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 Peregrine wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Are you under the impression a man-portable shaped charge could always punch through armor that's four feet thick at its thickest point?

This is a joke, right? Four feet of armor is three times the thickness of the belt armor on a battleship.

Sloped armor. It results in a maximum thickness of four feet on the front of the turret. Obviously the plates are much thinner if you look at a perpendicular angle.

According to all available rules, they don't.

FLUFF =/= GAME MECHANICS.

Stop saying that like it means something, and excuses not answering the point itself. And the fluff doesn't contradict it, either. Which I sort of mentioned in the part of that you didn't respond to.

Err, what? That makes no sense, even if we use your assumption that game mechanics are valid evidence. Maximum range to fire the markerlight is 36". The range for a sensor to see the markerlight is UNLIMITED. As long as your markerlight carrier is within 36" you can call in a seeker missile from another game store on the other side of the country.

The markerlight is calling in the strikes. If it can relay this to something out of sight of the target, it must using the sensors on the device to calculate relative positions. Clearly the sensors have a very limited range in which they can provide this information.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Sloped armor. It results in a maximum thickness of four feet on the front of the turret. Obviously the plates are much thinner if you look at a perpendicular angle.

That isn't how sloped armor works.

Because I'm feeling generous I'll point out your mistake before you keep digging the hole any deeper: you're looking at RHA equivalent thickness, which has to do with material composition (X thickness of modern composite armor is significantly more effective than X thickness of RHA) not geometry. You don't actually have four feet of armor, and you certainly don't have four feet of armor anywhere that a top-attack missile is going to hit.

Stop saying that like it means something, and excuses not answering the point itself.

What point? All you've done is quote game mechanics, and game mechanics aren't fluff.

The markerlight is calling in the strikes. If it can relay this to something out of sight of the target, it must using the sensors on the device to calculate relative positions. Clearly the sensors have a very limited range in which they can provide this information.

Except you don't need precision for that, you just need to get the missile into the general area where it can see the laser dot and lock on. I know you hate the Tau, but you can't seriously be claiming that a networked laser targeting system is worse at estimating range and position than an experienced observer with binoculars.

 Peregrine wrote:

It wasn't designed. It was recovered from existing blueprints.

It wasn't recovered, it was all but made up by Nalax, who justified his work by pointing out it worked the same way as other established vehicle designs. And that's still just one example out of a long list of references to fluff sources disproving the notion that the AdMech doesn't actually understand technology. Add Titanicus onto that list too. And that's all just from the books I've read that involve enough of the AdMech to be relevant.

Of course it is. You can't just look at game mechanics in a game which has obvious balance decisions, approximations, limits of the D6 system, etc. 40k is not intended to be a realistic simulation therefore arguing things like "markerlights have horrible range" is silly.

Nor can you throw away comparisons and abilities for exactly no other reason than to fill in holes or ambiguous matters in the fluff with your own ideas. I could not, for example, posit that Necrons are actually made of a metallic cheese, so as to facilitate the rise of the Space Skaven, and insist that the absence of Skaven in their codex was just fluff not lining up with gameplay.

Or they just call them something else (whatever battleship-scale torpedo warheads are called).

Those don't leave radioactive fallout, and are larger than can be carried by aircraft. Titan weapons fall in line with the smaller ones, however. Real titan weapons, that is, not nonsense like mega-bolters or marginally stronger railguns.

The book disagrees with you. There were multiple layers in the thin ring, but the fortifications formed distinct rings and once a ring was breached the siege troops quickly advanced through open ground until they reached the next ring.

Right, but each ring wasn't just a single trench thick. Otherwise the Guard would have rolled right over them, and their accurate artillery would have smashed it apart with ease.

I didn't say that. I said they're worth more than a thousand idiot guardsmen whose only apparently purpose is to run into machine gun fire and die. Please don't just make up straw man arguments.

You're positing that seeker missiles would do anything meaningful (and that the Tau would have enough of them to hit enough meaningful things in a meaningful way, and that a stealthsuit could waltz through a heavily fortified solid line of bunkers and troops without being torn apart. I answered that in the only way it deserves.

Yeah, how horrible that the Tau had to resort to using a "run them out of supplies" strategy that they developed before the Imperial attack even started.

The point being that even when they, through the ridiculously contrived circumstances of that terribly constructed book, could and allegedly did establish overwhelming firepower in every engagement, they couldn't decisively win even those engagements, taking casualties, running out of ammo, and running off with their tail between their legs. Even with all the cards stacked in their favor, they still couldn't win straight up, and only won through the sheerest luck/plot armor.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

That isn't how sloped armor works.

Because I'm feeling generous I'll point out your mistake before you keep digging the hole any deeper: you're looking at RHA equivalent thickness, which has to do with material composition (X thickness of modern composite armor is significantly more effective than X thickness of RHA) not geometry. You don't actually have four feet of armor, and you certainly don't have four feet of armor anywhere that a top-attack missile is going to hit.

I'm not actually looking at anything, I just remember an old argument about IG versus a modern military wherein this came up somehow.

What point? All you've done is quote game mechanics, and game mechanics aren't fluff.

I did point out that fluff doesn't have krak missiles or grenades having areas of effect either. And specifically pointed out that the RPGs, where smaller blasts would be a relevant thing, don't give them blasts either; clearly the missiles manage to concentrate all their force forwards and inwards.

Except you don't need precision for that, you just need to get the missile into the general area where it can see the laser dot and lock on. I know you hate the Tau, but you can't seriously be claiming that a networked laser targeting system is worse at estimating range and position than an experienced observer with binoculars.

Well, apparently the Tau tech is worse. Since it's described as short ranged and all. Honestly, we don't even know the fluff range for a seeker missile, since all the sources still seem to require the skyrays to be quite a bit closer than, say, basilisks (which we know can be called in with binoculars and a map, oddly enough; yet another way the IG is a better fighting machine than the Tau and their aspirations of strategic brilliance; it's almost as if the Tau were written by people thinking "what would Sun Tzu do?" and then just kind of flailing around because they don't understand how war works... Or perhaps they're just an elaborate in-joke (my favorite, but probably unlikely, theory)).

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It wasn't recovered, it was all but made up by Nalax, who justified his work by pointing out it worked the same way as other established vehicle designs.

I have IA1 right here and it very clearly states that he reconstructed the data based on parts of the original blueprint and comparison with similar designs. That's not designing something from scratch, it's just, say, bolting the sponsons from a Baneblade onto the hull of your new tank because the sponson data was lost. And this is just for a primitive tank, we're not even talking about some complex advanced technology. The fact that the admech couldn't even design the Macharuis from scratch is a pretty devastating counter-argument against any supposed understanding of the technology they work with.

Nor can you throw away comparisons and abilities for exactly no other reason than to fill in holes or ambiguous matters in the fluff with your own ideas. I could not, for example, posit that Necrons are actually made of a metallic cheese, so as to facilitate the rise of the Space Skaven, and insist that the absence of Skaven in their codex was just fluff not lining up with gameplay.

WTF? Seriously, this doesn't even make any sense as an argument.

Those don't leave radioactive fallout, and are larger than can be carried by aircraft.

Ok, fine. The Imperium doesn't have nukes. If you want to argue that they can't even match 1940s technology that's fine with me.

Right, but each ring wasn't just a single trench thick. Otherwise the Guard would have rolled right over them, and their accurate artillery would have smashed it apart with ease.

Except IG artillery isn't accurate. The book is very clear that the Krieg siege guns just keep firing constant WWI-style barrages aimed at the general area of the target, not precision shots against specific parts of the defenses.

You're positing that seeker missiles would do anything meaningful (and that the Tau would have enough of them to hit enough meaningful things in a meaningful way, and that a stealthsuit could waltz through a heavily fortified solid line of bunkers and troops without being torn apart. I answered that in the only way it deserves.

Sigh. READ THE POST. I said that a single stealth suit is worth more than a thousand Krieg guardsmen. Not because the stealth suit is an amazing god of war, but because the thousand guardsmen are so utterly useless for anything other than soaking up machine gun bullets. The fact that there were millions of guardsmen on Vraks doesn't mean that they formed an effective army, it just means that they generated millions of casualties.

The point being that even when they, through the ridiculously contrived circumstances of that terribly constructed book, could and allegedly did establish overwhelming firepower in every engagement, they couldn't decisively win even those engagements, taking casualties, running out of ammo, and running off with their tail between their legs. Even with all the cards stacked in their favor, they still couldn't win straight up, and only won through the sheerest luck/plot armor.

And if you read the book you'll notice the little detail that the Tau never planned to engage. From day one their plan was to harass the Imperial forces, force them to over-extend their supply lines, and eventually leave them cut off and out of fuel/water/etc. There was never any plan to engage in any kind of fight to the death, so the fact that they went with the planned minimal-risk hit and run tactics instead of taking a chance on a larger engagement doesn't mean anything.

Also, I find it amusing that you hate IA3 so much but don't have similar hatred for the Vraks series which had Imperial forces that made the ones on Taros look like geniuses.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
I'm not actually looking at anything, I just remember an old argument about IG versus a modern military wherein this came up somehow.

Ok, so you don't even know where your numbers are coming from or what they mean. Why are you even quoting them if you don't understand what you're talking about?

I did point out that fluff doesn't have krak missiles or grenades having areas of effect either. And specifically pointed out that the RPGs, where smaller blasts would be a relevant thing, don't give them blasts either; clearly the missiles manage to concentrate all their force forwards and inwards.

Ok. Now let's imagine a hypothetical situation. Guardsman A is standing directly behind Guardsman B. Let's say A is very friendly and giving B a nice hug. Now, unfortunately B is hit by a krak missile. Which is more likely:

1) The missile can only inflict one wound, so B is instantly reduced to a spray of blood and bone fragments while A just gets an unfortunate mess on their armor.

or

2) The limit of a single wound is pure game mechanics, and the shaped charge kills both A and B and anything else behind them.

I think you know the obvious answer to this one.

Well, apparently the Tau tech is worse. Since it's described as short ranged and all.

FLUFF =/= GAME MECHANICS.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It wasn't recovered, it was all but made up by Nalax, who justified his work by pointing out it worked the same way as other established vehicle designs.

I have IA1 right here and it very clearly states that he reconstructed the data based on parts of the original blueprint and comparison with similar designs. That's not designing something from scratch, it's just, say, bolting the sponsons from a Baneblade onto the hull of your new tank because the sponson data was lost. And this is just for a primitive tank, we're not even talking about some complex advanced technology. The fact that the admech couldn't even design the Macharuis from scratch is a pretty devastating counter-argument against any supposed understanding of the technology they work with.

No, you don't. The Macharius is in IA5 and later, not IA1. And it has him cross referencing the useless designs with established ones, which is little more than a license to do whatever he felt like, and justify it as being made of/similar to established parts.

Nor can you throw away comparisons and abilities for exactly no other reason than to fill in holes or ambiguous matters in the fluff with your own ideas. I could not, for example, posit that Necrons are actually made of a metallic cheese, so as to facilitate the rise of the Space Skaven, and insist that the absence of Skaven in their codex was just fluff not lining up with gameplay.

WTF? Seriously, this doesn't even make any sense as an argument.

You're acting like rules don't carry more weight than your personal ideas about the fluff, where the fluff is vague or incomplete.

Ok, fine. The Imperium doesn't have nukes. If you want to argue that they can't even match 1940s technology that's fine with me.

They don't use them. Their active service tech is far more useful, with longer shelf lives and less mutation-encouraging contamination (since in this setting, instead of giving you cancer radiation gives you tentacles. Also cancer).

Except IG artillery isn't accurate. The book is very clear that the Krieg siege guns just keep firing constant WWI-style barrages aimed at the general area of the target, not precision shots against specific parts of the defenses.

Except of course for the fact that IG artillery is accurate. The book has massive amounts of it firing on a alarge area to hit everything in that area: your mistake is thinking that there weren't that many targets to hit.

Sigh. READ THE POST. I said that a single stealth suit is worth more than a thousand Krieg guardsmen. Not because the stealth suit is an amazing god of war, but because the thousand guardsmen are so utterly useless for anything other than soaking up machine gun bullets. The fact that there were millions of guardsmen on Vraks doesn't mean that they formed an effective army, it just means that they generated millions of casualties.

In the context of Vraks, they served well. Vraks was a silly premise, but since it has its war fought in that way (without any of the obvious advantages the armor brings to the table taking effect) we have to assume that the situation invalidated things like air power (and I'd swear it outright says as much) and that the fortifications were indeed tough enough to survive constant bombardment or tank pushes.

And if you read the book you'll notice the little detail that the Tau never planned to engage. From day one their plan was to harass the Imperial forces, force them to over-extend their supply lines, and eventually leave them cut off and out of fuel/water/etc. There was never any plan to engage in any kind of fight to the death, so the fact that they went with the planned minimal-risk hit and run tactics instead of taking a chance on a larger engagement doesn't mean anything.

Which was entirely reliant on the Imperium setting down as pointlessly far as it possibly could, and then sending out it's force broken into platoons (which would be about 60 men or 5-6 tanks), and basically sitting on its hands for the whole war. And then Tau ships somehow being faster and stronger than the faster and stronger Imperial ships, breaking the supply lines... Their whole plan was basically just predicated on extremely unlikely circumstances; I mean, they wanted to defeat a force defined by its logistical triviality by making it run out of resources, which only happened because "plot armor"? "The art of war teaches us not to rely on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our own readiness to receive the enemy; not on the chances of the enemy not attacking, but in the knowledge that we have made our position unassailable." Not a perfect parallel, but the spirit's similar: "don't rely on chance, rely on your own ability and preparation".

Also, I find it amusing that you hate IA3 so much but don't have similar hatred for the Vraks series which had Imperial forces that made the ones on Taros look like geniuses.

I actually hate all of the Imperial Armour books, aside from the units and army lists. They're stories that don't even meet games workshop's abysmally low standards.

Ok. Now let's imagine a hypothetical situation. Guardsman A is standing directly behind Guardsman B. Let's say A is very friendly and giving B a nice hug. Now, unfortunately B is hit by a krak missile. Which is more likely:

1) The missile can only inflict one wound, so B is instantly reduced to a spray of blood and bone fragments while A just gets an unfortunate mess on their armor.

or

2) The limit of a single wound is pure game mechanics, and the shaped charge kills both A and B and anything else behind them.

I think you know the obvious answer to this one.

Seriously, the game system that not only cares where you get hit, but has a list of horrific damage to be suffered as a result for every hit location and damage type doesn't have any sort of blast radius whatsoever. (although it does inflict such massive damage that an ordinary human would become a gory mess of bone shrapnel with a d10 meter radius, unless it rolls terribly for damage, in which case it might not even be fatal... I guess that would represent the round not detonating, or being defective or something)

Well, apparently the Tau tech is worse. Since it's described as short ranged and all.

FLUFF =/= GAME MECHANICS.

I like how you edit out the bits that say "and the fluff doesn't contradict/agrees with it" whenever you want to just dismiss an entire point out of hand. If you keep it up I'm going to start responding to it with "BUT THE SPACE SKAVEN USED ALL THE FLUFF FOR BEDDING".

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
No, you don't. The Macharius is in IA5 and later, not IA1.

You have no idea what you're talking about. I have IA1 (second edition) right here open to the page for the Macharius.

(Not that it matters, because the fluff is the same.)

And it has him cross referencing the useless designs with established ones, which is little more than a license to do whatever he felt like, and justify it as being made of/similar to established parts.

No, it clearly says that he borrowed from them, he didn't just use it to justify his own work.

You're acting like rules don't carry more weight than your personal ideas about the fluff, where the fluff is vague or incomplete.

Rules don't. Don't like it? Too bad.

They don't use them. Their active service tech is far more useful, with longer shelf lives and less mutation-encouraging contamination (since in this setting, instead of giving you cancer radiation gives you tentacles. Also cancer).

Except Vraks was the textbook situation for nukes. 99% of the plant is worthless wasteland anyway, so nuking everything but the main citadel and storage areas costs you nothing.

Except of course for the fact that IG artillery is accurate. The book has massive amounts of it firing on a alarge area to hit everything in that area: your mistake is thinking that there weren't that many targets to hit.

Read the book again. The artillery is used WWI-style for area barrages, not for precision shots.

In the context of Vraks, they served well.

No they didn't. The war took years to finish and ended up blowing up everything they wanted to recover, primarily because they spent years seeing how many guardsmen they could get machine gunned to death while conquering no territory.

Which was entirely reliant on the Imperium setting down as pointlessly far as it possibly could,

Remember those anti-aircraft defenses that had to be destroyed before the Imperium could land even in the middle of nowhere? Of course you don't.

I hate IA3.

Too bad. It's canon.

Seriously, the game system that not only cares where you get hit, but has a list of horrific damage to be suffered as a result for every hit location and damage type doesn't have any sort of blast radius whatsoever. (although it does inflict such massive damage that an ordinary human would become a gory mess of bone shrapnel with a d10 meter radius, unless it rolls terribly for damage, in which case it might not even be fatal... I guess that would represent the round not detonating, or being defective or something)

Stop dodging the question. Does the shaped charge magically stop at a single guardsman and fail to do anything to the one immediately behind him, or is "only one target gets hit" just an abstraction for game balance purposes?

I like how you edit out the bits that say "and the fluff doesn't contradict/agrees with it"

No, but common sense disagrees with it. You don't get to quote game mechanics and then demand specific range numbers from the fluff or we default to game mechanics that we KNOW are an abstraction.

If you keep it up I'm going to start responding to it with "THE SPACE SKAVEN ATE THE FLUFF".

Well, then at least we'll know you're just trolling.

The Imperium doesn't use nukes because nukes are relatively crude and inefficient. Torpedoes are plasma missiles actually (go read the BFG rulebook). And keep in mind that game mechanics are supposed to reflect the fluff, and vice-versa.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
The Imperium doesn't use nukes because nukes are relatively crude and inefficient. Torpedoes are plasma missiles actually (go read the BFG rulebook).

Fine, plasma missiles, whatever. The point is that the Imperium should have used WMDs of some kind to instantly destroy everything outside the citadel on Vraks instead of spending years seeing how fast they could get guardsmen killed for no gain.

And keep in mind that game mechanics are supposed to reflect the fluff, and vice-versa.

But they obviously don't. For example, the weapon ranges that supposedly make markerlights ineffective: in the tabletop game a sniper rifle has only three times the range of a pistol, and barely four times the range of a thrown grenade. Obviously this is nonsense and has nothing to do with what the real fluff ranges are, it's just pure game mechanics. You can't get any useful information from those numbers, you just have to throw them out entirely.

In game weapon ranges are based and balanced around the idea of a 6' X 4' table top, and are only really useful for the bare minimum of out of game comparison, like a pulse rifle have a better effective range than a bolter, or a lascannon has a much longer range than a melta gun.

But exactly what these precise ranges are is open to much debate.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
No, you don't. The Macharius is in IA5 and later, not IA1.

You have no idea what you're talking about. I have IA1 (second edition) right here open to the page for the Macharius.

(Not that it matters, because the fluff is the same.)

Are you sure you're not looking at IA Apoc? Because I'm looking at the table of contents in IA1 and there's no Macharius, but it's in both IA Apoc and IA Apoc second edition. It was introduced with the Seige of Vraks.

And it has him cross referencing the useless designs with established ones, which is little more than a license to do whatever he felt like, and justify it as being made of/similar to established parts.

No, it clearly says that he borrowed from them, he didn't just use it to justify his own work.

It's one example, which demonstrates the creation of entirely new designs (incorporating known technology). You're evading the long list of fluff sources that contradict your views.

You're acting like rules don't carry more weight than your personal ideas about the fluff, where the fluff is vague or incomplete.

Rules don't. Don't like it? Too bad.

"Rules don't mean more than things I make up to fill in vagaries in the fluff." At least you admit you're just making stuff up whenever you protest the rules.

Except Vraks was the textbook situation for nukes. 99% of the plant is worthless wasteland anyway, so nuking everything but the main citadel and storage areas costs you nothing.

If they're never used by any of the players involved, and only possessed in small quantities by the AdMech, how and why would they even be considered/known about by the relevant powers attacking Vraks?

Which was entirely reliant on the Imperium setting down as pointlessly far as it possibly could,

Remember those anti-aircraft defenses that had to be destroyed before the Imperium could land even in the middle of nowhere? Of course you don't.

Perhaps that was the author's intent, but the area they sat down in was outside the defenses anyways; they destroyed them so as to be able to land closer, then didn't. They had free run of the skies for the whole of the campaign, but insist on not taking advantage of any of their superiorities.

I hate IA3.

Too bad. It's canon.

Don't misquote people without making it clear you're rewriting their posts: It's deceptive and plain bad form.

Seriously, the game system that not only cares where you get hit, but has a list of horrific damage to be suffered as a result for every hit location and damage type doesn't have any sort of blast radius whatsoever. (although it does inflict such massive damage that an ordinary human would become a gory mess of bone shrapnel with a d10 meter radius, unless it rolls terribly for damage, in which case it might not even be fatal... I guess that would represent the round not detonating, or being defective or something)

Stop dodging the question. Does the shaped charge magically stop at a single guardsman and fail to do anything to the one immediately behind him, or is "only one target gets hit" just an abstraction for game balance purposes?

"Dodging the question"? I answered it in one of the bits you edited out and dismissed with "FLUFF =/= GAME MECHANICS", but to repeat: apparently yes, in this setting the anti-tank missiles manage to concentrate all of their force inwards and forwards, somehow. Fluff doesn't contradict it, and even the ridiculously detailed RPG system doesn't contradict it.

I like how you edit out the bits that say "and the fluff doesn't contradict/agrees with it"

No, but common sense disagrees with it. You don't get to quote game mechanics and then demand specific range numbers from the fluff or we default to game mechanics that we KNOW are an abstraction.

"And the fluff ...agrees with it". Any time I mention rules you've shown a tendency to erase subsequent fluff mentions and respond with "FLUFF =/= GAME MECHANICS", regardless of what relation the fluff has to the rules.

If you keep it up I'm going to start responding to it with "THE SPACE SKAVEN ATE THE FLUFF".

Well, then at least we'll know you're just trolling.

Dismissive evasions deserve ridicule. Also I'm finding the idea of Space Skaven using all the fluff as bedding after being attracted by all the necron cheese hilarious.

(Skaven being the mutant rats from Warhammer Fantasy, if you're not familiar with it.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
But they obviously don't. For example, the weapon ranges that supposedly make markerlights ineffective: in the tabletop game a sniper rifle has only three times the range of a pistol, and barely four times the range of a thrown grenade. Obviously this is nonsense and has nothing to do with what the real fluff ranges are, it's just pure game mechanics. You can't get any useful information from those numbers, you just have to throw them out entirely.

We could assume the ranges are a rough logarithmic gradient.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Are you sure you're not looking at IA Apoc? Because I'm looking at the table of contents in IA1 and there's no Macharius, but it's in both IA Apoc and IA Apoc second edition. It was introduced with the Seige of Vraks.

IA1 second edition. And yes I know which book I bought. I also have IA:A(2nd) and IA:A2, which don't have the fluff.

It's one example, which demonstrates the creation of entirely new designs (incorporating known technology).

The creation of an entire "new" design by reconstructing it from existing work. The simple fact is that the Macharius had to be reconstructed from old sources, the admech wasn't capable of designing a new tank from scratch. And given how simple the Macharius is this failure says really bad things about their ability to do much more difficult engineering.

You're evading the long list of fluff sources that contradict your views.

No, I just don't own them.

If they're never used by any of the players involved, and only possessed in small quantities by the AdMech, how and why would they even be considered/known about by the relevant powers attacking Vraks?

Sigh.

40k contains WMDs.

The Imperial Navy has lots of WMDs (since, if nothing else, it can simply use a relativistic kinetic weapon to destroy Vraks).

Conclusion: nukes, or nuke-equivalent weapons, should have been available, but someone thought it would be more fun to see how many guardsmen they could kill.

Perhaps that was the author's intent, but the area they sat down in was outside the defenses anyways;

It explicitly wasn't outside. The space marines had to make a desperate drop pod strike to keep the missiles from firing and wrecking the whole invasion plan, and that was landing out in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure if it is explicitly stated, but it's a pretty obvious assumption that the capital city (and only thing of value on the planet) would have better defenses.

They had free run of the skies for the whole of the campaign, but insist on not taking advantage of any of their superiorities.

Did you even read the book at all? It is very clear that the Tau contested the skies from day one, and eventually won the air war and effectively destroyed the Imperial Navy forces on Taros.

"Dodging the question"? I answered it in one of the bits you edited out and dismissed with "FLUFF =/= GAME MECHANICS", but to repeat: apparently yes, in this setting the anti-tank missiles manage to concentrate all of their force inwards and forwards, somehow. Fluff doesn't contradict it, and even the ridiculously detailed RPG system doesn't contradict it.

Read the question again. Guardsman A is standing directly behind Guardsman B. So either the krak missile has a magic shaped charge that carefully stops after killing a single guardsman instead of blowing right through both of them (and the tank behind them), or the "only one wound" limit is pure game mechanics.

"And the fluff ...agrees with it". Any time I mention rules you've shown a tendency to erase subsequent fluff mentions and respond with "FLUFF =/= GAME MECHANICS", regardless of what relation the fluff has to the rules.

The fluff has very little relation to the rules. Rules are driven by game balance/simplicity/etc. You can't just look at "36" range" and conclude that markerlights are short range, and the fact that no specific range is ever stated doesn't mean we have to default to "unrealistically short" just because GW didn't want pathfinders sitting at the back of the table out of danger.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
We could assume the ranges are a rough logarithmic gradient.

Or we could just assume they're completely arbitrary values invented by GW's game designers to make the tabletop game function. And since we have no evidence at all that GW has deliberately used logarithmic scaling in creating the tabletop ranges I know which one of these options is the more reasonable one.

Admiral Valerian wrote:The Imperium doesn't use nukes because nukes are relatively crude and inefficient. Torpedoes are plasma missiles actually (go read the BFG rulebook). And keep in mind that game mechanics are supposed to reflect the fluff, and vice-versa.

The Imperium does use nukes (rules for them are even available). However, you are correct that they're seen as inefficent. The standard IN torp does use a Plasma warhead, true, but there are a lot of other options.

Admiral Valerian wrote:
Source? Without one, I will continue to assume they are, since nothing actually contradicts the assumption.

Current BFG Blue Book, Battlefleet Koronus, Rogue Trader Corebook, there are probably others.

Admiral Valerian wrote:
Correction, it takes years to build a starship. Plasma reactors are easily built, seeing as these are the staple Imperial energy source.

No, it takes DECADES to build a starship (the lunar class cruiser Lord Daros' completion in only 11 years was exceptional enough to be noted) consult BFG and BFK. (A battleship can be in drydock as long as 50 years to repair significant damage)

Admiral Valerian wrote:
In other words, nothing really contradicts they can be recharged in open sunlight. Right, we're done here.

Actually, yes, as it states those are the only two ways you can recharge a lasgun power pack. And if you rub two braincells together, you might ask the question: if it could be recharged by sitting it out in the sun, why would anyone need to damage it by throwing it in a fire, and having to leave it there for 24 hours?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
What does that have to do with "their tech is basically a crude version of the earliest human warp drives"? IA3 gave them slightly larger ships, not real warp drives. For that matter, what does the BFG equivalent of a FOC have to do with anything? By that reasoning, an IG Company could have two command squads, 44 commissars, 752 infantry, 38 chimeras, 9 leman russ executioners, and 9 vendettas, compared to what Tau can take in their FOC (6 crisis suits, 9 crisis suits or 18 stealth suits, 72 firewarriors, 24 pathfinders, 9 devilfish, and either 3 hammerheads or 9 broadsides).

Might want to read the fluff genius.

"The first vessel created by the new initiative was the Il‟Porrui, and it proved to be a revolutionary advance indeed. Able to make interstellar dives nearly five times farther than conventional designs, this vessel was promptly taken up by the Por caste as a means to rapidly traverse the breadth of the Empire as well as quickly and efficiently explore beyond their realm."

Compare to BFG: Armada:

"There was still a major constraint, only the most powerful (and bulky) drives could sustain the gravitic wing throughout the dive and the power drain meant that considerable recharge time was needed between dives. Also by comparison to actually navigating the warp the pace was still very slow.Taking typical Imperial Warp speeds the Tau drive was slower by a factor of five. The speed was consistent though, did not expose the Tau to the perils of the Warp and enabled the Tau to expand beyond their home star for the first time."

Tau drives are slower due to having to travel in a series of hops that the ship recharges the after. Earlier designs of drive would have to return to 'normal' space five times for every single time that the Imperial ship does. The new drive designs negate that, making them able to transition once per the same distance. They also are not subject to the same issues that IN starships are such as arriving 5 centuries after (or before) they left, or being lost entirely to the warp. It also means that warp storms and other navigation hazards have little effect on them, allowing them to go through places the Imperium has to bypass (see Jericho Reach)

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
I wish I could recall where that's from, because I distinctly recall plasma weapons generating the shots from the material in the canister, such that if it's not fired fast enough, it overloads and forcibly vents the readied plaasma.

There may be an older source that does. Currently though it does not. (Might read up on the different ammo types that the DH RPG and it's related games give plasma weapons)).

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
But they still can be recharged from that fire, even if it's not great for their longevity. And lasguns have always been rechargeable by leaving them in direct sunlight; even if it's not mentioned explicitly in the last codex, which also conflates hellguns and hotshot lasguns/longlas.

I cannot fund a single current source where this is true, but a lot of them where they're only rechargeable at a charging station or some other power source, or by using the fire trick, or some other intense source of heat.

The Imperium does use nukes (rules for them are even available). However, you are correct that they're seen as inefficent. The standard IN torp does use a Plasma warhead, true, but there are a lot of other options.

whoa whoa whoa back the party wagon up, i can use nukes in 40k? like icbms or davey crockett style bazookas?

pax_imperialis wrote:


The Imperium does use nukes (rules for them are even available). However, you are correct that they're seen as inefficent. The standard IN torp does use a Plasma warhead, true, but there are a lot of other options.

whoa whoa whoa back the party wagon up, i can use nukes in 40k? like icbms or davey crockett style bazookas?

Check your armageddon and Epic rules for the Deathstrike launcher (it doesn't just LOOK like an ICBM). There are also rules for nukes in Into the Storm, IIRC, for Rogue Trader, for more portable nuclear weapons.

The deathstrike is only d3+3" blast, which did not strike (budum-tish) me as particularly apocalyptic. Thats why im looking at a banesword for my fledgling guard company. Realistically 180" is about the maximum range ill ever need, and a guaranteed large blast and only slightly less damage than the deathstrike plus all the bolters, flamers and lascannons and 14 armour makes it seem more worthwhile as an artillery platform. Now im only just finding out about the aa units as well, so im half considering going back to a manticore. You cant really argue imperial vs tau, in 40k there are heaps of unrealistic limitations imposed to explain why groups of men are still shooting each other in an age where there is ftl travel and another dimension and 8 foot tall psychic warriors whose strength varies between sword fighting and headbutting starships.

Oh and cheers for the direction to rt, will check it out! Never got into epic, infantry looks cartoonish which really outs me off. They dhould make a 1/72 scale game with realistically scaled infantry. Thatd be cool.

pax_imperialis wrote:
The deathstrike is only d3+3" blast, which did not strike (budum-tish) me as particularly apocalyptic.

Fluff =/= game mechanics. The Deathstrike has a tiny blast for balance reasons, since a "realistic" one would be launched from the other side of town and would destroy both armies when it hits.

I don't remember there being portable nuclear weapons in Into the Storm. I remember that Macro Cannon batteries could fire limited ammo Nukes, though it was never as impressive as the Nova Cannon to me.

 Peregrine wrote:

pax_imperialis wrote:
The deathstrike is only d3+3" blast, which did not strike (budum-tish) me as particularly apocalyptic.

Fluff =/= game mechanics. The Deathstrike has a tiny blast for balance reasons, since a "realistic" one would be launched from the other side of town and would destroy both armies when it hits.

The davey crockett atomic rifle circa korean war was sort of like that. Had a 2km range, which meant the crew would be irradiated when using it. If anything that sounds EXACTLY like something the imperium would use

pax_imperialis wrote:
The davey crockett atomic rifle circa korean war was sort of like that. Had a 2km range, which meant the crew would be irradiated when using it. If anything that sounds EXACTLY like something the imperium would use

Oh, I'm sure the Imperium would love the idea of a weapon that kills as many guardsmen as enemy troops, but the Deathstrike is explicitly stated to have a range of thousands of kilometers.

(Too bad the DKoK forgot to bring a few to Vraks, it might have avoided a few million casualties and ended the war in a week.)

Which Imperial Armor had the updated Tau fleet again?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Admiral Valerian wrote:
Source? Without one, I will continue to assume they are, since nothing actually contradicts the assumption.

Current BFG Blue Book, Battlefleet Koronus, Rogue Trader Corebook, there are probably others.

Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook wrote:
Each battery consists of rank upon rank of weapons: plasma projectors, laser cannons, missile launchers, rail guns, fusion beamers and graviton pulsars.

Macrocannons may not be mass drivers, but thanks to this, we know the Imperial Navy and by extension, the Imperium, has access to magnetic weapons. Right, we're done here.

Admiral Valerian wrote:
Correction, it takes years to build a starship. Plasma reactors are easily built, seeing as these are the staple Imperial energy source.

No, it takes DECADES to build a starship (the lunar class cruiser Lord Daros' completion in only 11 years was exceptional enough to be noted) consult BFG and BFK. (A battleship can be in drydock as long as 50 years to repair significant damage)

Not really seeing it, considering that ships get quickly repaired during campaigns.

Admiral Valerian wrote:
In other words, nothing really contradicts they can be recharged in open sunlight. Right, we're done here.

Actually, yes, as it states those are the only two ways you can recharge a lasgun power pack. And if you rub two braincells together, you might ask the question: if it could be recharged by sitting it out in the sun, why would anyone need to damage it by throwing it in a fire, and having to leave it there for 24 hours?

Maybe there's no available sunlight? That wouldn't be surprising considering the smog-choked atmospheres of some Imperial worlds.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook wrote:
Each battery consists of rank upon rank of weapons: plasma projectors, laser cannons, missile launchers, rail guns, fusion beamers and graviton pulsars.

Macrocannons may not be mass drivers, but thanks to this, we know the Imperial Navy and by extension, the Imperium, has access to magnetic weapons. Right, we're done here.

Except that's not about macrocannons, it's the generic description of a weapon battery, which is any weapon that uses the 'Weapon Battery' rules (the same description also covers Eldar and Chaos). As to why Rail Guns are in there, please turn to the Tau section of Armada:

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada wrote:
Railgun Batteries
Railguns of the size mounted on warships require massive amounts of energy to fire despite Tau superconductors. Because of this, power is routed to a single barrel at a time. The sequence is timed to ensure the first barrel is reloaded before it is charged again. Railguns function as standard weapons batteries.

It at no point says the Imperium of Man has rail guns.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Not really seeing it, considering that ships get quickly repaired during campaigns.

Fluff =/= game mechanics.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Maybe there's no available sunlight? That wouldn't be surprising considering the smog-choked atmospheres of some Imperial worlds.

Except that laying it out in the sun is not listed ANYWHERE currently as a way that lasguns can be recharged. Including in sources that get very, very specific about how lasguns work (such as Only War).


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 Peregrine wrote:

pax_imperialis wrote:
The deathstrike is only d3+3" blast, which did not strike (budum-tish) me as particularly apocalyptic.

Fluff =/= game mechanics. The Deathstrike has a tiny blast for balance reasons, since a "realistic" one would be launched from the other side of town and would destroy both armies when it hits.

It's the same reason a lance strike, which in fluff and other 40k games instakills everything for a half a kilometer and deals massive damage for a km from ground zero only uses the large template in TT 40k. (Note the deathstrike in apoc has the big pieplate).

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook wrote:
Each battery consists of rank upon rank of weapons: plasma projectors, laser cannons, missile launchers, rail guns, fusion beamers and graviton pulsars.

Macrocannons may not be mass drivers, but thanks to this, we know the Imperial Navy and by extension, the Imperium, has access to magnetic weapons. Right, we're done here.

Except that's not about macrocannons, it's the generic description of a weapon battery, which is any weapon that uses the 'Weapon Battery' rules (the same description also covers Eldar and Chaos). As to why Rail Guns are in there, please turn to the Tau section of Armada:

Ah, but most ships mount generic Weapon Batteries unless otherwise specified, such as the Overlord-class and the Sword-class mounting predominantly laser Weapon Batteries.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Not really seeing it, considering that ships get quickly repaired during campaigns.

Fluff =/= game mechanics.

No, they reflect the mechanics

In 40k fluff and mechanics are more closely related then most games. A unit dosen't get a mechanic unless it's in the fluff. And the rules go out of the way to explain how they look fluff wise.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Arcsquad12 wrote:


Joining the Tau Empire is essentially trading one form of dictatorship for another, the difference being the ideologies. Fascism and Communism at their furthest extremes are both different takes on social control by individuals at the top.

Except that Communism still clings to the belief that all are equal under the same banner.

Not sure if fascism is better than communism or vice-versa, but being ruled by your fellow Humans makes much more sense than by aliens, despite all the benefits they offer.

I don't see how. If given a choice between one option that is demonstrably superior and another that is demonstrably inferior, choosing the inferior option simply because the superior one is being offered by "people that aren't like me" is the height of irrationality. If aliens landed on earth tomorrow and said "We would like you to join us in our multi-planetary alliance, which will drastically improve the quality of life of your people" and they were on the level, I'd consider anyone who refused to be totally daft; frankly I'd consider anyone who refused "because they ain't Human" to be bigots.

Incidentally, the deficit of ambiguity regarding the Tau's motives is the main reason I dislike them as a faction; the point of 40K is supposed to be that there are no "good guys", just "bad guys" and "gibbering horrors that want to gnaw on your insides and torture your soul for the rest of eternity", and outside of a couple of mentions of insurrectionist subterfuge in the Ciaphas Cane books(hardly a reliable account even by fluff standards) and that one thing out of Xenology, the Tau are far too sanitised for my tastes.

And Arcsquad, if you're going to bring real-world political philosophies into things, at least do people the courtesy of getting it right. "Extreme Communism" is pretty much the exact opposite of the situation your describe, as its ultimate goal is the elimination of government as we understand it altogether. What you describe is Authoritarian Socialism, and while the fact that all large-scale attempts to implement communism to date have either ended in Authoritarian Socialism or drifted back towards the centre of the spectrum into Liberal Democratic Socialism is a mark against communism as a concept, the two are not comparable.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Ah, but most ships mount generic Weapon Batteries unless otherwise specified, such as the Overlord-class and the Sword-class mounting predominantly laser Weapon Batteries.

Might want ot pick up Battlefleet Koronus then. In fact, Sirius, a lunar class from the Gothic sector, turns up in BFK. It's WBs are mars pattern macrocannons. (Which are not railguns, according to the text.)

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

No, they reflect the mechanics

Then why does a lance strike not auto kill everything on the entire board? (Let alone a bombardment cannon shot)

 Yodhrin wrote:


I don't see how. If given a choice between one option that is demonstrably superior and another that is demonstrably inferior, choosing the inferior option simply because the superior one is being offered by "people that aren't like me" is the height of irrationality. If aliens landed on earth tomorrow and said "We would like you to join us in our multi-planetary alliance, which will drastically improve the quality of life of your people" and they were on the level, I'd consider anyone who refused to be totally daft; frankly I'd consider anyone who refused "because they ain't Human" to be bigots.

Really? I suddenly remember one of Heinlein's works (I can't remember the name) wherein aliens arrived and offered to advance Human technology in exchange for Humanity to cease advancing into space. IRL, I'm sure a lot of people and governments would tell the aliens: "Go to hell. Why should we stop our advancement into space because you tell us to? And you're bribing us with advanced technology? We don't need it; we'll catch up soon enough on our own."

Humans are irrational creatures, and one of the best ways to make people do something is to tell them not to do it.

Then why does a lance strike not auto kill everything on the entire board? (Let alone a bombardment cannon shot)

Not for Escorts. Capital ships survive because they're HUGE vessels.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Humans are irrational creatures, and one of the best ways to make people do something is to tell them not to do it.

Much like the Imperium telling its civilians "Don't join the Tau Empire, or you'll be in big trouble!"
That natural reflex to stubbornly balk and do the opposite probably plays into it.

 Archonate wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Humans are irrational creatures, and one of the best ways to make people do something is to tell them not to do it.

Much like the Imperium telling its civilians "Don't join the Tau Empire, or you'll be in big trouble!"
That natural reflex to stubbornly balk and do the opposite probably plays into it.

Lol

I never thought of it that way.

EDIT: The Laspistol entry in the 5th Edition Imperial Guard codex states that power packs can be recharged either by a power source or simply by being exposed to light or heat.

I would assume heat charges quicker than light hence but damages the storing cells which gives you options in a war zone depending on how much time you have

Ha knew it just forgot where id seen that, win