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 Ashiraya wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Do you two keep a list of quotes proving how great Space Marines are?

What Wyzilla said. It's awfully useful given how often people attack SM in various ways. Attacking back is always fun.

Eh, Chaos and Necrons is more fun though. Just Space Marines are the easiest with the sheer abundance of quotes. You can almost drown in them.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Do you two keep a list of quotes proving how great Space Marines are?

What Wyzilla said. It's awfully useful given how often people attack SM in various ways. Attacking back is always fun.

Eh, Chaos and Necrons is more fun though. Just Space Marines are the easiest with the sheer abundance of quotes. You can almost drown in them.

To be fair, many of the SM quotes in this context also apply to CSM.

While CSM is not all of Chaos' forces, they are a significant part.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Do you two keep a list of quotes proving how great Space Marines are?

What Wyzilla said. It's awfully useful given how often people attack SM in various ways. Attacking back is always fun.

Eh, Chaos and Necrons is more fun though. Just Space Marines are the easiest with the sheer abundance of quotes. You can almost drown in them.

To be fair, many of the SM quotes in this context also apply to CSM.

While CSM is not all of Chaos' forces, they are a significant part.

Chaos Space Marines are as much Chaos as a pet ant farm is a part of human civilization.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I thought people considered Deathwatch something you should not go by?

It does tend to pump up SMs in game-play, but it's fluff is solid.

No, it actually tends to pump them down. Also, if I remember every single FFG book has a statement with their fluff simply being "optional" or an "opinion" and not factual.

So, SMs caber-tossing terminator-suited Chaos warlord is pumping them down now, is it .
And no, fluff is not "optional" The fluff for the Dark Heresy book was even written by Dan Abnett and Ben Counter.

Astartes range from the Failbearers dying to pointy sticks to Super Saiyan Librarians who slice capital ships in half. Yes indeed they do go lower than the high end. Also, it doesn't matter who wrote something, the fame of the author does not make it any more absolute.

How about this, on average, SMs in deathwatch are freakishly OP.

Also, so it doesn't matter who wrote it then, even if it is in FFG, it's all the same. So Pulse rifles are more powerful than bolters.

You just really don't want pulse weapons to be more powerful than bolters do you? You have gone from outright denying to attacking my sources. Well, I need to got to bed, see you tomorrow .

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I thought people considered Deathwatch something you should not go by?

It does tend to pump up SMs in game-play, but it's fluff is solid.

No, it actually tends to pump them down. Also, if I remember every single FFG book has a statement with their fluff simply being "optional" or an "opinion" and not factual.

So, SMs caber-tossing terminator-suited Chaos warlord is pumping them down now, is it .
And no, fluff is not "optional" The fluff for the Dark Heresy book was even written by Dan Abnett and Ben Counter.

Astartes range from the Failbearers dying to pointy sticks to Super Saiyan Librarians who slice capital ships in half. Yes indeed they do go lower than the high end. Also, it doesn't matter who wrote something, the fame of the author does not make it any more absolute.

How about this, on average, SMs in deathwatch are freakishly OP.

Also, so it doesn't matter who wrote it then, even if it is in FFG, it's all the same. So Pulse rifles are more powerful than bolters.

You just really don't want pulse weapons to be more powerful than bolters do you? You have gone from outright denying to attacking my sources. Well, I need to got to bed, see you tomorrow .

Wat? Except they aren't. There's feats for space marines who are not in Deathwatch (and to our knowledge, never were) and are utterly beyond what's in the book. Like Dak'ir the Alpha Psyker, that one CSM who I can never remember the name of and is flat out invincible, individuals who demonstrated instant scar tissue regeneration over wounds, etc. The fluff goes both sorely below and laughably beyond what's in the Deathwatch rulebook.

Also, Deathwatch is only a single source. IIRC the Firewarrior book (never read it) and the Deathwatch Xenos Hunters short story collection with the Tau/Iron Hand teamup both put pulse weaposn below bolters. The only feat that would put pulse weapons above bolters is true vaporization of an adult human, not the "vaporization" done by bolters. Well, most of the time. I think one of the quotes I posted had the author stating a bolt vaporized somebody.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
And no, fluff is not "optional" The fluff for the Dark Heresy book was even written by Dan Abnett and Ben Counter.

Actually, it is still optional. As numerous 40K writers have said, it's all up for interpretation. The status of the writer is irrelevant.

 Wyzilla wrote:
A Chaos Champion/Aspiring Champion was explicitly stated to take a shot at greater than two kilometers to knock out a sniper that was behind some glorified forklift/truck like vehicle. He aimed and bounced the shot off the ground so it deflected under the vehicle and bounced into the stomach of the sniper behind it. She died instantly, her "lover" then lost it and ran out of the building at the Iron Warrior and died.

What? Where they aiming for the “so bad it is good” kind of writing? Maybe that champion was called Chuckus Norrisas ?

 Wyzilla wrote:
Especially given that IIRC pulse rifles just blow off limbs like a lasgun, while a single bolter round can outright "vaporize" somebody.

Uh? No. Melta vaporize people. Because melta use extreme heat to do damage. Bolts use explosions to do damage. They just blow away chunks of the target's body.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
The one thing tau have not been able to do is efficiently make power-armour class armour for their basic troops.

Neither did the Imperium, though.

 Ashiraya wrote:
It's awfully useful given how often people attack SM in various ways. Attacking back is always fun.

Do not say ridiculous things like that. It is not about “attacking back”, you silly. We all know what you find fun is just attacking, this very unnecessary “back” is here just as an excuse when really you do not need any provocation to start demeaning the guard .

 Troike wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
And no, fluff is not "optional" The fluff for the Dark Heresy book was even written by Dan Abnett and Ben Counter.

Actually, it is still optional. As numerous 40K writers have said, it's all up for interpretation. The status of the writer is irrelevant.

Well, yes, but it's optional in the same way all fluff is optional. It is no less valid than any other fluff. Maybe I should have worded it better .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Do not say ridiculous things like that. It is not about “attacking back”, you silly. We all know what you find fun is just attacking, this very unnecessary “back” is here just as an excuse when really you do not need any provocation to start demeaning the guard .

Well, the first rock was thrown before I even joined Dakka, and many were thrown before I even could make a post on the topic...

I love how only on Dakka can a topic on the absolute subjectivity of GW's fluff devolve into how something must absolutely be better than something else, and how something must suck.

It could be my headcanon that Power armour actually doesn't work at all, there are billions of space marines, but they're all actually armed with nerf guns.

"What's that? You have sources that disprove that? Why, that's merely propaganda! Lies, my friend "

Come on guys. Really. Rule 1 of 40K, there is no canon. Even says so on the OP. Yes, we usually reach levels of mutual understanding and agreement, but anything could or could not be canon. It's all pick and choose, and we know this. Let's stop acting like the case is otherwise, shall we?

But arguing is fun !
But yeah, I love how we are all correcting each other when the title of this thing is "Your own mental picture of 40K's setting" .

Only on Dakka...

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
A Chaos Champion/Aspiring Champion was explicitly stated to take a shot at greater than two kilometers to knock out a sniper that was behind some glorified forklift/truck like vehicle. He aimed and bounced the shot off the ground so it deflected under the vehicle and bounced into the stomach of the sniper behind it. She died instantly, her "lover" then lost it and ran out of the building at the Iron Warrior and died.

What? Where they aiming for the “so bad it is good” kind of writing? Maybe that champion was called Chuckus Norrisas ?

 Wyzilla wrote:
Especially given that IIRC pulse rifles just blow off limbs like a lasgun, while a single bolter round can outright "vaporize" somebody.

Uh? No. Melta vaporize people. Because melta use extreme heat to do damage. Bolts use explosions to do damage. They just blow away chunks of the target's body.

Hence why I put vaporize in quotations. It vaporizes people in the same shot an M1A1 Abrams vaporized people according to the gunner. While they claim it vaporized somebody, it just turned them into a pile of goo. Which depending on the feat, bolters can indeed "vaporize" people, or rather blow them apart into little tiny giblets and a large gory puddle. Plasma guns also do vaporize people however IIRC.Or well, instantly cremate them.

There is canon. Everything is canon. Although ignore those you argue that it exists in-universe or that some of it are lies as that just really doesn't work in practice, especially with Dark Angel fluff or anything that would get you immediately executed. Only explanation I can think of is Tzeentch's library as he's omniscient. There's low end, mid end, high end, and HOLY feth DBZ Warhammer 40k. They're all separate and all exist simultaneously. But as a TES fan I guess I'm used to quantum canon.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Well, the first rock was thrown before I even joined Dakka, and many were thrown before I even could make a post on the topic...

I see. Your notion of “attacking back” is “throw bombs at those people that might or might not be related to the people that threw bombs at you yesterday” .

 Wyzilla wrote:
It vaporizes people in the same shot an M1A1 Abrams vaporized people according to the gunner.

Oh. Then pulse rifle do too. Everything points to them being more powerful than bolters. That is the whole basis of the tau, their superior firepower!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Well, the first rock was thrown before I even joined Dakka, and many were thrown before I even could make a post on the topic...

I see. Your notion of “attacking back” is “throw bombs at those people that might or might not be related to the people that threw bombs at you yesterday” .

 Wyzilla wrote:
It vaporizes people in the same shot an M1A1 Abrams vaporized people according to the gunner.

Oh. Then pulse rifle do too. Everything points to them being more powerful than bolters. That is the whole basis of the tau, their superior firepower!

There's only one source stating pulse rifles are more powerful than bolters. However IIRC there's at least two or more that provide evidence against this with fairly lackluster feats for pulse weapons that put them between a lasgun and a bolter.

 Ashiraya wrote:
There is no true 'official' canon in 40K, as Lynata kindly pointed out.

With this in mind, in a setting with tons of contradictory sources where we are allowed, even encouraged, to cherrypick, what is your own personal interpretation of 40K's setting?

How bad is the Imperium's current situation?

I just wanted to address this one point. The largest problem the galaxy currently faces are the 'Nids and it is in everyone's interest to defeat them. The Imperium has spent thousands of years beating into the population that anything non-imperium must die. That is a tremendous amount of history which needs to be overcome because all of the races need to band together to defeat the 'Nids. If the Imperium was able to stop keeping forces tied up on things like Abbaddon's crusades then they would have the man power and equipment necessary to stop the nids.

So how does one overcome their "education" and extend a hand to their former opponents? (Assuming the various other major races can stop attacking the Imperium) Well, it turns out that it may very well be impossible. Organizations like the Inquisition have an entire branch of members dedicated to making sure crap like that doesn't happen. It would take the High Lords of Terra to make such a decree and without prep work would result in a schism amongst the various armies. The inquisition would try to assassinate the high lords, some space marines would start attacking the Imperium because "they lost their way", etc.

In short, the only possible way the Imperium can live is if the High Lords can change the current "nature" of humanity. To do so they would have to remove a section of the Inquisition, stop supporting SM chapters which would never ally with xenos and start a reeducation plan for everyone else. Ultimately it would take a couple generations... which might not be fast enough. This plan would have to be put in place with the support of the leaders of the other groups and with the knowledge that it's going to take quite awhile before an actual ceasefire could be declared... Obviously this is ripe for abuse by all sides.

Imagine you have a hated foe. Someone you would remove from existence with your own bare hands if given half a chance. More, you know that others are watching you and your own life depends upon the death of this foe. Now imagine trying to be buddies with them...with the knowledge that it's just a matter of who betrays who first. There isn't likely to be a good outcome from this and it's far more likely everyone becomes dinner.

 Wyzilla wrote:
There's only one source stating pulse rifles are more powerful than bolters.

There is only one source outright stating it, and that is if you disregard the profiles that are VERY explicit at how a pulse rifle is better in every aspect than a bolter .

 Wyzilla wrote:
However IIRC there's at least two or more that provide evidence against this with fairly lackluster feats for pulse weapons that put them between a lasgun and a bolter.

Evidence? You call that evidence?
Let me see any story in which the Tau are protagonists, and the pulse rifle do less damage than the bolters. And I am not speaking about those wielding the bolter doing more damage by aiming better, it is well-known that tau are not good at aiming. I am talking about the projectile itself doing more damage.
Or let us just look at the profile from RPG for both weapons.

Actually, it's not the profile, but the fluff that says it's more powerful. I'm not sure about the profile.

Also, Wyzilla, you want pulse weapon feats? Pulse weapons can pierce terminator armour and kill space marines in one hit..

Yeah, there are three sources stating the Pulse Rifle is better. Codex: Tau, the 40k stats and the RPG stats.

The RPG fluff.

Even the Fire Caste's standard issue weapon, the pulse rifle, is a marvel of technology, surpassing even the Adeptus Astartes boltgun in its destructive capability.

The stats have the bolter being 2d10+5 instead of 2d10+2 for the pulse rifle for the reason I said before (your PCs are supposed to be OP), but if we go by RT, a pulse rifle is 2d10+3 and a bolter is 1d10+5.
For a min/avg/max that's 5/14/23 for the pulse and 6/10.5/15 for the bolt.

But you forget, Wyzilla already decreed that were not allowed to use game rules .

In both cases, however, the Bolter is Tearing, which increases its damage potential by a very great deal.

Forgot about that.
For those of you who don't know, tearing means you roll an extra die for damage and discard the lowest result. this my increase the effective average, but I find it mostly makes it not get bad results quite as often.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yeah, there are three sources stating the Pulse Rifle is better. Codex: Tau, the 40k stats and the RPG stats.

Make that five : Codex: Tau, the 40k stats, the RPG fluff, the other RPG's rule, that piece of fluff when pulse rifle one-hit headshot kill terminators.

Luckily I have the shield of headcanon protecting against all those unpleasant claims of pulse weapons somehow being superior to the Bolt weaponry of Chaos' finest.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

I see. Your notion of “attacking back” is “throw bombs at those people that might or might not be related to the people that threw bombs at you yesterday” .

Randomly firing in the general direction of the enemy did work for the Orks, yes?

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Forgot about that.
For those of you who don't know, tearing means you roll an extra die for damage and discard the lowest result. this my increase the effective average, but I find it mostly makes it not get bad results quite as often.

It also offers a third chance of getting a Righteous Fury, which Pulse Rifles cannot get.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Forgot about that.
For those of you who don't know, tearing means you roll an extra die for damage and discard the lowest result. this my increase the effective average, but I find it mostly makes it not get bad results quite as often.

It also offers a third chance of getting a Righteous Fury, which Pulse Rifles cannot get.

True, but that's only for the "astartes boltgun" (utter bunk IMO, but whatever), the regular boltgun rolls only one dice, whereas the pulse rifle rolls two, so it's the same thing. The problem with that however, is it is a PC thing, not a weapon thing.

I have always played with bolters that any SMs have base (as in it's theirs, not one they happened to pick up off the ground) is make them best quality. It seems to me that they would have the same weapon, just always get the best quality as they can afford it.

 TheCustomLime wrote:


I see the Guard ... using their troops as buffers for the good stuff like the WW2 Germans did.

What???

 Ashiraya wrote:
Randomly firing in the general direction of the enemy did work for the Orks, yes?

So you share their concern for things like collateral damage .

Hey, Orks are deeply concerned with collateral damage.









...









The more, the better!

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Forgot about that.
For those of you who don't know, tearing means you roll an extra die for damage and discard the lowest result. this my increase the effective average, but I find it mostly makes it not get bad results quite as often.

It also offers a third chance of getting a Righteous Fury, which Pulse Rifles cannot get.

True, but that's only for the "astartes boltgun" (utter bunk IMO, but whatever), the regular boltgun rolls only one dice, whereas the pulse rifle rolls two, so it's the same thing. The problem with that however, is it is a PC thing, not a weapon thing.

I have always played with bolters that any SMs have base (as in it's theirs, not one they happened to pick up off the ground) is make them best quality. It seems to me that they would have the same weapon, just always get the best quality as they can afford it.

Actually, in DW, all the Astartes stuff should have the Mastercrafted Quality by default... it's like Best Quality from DH, +2. And is reserved solely for Astartes. Also, any PC can get a Righteous Fury, as that mechanic is present in DH as well. However, "by the book", it applies only to PCs, all of which are Humans (without certain GM permissions)... so the Xeno can do nothing but fail.

Though I think this topic came up a few months ago, and it was determined that the Pulse Rifle is not, in the end, a superior weapon to the boltgun. Description notwithstanding, the bolter had better damage output and higher RoF, while the pulse rifle had better range and armor penetration, but lower base damage. Comparing a field-standard Fire Warrior to a baseline DW Marine, however indicated that the crisis suit of the FW was no match for the Pen of a Boltgun, while Astartes PA offered at least some protection, depending on where the Marine was hit. Also, the higher baseline TGH of the Marine (coupled with the Unnatural Toughness trait) required the Tau to roll above-average damage to even scratch the Marine. The Marine could roll fairly average and lay waste to a Fire Warrior.