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 Ashiraya wrote:


My headcanon is that Astartes would fare rather well against modern forces, because anything big and punchy enough to be useful is impractical against such a relatively small target

I've personally put 3 120mm sabot rounds into a target at 1800 meters, and you could cover all three holes with a kevlar helmet.

And I've put a 120mm HEAT round into a target MUCH smaller than a standing man at about the same range.

Walking around the modern battlefield in bright colors and standing 8 feet tall wouldn't be too healthy.

 CptJake wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


My headcanon is that Astartes would fare rather well against modern forces, because anything big and punchy enough to be useful is impractical against such a relatively small target

I've personally put 3 120mm sabot rounds into a target at 1800 meters, and you could cover all three holes with a kevlar helmet.

And I've put a 120mm HEAT round into a target MUCH smaller than a standing man at about the same range.

Walking around the modern battlefield in bright colors and standing 8 feet tall wouldn't be too healthy.

What about the back banners? You can sight them in even easier when their banner is 3 feet wide and adds another 5 feet to the height!

And he's unhelmeted!

I like how everyone assumes the space marine will be standing around for them to take a hit. For all we know, they probably would have turned normal people into paste by landing on top of them with a drop pod (in before rules lawyers quote Inertial Guidance Systems)

 NInjatactiks wrote:
I like how everyone assumes the space marine will be standing around for them to take a hit. For all we know, they probably would have turned normal people into paste by landing on top of them with a drop pod (in before rules lawyers quote Inertial Guidance Systems)

I don't assume that at all.

 Bobthehero wrote:
SM can not stop a warband on his own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRsfLE-XQY

Let's not forget that this game was based on what Space Marines can actually do in the lore.

Your single Marine stopped an Ork AND Chaos invasion more or less single handedly...he was a captain though, I guess.

Then how come the Orks weren't stopped dead in their tracks on Armageddon? There are more SM than Orks warband, lots of captains and bigger, too, and yet...

The game was based on movie Marines and godly Marines lore which is gak. It's also a game and it wouldn't be funny if a single dude with a longlas with a hotshot pack was able to decapitate your dude in one hit. Just ask the Celestial Lions...

Edit: not to mention the It irs still present and fighting, poorly, in the area where you are, but they are here. I have to tested it and they seemed to have programmed to do no damage with their lasguns, are going to use that as a source to claim that lasguns cannot hurt anything?

They actually do damage with their lasguns. It's low but I have seen them kill orks with it.

It takes a while though.

I waited a while too, never saw any ork go down

 Bobthehero wrote:
Then how come the Orks weren't stopped dead in their tracks on Armageddon? There are more SM than Orks warband, lots of captains and bigger, too, and yet...

And I think that say far more about the vast Ork hordes on Armageddon. Which the Space Marines only arrived to deal with when they were held at Hades. If we're talking Third War, then there's even more Orks, and probably buffed from the Waaagh! energy.

The game was based on movie Marines and godly Marines lore which is gak.

In your opinion.

It's also a game and it wouldn't be funny if a single dude with a longlas with a hotshot pack was able to decapitate your dude in one hit. Just ask the Celestial Lions...

It's also a game and it wouldn't be funny if a single Space Marine was able to walk through your whole army and murder everything either.

Works both ways.

Not to mention the Celestial Lions were not attacked by random guardsman snipers - it was assumed to be Vindicares, who are more than capable of this - hell a Vindicare was deployed to kill HORUS. Sniping Apothecaries, who were the targets because they allowed the Chapter to reproduce losses, would have been easy for an Assassin. Not so much for a guardsmen who is probably holding a sniper older than they are.

Edit: not to mention the It irs still present and fighting, poorly, in the area where you are, but they are here. I have to tested it and they seemed to have programmed to do no damage with their lasguns, are going to use that as a source to claim that lasguns cannot hurt anything?

I've seen them kill. And besides, if we assume that the Chaos Guardsmen in the game have the same weapons as normal guardsmen, we can see the damage they cause - negligible, but that fits with Space Marine durability against common las weapons.

If an ork boy can manage to kill a SPESS MERREN with a pointy piece of scrap metal, I imagine it wouldn't be impossible to take one down with modern-day, small arms fire.

There's nothing actually superhuman about space Marine reflexes.

Clearly the orks in Space Marine fail to press their advantages (provided you win, of course; It's not like it is impossible for the player to die).

 Melissia wrote:
There's nothing actually superhuman about space Marine reflexes.

Oh really?

Sire, I believe we should save them for–’ The human said nothing more. The front of his face came free with a sickly crack, the flesh and jagged bone crunching in the Night Lord’s fist. Talos ignored the body as it toppled, spilling the insides of its halved skull onto the decking. No one had even seen him move, such was the prophet’s speed, clearing ten metres and vaulting a console table in the time it took a human heart to beat once.

- Void Stalker, page 93

Combat reflexes took over and Rafen drew his bolt pistol in a fraction of a second, his other hand snatching at the hilt of the battle knife resting in a sheath along the line of his spine. He fired a single shot at the High Chaplain, aiming low, aiming to wound, to slow him down. But he might well have called out his intentions in a shout. Astorath swept his blade aside and intercepted the bolt mid-flight with a crack of sound, the round blasting harmlessly into the dirt. Rafen dodged to one side as the weapon’s fast, fluid arc bisected the space where he had been standing, and he rolled, tumbling over red dirt and half-buried rocks.

- Hammer and Bolter 16 - Redeemed, page 231-232

Amaru sprinted from the corridor firing, Maion close behind him. ‘Fall back to the missile silo.’ The Techmarine dropped to one knee to avoid a plasma round, the arms of his servo-harness whirring as they turned to return fire. The Chaos plasma gunner died in a heartbeat, dissected by the merciless cutting lasers.

- Hammer and Bolter 16 page 11-12+16

‘Control your emotions, and move aside,’ Argel Tal growled, ‘or I will kill you.’
‘You cannot mean that, lord!’
Faster than human eyes could follow, the swords of red iron came free in hissing rasps. The tips of both blades rested against the fat priest’s three chins before he’d even had time to blink. Apparently, the lord did mean it.
‘Yes,’ the deacon stammered. ‘Yes, I…’
‘Just move,’ Argel Tal suggested.

- The First Heretic, page 264

He pulled the haft-trigger, and his spear’s underslung bolter cracked off a stream of rounds on full-auto.
Argel Tal saw it coming. The swords of red iron smashed the first three bolts aside, their power fields strong enough to detonate the shells as they streaked towards the primarch’s heart. The explosions threw the captain to the ground, his grey armour scraping along the stone with the shriek of offended ceramite.

- The First Heretic, page 383

The captain had no time to react – a blur of dark grey shoved her aside. Before she’d even blinked, Arvas was kicking and dangling above the ground, held aloft by Argel Tal’s fist around his throat.

- The First Heretic, page 420

The two warriors flew at one another, each strike flashing aside with bursts from their opposing power fields. Every second saw three strikes made, and each strike snapped back with the weapons’ electrical fields repelling one another after the metal kissed for the briefest moment. The air was rich with the ozone scent of abused power fields in only a matter of heartbeats.

- The First Heretic, page 612

Transhuman dread. Aximand had heard iterators talk of the condition. He’d heard descriptions of it from regular Army officers too. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing: taller and broader than a man could ever be, armoured like a demigod. The singularity of purpose was self-evident. An Adeptus Astartes was designed to fight and kill anything that didn’t annihilate it first. If you saw an Adeptus Astartes, you knew you were in trouble. The appearance alone cowed you with fear.

But to see one move. Apparently that was the real thing. Nothing human-shaped should be so fast, so lithe, so powerful, especially not anything in excess of two metres tall and carrying more armour than four normal men could lift. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing, but the moving fact of one was quite another. The psychologists called it transhuman dread. It froze a man, stuck him to the ground, caused his mind to lock up, made him lose control of bladder and bowel. Something huge and warlike gave pause: something huge and warlike and moving with the speed of a striking snake, that was when you knew that gods moved amongst men, and that there existed a scale of strength and speed beyond anything mortal, and that you were about to die and, if you were really lucking, there might be just enough time to piss yourself first.

- Age of Darkness page 163 (possibly my favourite 40k quote)

As the shell seared past, Rangar threw himself flat behind the low pile of rubble trying to make himself as small a target as possible. That had been close, too close. The shot had almost parted his hair. Only his lightning quick reflexes, and the microsecond's warning provided by his superhuman senses had got him out of the way. If he had ducked half a heartbeat later, his head would have been an exploding fountain of gore and bone.

- Space Wolf Omnibus page 269


I could go on but hopefully the point is clear. Space Marines do not lack for any kind of speed, whether it is raw reflexes, running, leaping, or attacking.

Of course, when GW finally had a chance to show us what space marine combat looks like instead of just talking about it, they gave us something rather different:

With Ash on this one, anyone who thinks SMs are lumbering apes who blindly waddle forward trying to hunt you down is very mistaken.
There are also multiple fluff pieces demonstrating astartes intellectual capabilities (commanding fleets during void battle with thousands of calculations a second, battle strategy planning entire divisions and outcomes and incredible memory abilities) so they arent dummies either.

Peregrine wrote:Of course, when GW finally had a chance to show us what space marine combat looks like instead of just talking about it, they gave us something rather different:

Low blow.

 Ratius wrote:
With Ash on this one, anyone who thinks SMs are lumbering apes who blindly waddle forward trying to hunt you down is very mistaken.

The person who suggested that was joking based on TT stats (range and movement compared to the size of the models).

I still think it depends on what source you use.

The sources are irreconcilable.

A bit more info on the astartes. Quite a good read actually

http://www.warhammer-community.com/2016/11/16/rites-of-initiation-the-making-of-a-space-marine/

 CptJake wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


My headcanon is that Astartes would fare rather well against modern forces, because anything big and punchy enough to be useful is impractical against such a relatively small target

I've personally put 3 120mm sabot rounds into a target at 1800 meters, and you could cover all three holes with a kevlar helmet.

And I've put a 120mm HEAT round into a target MUCH smaller than a standing man at about the same range.

Walking around the modern battlefield in bright colors and standing 8 feet tall wouldn't be too healthy.

I envy you so much. Putting depleted uranium rails through things has got to be the best feeling in the world. Something like a LR with all it's flat edges - wouldn't stand a dang chance.

 Ratius wrote:
With Ash on this one, anyone who thinks SMs are lumbering apes who blindly waddle forward trying to hunt you down is very mistaken.

Nope. I've played Epic Liberation, and the SM is clearly a fething moron.

Well its gotta be like humanity, some good leaders, some bad.

Well, taking a quick stock of what weapons I have on hand... I'd settle on my .308. Unfortunately 10 round magazines are the largest I own, but I honestly don't know if I'd get more shots then that off anyways.

At anyrate, it's got 2,648 ft lbs of energy. It's unlikely to penetrate ceramite armor, since that's about the peak level of force that the armor we wear is capable of withstanding.

I keep my armor plates at work as well, so I'd have zero chance of surviving return fire. The vest I have here will have a reasonable chance of stopping handgun fire, but not bolter.

My best hope is that my housing community is largely military and police, so there would be enough of us, laying down enough fire that he'd go down eventually.

If you've got enough other shooters firing Stub, no question he'll drop. Even at BS3 S2 AP- Sv3+, 18 shots, and he's down. Less if anybody has S3+ long guns or S4+ hunting rifles.

Str 4 is .50 cal kind of caliber, by the way.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Str 4 is .50 cal kind of caliber, by the way.

Good thing those are comparatively common in the private armouries of many Americans.

I doubt people hunt with .50 rifles

I kind of think of it like Paladium RPG Rifts with SDC(Structural damage capacity) and MDC(Mega damage capacity) weapons.

SDC weapons are all of your ancient to current weapons tech and do plenty of damage. From the simple knife doing 1d4 plus physical str bonuses to the surface to air missle doing 1d6x100 damage

MDC is for high tech armors and vehicles. One MDC is roughly equal to 100 SDC but the majority of SDC weapons cannot do any damage to an MDC target. (EG somone fireing a 9mm at a modern tank might scratch the paint but do no "real" damage unless there is some other factor like somehow avoiding the armor.)

A Space Marine is (in his power armor anyway) an MDC creature. The majority of your weapons would just bounce off maby knocking him down and chipping his paint job at most. The few weapons we have that are capable of doing MDC are things like missiles things designed to take out large military assets like tanks. If you have military grade ordinance laying around your house and have the training to use it then you "might" have a chance but considering Space marines are described as crazy smart and fast as well as tough you likely would be spotted trying to set up your HMG or rocket launcher and dealt with long before you got the chance to shoot at him and even if you did there are many occasions of SM dodging bullets and laser fire.....

Other than just pure flight (which is not likely to be successful) 99.9999999% of people could do nothing but die vs a space marine.

Now since a Space Marine is a fantasy creature this opens up the fantastic which allows for the chance "your a wizard Harry" or some such and your newly emergent powers can somehow help you but other than that no single or even group of normal people could defeat a Space marine in combat.

 CptJake wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


My headcanon is that Astartes would fare rather well against modern forces, because anything big and punchy enough to be useful is impractical against such a relatively small target

I've personally put 3 120mm sabot rounds into a target at 1800 meters, and you could cover all three holes with a kevlar helmet.

And I've put a 120mm HEAT round into a target MUCH smaller than a standing man at about the same range.

Walking around the modern battlefield in bright colors and standing 8 feet tall wouldn't be too healthy.

this

 Bobthehero wrote:
I doubt people hunt with .50 rifles

I mean...its not unknown...

That said, Strength also has a wide range within each stat. An autopistol and autogun are both S3, corresponding roughly to modern day handguns and intermediate caliber rifles. Well, within that range we can be talking about a 300-400% difference in kinetic energy

Many S4 stubbers in the game look like theyd be more akin to something like .308 or 8mm Mauser while others look like .50BMG weapons.

Looking at S4 stuff, I'd generally probably say that encompasses higher end full power rifle rounds up through heavy .50 BMG rounds, which would fit roughly the same pattern as the smaller S3 weapons, as well as stuff like mortars.

A Shotgun is S4. Lots of Americans have 12ga shotguns. And it's not like they can't get slugs for them.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
A Shotgun is S4. Lots of Americans have 12ga shotguns. And it's not like they can't get slugs for them.

Given that a Space Marine shotgun (the ones that are actually S4) is also about the same calibre as a boltgun (guess based on the models) and that's closer to a 36-gauge than a 12-gauge I expect these S4 shotguns are rifled and have a lot more propellant in them than than a real shotgun.