Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Sibbering has his very own special ideas about the 40k universe... like that lasguns function like an electro shocker, nonlethal most of the time and stuff like that...

Wyzilla wrote:Bolters are 20mm rocket propelled grenades.

A normal human hit by them will simply cease to exist in a coherent form.

No, it wouldn't. A normal human wearing a bomb-proof vest is wearing enough armor to shrug off a few hits from a boltgun. Bolters likewise can't hurt a taurox driving at them, and that's little more than an armored car.

Also, don't forget that caliber isn't the only thing that matters.



Note that both bullets on the left are both .50 cal. One of them can punch through two inches of steel plate, while the other struggles with kevlar. How much powder and what kind of bullets they are made a world of difference.

Same with the bolter. Even if they're 20mm, that doesn't mean that they're backed up by a half pound of gunpowder and can shoot down airplanes at altitude. Heck, a 12 ga. shotgun is also 20mm, but you're not going to see someone use buckshot to take down a 747...

 Ashiraya wrote:

Spoiler:

Space Marines take a lot more space, and the artist here even undersized the armour (just look at the hips).

Apparently the Astartes power armor is even more skintight than the Sororitas one .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

Spoiler:

Space Marines take a lot more space, and the artist here even undersized the armour (just look at the hips).

Apparently the Astartes power armor is even more skintight than the Sororitas one .

Yeah, Sibbering at times tends to go off a cliff and make stuff that doesn't even resemble something remotely sensible. An actual astartes outside of armor would probably look something like this guy.

Jesus man.

 Desubot wrote:
Jesus man.

He played the Mountain in Game of Thrones, outside of that the dude's an Icelandic strongman.

or Hong Man Choi

 Ailaros wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:Bolters are 20mm rocket propelled grenades.

A normal human hit by them will simply cease to exist in a coherent form.

No, it wouldn't. A normal human wearing a bomb-proof vest is wearing enough armor to shrug off a few hits from a boltgun. Bolters likewise can't hurt a taurox driving at them, and that's little more than an armored car.

Also, don't forget that caliber isn't the only thing that matters.



Note that both bullets on the left are both .50 cal. One of them can punch through two inches of steel plate, while the other struggles with kevlar. How much powder and what kind of bullets they are made a world of difference.

Same with the bolter. Even if they're 20mm, that doesn't mean that they're backed up by a half pound of gunpowder and can shoot down airplanes at altitude. Heck, a 12 ga. shotgun is also 20mm, but you're not going to see someone use buckshot to take down a 747...

I think the fact that the Bolt would go THROUGH the vest before detonating would make a world of difference. Plus, that person wouldn't be able to just "shrug it off" even if he did survive; that's be like shrugging off getting kicked in the face by Bruce Lee as hard as he possibly can.

 Ailaros wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:Bolters are 20mm rocket propelled grenades.

A normal human hit by them will simply cease to exist in a coherent form.

No, it wouldn't. A normal human wearing a bomb-proof vest is wearing enough armor to shrug off a few hits from a boltgun. Bolters likewise can't hurt a taurox driving at them, and that's little more than an armored car.

Also, don't forget that caliber isn't the only thing that matters.



Note that both bullets on the left are both .50 cal. One of them can punch through two inches of steel plate, while the other struggles with kevlar. How much powder and what kind of bullets they are made a world of difference.

Same with the bolter. Even if they're 20mm, that doesn't mean that they're backed up by a half pound of gunpowder and can shoot down airplanes at altitude. Heck, a 12 ga. shotgun is also 20mm, but you're not going to see someone use buckshot to take down a 747...

Except we also know bolters are long rounds given their range in FFG and the Lore.

And again, stop using the TT to justify anything. The 40K TT is a horribly outdated, pathetic system that is several decades old and requires the use of an archaic six sided dice. The entire TT is senseless and stupid and needs to be completely demolished and rebooted in a more advanced, effecient system using something like a ten or twenty sided die to actually support advanced mechanics compared to the 6x (Y) system of rolling. It should never be used to justify anything as an actual "real life" 40k, that's what the Lore and RPG's are for.

The tabletop meanwhile is just a poorly designed, ancient game that makes zero practical sense.

40K as a game is like that old crippled horse that you need to shoot through the head for it's own good.

Well then Wyzilla, why don't you tell us how you REALLY feel?

 Melissia wrote:
Well then Wyzilla, why don't you tell us how you REALLY feel?

Using the TT to judge anything is asinine and silly. It's an outdated system that, objectively, is a bad game. Using it to determine the ballistics of weapons it features is such a hysterical notion that I cannot decide whether to laugh or embed my head in the nearest desk out of complete disdain for such a silly notion. Especially when FFG made a far superior system, or when GW has published hundreds of books for us to go over and dissect.

This is the same game system where 7.62mm and .600 Express would be lobbed together as generic "autoguns", or how lasguns universally perform the exact same way (when we know they explicitly don't), or power armor be penned by bayonets. Or people wearing flak jackets survive getting shot by .50 BMG.

I can't even comprehend why anyone would suggest the TT be used for anything. It's garbage quite frankly that people (including me) largely play just because it's 40k. But the system and the rules cannot be extrapolated into actual lore or any in-depth analysis, it doesn't make sense. It's far better to run calculations on quotations from the Black Library or go into FFG's system, which used a D100.

 Wyzilla wrote:
go into FFG's system, which used a D100.

You mean the system where I could make a Rank 8 Ascended Magos who, when strapped naked to the wall, would be completely unharmed by an Astartes bolter fired full-auto into his eye for all eternity?

Yup, good system.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
go into FFG's system, which used a D100.

You mean the system where I could make a Rank 8 Ascended Magos who, when strapped naked to the wall, would be completely unharmed by an Astartes bolter fired full-auto into his eye for all eternity?

Yup, good system.

Well he is a psyker.

Besides, it's better then 40k where flak vests get saves against even heavy stubbers when the KE would splatter you even if your armor stopped the round from penning.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
go into FFG's system, which used a D100.

You mean the system where I could make a Rank 8 Ascended Magos who, when strapped naked to the wall, would be completely unharmed by an Astartes bolter fired full-auto into his eye for all eternity?

Yup, good system.

Well he is a psyker.

Besides, it's better then 40k where flak vests get saves against even heavy stubbers when the KE would splatter you even if your armor stopped the round from penning.

Since when were Magi of the Adeptus Mechanicus psykers? And not really that much better.... like at all. It has its own silly idiosyncrasies.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
go into FFG's system, which used a D100.

You mean the system where I could make a Rank 8 Ascended Magos who, when strapped naked to the wall, would be completely unharmed by an Astartes bolter fired full-auto into his eye for all eternity?

Yup, good system.

Well he is a psyker.

Besides, it's better then 40k where flak vests get saves against even heavy stubbers when the KE would splatter you even if your armor stopped the round from penning.

Since when were Magi of the Adeptus Mechanicus psykers? And not really that much better.... like at all. It has its own silly idiosyncrasies.

Oh lol, for some reason I was thinking you referring to a Genestealer Magus. But for the Magos, they're the Mechanicum. Something like a body made of adamantanium is not impossible, but even likely depending on the wealth and influence of the Magos.

Elite Skitari after all can give Astartes a run for their money, or even rip them to shreds and shrug off bolter rounds.

Or, maybe just understand that game rules, no matter what the system, will never be an accurate representation of a universe since game rules are a compromise of playability.

Old timers will remember games like Phoenix Command that tried to simulate battles as accurately as possible. And it took hours to play ridiculously short combat encounters, lol.

In the end, the tabletop game is making a simple ruleset predicated on selling miniature plastic toys and splits degrees of difficulty into 16.6% segments.

The RPG is based on an essentially uncapped sliding scale of heroic play. Neither should ever be looked to for questions of canoncity or of accurate mechanical representation.

Honestly I skipped a bit, but I did read the original post.

On chainswords I agree that the blade would be spinning incredibly fast as well as having teeth with a monomolecular edge, this would make it nearly as effective as a power sword against lightly armored opponents yet still acceptable against other foes in power armor. Also it would make sense that they would be trained to go for the soft parts of armor at the joints as opposed to thick ceramite plates. On whether or not it would get gunked up during battle, I would say probably not due to the incredibly high speed of the blade puree-ing any fleshy bits that don't wind up clearing off due to centrifugal force as well as anti-fouling vanes inside the shroud.

On bolter rounds: As I read it there is a kicker charge (so much for caseless ammunition- retconned fluff evidently due to sculpts having ejection ports and ill-informed artists portraying shells being ejected) that gives a high muzzle velocity which overcomes the real world drawbacks of gyro-jet weapons. However this kicker charge is too weak to propel the .75 cal/20mm round more than a few dozen yards/meters downrange. Within that space the rounds rocket motor and stabilization gizmos kick in and for a few moments the shell reaches it's peak velocity.

I also agree that a bolter shell is designed to penetrate a target then detonate for maximum effect, however there is some speculation as to how that would affect heavier armored targets that weren't penetrated. Some seemed to feel as though there would be little to no effect other than a slight ringing in the ears, however I submit that just because the round fails to penetrate it is still fully capable of full detonation. This also could crack armor, weakening it for the next round to wreck the target, or cause enough concussive damage to scramble the soft tissues of the wearer, at least enough to take them out of the fight.

On power swords and power axes: I would submit that these weapons are sonic in nature. The blade of the weapon is subject to a high rate of vibration which causes the light to coruscate along the blade which also heats the monomolecular edge. The vibration coupled with the heat and single molecule sharpness cuts through hardened materials like the hot razor through butter.

This principle is also involved in the operation of Lightning Claws with the added power of a disruption field from the power-fist base that the claws are mounted on, which is what makes LC's so utterly devastating.

On other power weapons (fists, mauls, thunder hammers). As others have said already, and said well I feel, there is a disruption field generated by these weapons which weakens the molecular bond of the material it comes in contact with allowing the wielder to smash through the medium like so much lime jello.

Melta: Already been said, High energy, short range microwave burst which heats up the target to its melting point.

Plasma: Let's just say there is a truely scientific reason as to why 'gets hot' is a viable concern for the trooper honored with the use of such a blessed weapon. As it is now if we could generate the amount of plasma that a plasma gun needs to put out; as soon as the shot were to leave the muzzle, everyone, friend and foe alike, would be bacon. Unless, of course, there were a way to maintain the magnetic field (jar?) around the shot until it impacted its target. There is more science than I care to go into @ 3 am, but that's the nutshell.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Or, maybe just understand that game rules, no matter what the system, will never be an accurate representation of a universe since game rules are a compromise of playability.

Old timers will remember games like Phoenix Command that tried to simulate battles as accurately as possible. And it took hours to play ridiculously short combat encounters, lol.

In the end, the tabletop game is making a simple ruleset predicated on selling miniature plastic toys and splits degrees of difficulty into 16.6% segments.

The RPG is based on an essentially uncapped sliding scale of heroic play. Neither should ever be looked to for questions of canoncity or of accurate mechanical representation.

Correct. Certain examples can be found in both, examples that make it obvious that neither could possibly represent canon.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Old timers will remember games like Phoenix Command that tried to simulate battles as accurately as possible. And it took hours to play ridiculously short combat encounters, lol.

Which is why most games make it either very simple (40K d6 rolls and 1-10 stats) or very heroic (like how heroes hit most of the time with just about any attack). In RPGs you probably finish a small combat without even reloading since you're heroic enough to count the enemies and identify their guns in a split second, then one shot is one kill.

Err, no, power weapons are not sonic-based. Get your starwars stuff out of my 40k stuff

the TT is a very big simplification. There's no need to get anal about it. Having D100 in TT and all the detail you have in an RPG would make it unplayable.
That's like having a physical simulation down to atom level, just to determine how much force your body applies to the ground...

xraytango wrote:
I also agree that a bolter shell is designed to penetrate a target then detonate for maximum effect, however there is some speculation as to how that would affect heavier armored targets that weren't penetrated. Some seemed to feel as though there would be little to no effect other than a slight ringing in the ears, however I submit that just because the round fails to penetrate it is still fully capable of full detonation. This also could crack armor, weakening it for the next round to wreck the target, or cause enough concussive damage to scramble the soft tissues of the wearer, at least enough to take them out of the fight.

Here's the thing about explosions outside of armor:
The explosion energy goes wherever there is the least resistance. And the least resistance is not where the armor is, it's the air around it. That's why the effect of an explosion outside of armor is very very limited compared to exploding inside. You need a substantially bigger explosion on the outside to achieve a similar affect like you would get inside.
Therefore you only get very little effect on the armor. Maybe fragments of the explosion hurt more vulnerable part, but it's not guaranteed.
If you have a partial penetration it could make a little crater into the armor, but the fragments from that explosion go into the opposite direction, away from the armor.

Basically, compare having a firecracker explode on your palm, vs having it explode while your hand is wrapped around it. In the former, you'll get a few burns at most, in the latter, you'll lose your fingers.

Heh, I saw Armageddon as well, lol!

I think I may not have explained my point well enough.

The point being that the bolter round impacts on the outside of the armor and subsequently explodes will probably not vaporize the target, but it will dent/crater the armor and cause a percussive/concussive force to the target which would possibly cause everything from disorientation to disability. Dis ability in the sense of being knocked out or enough of the shockwave transferred to the wearer to disrupt internal organs.

And Star Wars isn't the only sci-fi setting to use vibrational edged weapons.

Everyone says that power blades work off of heat (due to some bad BL writing) I say that more logically the heat is a side effect of the energy transferrence down the length of the blade. This is actually everything from the interaction of the edge with the air around it as well as heat being a byproduct of energy transmission.

Also if the heat is the main reason for a power blade to work and that it heats up the material it is cutting through then the amount of heat needed would in fact melt the blade and make it useless for anything, therefore a sonic vibration paired with a monomolecular edge makes more sense while having the heat as a byproduct from mechanical interaction. Now the amount of heat generated by this product isn't enough to cause the failure of the blade but it is enough to aid in its passing through materials of lesser quality than the blade, as well as the equation of the force of the swing being focused on a point of impact the size of a molecule which is at the same time scraping aside molecules on either side of it as it heats that area (by way of friction) to a failure point, or at least enough to expand the space between those molecules a bit more as the blade passes through.

 Wyzilla wrote:


He made art for GW decades ago. Not to mention the idea of Power Armor seems to completely fly over Sibbering's head, especially how it's powered with synthetic muscles.

Um, it is powered by synthetic muscles, synthetic fibre power bundles to be exact. When you read fluff mentioning the whine of servos and the hiss of hydraulics the author hasn't got a fething clue about how power armour works.

Unfortunately that's getting more and more common these days, authors aren't doing their research first. That's why they write about 'retinal displays' and marines looking out through their helmet lenses; when they put their helmet on they 'see' through the suits auto-senses, they don't see their helmet at all.

 farmersboy wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


He made art for GW decades ago. Not to mention the idea of Power Armor seems to completely fly over Sibbering's head, especially how it's powered with synthetic muscles.

Um, it is powered by synthetic muscles, synthetic fibre power bundles to be exact. When you read fluff mentioning the whine of servos and the hiss of hydraulics the author hasn't got a fething clue about how power armour works.

Unfortunately that's getting more and more common these days, authors aren't doing their research first. That's why they write about 'retinal displays' and marines looking out through their helmet lenses; when they put their helmet on they 'see' through the suits auto-senses, they don't see their helmet at all.

...

I was talking about how Sibbering seems to be a bit of an idiot and completely fails to account for the synthetic muscles in power armor. Or even the armor.

 Wyzilla wrote:


I was talking about how Sibbering seems to be a bit of an idiot and completely fails to account for the synthetic muscles in power armor. Or even the armor.

Sorry - got the wrong end of the stick.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Using the TT to judge anything is asinine and silly. It's an outdated system that, objectively, is a bad game. Using it to determine the ballistics of weapons it features is such a hysterical notion that I cannot decide whether to laugh or embed my head in the nearest desk out of complete disdain for such a silly notion. Especially when FFG made a far superior system, or when GW has published hundreds of books for us to go over and dissect.
...
I can't even comprehend why anyone would suggest the TT be used for anything. It's garbage quite frankly that people (including me) largely play just because it's 40k.

Would it being a better 'game' make it more valid as a source? I don't see a causal relationship here. Is it about liking the game? does liking it make it a better source (actually I'd say yes, at least when taken as a better source for yourself, and not in an absolute sense[see discussion below]).

 Wyzilla wrote:
But the system and the rules cannot be extrapolated into actual lore or any in-depth analysis, it doesn't make sense.

It may seem absurd to you, but this:

 Wyzilla wrote:
. . .run calculations on quotations from the Black Library. . .

seems just as absurd to me. What? when a writer says: "he had the strength of 100 men" you going to determine the average strength of a man, and multiply it by 100 and treat that as a hard number?

To me that's . . . I don't even know where to begin with that. But if that's how you roll; so be it.

I maintain that the table-top game is as valid a source as any other. It behoves us to remember that 40K has (explicitly) no hard cannon, and fans are required (due to rampant inconsistency) to determine, for themselves, their own image of the 40K setting. To do that they have a variety of sources to chose from, from source books to novels to RPGs to computer games, to 'lore' books (like the Uplifting Primer & Xenobiology). Such sources may be from the core studio, a sub-department or attached business, or even a independent 3rd party. There is such a wealth of material, and soo much of it is inconsistent, fans find themselves deriving systems to make their own images of the setting coherent. We decide if one this is more valid than another for constructing our individual images of the setting, but these are choices. At a fundamental level, no source is better than any other. They all have their virtues and issues. None are created purely to accurately convey the setting precisely and scientifically, all are subservient to other requirements. The game may have to make 'compromises' to be balanced (YMMV), but the novels have to be entertaining, and are more than subject to poetic licence and (worse) poor writing. And don't even get me started on the computer games.

40K is not like other settings, cannon is individual and we all chose what works for us. These discussions can help inform that process, but there is huge room for different interpretations, and those people with different ideas are not the enemy to be chased off or shut down, they are our comrades, engaged in the same pursuit and love of this setting as we are, even if they are using different tools to do so.

 Pendix wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
. . .run calculations on quotations from the Black Library. . .

seems just as absurd to me. What? when a writer says: "he had the strength of 100 men" you going to determine the average strength of a man, and multiply it by 100 and treat that as a hard number?

Aye. You also have the books where marines die like flies, and the books where a squad (or even a single marine) cuts down dozens of enemies faster than they can react. So which one is a more "realistic" piece to extrapolate from?

Tabletop isn't a perfect measure either thanks to the 1-10 stats and d6 system, but that's where you fill it in with fluff later. The traitor IG may haved mowed down all those poor loyalist marines in the game, but as we know a casualty isn't necessarily dead but only unable to continue fighting. The guys hit by lascannons or melta are probably dust, those hit by plasma will need extensive surgery and bionics - the rest might be fine the next day or week, or just need to dig themself out from under the wall that fell on them when the battlecannon shot detonated nearby. Meanwhile the only fallen traitor guard that can be put back in the fight later is the guy who took a wound from a failed Dangerous Terrain test.

I think a lot of you are under-estimating the bolter. It has limited magazine capacity, limited magazines on the marine, yet is the basic weapon used and marines are reknowned for holding against great odds.

I imagine a bolter round is a mini grenade - when it hits it explodes and does major damage to soft targets within its blast radius.
A marine is trained and has the coordination to place his shots into a mass of oncoming enemies.
He aims for a target in the second row of attackers - it hits - the target is blasted apart and several others are either killed or wounded.
That was the first round of a burst that emptied the magazine - every round hit and took out several enemies with not overlap for maximum effectiveness.
The marine already had a spare clip coming up to bolter when the last round was fired.
Seconds later and the next magazine is being emptied.
That's not movie stuff, that's what a marine should be able to do, otherwise what is the point.

in response to the fluff part of this discussion,
i too have noticed the inconsistency in the stories. in response to the "how would this correlate to reality" part, i have had MANY daydreams about space marine battles. then, (unfortunately), inevitably, i remember that it's not real. so i guess what i'm trynna say is, how close (or far away) do you think we are to some of this tech?