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 Ashiraya wrote:


A common misconception, but entirely false.


If you look at the stats for unnamed Chaos Space Marine NPCs in the same book, they are just as if not more powerful than fully kitted level 1 Deathwatch characters. You get to re-roll one stat if you wish, but otherwise the game speaks nothing of your character being superior (rather, all that does is to explain that your character couldn't have been significantly below average in... something.)

If you ignore things like Squad Mode bonuses (and undodgable Squad-mode reaction fire), etc.

Bolters in Deathwatch are entirely fine, except for how Tearing messes with Righteous Fury. Using a differently coloured die for the Tearing roll and preventing Righteous Fury from triggering when that die rolls 10 fixes the problem.

After they errata'd the Bolter from a 2D10 to a 1D10 weapon it's fine, yes.

The Deathwatch stats and weapon capabilities were also far more impressive than the original SM NPC's put out for Dark Heresy V1.

Black Crusade CSMs are extremely weak compared to their NPC counterparts, although this is very easily explained - if they had been as powerful as in Deathwatch, the choice between human and Astartes in Black Crusade would be a complete no-brainer.

Except it's still a no-brainer for a combat-centric group. The only reason you'd take non-CSM's (except maybe the psyker), is for things that Marines can't do (e.g. integrating & infiltrating normal human society, travelling without setting off gigantic alarms, etc). which BC often makes important. But again, this proves the point that DW is done at a different power level, and trying to directly translate any of the RPG's to what they "really" are doesn't work, even within relatively compatible RPG systems.

Squad mode is pure crunch anyway. Leadership and tactics often give exaggerated bonuses in games as they usually can't accurately represent the realistic effect of those factors.

The 1d10 bolter is kind of meh. It lacks the punch you'd expect of Marine weapons - even normal humans can easily tank a shot from it, without armour. You'd expect better from a weapon used even against Nobs and similar.

Feat of Strength and solo mode abilities is movie marine nonsense. It's far more reasonable to have them consistently in between x2 and x3 than have them shift according to what the plot demands.

OTOH, fate points.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I thought we were considering art noncanon due to its inconsistency?

Well, it is interesting to see that some art put Astartes power armor and Sororitas power armor on the same level of thickness, while other display Sisters armor as paper-thin, and Astartes armor as, uh, tiny-head protection .
Everyone gets to pick what version he prefers. I really like the Sisters with very thick power armor, similar to the marine one, and for some reason you like the Sisters with thinner power armor.

As for the pictures you showed, the SoB armour is still not that impressively thick.

Look at the boobplate, ankles, gauntlets, thighs...

The shoulderpads are big though.

Two reasons:

One: Game balance. Both sides should have a reasonable chance of winning. If you place fluffy Marines up against Orks, those Orks are going to take so many casualties you're going to need to re-use models a la Chenkov's "Send in the Next Wave!" rule... if he still has it.

Two: The D6 system WH40k uses. If Sternguard got bumped up by a single point of BS, they'd be missing only half the number of attacks that normal Space Marines do (going from a 3+ to hit to a 2+). Because of the dice system that WH40k uses, a difference of a single point of most stats is a huge gain or loss.