add another half million when our 'tools' were basically a stick, a rock, and waving arms in the air, and if it wasn't any good we would have went extinct long ago. Our ""naked"" ancestors caused massive mass extinction all over the planet long before we invented writing or wheel.

Ugh. Evolution doesn't 'push' anything. Extinction isn't about a fight against predators. Its about finding sufficient food and popping out the next generation before dying.
Climbing and hiding are better survival tools in the odd moment when there were large predators eyeing up bipeds for dinner. And yes, they probably got some, but nowhere near enough to affect species survival. Climate, disease, drought and starvation are the failure points for species, certainly ours. Organized action (and a disregard of consequences) is what we used to cause mass extinction, something most other predators aren't capable of.

Warfare is an _entirely_ different kettle of fish, that has nothing to do surviving in the face of predatory animals. In the last couple centuries that has had less and less to do with the human form (beyond thumbs and hand manipulation)

Evolution doesn't have infinite options either.

Things as complicated as a wheel-axle system with a drive shaft won't happen by "accident" (not even with infinite monkeys bashing on infinite keyboards) within the lifespan of the universe. So it's simply not a mutation that could ever plausibly happen, not to mention surviving long enough to propagate its genes - or be sexually attractive enough to propagate its genes. After all, sexual selection probably puts more pressure on evolution than The Fight™ after a certain point.

In fact, one of the arguments against Intelligent Design is how gakky any 'designed' creature actually is compared to the deliberate designs created by humans and engineered specifically for purpose.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Second, there's maneuverability, with a bunch of points:
A combat vehicle exerts a ground pressure equal to the quotient of it's weight divided by it's ground contact area. For a tracked tank, this is the area where the tracks are touching the ground, for a 'mech this is the soles of the feet [specifically, the sole of one of it's feet, because even though it has two, it supports it's entire weight on one when moving]. Ground pressure determines what terrain a vehicle can cross, higher ground pressure is bad and means you'll sink into soft ground and become bogged, this is one of the reasons tanks have tracks in the first place instead of wheels. So a 'mech would have a smaller ground contact area [or one foot would need to be the size of the entire ground contact area of both tracks of a tank], and thus a higher ground pressure, and be less capable in off-road terrain.

Dinosaurs be like: Am I a joke to you?

Plainly big heavy things walk/walked around. Maybe not Abrams 70 ton things, but certainly Bradley 25 - 30 ton things. At that scale ground pressure doesn't seem like much of an issue.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
There's also speed. A wheeled or tracked vehicle has the capability to be a lot faster. It's fairly simple to visualize. A walker's speed is governed by it's stride length, and it needs to take discrete steps. It can't carry it's inertia, and is in a process of continously accelerating and decelerating to a stop and then reversing it's various parts to move. A wheeled or tracked vehicle spins a thing in a continuous smooth motion for a much more efficient movement. And the top speed; the whole striding thing is a drastic limiter on the speed of a 'mech, and while a tracked vehicle is also limited by the dynamics of the belt-of-links [which will experience significant stress and also absorb a lot of energy vibrating and whipping around at high speed], and wheeled vehicle is essentially limited in speed by the torque of the motor.

There are legged animals that are faster than tracked tanks. Well, maybe just one? A Cheetah can get reportedly 70-80 mph. I'm betting humans will be able to make legged robots that hit such speeds. MIT is already on the case.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Obstacle crossability is the primary "reason" that is proposed for why someone would desire a large bipedal combat walker, but it's not a very good one. It's largely less proficient in slope climbing, is more limited in where it can actually put it's feet down making it less capable on uneven ground, etc. A tracked or wheeled system is a lot better at navigating rubble and broken ground than footpads due to a greater ability to shape to the ground. The supposed ability to "step up" like it's ascending a staircase in its scale is it's only theoretical advantage, but such environments only really exist in the minds of imaginative people who want giant robots to fight. They don't even occur in human-constructed environments because to the surprise of nobody, we don't generally build staircases sized for giants.

Staircase for giants:

Other rough terrain that legs might work better than treads on:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

And I won't even mention mobile stability for firing.

If a human can fire a recoiless rifle or missile launcher I'd think a big robot could too. Any viable weapons on them will be "learned" and recoil compensated for. The balance of AI bots is only going to get better and better. Some of them are already showing some excellent feats of balance and they're only going to keep improving.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
As for noise, a 'mech is going to be as loud or louder than a tracked or wheeled tank, since it has the same engine noise but a lot more mechanical parts moving and connecting with each other, not to mention the footfalls will have much more noise than conventional propulsion. AI control can react just as fast or faster with a turret, since it's moving an object with a lower moment of inertia with better torque on a more stable platform.

Like I said above, I really don't think stability will be a problem. Legs and "torso" and "gimbal/turret/arm" designs may offer better "rotation" times than the typical turret will because there are multiple servos working in concert to reach the distance rather than just one. If a turret has to traverse 50 degrees, it has to do the whole thing on one motor and system. If a robot with legs, "torso" and gimbal-arm is rotating the same 50 degrees it could mean something like 5+ motors effectively rotating 5-15 degrees in order to reach the full distance, each one traveling it's respective target rotation faster than the one single system. The entire motion will be more complicated, to be sure, but there's reason to believe it could be achieved faster than the traditional turret in the end.

As for noise, depends on weight, drive etc. Lot's of factors there, but electric cars are a lot quieter than gas ones. If you're dealing with an electric robot with some sort of sound dampening foot pads. . . who knows?

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

As for elevating the weapons mount, while height is generally a tactical disadvantage for a war machine, if it became such that the ability to elevate the firing point of the weapon was an overriding tactical desire, an armature or elevating hydraulic track on a conventional unit would provide superior capability at reduced weight and complexity.

The vertical mobility comes for free with legs. (I actually think they'd weigh less too, depending on their design.)

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Walking legged things offer a meaningful advantage only essentially in environments constructed for them, like inside of human dwellings. This means that bipedal human scale robots are valuable, but unless we start building structures to be convenient staircases for the Attack of the 50' Woman, then there isn't an advantage for feet on a tank.

I agree completely that human scale robots will be valuable, but I quite disagree that human scale is the size limit for walker-viability. I think the technology will be there at some point, I think it's more a issue of whether the mission would be one that's decided to be worth pursuing. Autonomous/semi-autonomous fire support platform for use in dense/rough terrain is sorta the realm I'm thinking.

I for one propose a new game, Beetlehammer 40'000.