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Oh yeah, I agree that is high for a human. I just thought it sounded low for a Sm with armor, to damned low. Honestly about 3 tons sounds about right in armor.

 Hunterindarkness wrote:
Oh yeah, I agree that is high for a human. I just thought it sounded low for a Sm with armor, to damned low. Honestly about 3 tons sounds about right in armor.

3 tons sounds like way to much. If a marine could lift 3 tons then an Ork nob would almost be able to lift a trukk over his head since they are stronger than a marine. If marines could lift 3 tons then Warbosses would be able to lift at least 6-8 tons and that sounds silly

Hehe now I imagine the Orks and Space Marines tossing lorries at eachother.

 Gargantuan wrote:

 Hunterindarkness wrote:
Oh yeah, I agree that is high for a human. I just thought it sounded low for a Sm with armor, to damned low. Honestly about 3 tons sounds about right in armor.

3 tons sounds like way to much. If a marine could lift 3 tons then an Ork nob would almost be able to lift a trukk over his head since they are stronger than a marine. If marines could lift 3 tons then Warbosses would be able to lift at least 6-8 tons and that sounds silly

We are talking in armor and in a game where humans without armor can if built right lift 1000kg, humans in PA( Non SM PA at that) can lift 1.5 easy enough) . A I might be off here as I said before I do not own DW, but the Nob and the warboss should both have higer str and toughness and both be unnatural. So yes a Nob or warboss could lift more then 3 tons. The stompa if I recall was a scary thing of death.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
I find the bodybuilder-analogy strange, I would have gone for strongmen personally.

Same thing to me, but I'm neither.

nomotog wrote:Don't SMs have regenerating health in GW fluff?

Over time, sure. Just like any human has regenerating health, just a bit boosted I'd presume. But still not within a matter of seconds.
What happens in a matter of seconds is that their blood would clog, in essence stopping any bleeding. But that doesn't magically make a piece of blown-off flesh or a limb that was hacked off reappear. They wouldn't need bionics otherwise, or have faces as grizzled and scarred as that of the Sergeant.

It's a gameplay mechanic, just like your two companion Marines are completely invincible and will never die in combat, regardless of how much they get shot or pummeled by their opponents.
Fortunately, it rarely gets that obvious in the middle of the game itself, since combat is fast and most of the time you'll still have an enemy or two that focus on you anyways.

Void__Dragon wrote:I demand an explanation for why this post, and only this post, of yours appears to have been made in the USA, and how the rest of your posts were made in Ireland.

Proxies. Depending on whether I'm at home, at work, or at home and tunneling my posts can show up with four different flags here.

I've been watching Netflix at the time, but only Netflix US has the "Sliders" show.

Hunterindarkness wrote:The unnatural str will do that.

Unnaturals were such a silly idea. I'm still surprised how anyone could've thought flat multipliers would work out nicely in any game system. Not FFG's fault, though; this was a holdover from Black Industries.
So glad they changed it in recent games, although it's gotten to a point where I think they could just drop it completely as a trait and simply add +X to base characteristics generation.

In any case, I think it's worse for Toughness than for Strength, as it basically works like a secondary layer of armour. Your naked body can actually become tougher than the armour you wear.
This can really become an issue even for normal well-equipped humans in DH etc., when the GM suddenly noticed some people in the party can no longer be injured by certain weapons, but for DW the Unnaturals inflated the problem even further. It's why they needed Hordes to make mooks any threat at all, for as soon as you are in a Horde your gun can magically double or triple its damage potential. This in turn also resulted in lots of GMs posting about so many dice having the potential to result in their players either not getting hurt at all or being roflstomped if the Horde rolls very good. Their high resilience and the range of possible results from rolling 2-5 d10 doesn't seem to work out very well.

I'm sure it is still a fun game (I'm only getting to know it "for reals" just now), one only shouldn't take it too seriously or overanalyse its representation of physics. The fastest way to kill a Hive Tyrant used to be to just pick him up and throw him in the air, then watch it get instakilled by falling damage.
The "Movie Marines" analogy is a good comparison, actually. You're a small group of larger-than-life heroes who go kicking an entire Tyranid Fleet in the balls and stuff like that.

Oddly enough, the unnatural multiplier didn't really help make Marines stronger outside of combat... because strength tests almost invariably ignore the strength modifier. So a Marine with strength fourty and strength bonus eight is not actually able to do feats of strength any better than a human with strength fourty and strength bonus four.

Aye, one more reason to just do away with it.

Either a guy is stronger, or he isn't. If it's a matter of martial ability, give him a bonus to WS.

If it were up to me, I'd prolly just give them +40 Strength and +20 Toughness to their base stats.
Or +40 to both and change how Toughness works, moving away from the "it's like armour" and going more towards the Inquisitor RPG - where it reduced the grade of injuries, but did not prevent them entirely.

It's also the reason why unnatural intelligence was so useless. :/ Was able to get a character to x4 int bonus (resulting in her intelligence bonus being in the high 20-low 30\s), but what did it matter?

 Melissia wrote:
Shrug, if you insist.

So, let's take the examples of Marines being pretty weak (the dawn of war books took this route, likely unintentionally, and arguably any of the Guard books take this route since the guardsmen always end up killing a marine or five at some point in the series), versus the ones being very, very strong (several mairne books where marines are able to tear orks in half or rip open tanks without a power fist exist). Most books with Marines don't really go in to great deal about their strengths, however, and you're left with the feeling that Marines are strong, but you have no clue how strong they are without their power armor.

There are more books that have them be obscenely strong than weak, however. Would you prefer to lean on the side of "Marines can flip over tanks on their own!" (taking the average, trying to include as many books that exaggerate Astartes strength as possible) or "Marines are stronger than any non-bodybuilder human, but require power armor to accomplish the more legendary feats of strength" (taking the median, going with the more common books that tend to be less illustrative of the Astartes' strength)?

I go with the latter, myself. It fits in with most novels, and also fits in with the various RPGs as well (even Deathwatch, which is basically Movie Marines: The RPG, didn't have Marines be that much stronger than humans, although they did usually hit a bit harder in melee). And it suits the fluff of a strength four creature quite nicely.

Strangely enough, i think that the book with the most OTT marine power is actually a guard book. In "Kill Team", a single freaking deathwatch marine literally rape an entire Tau army, slaying a ton of fire warriors before proceeding to take down an host of Crisis and Broadside with a single damned bolter ( the OTTness reach an extreme when it is clearly described how he take down a broadside with 3 (THREE!!!!) bolter shots)

Wow, I'm glad I haven't read that book.

I don't play the RPGs, but you could look at it as a differences in muscle strength and muscle endurance. Plus, if could also be a factor of ligament and joint strength. After all, you could have the muscle to lift something, but not the joint strength to actually complete it. Was an interesting tidbit in some old, possibly long forgotten game I owned as a kid about how you could imbue a bionic arm with ridiculous strength, but if you tried to lift a car over your head, you'd just end up with it painfully tearing free of your body because the anchors to the meat and skeleton couldn't support it.


Or, you just accept that wargames will never actually accurately depict real life (or, in the case of 40K, imaginary real life), and you just accept or house-rule the inconsistencies. Ultimately, if you play any character too long in the Warhammer RPGs, they become invincible and put all the enemies in the game to shame. It was like that even in 1st Edition WFRPG. I can only imagine it becomes ridiculous in Deathwatch. But, then again, Space Marines were never going to be good PCs for RPGs. Without stretching the boundaries of the setting, Deathwatch seems to me like it's roll playing, not role playing.

The tabletop game is the worst reference to use, since everything is judged in division by sixths (blocks of 16.6%, lol). So the gap between and attribute of 3 and 5 is huge.

 Melissia wrote:
Wow, I'm glad I haven't read that book.

well ... it's a nice book in reality... apart from that sequence everything seems pretty plausible. And i freakin' love KAGE!

Melissia wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, but slower and dumber.

Oddly enough... no. Orks are startlingly fast for their size, and are quite intelligent when it comes to anything war-related.

The primary advantage Astartes have is training and equpment. Ork bodies are actually probably superior to Astartes bodies.

Startlingly fast? I can see how you'd get that, with a base I of 2 on the tabletop, or the impressive 30 Agi in the 40K RPGs.

I mean, I guess it's startling that a giant lumbering ork Warboss is as fast as a normal Marine. Saying something is "fast for its size" is entirely relative. That still leaves them significantly slower than a Space Marine. As being quite intelligent at war related topics, if that's so, it's never been demonstrated in the fluff and certainly isn't present in any of the game rules. Back to 2nd Edition when the armies had Strategy Ratings for their commanders, even Ghazkull was a 3, where a generic Space Marine commander was 5 and Calgar was 6. They're crafty and tenacious, but they're not winning wars though skill and subterfuge, lol.

As far as their bodies being superior, eh. Like I said, a slight advantage in durability is completely lost if you cannot close to the distance needed to exert those attributes.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Melissia wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, but slower and dumber.

Oddly enough... no. Orks are startlingly fast for their size, and are quite intelligent when it comes to anything war-related.

The primary advantage Astartes have is training and equpment. Ork bodies are actually probably superior to Astartes bodies.

Startlingly fast? I can see how you'd get that, with a base I of 2 on the tabletop, or the impressive 30 Agi in the 40K RPGs.

And the veteran Marines of Deathwatch (and they all are, there are no newbies in Deathwatch) only have an average agility of 40 in the RPGs, meaning most human and many ork combatants are going to be as fast or faster than what are supposed to be highly experienced, veteran marines. Indeed, humans have a higher upper limit to agility (or any stat, really) than Marines do, using DH/Ascension and various supplements. So the tabletop RPG comparison doesn't work. At all.

Furthermore, Orks move at the same speed as Marines on the field of battle in tabletop, making your argument regarding the tabletop wargaming incoherent at best-- I think the only way Marines get fleet is through a specific special character, right? Initiative is an abstract and incoherent concept, and does not represent the ability to charge across the battlefield.

My argument about Orks being startlingly fast for their size comes from the actual lore, where they are described as such by humans fighting them. Orks are as tall as humans... while hunched over. And they're considerably meatier. That's just the common Ork boy-- the average Ork, if he bothered to stand up straight, would likely be about the same as that of a Marine. And yet when powered by a WAAAGH! shout, they can charge across the battlefield with the same speed as an Eldar, whom actually ARE supposed to be faster than a Marine or human.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:The tabletop game is the worst reference to use, since everything is judged in division by sixths (blocks of 16.6%, lol). So the gap between and attribute of 3 and 5 is huge.

Just as a small addendum regarding that opinion: The TT indeed doesn't work at all for gauging the exact capability of any singular character or item - but I would argue it is the best reference for getting a rough idea of what is better than something else, and what is supposed to be pretty damn close. After all, the TT is the only truly "neutral" representation of the setting (at least as envisioned by GW), as it is still the only product that incorporates a ruleset meant to play any army against any other army, with everyone using all the same basics, rather than being geared towards a specific faction or sub-faction.
Anything else has a very high chance of being biased, primarily because someone will always be the protagonist. And something that is biased can never be a better reference.

If you listen to Dan Abnett's interview about the Space Marine movie, he even mentions that this is why Black Library was founded as a distinct sub-department from GW rather than publishing the novels under the main GW label. The studio wanted to establish a clear border between the neutral rules and the fantastic tales that may often require an author to suspend the neutrality of the world in favour of telling an epic story where the hero (almost) always wins.

Of course, even GW's world is just one version of the 41st millennium. But it stands apart from most others by being somewhat more balanced in terms of preferential treatment, having special rules, badass heroes, etc for everyone rather than just the "hero of the hour".
I suppose the Dawn of War games could make a similar argument, though, as they are supposed to treat each army equally as well.

In the outcast dead novel an unarmed, unarmoured world eater sergeant kills an armed and armoured custodian in hand to hand combat, survives crashing out of the sky in a transport ship, takes a boltgun shot through the side, but is killed by a plasma shot to the chest. Another 2 world eater marines armoured in steel armour and one of them armed with an unpowered custodian spear head kill another custodian, but are also killed in the process./spoiler], an unarmed, unarmoured world eater sergeant kills an armed and armoured custodian in hand to hand combat, survives crashing out of the sky in a transport ship, takes a boltgun shot through the side, but is killed by a plasma shot to the chest. Another 2 world eater marines armoured in steel armour and one of them armed with an unpowered custodian spear head kill another custodian, but are also killed in the process.

Neutral, sure. Accurate or best? That's absolutely laughable. Again, it's a representation where things can only be determined in blocks of 16.6%.


It's the simplest, and easiest way to play a game in the 40K universe. It's been incredibly streamlined to be played in as short of time as possible, and continuously redesigned to drive sales of different kinds of miniatures in greater quantities.

"Best reference." There aren't enough laughing smiley images ever devised to respond to that, so I'll stick to



And read what you read again. "Suspend the neutrality". I think you're misunderstanding that phrase on the kind of disastrous level the Jedi did when they didn't think about what Anakin bringing "Balance to the Force" meant.


I've spelled it out many times. And I know you won't listen, so I'll provide it for the others so they aren't fooled by you. 40K is designed to sell plastic toys and create an evenly balanced, playable, profitable game. If the Space Marines in the game matched the kinds of capabilities the fluff gives them, you'd only have to buy 10 or 15 of them, and your opponent would have to buy dozens of models. This creates several problems.

1: Space Marine armies would be even more popular, and they'd sell less total models.
2: There would be significant barriers to entry on non-Space Marine armies. They'd be significantly more expensive, and time consuming to collect.
3: The game looks less epic when there are less models on the table. 3rd Edition very cleverly tweaked points costs and streamlined rules so that anywhere from 50% to 100% more models could be fielded and take half as much time to play with.


So yeah, any idea where the 40K tabletop game is the "best" way to look at the 40K universe is funny as hell. It's NOT GW's world. Their world exists very clearly. It's the one where Space Marine Chapters conquer entire worlds, and small numbers of Space Marines defeat vast armies.

Then, they then have a game where you can play evenly balanced, terrain neutral battles in a rough approximation of that world.


As far as Melissia not understanding my argument and thinking "fast" just refers to how quickly somebody can run... Well, that's no surprise, lol.

I often went by the notion that the non-Space Marines often were represented by ten or more bodies for each model myself. That can explain the stats somewhat. But truth be told I always figured two armies meeting on equal base a tad stupid, think of it, a Dark Eldar Archon fighting fairly, a Space Wolf fighting fairly and the Eldars are very well known for their use of fair fights.

VS:

And I have mentioned this before (yet apparently you did not listen), but Space Marine fluff depicts them with a wide range of capabilities. Most notably because most of their fluff - even limited to GW - is actually myths and legends, which a number of people seem to have an issue to discern from the neutral info. Info such as Codex fluff description for Astartes power armour actually reflecting the TT values quite well, just as it reflects the values in GW's Inquisitor RPG.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Their world exists very clearly. It's the one where Space Marine Chapters conquer entire worlds, and small numbers of Space Marines defeat vast armies.

You must not have read much of GW's fluff, have you?

Marine casualties on Armageddon, clear references for other elite armies pwning Astartes, we even have a Primarch equaling 100 Marines to 1000 Guardsmen. Of course, I'm not sure what you've read - but given the other material I'm guessing it must have been one of those legends, or perhaps the Marines in your example have fought some random PDF or feral natives.
Your statement scratches the surface of what the Space Marines are about. I'd suggest you dig deeper.

As far as a low model count for viable armies is concerned, I would say that Grey Knights can come pretty close to what you claim GW would never do.

Beaviz81 wrote:But truth be told I always figured two armies meeting on equal base a tad stupid, think of it, a Dark Eldar Archon fighting fairly, a Space Wolf fighting fairly and the Eldars are very well known for their use of fair fights.

This is true, and why I think Epic40k would be a better representation of most fights as far as tactics are concerned. What you have in 40k is Space Marines not pwning as much not because their abilities are not accurately reflected, but rather because they are not fighting in a situation where they could bring their full strength to bear. It's a close assault shock army trying to storm an objective like a bunch of IG infantry. In a scenario closer to their tactics, they would likely face less opposition and thus be even more dangerous. Basically, the Marines were caught with their pants down and now have to weather the storm using just the edge they have, rather than also having the tactical advantage that comes with usually being able to pick their fights.

So every battle is about Space Marines making huge mistakes? Wow fun and new perspective for me. I preferred the first thing I wrote, about every model representing 10 or more figures. But this is fun to think about hehe, and explain the bolts sticking out of the head of the average Space Marine Sergeant.

 Melissia wrote:
Oddly enough, the unnatural multiplier didn't really help make Marines stronger outside of combat... because strength tests almost invariably ignore the strength modifier. So a Marine with strength fourty and strength bonus eight is not actually able to do feats of strength any better than a human with strength fourty and strength bonus four.

Unnatural Strength doubles the degrees of success you have when you roll, so it does help a bit.

Beaviz81 wrote:So every battle is about Space Marines making huge mistakes?

Not necessarily - it could also be the Marines simply having to "make do" because the situation demands it. For example, having to hold a certain position against numerically dangerously superior forces until reinforcements arrive. More heroic, and perhaps more to your liking?

Or it could simply be a small segment of a larger battle. The table is fairly small, and who's to say that this isn't just one of several fights? Maybe your guys just got the toughest job.

There is a number of possible explanations for why the Space Marines on the table are used as they are, but I thought that Marine players would agree that the way they attack in the TT isn't very reflective of their standard tactics.

Beaviz81 wrote:I preferred the first thing I wrote, about every model representing 10 or more figures.

Well, the same thing could probably be said about IG players. Which army shows up with only 1-2 artillery pieces?
The game admittedly doesn't translate well when it comes to a tactical representation of about half (or more!) of the armies, which is why I came up with the above ways to sorta explain it.

Beaviz81 wrote:the bolts sticking out of the head of the average Space Marine Sergeant

Hmmh, looking at the various Tactical Squad Sergeants, it doesn't seem to be that common. Wouldn't have to mean much, anyways. I'm certainly not saying they fall like flies. Most of the time, they'd deploy in battles with a bigger advantage than they have in the TT.

Of course, the 1 means ten means ten vehicles as well.

As for the Space Marine Sergeant, sorry but that's the image that pops into my head when people say that word.

 Lynata wrote:

In any case, I think it's worse for Toughness than for Strength, as it basically works like a secondary layer of armour. Your naked body can actually become tougher than the armour you wear.
This can really become an issue even for normal well-equipped humans in DH etc., when the GM suddenly noticed some people in the party can no longer be injured by certain weapons

Heh heh heh, this is the case for my Arbites in our DH campaign. He's AP9 and TB5, so lasguns and autoguns don't even scratch him.

I'm basically fearless in any engagement until we start doing more dangerous missions.

Holy gak. Did you get your hands on Best Quality power armour? Well played.

Your GM could probably use Manstopper rounds - but depending on what the rest of your guys wear, it could be a bit dangerous for the rest of your guys just for a small chance to reduce your hitpoints by 1-2...

Tell them to gear up!

Usually we use meltaguns for taht kind of thing.

 Lynata wrote:
Holy gak. Did you get your hands on Best Quality power armour? Well played.

Your GM could probably use Manstopper rounds - but depending on what the rest of your guys wear, it could be a bit dangerous for the rest of your guys just for a small chance to reduce your hitpoints by 1-2...

Tell them to gear up!

He's an Arbites.

He's using Carapace Armour and a big ass shield (Forget the name) from IIRC the Book of Judgment.

We aren't kewl enough for powered armour yet.

 punkow wrote:

Strangely enough, i think that the book with the most OTT marine power is actually a guard book. In "Kill Team", a single freaking deathwatch marine literally rape an entire Tau army, slaying a ton of fire warriors before proceeding to take down an host of Crisis and Broadside with a single damned bolter ( the OTTness reach an extreme when it is clearly described how he take down a broadside with 3 (THREE!!!!) bolter shots)

This is not that much OTT, Deathwatch are all elites. And Tau are really not match for Astartes anyway, in Zeist unmanned several Chapters literally stopped entire Tau main 3'rd sphere invasion force and push them back to where they begun the offensive.
And why is is so strange that he was able to kill broad side in 3 shots? if even one hit him in the head he would be done for.

At least this is more realistic then certain Fire Warrior who single handedly killed Lord of Change and entire Space Marine Warband ( Daemon Princes and Titan included ).

Talk about clashing opinions on what is OTT.

For what it's worth, I would consider any one character who could single-handedly deal with an entire army as an overhyped product of faction bias, regardless of whether it's a Tau Fire Warrior or an Astartes Space Marine.
Why are we comparing the silly exploits of a single Astartes in some bolterporn novel against what a strike force of about a dozen Chapters with superior mobility has achieved?

And come on now, a single Space Marine wouldn't even carry enough ammunition to deal with an entire Tau battleforce on his own.