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I'm probably not the only one, but I get the feeling alot that space marines just don't live up to their novel/artwork counterparts on the tabletop, I mean, even when I'm playing Nids against my bro's Blood Angels, I feel abit cheated for him when his Sanguine Guard; supposed elite of the elite of the elite veterans, get cut down by 15-20 simple die-a-dozen Hormagaunts.

I tried using the search bar but this subject weirdly couldn't be found.

Anyone got any realistic suggestions on what a Tactical Marine with his Boltgun would be like stat/rule wise if it was true to the fluff?



Which leads me on the the other one, the Bolter just doesn't seem potent enough, yet in the fluff it seems to destroy anything short of a tank. What do you guys think it should be like on the tabletop?

The power of a marine in fluff varies from author to author. You can get as many explanations for what it can do as there are codices or novels.

Ethancol wrote: I feel abit cheated for him when his Sanguine Guard; supposed elite of the elite of the elite veterans, get cut down by 15-20 simple die-a-dozen Hormagaunts.

20 Hormagaunts need, on average, 5 rounds of assault whilst taking no casualties to beat 5 Sanguinary Guard. This is hardly "cut down". Don't confuse what happens once with what happens every time.

There is a mini dex out there called "Movie Marines" that is pretty fun looking. It basically makes 1 tac squad into the super powerful epic marines of the novels and artwork. Each Marine in the squad basically becomes a special character with ridiculous stats and special rules but if you were wanting to recreate Uriel Ventris and his rag tag group of outcast space marines going up against ALL of the iron warriors inside of there fortress of despair then it would be the codex to use.

So you want marines to be unstoppable with rapid fire bazookas? And you want to try and bring it to the table top to either:
1.) get rid of all those pesky friends
2.) reduce play times to turn 1
3.) troll everyone

Movie Marines are actually quite fun. Whomever is playing them gets all the excitement of Marine super-heroics and whomever is playing against them gets to win.

Lol yeah the movie marines have only very slim chance of winning because its like a 10 man tac squad worth 1500 points vs a 1500 army.

I planned on making a movie marine truescale army with existing GW official rules. GK paladins (as long as you convert them appropriately to include the termie bits and 40mm base when truescale) make for good movie marines and are 100% official. 2 wounds, 2+/5+ save, storm bolter, powerweapons, mastercrafter wargear, etc. When you play them, you really do feel a heck of alot more powerful than with a similar number of IG or other imperials. A ten man squad with lots of upgrades can run you 800pts using Paladins as your base unit.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Ethancol wrote: I feel abit cheated for him when his Sanguine Guard; supposed elite of the elite of the elite veterans, get cut down by 15-20 simple die-a-dozen Hormagaunts.

20 Hormagaunts need, on average, 5 rounds of assault whilst taking no casualties to beat 5 Sanguinary Guard. This is hardly "cut down". Don't confuse what happens once with what happens every time.

It was "cut down", grow up, don't take it too literally.


There's always one eh?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

warboss wrote:I planned on making a movie marine truescale army with existing GW official rules. GK paladins (as long as you convert them appropriately to include the termie bits and 40mm base when truescale) make for good movie marines and are 100% official. 2 wounds, 2+/5+ save, storm bolter, powerweapons, mastercrafter wargear, etc. When you play them, you really do feel a heck of alot more powerful than with a similar number of IG or other imperials. A ten man squad with lots of upgrades can run you 800pts using Paladins as your base unit.

That's pretty incredible man, I've heard nasty stories of those Paladins!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just found the movie marine rules!

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/12/40k-playtest-movie-marines-in-5e.html

There was a thread opened a while ago about fluffbased stats. It basically had marines as this

WS 5
BS 5
S 5
T5
w 2-3
Int 5
A 3
Ld 10
Sv 2+

Wargear
Bolter
Range 24/ 12 when firing as assault
Str 6
Ap 4
Heavy 2 or assault 4
Power Armour (2+)
Bolt Pistol (Str 6, Ap 4 Pistol)
Chainsword rending

Special Rules
Fearless
Relentless
MTC
Tank Hunters
Preferred Enemy everything
Night Vision.for autosenses


You get the picture. Somewhere between.movie marines and TT.

The power of everyone in the fluff is horribly, horribly over-exaggerated since every single piece of fluff is written as propaganda from that army's point of view. If you want to write another Movie Marines-like list, I suppose you could, but it'd be funny to see what a Movie Eldar or Movie Chaos list would look like facing it.

Whether or not authors vary in estimating marine's potency, they are always represented with some fundamental characteristics... especially in newer books. They are far and above superior to mortal men in every aspect, they are giant sized... 7-8 feet tall (I say 8), and before the horus heresy they were the dominant military force in the galaxy... that's not just propaganda, the crusades were spreading the imperium everywhere. Games workshop writes one thing in the books, but on the tabletop they want the game to work for two players, and they want to sell a lot of models, so they represent marines as basically what a power armored mortal would be like.

I think that is short-sighted, and that marines could very well function in a normal tabletop game... if they always played alongside mortals, either some allied guard units or chapter serfs or any random force. And they do that very often in the books unless it is a special mission or infiltration situation. In big battles marines are usually fighting alongside some mortals... like knights in a medieval army. Especially Chaos Marines, they always fight with some cultists to throw as cannon fodder into battle, and they are very elite dudes considering they're 10,000 years old and there's not many more of them being produced.

And there's a perfectly good argument that other races aren't properly represented either. But the human team will always be the most scrutinized... because we have a reference point, ourselves. Xenos races can vary and be rewritten or imagined to a greater extent because there is no clear reference point.... we don't have elves and giant space bugs walking among us. And it doesn't look as wrong when a giant sized heroic transhuman pretty much looks like and behaves a bit better than your typical guardsman.

That's true mate, as a tyranid player I think I'd prefer fighting Space Marines as they "should" be, again as you said, that's defined by various Graphic novelists/authors/game developers etc.

But all the above do agree on the aforementioned set characteristics i.e. 7ft tall, take hits that kill men 3x over etc.

I'd love to pit 1500pt of Nids against 2W space marines that re-roll armour saves...



And that's why I am tonight!

Sounds good

I had a thread about this too. In games of my own I've been using this statline:

WS5 BS5 S5 T5 W2 A2 I4 LD9 SV3+

For special rules you have the typical space marine special rules, with these additions:

-feel no pain roll of 5+ to represent the space marine's ability to heal faster and instantly clot wounds
-Acute senses
-Resistance to poison, add +2 to poision rolls to wound.
-move through cover

I think that model like that is worth 35-40 points more or less. Imagine it was a paladin (55 pts more or less), then take off 10 pts for the fact that it's a 3+ save, and take 20 pts more for the lack of power weapon, invul save, and psychic powers, deepstrike. Then add on 10 pts for the strength and toughness bonuses. Also it would help to make them elite and nonscoring units. It would just take playtesting I think to get the points cost right since it matters so much on the metagame anyway.

If the armies and matchup is cool enough I don't care if the odds are stacked against me, the cinematic element of the game and the challenge makes it fun.