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jakejackjake wrote:
No one has mentioned Leman Russ defeating Magnus. Lol psychic attacks bounce off him.

I thought the point was Leman Russ was a latent psyker not in control of the abilities so it manifested itself mostly through psychic protection. You can say plot armor there but it still kind of works in that way a lot of things on 40k are still kind of workable sort of. Mind you I think it's bs because Leman Russ is one of my least favorite 40k characters in every way, shape and form and I'm also a fan of the Thousand Sons, but hey whatever.

Am I one of the only people who thinks Warhammer 40k Space Marine was one of the better warhammer plots in recent story-telling? Except for the ridiculous end where you punch a daemon prince in the face and then physically smash it, maybe it's because you are in control of the character the whole time none of the rest of it seems particularly plot-armor-ish.

You never feel like the Imperial Guardsman on the planet were incompetent and incapable, just horribly outnumbered and struggling because the inquisitorial command on the planet was actively an agent of chaos instead so subversion and all that.

Except for a few things in Space Marine where I was thinking "this is happening because it is a video game, so of course it is", I thought Space Marine was pretty well done.

I especially liked the arrival of the Blood Ravens on their Penance Crusade. I really, really dig their new battle-cry.

 Psienesis wrote:

No one can ever handle a story where your antagonists can destroy anything at will, and virtually unstoppable (i.e. Magnus and Angron), and explain why such powerful entities, who clearly hates their enemies (the Wolves, the Imperium) to the cores, and can destroy the them at will, not done so already?.

You're right, they can't. However, GW/BL seems fond of creating such things, like the Celestial Orrery, and then coming up with, frankly, stupid reasons why they never live up to their potential. In the Orrery's case, it's because it messes with the gravity of the galaxy as a whole, and annoys the Necrons, so they don't use it.

This implies, of course, that they only realized this after they built it, and then did not decide to dismantle it, leaving it around for grins and giggles, so they can impress lesser races with it or something.

There's no logical reason why such a device should exist in the setting.

urrgg, Clestial Orrery, such crinch-worthy stuff from GW; this is gotta be a chekhov's gun, presuming the plot ever moves on... (oh wai--)

iI have quite an outrageous recollection of Squad sergeant Skase (from Legion of the Damned by Rob Sanders) having a chaos land raider drive over him, while he was on concrete, and he miraculously got up (his armour being slightly cracked)and proceeded to attack the tank.

I think it's pretty fair to say that any Special Character for any codex (or army book, for that matter) has pretty impenetrable plot armour, especially when they show up in regular games. Marneus Calgar, Lord of the Ultramarines is never going to actually die, for realzies, in a small scale skirmish with a minor Ork waugh!, in an improbable accident involving a Shok Attack gun misfire and an exploding Killer Kan, for instance.

If you want a good example of where there is no plot armour whatsover, Game of Thrones is the series for you!
(Spoiler: everyone you ever liked will die. Probably horribly.)

 Psienesis wrote:
Except for a few things in Space Marine where I was thinking "this is happening because it is a video game, so of course it is", I thought Space Marine was pretty well done.

I especially liked the arrival of the Blood Ravens on their Penance Crusade. I really, really dig their new battle-cry.

Then you remember that it's a freaking Forge World with no tech guard.

Mira would have been no less awesome in red.

Frankly, I had assumed that adding the Tech-Guard would have been confusing to people who had only ever played DoW and never touched another 40K product. Such players would know about the Imperial Guard, but would probably not understand the differentiation between them and the TG.

Of course, for people who had this as their first entry to 40K, having cybered-out soldiers in red, rather than more-easily-recognized soldiers in "army green", may also have been a part. It would have necessitated further explanation, where having Mira and Co. arrive with the Inquisitor was more easily done.

I would like to see more Tech-Guard... like maybe a Squad-Based FPS like Republic Commando, except as customizable Skitarii (do I take the oxygen recycler this level for improved sprinting and resistance to poison gases, or do I replace my left arm with an assault cannon? Hmm.... decisions, decisions...).

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Except for a few things in Space Marine where I was thinking "this is happening because it is a video game, so of course it is", I thought Space Marine was pretty well done.

I especially liked the arrival of the Blood Ravens on their Penance Crusade. I really, really dig their new battle-cry.

Then you remember that it's a freaking Forge World with no tech guard.

Mira would have been no less awesome in red.

Skitarri and other's were mentioned in the dataslates, however they all died

I don't see what the big deal about 'plot armor' is. As a couple of people have said its what makes fiction possible. If the main character died in the first fire fight he got into would it be an interesting story? probably not. We'll just leave the last two thirds of the book blank because hey, we gotta make sure our space fantasies are realistic.

The real life example pretty much sums it up to me. If you got a million different people involved some crazy gak is about to happen to a few of them. Those are the ones you write stories about, not scout astartes Bill who stepped on a land mine 10 minutes into the battle.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Except for a few things in Space Marine where I was thinking "this is happening because it is a video game, so of course it is", I thought Space Marine was pretty well done.

I especially liked the arrival of the Blood Ravens on their Penance Crusade. I really, really dig their new battle-cry.

Then you remember that it's a freaking Forge World with no tech guard.

Mira would have been no less awesome in red.

I think they were all slain, mentioned in a servoskull somewhere.

I have found all servoskulls but I don't remember exactly what each said.

That said, I think the game did some things right and some things wrong.

The MP, while somewhat entertaining for sure, violates lore in so many levels so I won't take that in.

And the SP... Well, it's interesting when you fight traitor Guardsmen. Their damage is an absolute joke, at range and especially in melee, which I loved as it felt really immersive. On the other hand, CSM who are five times as tough as you (Their toughness was not OTT, it was just that it was too much compared to yours) and act like idiots on the battlefield, dealing ludicrously low damage (Especially in melee, the chainaxe hits for almost nothing) irritate me. They should have charged you, focused fire the moment you leave cover, chain attacks, stun more, etc. As it is, they fire a short bolter burst every couple of seconds, even at point blank range. It was stupid. It was as if the developers tried to compensate lack of smart AI by having your health be much lower than theirs. The difficulties were also disappointing... Hard didn't feel more difficult than normal.

I did love that Gretchin died if you simply ran onto them, you did not even need to atttack.

I am not sure of what to think about Fury either. A much lesser version of it is something like what I would expect AoF to be like.

And the health values, yeah. The Warboss has three hundred times as high health as a traitor Guardsman, or 150 times that of a Boy.

A 'Uge Choppa Nob also has twenty times the health of a Boy.

A few numbers:

Titus: 100 armour 100 health

CSM: 500 armour 500 health

Hammer-CSM: 1000 armour 500 health

Boy: 100 health

Traitor Guardsman: 50 health

Grot: 10 health

Warboss: 15000 health

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The reason Sisters/Inquisition players throw the term 'plot armour' around a lot is because we're Worf - the Worf Effect uses a character (or characters) who are established to be absolute badasses getting their arses kicked to show how big a threat the enemy is. Other examples are the ANBU in Naruto (ugh), the Tollan in Stargate, Venom in Spiderman (several times) and Silver Surfer in Marvel Comics.

We get thrown up against things we really should be able to defeat, like Chaos Cultists, and lose, to make the Marines look better.

The Worf Effect is something the Sisters sometimes have to deal with, yeah. Though I will note that it seems to be mostly confined to Black Library. Asaheim aside, I think that there's also examples in Flesh and Iron and the Redemption Corps. In those cases, guardsmen are able to overcome SoB fairly easily, IIRC.

 Psienesis wrote:
You're right, they can't. However, GW/BL seems fond of creating such things, like the Celestial Orrery, and then coming up with, frankly, stupid reasons why they never live up to their potential. In the Orrery's case, it's because it messes with the gravity of the galaxy as a whole, and annoys the Necrons, so they don't use it.

This implies, of course, that they only realized this after they built it, and then did not decide to dismantle it, leaving it around for grins and giggles, so they can impress lesser races with it or something.

There's no logical reason why such a device should exist in the setting.

It's not that they're unwilling to use it, just that the Necrons who look after it are very relucant to use it. The reason being that if they use it snuff out one star, they have to destroy others too to "keep the cosmic balance", or something to that effect.

Of course they do, because if there was not this effect written into the setting, the Necrons could just snuff Sol and be done with it.

This is Plot Armor for the entire fething galaxy.

JubbJubbz wrote:
I don't see what the big deal about 'plot armor' is. As a couple of people have said its what makes fiction possible. If the main character died in the first fire fight he got into would it be an interesting story? probably not. We'll just leave the last two thirds of the book blank because hey, we gotta make sure our space fantasies are realistic.

The real life example pretty much sums it up to me. If you got a million different people involved some crazy gak is about to happen to a few of them. Those are the ones you write stories about, not scout astartes Bill who stepped on a land mine 10 minutes into the battle.

To be honest, it can be irritating at times. There is such a thing as the suspension of disbelief and there's nothing wrong with having plot armor. The problem is it can be badly used. 40k makes this worse because, simply put, every side has plot armor. When SM are fighting CSM, IG fighting orks, etc. Both sides are being rooted for often. For example, somebody mentioned a duel between a Khornate and Kharn. At that point, Kharn should win. He was winning well... until a land raider out of nowhere comes in and stabs him. And you just go.... huh? Then there are moments where the iconic bad guy that many root for (let's say he is Ahriman) suddenly becomes an idiot leaving the hero to escape. Or a SM captain slays five daemon princes in a row with his trusty bolt pistol, chainsword, and one meltabomb. They can be grating and irritating if used improperly.

 StarTrotter wrote:

... For example, somebody mentioned a duel between a Khornate and Kharn. At that point, Kharn should win. He was winning well... until a land raider out of nowhere comes in and stabs him. And you just go.... huh?

I suspect that's from Galaxy in Flames, and that particular duel happened between Kharn and Loken IIRC, and frankly, that's a Crowning Moment Of Funny for me -- what, did you really expect Loken comes out of that fight alive without a tremendous amount of luck?

Every time the fabled plot armor appears in an RPG I am part of I DERAIL THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN TO CAPTURE THE GUY WITH PLOT ARMOR AND I WIN BY ATTRITION.

 lcmiracle wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:

... For example, somebody mentioned a duel between a Khornate and Kharn. At that point, Kharn should win. He was winning well... until a land raider out of nowhere comes in and stabs him. And you just go.... huh?

I suspect that's from Galaxy in Flames, and that particular duel happened between Kharn and Loken IIRC, and frankly, that's a Crowning Moment Of Funny for me -- what, did you really expect Loken comes out of that fight alive without a tremendous amount of luck?

Not really xD it really isn't that bad to me in comparison to other things. I really have more of a problem with one marine gunning around 100 CSM and other things such as that.

The Kharn-hit-by-a-bus thing is funny, but I don't really consider it Plot Armor. It's a deus ex machina, to be sure, for if it were not for the machinations of god that caused Kharn to get hit by a bus, then that fight would have gone to him...

But that isn't quite plot armor. Plot Armor is, as mentioned by others, 5 Tactical Marines taking on 10,000 Orks and killing all of them, suffering 0 casualties. Because Space Marines.

I thought plot armour was this:

If someone finds a flaw in your story plot armour is a blatantly quickly thought up excuse to shut it down.

If something happens that goes against logic, common sense or normality (to a degree) then there is a dumb excuse for it.

Plot armour is an unsatisfactory excuse for things happening as the author etc wanted it to happen.

I think

Yeah I was wrong for the plot armor statement. You are correct it is very much a deus ex machina. And yeah, as I stated later that's really the plot armor. Its like in Star Wars where the well trained soldiers suddenly suck at aiming when fighting the main characters...

The best example of plot armor in 40k is the Tau. Logically, such a small empire should have been wiped out by the Imperium by now. Except the Imperium, a galaxy spanning Empire, apparently decided it had to drop literally everything to fight the latest Black Crusade and so the Tau were spared annihilation because despite having 1000 SM chapters, hordes of IG, Sisters, Grey Knights, and Inquisition, the Imperium has to drop absolutely everything and pay attention to Abaddon's latest hissy fit... Anyone not involved can just stand around and wait till the plot gets to them.

And yes. ASoIF does exaggerate character deaths. Many characters die, but many of them are at best supporting cast. The main cast thus far has proven to be as resilient as any other.

 LordofHats wrote:
The best example of plot armor in 40k is the Tau. Logically, such a small empire should have been wiped out by the Imperium by now. Except the Imperium, a galaxy spanning Empire, apparently decided it had to drop literally everything to fight the latest Black Crusade and so the Tau were spared annihilation because despite having 1000 SM chapters, hordes of IG, Sisters, Grey Knights, and Inquisition, the Imperium has to drop absolutely everything and pay attention to Abaddon's latest hissy fit... Anyone not involved can just stand around and wait till the plot gets to them.

And yes. ASoIF does exaggerate character deaths. Many characters die, but many of them are at best supporting cast. The main cast thus far has proven to be as resilient as any other.

Well...

..... except for certain ones. No spoilers but... Gravity is a law for a reason.

 StarTrotter wrote:
Yeah I was wrong for the plot armor statement. You are correct it is very much a deus ex machina. And yeah, as I stated later that's really the plot armor. Its like in Star Wars where the well trained soldiers suddenly suck at aiming when fighting the main characters...

Its not a DEM. It can often come in the form of DEM, but in itself is not DEM.

 LordofHats wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
Yeah I was wrong for the plot armor statement. You are correct it is very much a deus ex machina. And yeah, as I stated later that's really the plot armor. Its like in Star Wars where the well trained soldiers suddenly suck at aiming when fighting the main characters...

Its not a DEM. It can often come in the form of DEM, but in itself is not DEM.

Yeah, in a way, it's likely Million to One Chance coupled with the fact that Anthropic Principle allows for it because it's his story that's told.

Then again, tropes being tropes, doesn't have to be so rigid; sometimes, some of them kinda of just, merge on a blurry edge...

 Aben Zin wrote:
I think it's pretty fair to say that any Special Character for any codex (or army book, for that matter) has pretty impenetrable plot armour, especially when they show up in regular games. Marneus Calgar, Lord of the Ultramarines is never going to actually die, for realzies, in a small scale skirmish with a minor Ork waugh!, in an improbable accident involving a Shok Attack gun misfire and an exploding Killer Kan, for instance.

Plot Armour really doesn't apply to games at all... For a number of reasons.

For one, the games we play aren't actually a part of the canon they are based in. Each game is essentially a 'what if...?' scenario.

For two, even if what you did in a game had some tangible effect on the game's background, a model being removed as a casualty isn't necessarily dead.

And for three, even if our games were canon, and in one given game Marneus Calgar did die... that would simply mean that you just played the battle in which Marneus Calgar died...



And that's not even touching the fact that the 'small skirmish' you're playing isn't necessarily actually a small skirmish. Back when Epic 40000 was released, the writers linked the games by suggesting that a 40K battle could be a 'snapshot' of a small part of the overall battle that is reflected in the Epic game, rather than necessarily the entire battle on its own.

The thing is that Plot Armor is just kind of something that's on the fringe of believability. Its odd enough in extreme cases that it becomes annoying and may be a DEM, but DEM is something much more extreme.

Like if at the end of Saving Private Ryan a UFO appears and death rays all the Germans. It's completely out of the blue. Makes no sense. It's a DEM.

A P51 Mustang on the other hand, isn't silly at all. It makes complete sense for the cavalry to arrive in a war movie. So while Ryan still has his plot armor of being alive 60 years later, its not a DEM in the slightest.

 LordofHats wrote:
The best example of plot armor in 40k is the Tau. Logically, such a small empire should have been wiped out by the Imperium by now. Except the Imperium, a galaxy spanning Empire, apparently decided it had to drop literally everything to fight the latest Black Crusade and so the Tau were spared annihilation because despite having 1000 SM chapters, hordes of IG, Sisters, Grey Knights, and Inquisition, the Imperium has to drop absolutely everything and pay attention to Abaddon's latest hissy fit... Anyone not involved can just stand around and wait till the plot gets to them.

And yes. ASoIF does exaggerate character deaths. Many characters die, but many of them are at best supporting cast. The main cast thus far has proven to be as resilient as any other.

Well that was because..Well, nobody actually FOUGHT the tau during the original 13th crusade whenever the event happened.

Also considering Abbadon broke Cadia and had control of the sector, his 'hissy fit' broke through the gate this time.

 LordofHats wrote:
The best example of plot armor in 40k is the Tau. Logically, such a small empire should have been wiped out by the Imperium by now. Except the Imperium, a galaxy spanning Empire, apparently decided it had to drop literally everything to fight the latest Black Crusade and so the Tau were spared annihilation because despite having 1000 SM chapters, hordes of IG, Sisters, Grey Knights, and Inquisition, the Imperium has to drop absolutely everything and pay attention to Abaddon's latest hissy fit... Anyone not involved can just stand around and wait till the plot gets to them.

And yes. ASoIF does exaggerate character deaths. Many characters die, but many of them are at best supporting cast. The main cast thus far has proven to be as resilient as any other.

Actually, its the SM, if they were to sustain the kind of casualties the Dark Angel sustained on Vraks (and that was to a glorified militia and some Alpha Legionnaires), they'd be long gone.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


Well that was because..Well, nobody actually FOUGHT the tau during the original 13th crusade whenever the event happened.

Also considering Abbadon broke Cadia and had control of the sector, his 'hissy fit' broke through the gate this time.

Actually, Cadia is a perfect example of Plot Armour.

Chaos won. Cadia fell.

So why is the Cadian Gate still a thing?

Plot armour. Cadia actually being lost would invalidate an entire model range the continuing story line.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


Well that was because..Well, nobody actually FOUGHT the tau during the original 13th crusade whenever the event happened.

Also considering Abbadon broke Cadia and had control of the sector, his 'hissy fit' broke through the gate this time.

Actually, Cadia is a perfect example of Plot Armour.

Chaos won. Cadia fell.

So why is the Cadian Gate still a thing?

Plot armour. Cadia actually being lost would invalidate an entire model range the continuing story line.

Cadia's power armor is so mighty it went back in time

GW BS


Automatically Appended Next Post:
IMHO it is when something should have happened because it said so in some written source or something likewise e.g. tyranid main fleet coming and will wipe out galaxy but that is just something that makes it more 'cool' to be that particular army. But in reality GW are never just going to end 40k like that. It will be when the have so many staffing cuts its just the old janitor and the chief exec.