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It's more abstract than that.

Power armor is great armor. But it isn't a perfect, impenetrable defense. So, much like IRL, there's still places where a weapon can get through it, even if it doesn't have the raw power to punch through the heaviest part of the armor.

Carapace simultaneously has less coverage and yet also is made of slightly less strong material; flak armor typically has less coverage than that, and is made of far simpler materials as well.

 Psienesis wrote:

Animus wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Propaganda ends when it's not an in-universe explanation. When it's pure game mechanics, providing numbers, dice, tables and charts, all the things that form the "crunch" of a game.

Well that doesn't provide a whole lot of anything. Crunch doesn't tell you how many Space Marines there are in the galaxy, or that there's actually an Emperor somewhere. Crunch would have you believe that artillery can can only shoot a few hundred meters, that a man can run about as half as fast as a motorbike and that the whole galaxy works on a ten point system.

Not if you understand that the game mechanics represent the scale of a table-top game, not a presentation of real-life. I can't believe that I have to explain this.

Propaganda: "Power Armor is unbeatable!"

Reality: "SM passes its Armor Save about 2/3s of the time"

Or, the actual possibility that game balance =/= fluff?

'Hey, trooper Bernfeldt! I just read the news, did you know that you can walk and fire your Heavy Bolter now?'

'What? That's amazing, Sergeant!'

There's a reason we never read about unkillable Screamerstars in fluff that are ten times stronger than any other Daemon unit.

Or pretty much any Daemon units at all, for that part! They tend to be organised in other ways, if at all.

Because fluff varies. Either you buy into the bolterporn, and Space Marines can, indeed, use 5 dudes to conquer a planet... or you don't, and ten regular humans in flak armor with lasguns can wipe out a squad of Space Marines suffering 0 casualties.

 Psienesis wrote:
Because fluff varies. Either you buy into the bolterporn, and Space Marines can, indeed, use 5 dudes to conquer a planet... or you don't, and ten regular humans in flak armor with lasguns can wipe out a squad of Space Marines suffering 0 casualties.

You sure don't like Space Marines.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
You sure don't like Space Marines.

Someone can say "Space Marines aren't unbeatable gods of war" without disliking Space Marines.

Hell, people still think I hate all Space Marines even though I've praised the lore of quite a few chapters... no, it's CSMs I hate

 Melissia wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
You sure don't like Space Marines.

Someone can say "Space Marines aren't unbeatable gods of war" without disliking Space Marines.

Hell, people still think I hate all Space Marines even though I've praised the lore of quite a few chapters... no, it's CSMs I hate

That was not what I was responding to, not specifically.

More a qualified guess based on several observations.

There are no factions of the 40K setting that I dislike. There are aspects to all of them I don't like.

There are, however, massive swaths of the population of fans that I actively despise.

I agree they should go back to a more specialized role, unless their numbers are expanded. The idea that 100 Space Marines can take even an area the size of Connecticut is laughable, I don't care how "elite" they are. Nevermind having that number conquer entire planets on a regular basis.

The Legiones Astartes sizes just scratched the surface of necessary Marine numbers for system-wide conquests given Marine capabilities.

I don't think "re-emphasized" is the right phrase... I think the the Space Marines' role needs to be re-evaluated, re-purposed, or re-imagined.

I'd like them a lot more if they were a top-secret weapon of the Imperium, deployed for very small, but very critical missions.

 Harriticus wrote:
I agree they should go back to a more specialized role, unless their numbers are expanded. The idea that 100 Space Marines can take even an area the size of Connecticut is laughable, I don't care how "elite" they are. Nevermind having that number conquer entire planets on a regular basis.

The Legiones Astartes sizes just scratched the surface of necessary Marine numbers for system-wide conquests given Marine capabilities.

Can you give me a source on your last sentence? I have not read that before.

According to the 2nd Ed IG codex, IG response times can vary between 30 days to 175 days, with around 90 days being the average. Sector governors (not planetary governors) have authority to dispatch IG forces to warzones within their own territory. The IG doesn't have to wait for word to reach Terra before the Administratum does something, the system is set up so that the planets can defend themselves without help from the outside; and they get help from the rest of the sector when they can't defend themselves. It is extremely rare for IG regiments (or even SM chapters) to get involved in a war in a different sector from their base of operations (Armageddon was one of these rare wars where everybody showed up). The average recruiting radius for IG regiments is 10,000 light years around the warzone they are intended to fight in, which in 40K distances is pretty small. These massive warp transit times people seem to throw around exist only in the fevered minds of the fans. Sure, one or two IG regiments have been delayed by years or decades in the warp, but they are the very small minority and in no way represent the average result of warp travel. If the IG was so slow to respond to every crisis that most of the planets they get sent to end up wiped out before they arrive, there would be no point in having the IG, since there would be nothing for them to defend.

Three months is an awful lot of time considering how fast armies like Eldar and Dark Eldar can strike, and how much damage they can do in that time.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
a bunch of virgin monks polishing each other's holy bolters.

Emperor preserve me, I had entirely inaproriate thoughts when I read this. I am not so sure they are 'virgin' monks...


On topic: I am happy with the SM as they are now. However, it would be great if the other factions would get some more showtime.

Yeah, I really like the idea of the Eldar and their development as a civilization, but there's a really annoying lack of superb Eldar novels. The Night Lords got their Talos Trilogy, now the Eldar need some of that love, and not by C.S. Goto, because who the hell reads rape fics? Everything I've heard about Goto just pretty much has him coming off as some Eldar hater who always ensures they suffer the most gory, disgusting deaths possible, which isn't really good when you're writing for that race.

On the to-do list for the BL, or at least should-

1) More Eldar. And actually good works here. Getting good authors who volunteer for it and are not forcibly commissioned would likely be a good idea. And don't let it go out of bloody print this time!

2) Grey Knights are young and could use some development. And a major grabbing of the steering wheel to prevent them from driving permanently off into Suedom. Their origin's awesome from them being the descendants of loyalists from the Traitor Legions, don't foul up their creation and let them be riddled with Kaldor Draigos.

3) More good CSM work that isn't on the Iron Warriors or Night Lords would be great. Maybe develop the Alpha Legion post-heresy (without silliness currently in the fluff), or start an interesting new series on a bunch of CSM pirates, maybe a squad working under the Red Corsairs. Can't go wrong with Astartes pirates in space.

4) More on the Lost and the Damned, IG Storm Troopers, hell, maybe even give us a story about a simple civilian in the IOM. Develop the Imperium as a civilization from the ground up. Develop The Lost and the Damned and the way CSM's work in the society, just buildup the civilization on the worshipers of Chaos.

5) Outsource. Your pool of good writers is pretty good (even if they have their collection of misteps), but get more people in on W40K. Have Peter Watts write a story about the Adeptus Mechanicus through the eyes of a younger Techpriest. Commission a W40K Imperial Guard comic or Inquisition comic from Mike Mignola. Start making W40K comics (that hopefully aren't horrendously overpriced) and continuing series. W40K works well in a comic format.

6) Ditch your stupid attempts at manipulating the New York Times bestseller list by printing a limited amount of copies. It's stupid. Everyong thinks its stupid. It reduces sales in the long run and encourages people to pirate it. You'll also notice nobody else (sane) practices it. Why? BECAUSE IT'S STUPID.

Yeah, the DE are hard to catch for IG, but Craftworlds are big and do take a while to move through realspace. They don't suddenly appear in satellite orbit over your planet and Falcon tank you to death; they show up on the periphery of your system and you hope your early warning grid detects them in time to assess if their intent is hostile or not. You mobilize your PDF regardless, and if they seem hostile (shooting passing ships, etc) you send for an IG regiment, and hope one is available. Outer system to inner planet can take weeks, so you hope you get one of those 30 day Ig response times, and if not, your PDF is supposed to be able to hold out until the IG does show up... hopefully before day 176.

squidhills wrote:
Yeah, the DE are hard to catch for IG, but Craftworlds are big and do take a while to move through realspace. They don't suddenly appear in satellite orbit over your planet and Falcon tank you to death; they show up on the periphery of your system and you hope your early warning grid detects them in time to assess if their intent is hostile or not. You mobilize your PDF regardless, and if they seem hostile (shooting passing ships, etc) you send for an IG regiment, and hope one is available. Outer system to inner planet can take weeks, so you hope you get one of those 30 day Ig response times, and if not, your PDF is supposed to be able to hold out until the IG does show up... hopefully before day 176.

To my knowledge, Eldar never actually risk attacking directly with their Craftworlds, rather sending out smaller spaceships from it, naturally holofielded in the usual Eldar way.

In Nightbringer a Dark Eldar ship was able to masquerade as an Imperial ship and easily avoided detection until a suspicious dude checked if that really could be said Imperial ship... At which point the Dark Eldar ship threw off its disguise and opened fire anyway.

 Psienesis wrote:

Animus wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Propaganda ends when it's not an in-universe explanation. When it's pure game mechanics, providing numbers, dice, tables and charts, all the things that form the "crunch" of a game.

Well that doesn't provide a whole lot of anything. Crunch doesn't tell you how many Space Marines there are in the galaxy, or that there's actually an Emperor somewhere. Crunch would have you believe that artillery can can only shoot a few hundred meters, that a man can run about as half as fast as a motorbike and that the whole galaxy works on a ten point system.

Not if you understand that the game mechanics represent the scale of a table-top game, not a presentation of real-life. I can't believe that I have to explain this.

Propaganda: "Power Armor is unbeatable!"

Reality: "SM passes its Armor Save about 2/3s of the time"

Only if you really believe that high rate of fire weapons only fire a small handful of rounds in a given timeframe that should (theoretically) span several minutes. The way I like to think of it, is that the number of shots fired is representative of a fraction of the shots actually fired, specifically it is representative of those shots that present the best chance of hitting/wounding/penetrating the targets armor, meaning that the 2/3rds that we see is really only considering those shots that didn't harmlessly bounce off the target entirely, because even though you might have only rolled 10 dice, there were actually HUNDREDS of additional shots fired at said marine, many of which hit but had no chance of actually doing anything.

 Psienesis wrote:
Because fluff varies. Either you buy into the bolterporn, and Space Marines can, indeed, use 5 dudes to conquer a planet... or you don't, and ten regular humans in flak armor with lasguns can wipe out a squad of Space Marines suffering 0 casualties.

Except there are different games workshop games where space marines work differently... Inquisitor marines pretty much stand up to their fluff... Or is that propaghanda also?

What about 'fluff' where marines stand up to their reputation, yet still get trounced, the short story about the Lamenters being wiped out by Tyranids for example.

The tabletop has no real correlation to the setting, and just apply physics to it also, inch thick hard as nails powered personal armour is not going to get taken down by conventional bullets very easily unless it's a good shot in a weak point, and since autoguns are the equivilant of lasguns, then lasguns are not up to the job either.

The fluff is more believable than the tabletop application, as I don.t personally believe that guardsman can take down a 10ft 500kg daemon prince with combat knives and fists.

 UlrikDecado wrote:
Prepare to one discussion limping step...

 Wyzilla wrote:
....why do you even frequent W40K forums instead of simply buggering off to a different, realistic wargame unlike W40K?

...and now he fell!

 Wyzilla wrote:
The majority is always right.

Sorry mate, I dont think that quarter of planet thinking that Earth is flat will make it Discworld. Although it would be cool!

 Wyzilla wrote:
In the end, it does not matter at all what the fans want. Unless they boycott it for changes, GW pushes what it wants in the fluff.

On the contrary, I cant remember how many times I've read and hear "Forge your narrative" in GW materials Oh and I would love GW to actually push fluff forward.

But to be honest, serious and not smartfeth. WH40K fluff is full of holes and layers of bizzare plot armor. HH is best example why is better not to dwell into mythological age. With such scale of inconsistency people will simply work their own narrative even without tabletop. There is some solid ground around which fluff grows, but there is so many empty patches. It comes to personal interpretation and, without chance to avoid it, some roleplay in discussion For example, Peregrine and me looks at the vast IoM and by simple match we cant see even remotely how could all chapters cover even half of the planets with effective force. And when you have some bigger army of SM (lets say about in numbers of few IG platoons), we see there isnt anything better than simply slaughter them by WMD or simply bury them in mere cultist bodies. Thousand, even hundred of thousands of bodies...still worth of taking huge chunk of chapter.

So, discussion with you about Astartes role is for me... interesting and fun. Because its two different (and natural) personal universes where we forged each own narrative. And I dont like leaning heavily on Black Library as facts, because for example HH is sometimes inconsistent in (for me) crucial parts of fluff, like Curze and his sometimes transfromation from interesting tragic antihero into evily evil villain. And of course, because this is, partly, for me really subsoncious roleplay from rather IG/ SoB/ logistics POV, I dont like sending people to different forums where their opinions doesnt stand in opposition to yours.

Eh...and sorry for my english, I know when writing long posts, my english begins to transform into czech...liguistic Tzeentch probably...

Nah, the post is perfectly readable. Don't worry about it.

Well as already pointed out, a WMD is unlikely to even wipe out a platoon of real soldiers in an urban setting- let alone guys wearing power armor that no-sells lasgun shots and can even tank a shot from a lasgun with their bare skin. A nuke would be unlikely to even kill the majority of them, and multiple lance strikes would defeat the purpose of why the IOM throws the IG around suicidally- they're rather a billion men die than lose a single planet, as planets are more or less permanent objects that don't go away unless you use a lot of dakka. Humans are replaceable, and they'll be able to replace men lost in a regiment, even the full regiment, nearly instantly- it's only the equipment that requires use of resources. The Imperium will never call down a lance strike on a rogue group of Astartes deployed- they'll drown them in millions of men where for each man that falls, two more step forward. Even without fleet support, a chapter of astartes would (and IIRC, have numerous time), solo'd regiment-sized groups of human enemies. The Astartes are better armed, armored, and outfitted with better vehicles. It's like America smacking around a third world nation twice its size in a straight fight, only the combined arms used have power armor that renders the main weapon their enemies use harmless. Now if the regiment had the same weapons as Astartes fully equipped throughout their ranks, were all wearing ceramite breastplates, and augmented so they were slightly stronger, they'd hit Astartes hard and they'd be slightly weaker near equal foe numbering in the millions. The reason however why Astartes will slap them and punt them with relative ease however is because of the Guard being a third world country armed with sticks for weapons, with the occasional solider actually having a modern firearm fighting a space-age first world nation's army.

While the guard can drown Astartes in numbers, the problem is that they're pretty much fighting an enemy circa the Dark Age of Technology/Great Crusade tech while they're armed with the watered-down cheapo reproductions or even fully lack large chunks of their technology.

What is bears a lot of similarity to is again, Knights. Sure, the peasant army could kill them, but they've got wooden spears and maybe a sword for every ten guys and some archers. Meanwhile, the Knights are wearing full gothic plate, the best armor the kingdom can afford, are using the best weapons the kingdom could afford, mounted on the best horses the kingdom could breed, having the best training the kingdom could afford, veterans of the largest battles the kingdom has participated in, and have the high ground. It's going to be a bloody slaughter, because the peasants could kill the knights in shear numbers, but they'd take horrendous casualties if they managed to rally for a charge, and the knights have the best everything the kingdom could afford, while the peasants at best have a cotton vest. And they're probably just going to break morale and run for it after they get butchered with stupid ease rather than make a stand and attempt to drown them with bodies and blood.

It's also another reason why I like W40K. It's a bit of a parallel to previous historical combat in the arms' race between armor and weapons. Currently, combat horrendously favors the guy in stupidly huge power armor as it eats energy weapons and ballistic weapons harmlessly ping off it. Sure, there are some weapons that beat it like plasma, but those are in limited supply thanks to the Imperium's production of technology being horribly constricted. AND, the Astates are the favorite son of the IOM. They'll get the best everything thanks to some Chapters even being best friends with the Admech. The Imperial Guard? Red-headed kid. Hated by the IOM and given the worst gear available unless the special guard regiment has connections and told to work with it. The fact that the guard does manage to hold off against enemies like Archenemy is nothing short of bloody amazing, as the Astartes and Admech take all the best technology and don't like to share. The guard meanwhile survives (and with some regiments, flourishes), and holds it own against some of the greatest enemies of the IOM with what's equal to a stick compared to all the other weapons in the galaxy used by the IOM and other factions. Even their special weapons such as plasma guns and bolters are crappier variants that the special branches of the IOM get to use with the Adeptus Astartes using the good variants.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Because fluff varies. Either you buy into the bolterporn, and Space Marines can, indeed, use 5 dudes to conquer a planet... or you don't, and ten regular humans in flak armor with lasguns can wipe out a squad of Space Marines suffering 0 casualties.

Except there are different games workshop games where space marines work differently... Inquisitor marines pretty much stand up to their fluff... Or is that propaghanda also?

What about 'fluff' where marines stand up to their reputation, yet still get trounced, the short story about the Lamenters being wiped out by Tyranids for example.

The tabletop has no real correlation to the setting, and just apply physics to it also, inch thick hard as nails powered personal armour is not going to get taken down by conventional bullets very easily unless it's a good shot in a weak point, and since autoguns are the equivilant of lasguns, then lasguns are not up to the job either.

The fluff is more believable than the tabletop application, as I don.t personally believe that guardsman can take down a 10ft 500kg daemon prince with combat knives and fists.

From Codex: Angels of Death:


The most important element in the construction of a suit of Space Marine power armour is the large ceramite armour plates, which provide the main form of protection against enemy attack. Individual plates of armour can be up to an inch thick, and have a special "honeycomb" design which helps to dissipate energy and localise any damage suffered by the suit. Against most small arms the armour reduces the chance of injury by between 50-85%, and it provides some form of protection against all except the most powerful weapons encountered on the battlefields of the 41st Millenium.

 Wyzilla wrote:


It's also another reason why I like W40K. It's a bit of a parallel to previous historical combat in the arms' race between armor and weapons. Currently, combat horrendously favors the guy in stupidly huge power armor as it eats energy weapons and ballistic weapons harmlessly ping off it. Sure, there are some weapons that beat it like plasma, but those are in limited supply thanks to the Imperium's production of technology being horribly constricted. AND, the Astates are the favorite son of the IOM. They'll get the best everything thanks to some Chapters even being best friends with the Admech. The Imperial Guard? Red-headed kid. Hated by the IOM and given the worst gear available unless the special guard regiment has connections and told to work with it. The fact that the guard does manage to hold off against enemies like Archenemy is nothing short of bloody amazing, as the Astartes and Admech take all the best technology and don't like to share. The guard meanwhile survives (and with some regiments, flourishes), and holds it own against some of the greatest enemies of the IOM with what's equal to a stick compared to all the other weapons in the galaxy used by the IOM and other factions. Even their special weapons such as plasma guns and bolters are crappier variants that the special branches of the IOM get to use with the Adeptus Astartes using the good variants.

I can't exalt this enough. It is the thing I like the very most with Guardsmen, actually. They have many things, so many things going against them, and yet they fight, and in many battles, finally win. It makes them relatable. I love that aspect of Guardsmen, really do. They are a contrast to the Marines, who really are at the other side of the spectrum.

And Psienesis, is that quote not rather old by now? Other things from that era is terribly outdated and retconned, to my knowledge. Fluff sort of loses relevance when it starts to get old.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:


To my knowledge, Eldar never actually risk attacking directly with their Craftworlds, rather sending out smaller spaceships from it, naturally holofielded in the usual Eldar way.

In Nightbringer a Dark Eldar ship was able to masquerade as an Imperial ship and easily avoided detection until a suspicious dude checked if that really could be said Imperial ship... At which point the Dark Eldar ship threw off its disguise and opened fire anyway.

Yes, Craftworlds usually send out smaller ships, but the fluff is full of mentions of "Craftworld such and such was spotted lurking on the edges of X system" which means that if you detect them early enough, you should have time to muster some kind of response. DE (and Necrons) seem to be the ones who just suddenly show up over your head and ruin your day. Against those two factions, I don't see anyone, IG or SM, responding quickly enough to get anything done before the planet gets all exploderized.

Exploderized. It's a word.

But in most other instances, Ork fleets, space hulks, Chaos warbands, etc... a planet would have plenty of time to call in support and the IG would have plenty of time to get there before the planet gets wiped out (again, 30 days at best-- 90 on average). Of course, no matter how quickly the IG arrives it will be too late to save the PDF, who will all be killed to a man.

It depends on how much plot armour the Marines have. If it is Calgar and friends, I don't doubt that they would be able to respond in time to an Eldar attack.

And Psienesis, is that quote not rather old by now? Other things from that era is terribly outdated and retconned, to my knowledge. Fluff sort of loses relevance when it starts to get old.

Is there a Codex or other GW publication that states that PA is now higher than 85% effective?
If not, then, no, it's not out-dated.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
It depends on how much plot armour the Marines have. If it is Calgar and friends, I don't doubt that they would be able to respond in time to an Eldar attack.

Depends. I'd be alright with any chapter using a Librarian to foresee the attack, but anyone lacking librarians would just be blatant favoritism.

(More of the BL should have Astartes better using their resources. Seriously, Librarians and Techpriests, invaluable resources to a Chapter.)

 Psienesis wrote:

And Psienesis, is that quote not rather old by now? Other things from that era is terribly outdated and retconned, to my knowledge. Fluff sort of loses relevance when it starts to get old.

Is there a Codex or other GW publication that states that PA is now higher than 85% effective?
If not, then, no, it's not out-dated.

Not explicitly retconned, perhaps, but neither is many of the, say, RT era stuff that is completely out of place and obviously outdated in the current setting, yet has never been explicitly overwritten.

Given that C:AoD is 18 years old now, I would take any of its contents with a pinch of salt.

Nothing else has changed to suggest otherwise, other than the presence of more bolterporn... but bolterporn is not the end-all, be-all of Black Library publications either, and features plenty of books with Marines being beaten to death by cultists wielding rocks and sticks. PA simply isn't as badass as people would like to think it is... by extension, neither are the Space Marines.

 Psienesis wrote:
Nothing else has changed to suggest otherwise, other than the presence of more bolterporn... but bolterporn is not the end-all, be-all of Black Library publications either, and features plenty of books with Marines being beaten to death by cultists wielding rocks and sticks. PA simply isn't as badass as people would like to think it is... by extension, neither are the Space Marines.

Neither is army X. Every army is written off as propaganda-ishly better than they supposedly are.

1-1 is 0.

346598265952 minus 346598265952 is also 0.

Reduce the power of everyone equally and the balance remains identical.

Of course, if you'd argue that Marines are weaker compared to their fluff portrayal in even greater proportion than whatever other race/s you mean come off better, then that is another thing entirely and something that I doubt you will find as easy to prove.

So... If you argue Marines should be subtracted more than another races (To use a clunky simplification), then... Sure.

But nobody has any real reason beyond personal preference to do, or indeed not to do, the same.

I have yet to find any official sources that proclaim Adeptus Astartes as weaker than their popular portrayal, anyway, at least not more than the other races.

Of course, if you'd argue that Marines are weaker compared to their fluff portrayal in even greater proportion than whatever other race/s you mean come off better, then that is another thing entirely and something that I doubt you will find as easy to prove.

The Tau and the Eldar are both performing far above their descriptions and presentations in non-Codex fluff.

 Psienesis wrote:

Animus wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Propaganda ends when it's not an in-universe explanation. When it's pure game mechanics, providing numbers, dice, tables and charts, all the things that form the "crunch" of a game.

Well that doesn't provide a whole lot of anything. Crunch doesn't tell you how many Space Marines there are in the galaxy, or that there's actually an Emperor somewhere. Crunch would have you believe that artillery can can only shoot a few hundred meters, that a man can run about as half as fast as a motorbike and that the whole galaxy works on a ten point system.

Not if you understand that the game mechanics represent the scale of a table-top game, not a presentation of real-life. I can't believe that I have to explain this.

Exactly, the table-top represents the table-top game, it's not a good representation of what's real, so why use it to tell yourself about the universe? The scale is wrong, the stats are not broad enough and rules and power fluctuate from book to book, just like the fluff.
Besides that the crunch still doesn't cover a fraction of it all, it will never tell you how many worlds are in the Imperium, for that you've got to go to fluff but since it's all propaganda there's no real universe to discus.

The wildly-variable fluff pertaining to SM, then, cannot possibly be true. The best one can say would be whatever puts them squarely in the middle of the two extremes... which would be elite soldiers with high-grade hardware, but incapable of taking an entire militarized planet with 5 guys and no support.