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I recently went into a local model shop (unforcently due to budgest cuts they had to downsize so no longer able to play there) and being my first time in there i got on quite well with the owner and started talking about "true" lists and he raised a point, space marines!

Presuming the imperial guard are the template force for the game, 1 wound humans (some naturally tougher than others), generally low moral due to starvation, degradation, poor training, poorly massed equipment, faulty or even just not avalible at times, abused degraded etc etc with bog (sub)standard equipment.

Cadians (As seen in the book Eisgnhorn) being tougher than average, so presuming there the model we base this presumtion on going by the codex and books. (Common guys/gals/orks and space ponys, they do manurvers with live ammunition.)

Gaurdsman stats:
WS BS S T W I A LD SV
-3--3--3--3--1--3--1--7--5-

so using this number and going by the fluff in the codex's and fluff about space marines

for every space marine that falls a hundred foes shall fall as well

Grey Hunter (Space Wolves Codex)
WS BS S T W I A LD SV
-4--4--4--4--1--4--1--8--3-

Grey Knight (Daemon Hunters Codex)
WS BS S T W I A LD SV
-5--4--4--4--1--4--1--8--3-

honestly even in power armour with there impressive weapons it doesnt come close to how they are described in the fluff while i understand there limitations of being true to form making the game serverly unblanced honestly? they dont seem to be much better than there human masters and allies and this is after the space marines have lived a few hundred years honing there skills as scouts and such likes (while i dont posses the basic space marine codex you know what i mean) they seem to be lacking... a lot in there super human ablitlies (such as being able to spit acid, [extra cc weapon?] or being able to eat a brain to consume there memorys (3rd ed rule book i think says this) etc etc] so im curious, what statistics would you as new and old players give for a basic 1000 point space marine force that follows more the fluff marines where they can crush a mans skull with no armour on rather than the codexes rather... watered down versions? honestly 1 wound seems rather low for someone who is meant to be able to shrug of loosing a limb to carry on and bash the living hell out of an orc with his on now rather useless leg. (i actually have no grief playing with or agaisnt them, including the armour save)

In Eisenhorn, those "tougher than average" Cadians were in fact "Kasrkin". They're generally given the equivalent treatment of what the Spartans in Halo went through.

As for the stats of Marines v Humans...

Marines have been toned down a bit for gameplay balance. If you look around, there was a set of Movie Marine rules that were "more realistic"--and absurdly OP.

oh thats fair enough, but my question is... what would you think the stats would be?

Think of a unit of 30 or so Orks, then imagine something that could go toe to toe with it alone and come out victorious.

Avatar 720 wrote:Think of a unit of 30 or so Orks, then imagine something that could go toe to toe with it alone and come out victorious.

So Mephiston is really a True Marine?

Me and my friends have discussed this before, we came to a rather ridiculous conclusion.

Here are some rules that we came up with.

WS BS S T W I A LD Sv
-6--6--6--6--4--5--4--10--2+

All the regular stuff with some more added on:
Fearless
Eternal warrior
Spit acid (his attacks are rending)
All bolt weapons add plus 2 to their strength and subtract 1 from their AP
Regeneration (regains 1 wound every turn on a 4+)
Perfection of warfare (since he has been fighting for so long, he has preferred enemy against all opponents)
Unnatural Immunity (Poisons have no effect on him)
Move through cover (because he just smashes through it)
A few more I can't remember but you get the idea.

Essentialy they should stay the way they are, if we tried to go by the fluff, they would never lose, period.

Lyzin Locrian wrote:Me and my friends have discussed this before, we came to a rather ridiculous conclusion.

Here are some rules that we came up with.

WS BS S T W I A LD Sv
-6--6--6--6--4--5--4--10--2+

All the regular stuff with some more added on:
Fearless
Eternal warrior
Spit acid (his attacks are rending)
All bolt weapons add plus 2 to their strength and subtract 1 from their AP
Regeneration (regains 1 wound every turn on a 4+)
Perfection of warfare (since he has been fighting for so long, he has preferred enemy against all opponents)
Unnatural Immunity (Poisons have no effect on him)
Move through cover (because he just smashes through it)
A few more I can't remember but you get the idea.

Essentialy they should stay the way they are, if we tried to go by the fluff, they would never lose, period.

I'd be game, as long as they were points appropriate. =D

If one space marine is the equal of 30k ork boyz, then let them be the same point cost.

Dashofpepper wrote:I'd be game, as long as they were points appropriate. =D

If one space marine is the equal of 30k ork boyz, then let them be the same point cost.

I think points cost would be a little something like this:

SM player: "Ok I'll take this combat squad with a meltagun, and you take what ever I don't really think it makes a difference."

IG player: "Five marines!? I'm screwed! Ok I'll take those two companies of regular guardsmen, those 24 leman russes, these 50 ogryns, 12 Bane Wolfs, my Company Command Squad with Ursarker E. Creed and Jarran Kell, Commisar Yarrick, Sly Marbo, and about 200 Rough Riders. Dang, I'm still only about half of your points."

SM: "Meh, don't bother adding anything else, it will only prolong your suffering."

Am I forgetting anything?

Don't forget that often in books the marines are wearing sacred plot armor as the author tends to not want to create new chars so is inclined to keep the old ones around somehow.

Gw actually released rules for true power space marines in a white dwarf. re-roll 3+, 3++, W2, WS5, BS5, S5, T5, or something like that and they had rending with their combat knifes and their bolters were assualt cannons. They had rules for the Sargent better than a current captain and the missile launcher, flamer, rhino and razorback were crazy. I saw a guy play a game using true scale marines with those rules.


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And to represent the true power of marines they would have to completely changed the game around.

Marines strengths lie in lightning assault and hit and run attacks. Not driving towards an imperial or tau gunline like any fool.

Codex Movie Marines?

Space marine 100pts

WS 5
BS 5
S 6
T 6
W 2
I 5
A 3
Ld 9
3+ save

Bolter and grenades. Fleet, Move through cover, infiltrate, auto-senses, space marine armor is 3+/3++ reroll and other special rules that are silly?

bolter is r36" s6 ap4 assault 4 rending.

yeah thats pretty close to real marines.

^^^
that actually would be pretty kewl

Kaskirin are the closest you will get to a marine without being one really, but fluff wise, marines are UP

yep and one squad with stunt doubles and a razorback is over 1500

Lyzin Locrian wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:I'd be game, as long as they were points appropriate. =D

If one space marine is the equal of 30k ork boyz, then let them be the same point cost.

I think points cost would be a little something like this:

SM player: "Ok I'll take this combat squad with a meltagun, and you take what ever I don't really think it makes a difference."

IG player: "Five marines!? I'm screwed! Ok I'll take those two companies of regular guardsmen, those 24 leman russes, these 50 ogryns, 12 Bane Wolfs, my Company Command Squad with Ursarker E. Creed and Jarran Kell, Commisar Yarrick, Sly Marbo, and about 200 Rough Riders. Dang, I'm still only about half of your points."

SM: "Meh, don't bother adding anything else, it will only prolong your suffering."

Am I forgetting anything?

I did some calculations once to show how many more Guardsmen there are compared to Marines. Pretty conservative calculations, might I add. I came up with that every year, 70,000 Guardsmen are raised per Space Marine. That doesn't include Guardsmen from past years.

Clumpski wrote:
for every space marine that falls a hundred foes shall fall as well

That doesn't in any way imply it's the case during a stand-up slug fest. Which, coincidentally, is the kind of fighting Marines are least likely to get involved in.

Marines are raiders. They attack where and when they choose to maximize their success.

The guard are for meat grinders.

I think it's a combination of the fact that

a) SM are over-fluffed for reasons we're all very familiar with
b) an increase of just 1 point to a characteristic is a huge advance when rolling d6
c) as DE noted above, it's the SM's tactics, leadership, and equipment, as well as just their training, genetic superiority and battlefield prowess, that makes them a dangerous foe.

A lot of the other stuff, like them being able to spit acid and consume people's memories, would be more applicable in a role-playing situation (inquisitor anyone?).

That said, I would love it if my marines were able to board someone's tank, kill the men inside and start driving that bad boy around. Obviously for game balance purposes, such a thing would be pretty unfair...


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Ogiwan wrote:I did some calculations once to show how many more Guardsmen there are compared to Marines. Pretty conservative calculations, might I add. I came up with that every year, 70,000 Guardsmen are raised per Space Marine. That doesn't include Guardsmen from past years.

I've always thought the canon figure of there being 1,000 chapters, and 1,000 marines per chapter, makes SM an extremely tiny military force. One million(!) troops in a galazy of untold trillions. For reference, fifty million people died during WW2, and the world population at the time was just over 2 billion. For SMs to be an effective military presence in the galaxy, they would have to be *at least* as tough as the fluff makes them out to be, if not more so...

Here are some basic "True-Marine" characteristic (and weaponry) changes that my mate and I are working on atm. Hoping to implement them (and more) later as house rules, with appropriate squad size and points adjustments.

I think they're fair enough, and give an accurate representation of fluffy marines without making them completely OP.

NOTE: I realise that some of these modified weapons make others less important (for example, the custom Heavy Bolter and default Assault Cannon are very similar). This doesn't bother us, as we don't use many exotic weapons, but if we ever make a comprehensive set of house rules for Marines we'll look into these issues.

Anyway, tell me what you think so far!



STATS



Space Marine:

WS-----5
BS------5
S--------5
T--------4
W-------3
I---------6
A--------3
Ld-------9
Sv-------3+/6+

Special Rules:

- And They Shall Know No Fear
- Stubborn
- Acute Senses
- With Fire and Bolter (see bottom)
- Resistant to Toxins (see bottom)



Veteran:

WS-----6
BS------5
S--------5
T--------4
W-------3
I---------6
A--------3
Ld-------10
Sv-------3+/6+

Special Rules:

- And They Shall Know No Fear
- Stubborn
- Acute Senses
- With Fire and Bolter (see bottom)
- Resistant to Toxins (see bottom)



Terminator:

WS-----6
BS------5
S--------5
T--------5
W-------3
I---------5
A--------3
Ld-------10
Sv-------2+/5+

Special Rules:

- Relentless (as per norm.)
- And They Shall Know No Fear
- Stubborn
- Acute Senses
- Resistant to Toxins (see bottom)



Scout:

WS-----4
BS------4
S--------5
T--------4
W-------2
I---------6
A--------3
Ld-------8
Sv-------4+/6+

Special Rules:

- Infiltrate
- Scouts
- And They Shall Know No Fear
- Stubborn
- Acute Senses
- Move Through Cover
- With Fire and Bolter (see bottom)
- Resistant to Toxins (see bottom)



Boltgun:

Range---24"
Str-------5
AP-------4
Type-----Rapid Fire, Rending



Heavy Bolter:

Range---36"
Str-------6
AP-------4
Type-----Heavy 3, Rending



Boltpistol:

Range---12"
Str-------5
AP-------4
Type-----Pistol, Rending



Storm Bolter:

Range---24"
Str-------5
AP-------4
Type-----Assault 2, Rending



Chainsword:

- Rending
- Rolls Strength + 2D6 for vehicle penetration.




CUSTOM SPECIAL RULES

- With Fire and Bolter: Models with this rule always count as stationary (for their own shooting purposes only) when firing Boltguns.
- Resistant to Toxins: Successful rolls to wound by weapons that are of the "Poison" special type must be re-rolled.





NOTES:

- Extra AP and/or Strength for Bolters (to represent the kinetic mass of a bolt), plus rending (to represent the explosive properties of a Bolter round, and the damage that it could cause by exploding within an enemy).

- Chainswords are rending, and get a bonus D6 to armour penetration (just like default chainfists). After all, a whirring, screeching sword edged with rapidly-moving, razor-sharp, serrated steel cutting teeth ought to do more damage to armour and flesh than a mere knife!

- Improved the WS, BS, S, W, I, A and Ld characteristics of the basic Space Marine statline. Still Toughness 4 (to allow for ID by weapons such as lascannons, lances, krak missiles, meltas, etc), but added a 6+ Invulnerable Save (to represent their incredible fortitude and resistance to pain).

- Terminators, relative to the custom Space Marine statline, get +1 WS, +1 T, -2 I (as their armour is bulky, and movement-inhibiting) and +1 Ld. Kept their Invulnerable Save of 5+ (I never understood why they ended up with an Inv. Sv in the first place... I mean what exactly does a Crux Terminatus do?).

- Veterans, relative to the custom Space Marine statline, get +1 WS and +1 Ld.

- Scouts, relative to the custom Space Marine statline, lose -1 WS, -1 BS, -1 W (as they don't have access to the life support systems of Power Armour) and -1 Ld.

- All Marines gain the Stubborn and Acute Senses USRs, representing their dogmatic religious fervour and enhanced eyesight/hearing/smell respectively.

- All above troop types (minus Terminators, for obvious reasons) have the custom rule "With Fire and Bolter", representing their incredible dedication to and high level of training with the "Holy Boltgun".

- All Space Marines have the "Resistant to Toxins" custom rule, due to their bolstered immune and blood-filtering systems.

I really would like that

True scale marine models with realistic stats 100pts each would be ace.

Not gonna happen any time soon but if someone has rules it would be a blast trying it out.

Based on the number of marines killed by a single bolter hit or chainsword swipe in the books and movies, it's clear you guys aren't actually reading/watching those things.

I've always just assumed the fluff descriptions of SMs were propaganda. That is to say, they are very good, but not superhuman, and there are lots more of them around than the IoM claims.

It's the only way to explain their frequent appearance on tabletop.

Maybe there are lots of SM wannabees who just dress up but don't have the enhancements.

Would explain the numbers on the tapletops, why they are so rubbish when I put some there, and of course it explains why thet are the same saze as IG.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Maybe there are lots of SM wannabees who just dress up but don't have the enhacements.

Would explain the numbers on the tapletops, why they are so rubbish when I put some there, and of course it explains why thet are the same saze as IG.

++

Best justification I've ever seen.

I think it is mainly a balancing issue, but it could also be to preserve the pride of other non SM players (Not that there are a lot of those around ). For example:

Eldar player: Wow, my Harlequin is totaly badass, he/she, I can't really tell, just killed a entire squad of 20 imperial gaurdsmen!

SM player: And now he's dead, your farseer is dead, and your squad of dire avengers is dead, this one marine killed them all, that'll bring his kill count up to 82... hundred.

Eldar player: Oh... I'm just going to... you know... sit in that corner and cry (sobs queitly in the corner, with the relization that no one in his force will ever be as good as a space marine )

You know what that "marines are the awesomest" is also based on? The Imperium's most common enemy: other humans with las guns.

Marines look pretty damn good compared to that.

Ogiwan wrote:

Lyzin Locrian wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:I'd be game, as long as they were points appropriate. =D

If one space marine is the equal of 30k ork boyz, then let them be the same point cost.

I think points cost would be a little something like this:

SM player: "Ok I'll take this combat squad with a meltagun, and you take what ever I don't really think it makes a difference."

IG player: "Five marines!? I'm screwed! Ok I'll take those two companies of regular guardsmen, those 24 leman russes, these 50 ogryns, 12 Bane Wolfs, my Company Command Squad with Ursarker E. Creed and Jarran Kell, Commisar Yarrick, Sly Marbo, and about 200 Rough Riders. Dang, I'm still only about half of your points."

SM: "Meh, don't bother adding anything else, it will only prolong your suffering."

Am I forgetting anything?

I did some calculations once to show how many more Guardsmen there are compared to Marines. Pretty conservative calculations, might I add. I came up with that every year, 70,000 Guardsmen are raised per Space Marine. That doesn't include Guardsmen from past years.

There is 1 million space marines approximately and billions upon billions of guardsmen. How did you make your calculations

Lets be honest, though, it would be no fun only being able to field 10 super powerful dudes.

I don't see a reason why Spacemarine should have more than strenght and toughnes 4. They are still flesh and bone, no matter the number of enhancements. If you put a bullet between their eyes they die.
If they get a bolt into their guts then they die as well, because no matter how many extra organs you have, massive wounds to critical areas of the human body will lead to death.
Their extra strenght and toughness is already explained by S4 and T4 and giving them any more would simply exceed the rather tight boundaries of flesh.
What actually makes them unusualy hardy and able to survive under heavy fire is their armour, which cannot be accurately displayed on a d6.

Lol, kinda reminds me of that episode of Invader Zim.

"You're the healthiest boy I've ever seen! Such plentiful organs!"

ChocolateGork wrote:

Ogiwan wrote:

Lyzin Locrian wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:I'd be game, as long as they were points appropriate. =D

If one space marine is the equal of 30k ork boyz, then let them be the same point cost.

I think points cost would be a little something like this:

SM player: "Ok I'll take this combat squad with a meltagun, and you take what ever I don't really think it makes a difference."

IG player: "Five marines!? I'm screwed! Ok I'll take those two companies of regular guardsmen, those 24 leman russes, these 50 ogryns, 12 Bane Wolfs, my Company Command Squad with Ursarker E. Creed and Jarran Kell, Commisar Yarrick, Sly Marbo, and about 200 Rough Riders. Dang, I'm still only about half of your points."

SM: "Meh, don't bother adding anything else, it will only prolong your suffering."

Am I forgetting anything?

I did some calculations once to show how many more Guardsmen there are compared to Marines. Pretty conservative calculations, might I add. I came up with that every year, 70,000 Guardsmen are raised per Space Marine. That doesn't include Guardsmen from past years.

There is 1 million space marines approximately and billions upon billions of guardsmen. How did you make your calculations

Actually, that does give a number that almost reaches the low end of Guard numbers if one assumes an average service/survival length numbering in decades... I would be interested in knowing where those recruitment figures ultimately come from, though.

seejay wrote:I've always thought the canon figure of there being 1,000 chapters, and 1,000 marines per chapter, makes SM an extremely tiny military force. One million(!) troops in a galazy of untold trillions. For reference, fifty million people died during WW2, and the world population at the time was just over 2 billion. For SMs to be an effective military presence in the galaxy, they would have to be *at least* as tough as the fluff makes them out to be, if not more so...

Someone on this board called Space Marines the most tactically insignificant force in the galaxy, due to their small numbers and scattered deployment.

Anyways. Again, my figures were really conservative. I started with the premise that the average planetary population is 5 billion. The current population of the Earth is between 6 and 7 billion, and we reached the 5 billion mark in 1987. Furthermore, a Hive World with a (small) population of 20 billion just needs 4 "dead worlds" with population 0 in order to average out to 5 billion. Seeing as Hive Worlds can potentially have more, and even sparsely-populated agri-worlds will have a few hundred k, 5 billion is a conservative planetary average.

Of that 5 billion, I figured a quarter-percent, .25%, or .0025, are under arms in the planetary PDF. This gives us about 1 in 400 men under arms, and an average planetary PDF size of 12,500,000 men.

When raising a regiment, a tithe, 10%, of the PDF is taken; this is also the cream of the PDF. The levy, then, is 1,250,000 men.

Now, in order to supply those men, some worlds in the Imperium pay their tithe in material, rather than manpower. We'll assume half do so; so, if there are one million worlds of the Imperium, we multiply that 1.25 million by 500,000. However, I find it doubtful that a planet would tithe yearly; so, divide by 20 so that once every 20 years (once a generation), troops are levied from worlds. This gives us 31,250,000,000 Guardsmen raised per year. If there are one million Marines in the galaxy, there are 31,250 Guardsmen raised each year per Space Marine in existence. Hmm. My numbers changed. Wonder where....well, I think I did a further calculation, with each year's tithe being atritted 10% or 20% for a 25-year tour, just to figure out how many Guardsmen there are at one time. I had to use Excel 'cause the numbers were so big.

Anyways. Again, my figures are quite conservative.

edit: I found another posting of this on my other 40k forum, the Imperial Guard Boot Camp, and the numbers were identical. I must have just misremember the 70k per Space Marine thing.

Hah! In the same post on Boot Camp, I figured that essentially, for every Space Marine, there's an Armored regiment, given the manpower and material contributions. Dug up a Soviet TO&E. Or, if you want to go with straight-up bodies, 10 regiments of 3,000 men each per Space Marine. So, essentially there is a Corps-sized infantry formation per Space Marine.

Anyways. Whatever. There are a lot of Guard, and an almost insignificant number of Space Marines.