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 Furyou Miko wrote:
That's cute, Reznov, but where did it come from?

Didn't anyone ever teach you proper referencing? Page number, book, author, publication date please.

Ha ha ha, very funny. I posted that and then was going to edit it with the references but my internet keeps acting up by shutting down and ten starting up after a while. It affecting my performance on this site, right now.

Anyway, I will edit my post, but just for you it comes from Dark Heresy rpg Daemon Hunters pg 22 .


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 Psienesis wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:
Space marines are. Nine feet tall, have fingers like turkey legs, feet like fething frankenstein, two hearts, can spit acid, and have solid fused rib cages.

Cato sicarius cracked on and decapitated some eldar bird, after she had cut his primary heart in half, and all he did was take a knee afterwards and pant a bit. :-D

I love the sisters, but trying to say they are as nails as marines is silly.

They are nails because they AINT as nails as space marines. An unaugmented human in a bit of armor stubbornly facing terrifying horror is particularly awesome.

In the same way that a fearless God of war that straddles the battlefield like a mighty colossus (Matty) can never be as brave as a coward that grits his teeth and commits an act of true valor, so are the sisters totally bad ass.

It takes their entire appeal away to say they are as strong as the inhuman freaks that are genetically more awesome in every way.

Seven to seven and a half feet. Nine feet tall is a BL/FFG/Fan fabrication.

You guys are awfully obsessed with absolutes, I swear. No variations can exist in your eyes from what I've seen

This is not directed towards you in particular Psienesis.

 Lynata wrote:

DarthMarko wrote:It always puzzeled me, how did the acts of faith worked before empy's rise to the heavens? Seriosly @Lyn indulge me...

I don't think I get it.
Or is that just poking fun at the whole faith thingy? I'd be quite happy to explain Acts of Faith should you actually be interested in that, but I have a feeling you wanted to make a joke.

Well I'm not poking you, I'm just trying to be pragmatic....Do a real ( individual and general ) comparison between SoB and SM, and explain to me how the acts of faith can level them up.....
I'm dead serious on this....

DarthMarko wrote:Well I'm not poking you, I'm just trying to be pragmatic....Do a real ( individual and general ) comparison between SoB and SM, and explain to me how the acts of faith can level them up.....
I'm dead serious on this....

Well, the way I see it, Acts of Faith allow you to pull off stuff like this:
http://www.paramvirchakra.com/Recipients/Grenadier_Yogender_Singh_Yadav.html

Basically, it's a "mind over matter" thing. Kind of like you now have dentists and surgeons use hypnosis instead of anaesthesia. The body is capable of incredible things when subjected to the correct psychological triggers - it's why self-confidence is now recognised to be extremely important for sports. In essence, for the Sisters, their intense faith lets them feel so convinced in the Emperor protecting them that they start becoming capable of delaying their own death to mortal wounds, or summoning seemingly superhuman strength from deep within their body reserves. This, coupled with the Sisters' decade-long intense training, makes for remarkable combat prowess that has earned them the respect of the Space Marines themselves. And yes, said respect is GW fluff, too.

OK. Gonna do this using the current codices, since the 2e comparison is basically "look at the model, those are the differences but Sisters get Rites of Battle as well".

Here's an Act of Faith that makes a Sister equivalent to a space marine:

BS 4 and exactly the same wargear makes them identical on the attack, whilst Light of the Emperor makes them more accurate by granting rerolls of a 1 to hit.

Space Marines Shall Know No Fear, while Sororitas can activate Fearless at the start of their turn for the same effect. The only thing the Sisters lack is Sweep protection.

Seraphim are better than Assault Marines in every way. They have the same WS and number of attacks in CC, better shooting due to two pistols and Shred (Well, Act of Faith: Reroll to Wound, but it may as well be Shred), a 6+ rerollable invulnerable save and Hit and Run. For 15 points as opposed to the Assault Marine's 18(?).

 Lynata wrote:

DarthMarko wrote:Well I'm not poking you, I'm just trying to be pragmatic....Do a real ( individual and general ) comparison between SoB and SM, and explain to me how the acts of faith can level them up.....
I'm dead serious on this....

Well, the way I see it, Acts of Faith allow you to pull off stuff like this:
http://www.paramvirchakra.com/Recipients/Grenadier_Yogender_Singh_Yadav.html

Basically, it's a "mind over matter" thing. Kind of like you now have dentists and surgeons use hypnosis instead of anaesthesia. The body is capable of incredible things when subjected to the correct psychological triggers - it's why self-confidence is now recognised to be extremely important for sports. In essence, for the Sisters, their intense faith lets them feel so convinced in the Emperor protecting them that they start becoming capable of delaying their own death to mortal wounds, or summoning seemingly superhuman strength from deep within their body reserves. This, coupled with the Sisters' decade-long intense training, makes for remarkable combat prowess that has earned them the respect of the Space Marines themselves. And yes, said respect is GW fluff, too.

So homeopathy is your argument :-)...O, come on...human body is still a human body...SM do all that on 10x stronger bio basiss....

DarthMarko wrote:So homeopathy is your argument :-)...O, come on...human body is still a human body...SM do all that on 10x stronger bio basiss....

Homeopathy is something different, I think. This would be a more apt comparison, given that it has scientific basis.
And whilst a human body is still a human body, it can well be pushed beyond the limits of what it is capable to do on average. Who's to say where these limits lie? According to GW, it is apparently sufficient as far as their influence on combat capabilities is concerned.

The "10x stronger bio basis" is your assumption, and I'd get ripped apart by certain people if I would make such wild claims about the Sisters here. Given that the Space Marines operate with augmented bodies on a daily basis, it is well possible that they do not push themselves as far. Not to mention the possibility of simply underestimating the opposition because, hey, it's just normal humans, right? What could they possibly do.

 Lynata wrote:
I think we've got a bit of a misunderstanding here. I don't doubt that the Marines are physically much stronger than any Sister. However, most of what separates the Space Marines from normal people does not necessarily make them better fighters, simply because it's so extremely situational. Using the same guns still means that a Sister will kill a Marine just as easily as a Marine will shoot another Marine.

Also, in GW's world, Marines are still 7 feet.

I'll never comprehend how you convinced yourself of this.

Space Marines have the superior senses to know of the Marine's presence before a Sister, have the superior reaction-time (In both gameplay and fluff) to aim and pull the trigger first, and is more likely to survive the salvo if the Marine returns fire due to superhuman endurance and durability (And yes, power armour can reliably stop bolter salvos).

So no, the Sisters can't kill a Marine just as easily as a Marine can, because Marines aren't just enhanced with physical strength, everything about the is augmented. It is not "extremely situational".


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 Psienesis wrote:
Seven to seven and a half feet. Nine feet tall is a BL/FFG/Fan fabrication.

No one is saying that the SoB are as strong as the SM (in the physical sense). What the SOB is, though, is a battlefield equivalent of the Space Marines. If you took, say, a standard battle-deployment of both, dropped them on a planet somewhere and said "OK, kill each other", you have a 50/50 chance of choosing which of the two is going to still be standing by the end of the war. It's not a cut-and-dried "oh, this faction will always kill this faction" sort of situation.

FFG states Marines are slightly above 2.10 meters tall on average.

Aka seven feet.

Try to keep your hatred of the game to show so much.

Interesting, other than a single GW website quote meant to sell armies, what is your basis for this?

There are far more quotes referring to the Space Marines as the greatest soldiers in the Imperium, peerless in their ability, I assure you.


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 Lynata wrote:
I'm betting it's Dark Heresy, or perhaps rather Only War as it sounds like a military thing. FFG has embraced the Sisters = Space Magic idea, contrary to the original GW fluff.

So where is this fluff, out of curiosity? Can you cite the source?

Both BS4, the Sister rerolls ones to hit. Seems like she kills the Marine better than the Marine does to me.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
OK. Gonna do this using the current codices, since the 2e comparison is basically "look at the model, those are the differences but Sisters get Rites of Battle as well".

Here's an Act of Faith that makes a Sister equivalent to a space marine:

BS 4 and exactly the same wargear makes them identical on the attack, whilst Light of the Emperor makes them more accurate by granting rerolls of a 1 to hit.

Space Marines Shall Know No Fear, while Sororitas can activate Fearless at the start of their turn for the same effect. The only thing the Sisters lack is Sweep protection.

Seraphim are better than Assault Marines in every way. They have the same WS and number of attacks in CC, better shooting due to two pistols and Shred (Well, Act of Faith: Reroll to Wound, but it may as well be Shred), a 6+ rerollable invulnerable save and Hit and Run. For 15 points as opposed to the Assault Marine's 18(?).

Why are you citing gameplay as evidence?

Outdated gameplay at that.


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 Furyou Miko wrote:
Both BS4, the Sister rerolls ones to hit. Seems like she kills the Marine better than the Marine does to me.

Read above.

The tabletop game is a very poor abstraction of the real thing, and is not to be taken seriously.

Void__Dragon wrote:I'll never comprehend how you convinced yourself of this.

Just like Marine fans convince themselves of the extreme gap between Astartes and other humans, of course. By pointing to those individually preferred sources of fluff that strengthen their argument.

Superior Space Marine senses aren't exactly a decisive factor when both groups use helmets with auto-senses overriding their natural senses, and you are ignoring that Initiative is only important for melee combat where I'd wager it does not represent trigger fingers but rather the Marine using his physical strength to gain the upper hand. Just like, lo and behold, the Sisters have an Act of Faith to improve their Initiative, coupled with additional benefits. And lastly, the Sister's faith may well cause her to simply ignore that somebody just shot her arm off.

You're way too fixated on an "auto win" scenario and simply choose to ignore the factors that would affect the result, chiefly the AoF - which happen to be precisely what supposedly makes the Sisters "equal" and counterbalances the Astartes' genetic superiority, in GW's own wording.

Void__Dragon wrote:So where is this fluff, out of curiosity? Can you cite the source?

Was that directed at me or Reznov? If the former, what exactly are you referring to?

You cling to much on that GW statment @Lynata...I'mean you are a rational person, and you always slap us (fanboys) when we go over the top on some GW publications....
But now, the roles are reversed IMO.....

Non-GW publications, chiefly. I've got my own internal guideline in terms of consistency which pushes me to stick to GW fluff, even where I would prefer not to.

Note that if any of you do not wish to adhere to the quotes I provided and prefer your Sisters to be weaker in order to preserve your interpretation of the Astartes, you are absolutely free to dismiss them. It'd certainly be more in line with their various representations in the licensed material.
Right now, I am merely argueing against the claim that my interpretation is somehow "wrong".

 Lynata wrote:

Void__Dragon wrote:I'll never comprehend how you convinced yourself of this.

Just like Marine fans convince themselves of the extreme gap between Astartes and other humans, of course.

I'm not particularly emotionally involved with either party, but the canon fluff strongly supports the idea that Marines are pretty much superior to other humans in every way.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're intentionally mistating these things for your own amusement, but I just had to chime in after that doozy.

Monster Rain wrote:I'm not particularly emotionally involved with either party, but the canon fluff strongly supports the idea that Marines are pretty much superior to other humans in every way.

There is no true canon (in the sense that there exists a singular uniform representation of the setting) in 40k, which may add to the confusion. If you have checked my previous posts, you will note that I have delivered quotes from GW material supporting my interpretation.

Given the aforementioned absence of any canonicity, they are in no way to be regarded as gospel - but it would be incorrect to assume that I am making this stuff up or "intentionally misstating" things. I am simply preferring GW's take on the subject over whatever the other folks have chosen (likely individual mixtures of a great many sources ranging from codices to novels and games).

This is the second time in the past couple posts that someone is attempting to badmouth the validity and integrity of my posts without backing up their claim. I guess that's just how it feels to swim against the current.

Ah, I see what's going here.

Carry on, then.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
You guys are awfully obsessed with absolutes, I swear. No variations can exist in your eyes from what I've seen

This is not directed towards you in particular Psienesis.

Yeah see, this is my point. Normal unaugmented humans if they train, can bench 700lbs.

Normal unaugmented humans regularly hit 7 feet.

Have you seen strong men competitions? Normal people can lift cars and tow airplanes.

Ergo, considering normal people pretty commonly range from like.. 5 feet, to seven feet..and note im not talking about really really tall, or dwarves, its ridiculous to say theres only 6 inches difference berween marines.

Common sense says some will be crazy huge, plenty will be eight feet, some will be shorter than seven.

And their strength really could be totally insane. A human with his feeble skeleton, say a normal pro lifter can lift incredible weight, imagine a two hearted beast with a solid rib cage?!

Some of them will be like.. Ten feet tall and able to bench a school bus!

A marine with a penchant for steroid abuse could wrestle godzilla.

The fused rib-cage also means he wouldn't be able to bend over to tie his shoes... or ever do crunches...so there's some design flaws in the SM.

Remember that SM start out as regular humans, almost universally pre-teen boys. Right about the time they hit puberty, they're getting the first round of implants. Gods only know what side-effects this has on human development, other than the obvious.

There's also the fact that SM power armor is not always crafted for an individual Marine, but may be handed down from the fallen to the new replacements. If the previous Marine was 7'6", the ten-foot guy isn't getting his PA.

As for steroids? The Apothecary and the Librarian might have some issues. The former with possible problems with the various additional organs and bio-implants, the Librarian with "What? The Gene-Seed of the Emperor isn't good enough for you?".

 Lynata wrote:
Just like Marine fans convince themselves of the extreme gap between Astartes and other humans, of course. By pointing to those individually preferred sources of fluff that strengthen their argument.

So you ignore the greater amount of fluff that portrays the Marines as superior.

Superior Space Marine senses aren't exactly a decisive factor when both groups use helmets with auto-senses overriding their natural senses,

Those auto senses are still affixed to an inferior biological foundation. How fast the auto senses perceive the Marine means nothing if the perceptions and reaction-time of the Sister does not match them. The Marine's, on the other hand? They can. The auto senses do not replace their natural senses, only further enhance them.

and you are ignoring that Initiative is only important for melee combat where I'd wager it does not represent trigger fingers but rather the Marine using his physical strength to gain the upper hand.

"This represents the swiftness of a creature's reactions. Models
with a low Initiative characteristic (Orks, with Initiative 2) are
slow-witted, while models with a high Initiative characteristic
(Genestealers, with Initiative 6) react far more quickly."
- 6e rulebook, page 2

It's reaction-time. Does it apply on the tabletop to shooting? No not really. But it sure as gak would in an actual firefight. Space Marines have higher reaction-time on the tabletop and the fluff, their reactions being described as "superhuman" in both the Space Marine and Blood Angel sections for the Land Speeder (I assume their enhanced musculature, superhuman perceptions, and training give them these traits).

Just like, lo and behold, the Sisters have an Act of Faith to improve their Initiative, coupled with additional benefits. And lastly, the Sister's faith may well cause her to simply ignore that somebody just shot her arm off.

And exactly how often are these Acts of Faith put to use in the fluff by the way? I'm genuinely curious to know.

You're way too fixated on an "auto win" scenario and simply choose to ignore the factors that would affect the result, chiefly the AoF - which happen to be precisely what supposedly makes the Sisters "equal" and counterbalances the Astartes' genetic superiority, in GW's own wording.

Read above. And I don't think Space Marines auto win against Sisters of Battle. But equal numbers, they'd sure have the advantage IMO.

Was that directed at me or Reznov? If the former, what exactly are you referring to?

Well, I was quoting you, so it is safe to assume the former.

Acts of Faith being the result of essentially Charles Atlas Superpowers.

Woah, this is getting way too heated and involved for my likes.

Also off topic.

Anyway, I hope that eventually they write a book from a guardswoman's perspective at the very least.

 Melissia wrote:


Anyway, I hope that eventually they write a book from a guardswoman's perspective at the very least.

I think they will, I have read all the HH books and I've noticed a larger amount of good female characters as they have gone on. It's why I kinda disagree with the premise of the thread, sure books about space marines will be a little lady light, but there have been plenty of stoic, smart, admirable women in the series so far, usually working on the bridge and calmly getting gak done!

 Melissia wrote:
Woah, this is getting way too heated and involved for my likes.

Also off topic.

Anyway, I hope that eventually they write a book from a guardswoman's perspective at the very least.

But so hot was the blood that the sword-blade was melted
Likest to snow when the Father unbindeth
The fetters of frost that the winter has welded.

Do not hate me for my passion.

There have been some, but they're usually just a side character, oftentimes even just a love interest (and in the case of serial books like the Cain series, oftentimes just a lady-of-the-week variety love interest).

What I was hoping for was one as a protagonist, told from HER point of view, not just as a token female character.

DarthMarko wrote:You cling to much on that GW statment @Lynata...I'mean you are a rational person, and you always slap us (fanboys) when we go over the top on some GW publications....
But now, the roles are reversed IMO.....

Lyanata has proven multipe times in this thread that s/he is not rational.

Monster Rain wrote:

 Lynata wrote:

Void__Dragon wrote:I'll never comprehend how you convinced yourself of this.

Just like Marine fans convince themselves of the extreme gap between Astartes and other humans, of course.

I'm not particularly emotionally involved with either party, but the canon fluff strongly supports the idea that Marines are pretty much superior to other humans in every way.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're intentionally mistating these things for your own amusement, but I just had to chime in after that doozy.

That's not the case at all.

Melissia wrote:Woah, this is getting way too heated and involved for my likes.

Also off topic.

Anyway, I hope that eventually they write a book from a guardswoman's perspective at the very least.

Everyone saw this coming. I regret nothing!

At least Lyanata has been exposed as having some very funny ideas and that s/he manipulates fluff to server xir own ends.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Both BS4, the Sister rerolls ones to hit. Seems like she kills the Marine better than the Marine does to me.

Yeah you got that right - its just because SOB are trained to aim down their sights

No fancy ass cameras mounted on their guns, just lots of training.

I'm not saying my views on Space MArines, because that will probably start a fight and besides, space marines are irrelevant, we're talking about human (or eldar/tau) women, not inhuman post-male musclebound mutants.

 mad_eddy_13 wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Both BS4, the Sister rerolls ones to hit. Seems like she kills the Marine better than the Marine does to me.

Yeah you got that right - its just because SOB are trained to aim down their sights

No fancy ass cameras mounted on their guns, just lots of training.

Are we seriously bringing tabletop rules into this?

I was trying to steer the topic back to female Space Marines. Sorry guys.

On a semi-related note, Commander Shadowsun is getting her own novel that is out soon.

Edit: I already said that Amaya. Stop copies me.

Manipulating the fluff to suit your arguments is the whole point of the 'no canon' statements all over official sources, so whatever.

Melissia - have you read Abnett's Titanicus? A good part of that book is from the point of view of a female PDF trooper.

That stance is the death of debate and rational discussion.

The "nothing is canon" stance renders any discussion meaningless, because even though there is no fluff that states the Grey Knights are child-molesters who prey on Eldar children for the glory of Slaanesh, by GW's stance my fluff is just as canon. Which is poop.

True. This is me saying "I reject your reality and substitute it with my own" because that subject is done to death. Everyone is just going round and round it in circles, and I want to know if my spiritual sister Melissia has read Titanicus.