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sennacherib wrote:In all honesty it seems like most firearms could kill a marine with a lucky or very well placed shot. after all you can kill a marine in melee with just a gun butt (before anyone whines needlessly, might i point out that guardsman do this all the time in 40k games).

Yeah, but now comes the whine that the rules don't represent real SM.

I guess this thread was abused so some users could flex their ego :/

Sadly, the inconsistency of the universe is showing and no one is really accepting anything but their own narrow views.

I go with the nigh-unstoppable Space Marines myself. Where most rounds would just bounce off completely or just scratch the armor itself. Unless hit in a weak spot.

That's just me though, I'll let the narrow-minded approach continue, sorry for any inconvenience.

Actually, 90% of stab wounds are superficial, causing nothing more than tissue damage. also, a slash wound to the neck would take your average 5"7 man aproximately 3 minutes and 40-45 seconds to bleed out and die. the best place would actually be beneath the ribs with something like a butchers knife as you then cut the Descending Aorta close to the heart causing death through bloodloss in 42-50 seconds.

By the Way, My source is "Contemporary Knife Tergeting"

I am surprised on how many ways people on Dakka know to kill a Human being.
That is just disturbing fact to know 0_0

If you can put a crack in his armor or helmet would mustard gas and such forms of weaponry prove effective? I ask as I was trying to think of ways to harm a SM or rather distract him from a distance to open him up to a lethal assault (close or far) and eliminate some of the threat when getting in close.

DeathRex wrote:If you can put a crack in his armor or helmet would mustard gas and such forms of weaponry prove effective? I ask as I was trying to think of was to harm a SM or rather distract him long from a distance to open him up to a lethal assualt and eliminate some of the threat when getting in close.

Gas wouldn't do a single thing to SM they have the ability to drink poison and spit it back at people lol. They don't gave an ish about poisons or gases I'm afraid.

After having read the grey knights omnibus if you have enough bodies arrows can do it XD

Gharron wrote:

DeathRex wrote:If you can put a crack in his armor or helmet would mustard gas and such forms of weaponry prove effective? I ask as I was trying to think of was to harm a SM or rather distract him long from a distance to open him up to a lethal assualt and eliminate some of the threat when getting in close.

Gas wouldn't do a single thing to SM they have the ability to drink poison and spit it back at people lol. They don't gave an ish about poisons or gases I'm afraid

Not strictly true, they can be poisoned, but as the level of toxicity to do it doesn't currently exist on Earth, it's a waste of time to try.

BaronIveagh wrote:

Compel wrote:
I think that's a pretty fair / logical summary of what would happen, all things considered...

Except that it means that their entire military was run by morons and their leaders didn't have brain one among them. Did they also form neat lines to be shot down in long bursts on full auto?

Ok, here's what *I* would do in the event of SM invasion. ATM Nasa monitors near Earth space for objects that mass around wast a SM strike cruiser does, particularly on Earth intercept, so a sneak attack is probably out. Plus that fact that in fluff the engines have outputs across multiple frequencies when underway comparable to small stars.

On determining hostile intent, I would deploy THELs and other interception systems to counter drop pods and re-issue W48's to all artillery units. This would be followed up by taking up tactical positions both in major cities and at prepared positions away from urban areas.

All long range Nuclear weapons would be launched, along with the Brilliant Pebbles prototype, if it still exists. Based on current estimates, this should be enough firepower on it's own to wipe out several hundred strike cruisers and battle barges, but I like to make sure.

Should any Thunderhawks penetrate interceptors and ground fire from the THELs et al, in close terrain they would be engaged with maximum force. In open ground, use of W48s would be authorized, followed up with air cav recon and close air support.

Given the average chapter is one thousand space marines, each loss is a much larger chunk of their effective fighting force then a similar loss would be to ground forces. Snipers would be under orders to target officers and heavy weapons teams as priority targets.

Obviously, all important personnel would be removed to remote and undisclosed locations.

Note: I just did this with nothing but the US military. (reasoning being that the US, Russia, and China would most likely top the list of countries to recruit or disable, and all have comparable weapons systems)

Long range nuclear weapons would be nowhere near powerful enough to destroy a strike cruiser, even the few hundred capable of leaving the atmosphere. I'll have to look for it, but I had found estimates putting macro cannon rounds at several tens of thousands of times more powerful than every nuke every made by humans, put together.

im2randomghgh wrote:

Long range nuclear weapons would be nowhere near powerful enough to destroy a strike cruiser, even the few hundred capable of leaving the atmosphere. I'll have to look for it, but I had found estimates putting macro cannon rounds at several tens of thousands of times more powerful than every nuke every made by humans, put together.

That seems highly unlikely, given that a single macro-cannon round would therefore be capable of wiping out all life on a planet, something all of those nukes could certainly do.

I think what gets forgotten is, Guardsmen wear tshirts that give them saves from swords, and a few types of guns (look at all the wondrful junger fighters with the tank tops.)
Gangers, Heritics, ect kill off Marines, Tau and Ork with swords (not just chain swords) with flint lock pistols, and with "lasguns" which seem weak enough. A flamer is a flamer is a flame thrower, and it seems to work just well too.
So I am guessing knives, fire, and most small arms would still work.

Anything would be able to kill a Space Marine, while a Space Marine in his full armor is a whole different matter.

A far more interesting question is this: What can BEAT a Space Marine in our modern days?

BaronIveagh wrote:
Except that it means that their entire military was run by morons and their leaders didn't have brain one among them. Did they also form neat lines to be shot down in long bursts on full auto?

Ok, here's what *I* would do in the event of SM invasion. ATM Nasa monitors near Earth space for objects that mass around wast a SM strike cruiser does, particularly on Earth intercept, so a sneak attack is probably out. Plus that fact that in fluff the engines have outputs across multiple frequencies when underway comparable to small stars.

On determining hostile intent, I would deploy THELs and other interception systems to counter drop pods and re-issue W48's to all artillery units. This would be followed up by taking up tactical positions both in major cities and at prepared positions away from urban areas.

All long range Nuclear weapons would be launched, along with the Brilliant Pebbles prototype, if it still exists. Based on current estimates, this should be enough firepower on it's own to wipe out several hundred strike cruisers and battle barges, but I like to make sure.

Should any Thunderhawks penetrate interceptors and ground fire from the THELs et al, in close terrain they would be engaged with maximum force. In open ground, use of W48s would be authorized, followed up with air cav recon and close air support.

Given the average chapter is one thousand space marines, each loss is a much larger chunk of their effective fighting force then a similar loss would be to ground forces. Snipers would be under orders to target officers and heavy weapons teams as priority targets.

Obviously, all important personnel would be removed to remote and undisclosed locations.

Note: I just did this with nothing but the US military. (reasoning being that the US, Russia, and China would most likely top the list of countries to recruit or disable, and all have comparable weapons systems)

Several problems.

First off; you don't know what the hell a Space Marine, or indeed a Strike Cruiser, is. Politically, all that prep will be absolutely impossible, plus you'll have ten thousand different generals all with their own ideas about what to do shouting at you. But let's assume that you get past all that, and get your deployments just like you like them. Even the nuclear shells. SO now we reach the REAL problems.

First; 'Long range' for a nuclear weapon means one planetary radius or less. Imperial warships engage at many times that range, and are capable of accelerating and maneuvering rapidly enough to make combat at interplanetary distances possible. You cannot hit the Strike Cruiser with your nukes; as soon as the Space Marines detect the launches, they simply move a few thousand kilometers away. ICBMs do not have the homing ability or fuel capacity to engage a starship. So now you've wasted your nuclear arsenal.

Second; You're not thinking this through. Imperial starships make interplanetary voyages at extremely high speed all the time; Warp Drives don't work close to gravity wells, remember? Their energy shields are armor are demonstrably up to the task of dealing with meteorites, which is what Brilliant Pebbles is; and, furthermore, remember that speed we were talking about? The Strike Cruiser can OUTRUN Brilliant Pebbles, then circle around the cloud. So the (unharmed) Strike Cruiser comes right back and, just to make sure, kills all the nuclear silos you launched from with kinetic and lance strikes from orbit. It then also kills your carefully-deployed artillery units, because it can detect large military deployments from orbit at least as well as a GPS satellite can. And while it's at it, it clears out all the satellites we've put up there, so no more GPS, satellite phones or satellite recon.

Third; THELs will do exactly jack gak against drop pods. A drop pod is large enough to carry several tons of Space Marines and/or equipment, making it MUCH larger and more heavily armored than a Katyusha rocket or artillery shell, and it is fired at the target location at extremely high velocity. Furthermore, it is armored specifically against thermal transfer, such as a laser; we know this because it can survive atmospheric entry intact. In order to have a good shot at taking out a descending drop pod you will need a full-size ABM system, at least; of which there are exactly two in the world. There's no particular reason to think the Strike Cruiser wouldn't also be able to detect those and kill them; but even if it didn't, the GBMD has a 50% failure rate on intercept tests to date against targets both much larger and with a much longer flight time than a drop pod, while the A-135 currently has had its long-range launchers offline for the past five years, and so can only intercept something within about 100 km of Moscow. You will not be able to stop the Space Marines from reaching the ground.

At this point the war is over. The Space Marines can land exactly where they please (with a small exclusion zone around Moscow, if they haven't taken out A-135), in whatever force they please. They can bombard anything they feel like bombarding on the surface; which includes little things like Air Force bases, airfields, and even naval battlegroups, so you're going to lose any long-range radar and air intercept capability pretty damn fast. It's actually IRRELEVANT how hard it is to kill Space Marines; just control of the orbitals is such a massive advantage that Earth would rapidly surrender without having to land them at all.

I bet some of the latest shotguns will at least badly injure, but then if you're that close you're pretty stuffed anyway.

How many autogun shots does it take to take down a tactical marine?
Or shotgun shells?

An electric drill?
a big black and decker with a diamond drill bit will go through practically anything...

Lucre wrote:How many autogun shots does it take to take down a tactical marine?
Or shotgun shells?

In the last UM book Cato Sicarius lets a bird kebab him with a sword so he can crush her swede when she gets close. She sticks it right through him and cuts his heart in half, but because he has two, he simply winces in pain and then crushes her head, before jogging off somewhere.

He does rest on one knee for a bit after the battles over though.

I just heard the Heart or Rage Audio drama too, a guy gets stabbed in the heart with the blade in up to the hilt. Ten minutes later, bloods clotted, no sickness, no slowdown, chops a blokes crust off.

If these hulking masses of muscle have multiple major organs, harder skeletons and solid rib-cages, I think a shotgun wouldn't do enough damage. I mean, you could probably kill one with small arms and knives if you had him chained up and you pumped like 20 shots into the bloke, but in real terms (A fight) You would injure him with your shotgun only if you surpised him (they are way faster and have better reactions and such) and then he would happily rip your face off.

And thats if he is fighting with his balls out cos you suprised him when he was getting out of the shower. Who knows if they are wearing power armour.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:

Long range nuclear weapons would be nowhere near powerful enough to destroy a strike cruiser, even the few hundred capable of leaving the atmosphere. I'll have to look for it, but I had found estimates putting macro cannon rounds at several tens of thousands of times more powerful than every nuke every made by humans, put together.

That seems highly unlikely, given that a single macro-cannon round would therefore be capable of wiping out all life on a planet, something all of those nukes could certainly do.

Not really.

An rpg as well as a VERY high calibre sniper rifle to the exposed joint areas could probably do it

How about some Taliban?

Run at the SM with C4 strapped on. If the SM shoots the Taliban with his close range .75 RPG, BOOM! One dead or unconcious SM to be opened by a tank.

If the Taliban gets to the SM, it's *click* then BOOM! One dead or unconcious SM to be opened by a tank.

IHateNids wrote:How about some Taliban?

Run at the SM with C4 strapped on. If the SM shoots the Taliban with his close range .75 RPG, BOOM! One dead or unconcious SM to be opened by a tank.

If the Taliban gets to the SM, it's *click* then BOOM! One dead or unconcious SM to be opened by a tank.

Why's it close range? It's a high-powered rifle, with the added benefit that the round itself has a rocket motor to extend its range, speed up the shell, and flatten the trajectory. A bolter (assuming that the technology could actually be put into practice in the manner it's described) should actually be an excellent sniper weapon.

It has been mentioned in previous pages that a bolter is fairly Carbine-like. If what you say is true then they would make perfect sniper weaponry

RicBlasko wrote:I think what gets forgotten is, Guardsmen wear tshirts that give them saves from swords, and a few types of guns (look at all the wondrful junger fighters with the tank tops.)
Gangers, Heritics, ect kill off Marines, Tau and Ork with swords (not just chain swords) with flint lock pistols, and with "lasguns" which seem weak enough. A flamer is a flamer is a flame thrower, and it seems to work just well too.
So I am guessing knives, fire, and most small arms would still work.

Since when do tau kill marines with swords or flintlock pistols? And orks tech works because of psychic power, not any kind of actual black powder. They could forget the powder and it'll still work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The following are firepower estimates of the IOM Naval mounted weaponry, using information garnered from Battlefleet Gothic:

From what we can gather, a the offensive capacity of a ship is divided between light-heavy Batteries, Lancers (Laser cannons), Torpedoes and the Nova Cannon.

- – -

“the forty men pulled harder at the traversing chains, heaving the massive barrel of the macro-cannon into position amidst the clank-clank-clank of rusty gears.
When it was open, the others bent their backs to the loading winch, ,lowering the shell, which weighed several tons, into the heart of the cannon.”

- Battlefleet Gothic

Weapons batteries (Otherwise known as macro cannons), loaded with a shell that weighs “several tons.” Going with the standard established velocity of 20,000 km/s for direct fire Imperial weapons weapons. At that mass/velocity, the kinetic energy of the projectile would be 400,000 terajoules, or just under 10 gigatons.

Conservative figures point to the Battleship firing “two hundred foot” torpedoes, which would be sixty meters long. Assuming that the diameter is 1/4 to 1/5 of the length, the torpedo would yield a diameter of around fifteen meters. To be further conservative, assume a density equal to water (yeah, I’m being ultra conservative here.) The mass of the torpedo in question would be between 6,800 and 10,600 tons.

Thus the kinetic energy of a torpedo is about 12,400,000,000 petajoules (Staggering really) with a momentum (Measured by calculating the speed and weight of the torpedo) between 6.6e16 kg*m/s and 1.05e17 kg*m/s.

Giving a single Torpedo a staggering yield of 2963 teratons (Or 2.9 petatons – Wow).

“A Nova cannon is a huge weapon, normally mounted in the prow of a ship so that the recoil it generates can be compensated for by the vessel’s engines. It fires a proejctile at incredible velocity, using graviometric impellers to accelerate it to close to light speed. The projectile implodes at a preset distance after firing, unleashing a force more potent than a dozen plasma bombs.”

- Battlefleet Gothic

Take note of how the ship has to compensate engine thrust to counter recoil – in a vacuum!

I would generally assume “close to light-speed” to mean at least 80-90% of C. The size of a Nova cannon shell is never given precisely, but the diameter of the shell is given in other sources (Fifty meters in “Warriors of Ultramar”), though a 30 meter diameter nova cannon is mentioned. Mass can be derived by assuming the length is at least equal to the diameter, or (more probably) a multiple of the diameter (2-3x longer than the diameter, for example. A fifty meter diameter shell would be a hundred and fifty meters long).

Example: Going by a 50×150 meter shell made of Iron (assume 30% solid, its supposed to be packed with explosive of unknown type and density) fired at .9c yields a shell mass of around 770,000 tons and and a kinetic energy rating of 90,000,000,000 petajoules (Holy gak!).

Giving the blast of a Nova cannon (The most powerful ship mounted Imperial weapon) a staggering yield of 22 petatons. For those of you struggling to comprehend these figures, this is a yield one million times greater than the heaviest Turbolaser available to the Star Wars universe.

Or for those less fantastically inclined, two to three million times the combined explosive power of every nuclear weapon on Earth throughout history.

im2randomghgh wrote:
Long range nuclear weapons would be nowhere near powerful enough to destroy a strike cruiser, even the few hundred capable of leaving the atmosphere. I'll have to look for it, but I had found estimates putting macro cannon rounds at several tens of thousands of times more powerful than every nuke every made by humans, put together.

As pointed out earlier in the thread, a 350 kiloton nuke is equivalent to an entire broadside from a Lunar class cruiser in fluff.

BeRzErKeR wrote:
First; 'Long range' for a nuclear weapon means one planetary radius or less. Imperial warships engage at many times that range, and are capable of accelerating and maneuvering rapidly enough to make combat at interplanetary distances possible. You cannot hit the Strike Cruiser with your nukes; as soon as the Space Marines detect the launches, they simply move a few thousand kilometers away. ICBMs do not have the homing ability or fuel capacity to engage a starship. So now you've wasted your nuclear arsenal.

One, you seem to think that a nuke has to keep burning fuel while traveling through space. Two, while granted, a strike cruiser's maximum range is two planetary diameters from Earth, it has to move to one diameter to accurately hit anything on the surface. Three, modern ICBMs have built in navigational systems capable of real time course alterations, and they do also have maneuvering jets they use in space...

BeRzErKeR wrote:
Second; You're not thinking this through. Imperial starships make interplanetary voyages at extremely high speed all the time; Warp Drives don't work close to gravity wells, remember? Their energy shields are armor are demonstrably up to the task of dealing with meteorites, which is what Brilliant Pebbles is; and, furthermore, remember that speed we were talking about? The Strike Cruiser can OUTRUN Brilliant Pebbles, then circle around the cloud. So the (unharmed) Strike Cruiser comes right back and, just to make sure, kills all the nuclear silos you launched from with kinetic and lance strikes from orbit. It then also kills your carefully-deployed artillery units, because it can detect large military deployments from orbit at least as well as a GPS satellite can. And while it's at it, it clears out all the satellites we've put up there, so no more GPS, satellite phones or satellite recon.

A strike cruiser moves at 10km per second. That's the low end of Meteor speeds. So, no, jumping out of the way is not possible. Assuming you're firing at it moving head on, the relative speed can be over 38km per second, or nearly four times as fast as a strike cruiser can move. It is not going to be able to evade. A battle-barge is extra screwed, not only is it not maneuverable, it's also not as fast. You seem to be forgetting that SM have gak ships because they're not supposed to be fighting space battles.

Second: The average SM strike cruiser has minimal shielding.

On it's supposed sensor ability, I call watch the language please Cloudcover has interfered with a strike cruisers sensors in fluff. Even in BFK, it's little better then a decent quality map on a dataslate with a compass. Remember that when firing, shots can scatter over 20km without a beacon to lock onto (and this gets brought up in fluff as well)

BeRzErKeR wrote:
Third; THELs will do exactly jack gak against drop pods. A drop pod is large enough to carry several tons of Space Marines and/or equipment, making it MUCH larger and more heavily armored than a Katyusha rocket or artillery shell, and it is fired at the target location at extremely high velocity. Furthermore, it is armored specifically against thermal transfer, such as a laser; we know this because it can survive atmospheric entry intact. In order to have a good shot at taking out a descending drop pod you will need a full-size ABM system, at least; of which there are exactly two in the world. There's no particular reason to think the Strike Cruiser wouldn't also be able to detect those and kill them; but even if it didn't, the GBMD has a 50% failure rate on intercept tests to date against targets both much larger and with a much longer flight time than a drop pod, while the A-135 currently has had its long-range launchers offline for the past five years, and so can only intercept something within about 100 km of Moscow. You will not be able to stop the Space Marines from reaching the ground.

Fluff conflicts on drop pods and reentry. Current codex says that they are slowed enough that they do not experience significant reentry heat, so I'm going with it. This means that it is dropping much slower then you think. Given that, you don't have to punch through to kill it, just cause an uncontrolled decent by damaging it's thrusters. I'll go out on a limb and call a THEL as powerful as a lascannon, which has no trouble punching through a drop pod.

BeRzErKeR wrote:
At this point the war is over. The Space Marines can land exactly where they please (with a small exclusion zone around Moscow, if they haven't taken out A-135), in whatever force they please. They can bombard anything they feel like bombarding on the surface; which includes little things like Air Force bases, airfields, and even naval battlegroups, so you're going to lose any long-range radar and air intercept capability pretty damn fast. It's actually IRRELEVANT how hard it is to kill Space Marines; just control of the orbitals is such a massive advantage that Earth would rapidly surrender without having to land them at all.

You might want to check just how much damage a hit from a bombardment cannon does. Using fluff, it takes 3 (iirc) hits to penetrate a single bunker in Nightbringer. Using the rules in BFK, it's a nasty hit to a smaller unit, but not as effective against a larger one, and generally ignored by anything Titan sized, like, say, an aircraft carrier or battleship. And a chapter has a max of 10 of them that can fire on average about once every 20 min or so. Oh, and, btw: you never did address what happens that the SM survive those W48 artillery shells landing on them in their deployment areas. Being thermonuclear weapons, they have a bit more kick then an earthshaker, which has little to no problem making even the best SM gear go boom.

Amusingly, I'll also point out that BFK, the difference between the modern US army and the Imperial Guard is the US gets a +2 bonus and they get a +3 bonus. Given the numbers being dealt in, that's a very, very slim difference.

BaronIveagh wrote:
As pointed out earlier in the thread, a 350 kiloton nuke is equivalent to an entire broadside from a Lunar class cruiser in fluff.

So? That still doesn't mean that we can penetrate it's Void Shields or destroy it with just one nuke. And it would be hilarious to even think about trying to shot down Impwerial ships in planetary orbit with our slow rockets.
I am still curious how you guys came to that conclusion, since I looked for Lunar class and only info I could find is "reasonable lance and weapon battery armament, and a fair torpedo capability" and " It also possesses enough shielding and armour to enable it to get to the range of its weapons relatively unscathed". I didn't see anything that tells me "this weapon has this much power output? or "Lunar class lance batteries have this kind of output" etc... Where does it say in fluff that entire broadside from a Lunar class cruiser is equal to 350 kiloton of energy?

And to that note we woudl still lose badly against Imperial Navy, we have nothing to scratch Emperor class Battleship. And they also have this:


We have nothing to counter Exterminatus bomb or the fleet of Imperial navy ships.And someone pointed out Tau Railguns, well let me tell you that Tau ships have great number of Railguns as their main weapons. And they are almost useless against medium to big Imperium ships. When a Battlecrueser destroyed Tau largest Battleship what can we say who lack those weapons?

im2randomghgh wrote:
Weapons batteries (Otherwise known as macro cannons), loaded with a shell that weighs “several tons.” Going with the standard established velocity of 20,000 km/s for direct fire Imperial weapons weapons. At that mass/velocity, the kinetic energy of the projectile would be 400,000 terajoules, or just under 10 gigatons.

Except that this has been retconned (twice) and now they only hit with a few kilotons spread out over a 10-20km area when used for surface bombardments.

im2randomghgh wrote:
Conservative figures point to the Battleship firing “two hundred foot” torpedoes, which would be sixty meters long. Assuming that the diameter is 1/4 to 1/5 of the length, the torpedo would yield a diameter of around fifteen meters. To be further conservative, assume a density equal to water (yeah, I’m being ultra conservative here.) The mass of the torpedo in question would be between 6,800 and 10,600 tons.

Thus the kinetic energy of a torpedo is about 12,400,000,000 petajoules (Staggering really) with a momentum (Measured by calculating the speed and weight of the torpedo) between 6.6e16 kg*m/s and 1.05e17 kg*m/s.

Giving a single Torpedo a staggering yield of 2963 teratons (Or 2.9 petatons – Wow).

Two problems here: Your ultra conservative numbers assume the entire object is made of a uniformly dense material, and not, say, empty space. Which, it is, since they are powered by an unstable plasma reactor, not, say, some sort of solid or liquid fuel they burn through. And, two, Like a lot of other things about 40k, they never really explain why it's 60 meters long, since it only contains two things, and both of them are fairly small. 1 two hundred kiloton warhead, and one unstable plasma reactor to move it, plus guidance system. All those things would fit in in a '72 Buick Skylark so why it takes 60 meters of torpedo to deliver it, I have no idea.

They also only travel something like 16km per sec, so you might want to check your math there.

im2randomghgh wrote:
“A Nova cannon is a huge weapon, normally mounted in the prow of a ship so that the recoil it generates can be compensated for by the vessel’s engines. It fires a proejctile at incredible velocity, using graviometric impellers to accelerate it to close to light speed. The projectile implodes at a preset distance after firing, unleashing a force more potent than a dozen plasma bombs.”

Again: retconned. A Nova Cannon is now a linear accelerator as of BFK, so the recoil thing is out, and the speed has been dropped to a small fraction of C. And, it all sounds very fancy, but a dozen plasma bombs has a blast radius around a km in fluff and crunch. The Nova cannon now has damage roughly that of a macrocannon broadside, it's simply much, much longer range. There are, however, vortex variants. As far as shell size, again, it's not mentioned, however, it's been all the way down to ten meters long, depending on who's writing.

BTW: by Imperial law, SM are forbidden specifically anti-ship weapons such as the Nova Cannon. (Don't ask me why, it makes no sense, but it came up again and again when we did FAQ 2010 and tried to give them lances)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brother Coa wrote:
So? That still doesn't mean that we can penetrate it's Void Shields or destroy it with just one nuke. And it would be hilarious to even think about trying to shot down Impwerial ships in planetary orbit with our slow rockets.
I am still curious how you guys came to that conclusion, since I looked for Lunar class and only info I could find is "reasonable lance and weapon battery armament, and a fair torpedo capability" and " It also possesses enough shielding and armour to enable it to get to the range of its weapons relatively unscathed". I didn't see anything that tells me "this weapon has this much power output? or "Lunar class lance batteries have this kind of output" etc... Where does it say in fluff that entire broadside from a Lunar class cruiser is equal to 350 kiloton of energy?

Pick up a copy of the Rogue Trader corebook and Battlefleet Koronus, available now at Drivethru RPG and other fine retailers. And now I feel like HBMC for some strange reason...

Brother Coa wrote:
And to that note we woudl still lose badly against Imperial Navy, we have nothing to scratch Emperor class Battleship. And they also have this:
*snip*
We have nothing to counter Exterminatus bomb or the fleet of Imperial navy ships. And someone pointed out Tau Railguns, well let me tell you that Tau ships have great number of Railguns as their main weapons. And they are almost useless against medium to big Imperium ships. When a Battlecrueser destroyed Tau largest Battleship what can we say who lack those weapons?

Ok, deep breath. No, we do not have protection from Exterminatus. The Imperium doesn't either. No one does. It's sort of the point.

Well, first, define 'fleet' since are we talking a small battlegroup or the entirety of the Segmentum Pacificus emptying out? Granted, IN would clean our clocks. SM however, have terrible ships. By law, in 40k fluff. This was deliberately done following the Horus Heresy, along with breaking up the Legions.

And, it died because the plot called for it, if you count how much of it's systems are immediately shot off in the first volley in, what in game would be, rolling nothing but crits by every single ship that fired. I've done the historic refights for that one. I have not lost it as the Tau yet.

A far as us killing an Emperor class, again, no idea, but they suck against ground targets, being basically carriers, so... unless it's ramming the planet or dropping an Exterminatus weapon...

BaronIveagh wrote:
Ok, deep breath. No, we do not have protection from Exterminatus. The Imperium doesn't either. No one does. It's sort of the point.

Well, first, define 'fleet' since are we talking a small battlegroup or the entirety of the Segmentum Pacificus emptying out? Granted, IN would clean our clocks. SM however, have terrible ships. By law, in 40k fluff. This was deliberately done following the Horus Heresy, along with breaking up the Legions.

This Ultramarines Battle Barge disagree with you:


If Space Marine Battle Barge can do that to a planet from that distance then Imperial Navy can get us kicked with a press of a button.

And, it died because the plot called for it, if you count how much of it's systems are immediately shot off in the first volley in, what in game would be, rolling nothing but crits by every single ship that fired. I've done the historic refights for that one. I have not lost it as the Tau yet.

TT rules =/= fluff.
In fluff Tau fleet suck against Imperial Navy.

A far as us killing an Emperor class, again, no idea, but they suck against ground targets, being basically carriers, so... unless it's ramming the planet or dropping an Exterminatus weapon...

Like Imperial Navy can't equip their ships with weapons that can be used to devastate entire cities in one blow.

BaronIveagh wrote:

Except that this has been retconned (twice) and now they only hit with a few kilotons spread out over a 10-20km area when used for surface bombardments.

No. GW never gave figures for the yield of these weapons, to get solid numbers we have to use math and the size of the shells. 10 Gigatons. And this is auto-weaponry too. The starship equivalent of an autocannon.

Two problems here: Your ultra conservative numbers assume the entire object is made of a uniformly dense material, and not, say, empty space. Which, it is, since they are powered by an unstable plasma reactor, not, say, some sort of solid or liquid fuel they burn through. And, two, Like a lot of other things about 40k, they never really explain why it's 60 meters long, since it only contains two things, and both of them are fairly small. 1 two hundred kiloton warhead, and one unstable plasma reactor to move it, plus guidance system. All those things would fit in in a '72 Buick Skylark so why it takes 60 meters of torpedo to deliver it, I have no idea.

LOL You actually think assuming the density of a warhead to be the same as water is liberal? YOU are also guessing that they're using hollow-point rounds in space? That's just silly. And it's huge because everything is bigger in 40k. My figures didn't even figure in the warhead, they were just direct impact.

They also only travel something like 16km per sec, so you might want to check your math there.

#number he pulled out of his ass.

Again: retconned. A Nova Cannon is now a linear accelerator as of BFK, so the recoil thing is out, and the speed has been dropped to a small fraction of C. And, it all sounds very fancy, but a dozen plasma bombs has a blast radius around a km in fluff and crunch. The Nova cannon now has damage roughly that of a macrocannon broadside, it's simply much, much longer range. There are, however, vortex variants. As far as shell size, again, it's not mentioned, however, it's been all the way down to ten meters long, depending on who's writing.

I acknowledge the linear accelerator part, but they have NOT been dropped to a small fraction of C. They are NOT 10m (Hell Forged used several dozen metre long nova cannon shells that critically damage a space hulk in one hit) it is only comparable to a broadside if you're using BFG rules.

BTW: by Imperial law, SM are forbidden specifically anti-ship weapons such as the Nova Cannon. (Don't ask me why, it makes no sense, but it came up again and again when we did FAQ 2010 and tried to give them lances)

It doesn't make sense to me either, but I am fairly sure that the Phalanx has nova cannons, so yes, Space Marines can still blast your face off with nova cannons.

id run him over by a semitruck, i just would remember to put my seatbelt on...

Any modern weapon could kill an Astartes, I'd say. It would just take a lot of skill and/or luck.

Their armour has joints, which are a weak point. A high calibre round to the joint between their leg and pelvis would probably shatter the bone, then you just wait for them to bleed out or shoot them again when they're down.

Alternatively there's the gap between the helmet and chest armour. Get a shot into there and sever the spinal cord. One dead marine.