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I really hope that GW does include Space Marines because it will be the only way to see Deathwatch Kill-Marines/Fallen Angels/Exiles/Pirates/etc in their native environment.

Even at full fluffy Angel of Death power level, balancing them seems pretty simple considering the complexity of BSF and the number of features it has. Using a Marine could bump up the rolls on enemy AI for a forced higher difficulty or count as two hero choices out of the four, though neither of those are ideal as they would impact all players to the same degree and therefore make the game harder for the non-Marine characters. Luckily BSF has a number of mechanics to work with, such as forbidding Marines from using the destiny dice (they walk their own path), not having a ship and its associated abilities (they had to bum a ride), having no inspired mode (they're already at peak performance), doing poorly at challenges (they're here to kill things, not stare at rocks), requiring higher rolls to perform some "basic" attacks (limited ammo means using rolls of 2+ for firing his bolter), or some combination of those.

I really really hope we don't get marines. It's really nice to see something where marines are not front and center the focus of the game and the only ones who do show up are an "oh gak" final boss.

Adding marines would really ruin that. We don't need marines in every single thing guys, some stuff they're just not meant to be used for. This game was meant for single agents up to their own goals, marines don't do that. Even if you could justify it somehow, great, you've thrown in a guy who should technically be almost as strong as the final boss, when the game was balanced around him being able to kill your whole team solo. It just won't work without completely screwing up the balance. UR025 is the closest thing and he apparently gets around it by being super slow.

Let this game get all the weird and wonderful oddball characters that will never see the light of day for models otherwise. We do not need primaris LT #435, we need a demiurg merchant house representative, or a former squat Noble looking to restore the honor of his people, or a radical Inquisitor/Inquisitor agent, or a member of the dozens of species we hear about in the background but never see in game, or an upstart enginseer who sees a chance to hoard some archaeotech for himself. Space marines will get a new model every quarter bare minimum, Blackstone fortress does nothing to help them that they weren't going to get anyways.

The only way they could remotely balance it is allow for a deathwatch Killteam mode where everyone is a marine and the difficulty is cranked to 12. That would be fun. But trying to mix them in with characters like a single kroot or some ratlings is a recipe for disaster.

I will say I think we'll see some more characters that are based off existing sculpts. If you look closely in one of the art pieces, theres a few of the characters chatting at precipice. In the foreground somewhat blurry is clearly some sort of Techpriest. I could see that, perhaps some sort of Ork freeboota/blood axe mercenary, and some more eldar characters as easy additions.

just saw in a video that there were some little riddles invovles in the game. Hope there's not too many of them ........

This game gave us an actual Man of Iron. I don't see why we'd want GW to create names for each of the 15 Primaris Lieutenants they sell just so they can include them.

They'd probably make rule for almost everyone like Silver Tower, and it'll be like a Christmas special.

Running with the Christmas special, if they want to do marines, fine- let the marines do their own missions, with their own encounters, and keep them separate from everything else.

Make it a one off adventure in White Dwarf or something.

It' be great if they got rules (they probably will eventually) but I'm also in the camp that would prefer seeing new and less known bits from the outer edges of the Imperium.

It's a shame the setting makes a mini-expansion allowing an all-Marine party to be chosen from the named characters in DW:Overkill unlikely, given the timeline, that would be a fine way to allow for Marines without it getting into everything. But for real, they will put Marines in eventually, it's Marines. Marines have been depicted doing stuff solo and in small groups before, even when not seconded to the Deathwatch; Iron Snakes off dealing with calls for aid, the Blood Angels from Blood Quest, Templars who're the last/few survivors of a Crusade refusing to abandon their oaths & purpose, Red Hunters in service to an Inquisitor etc etc.

While i would prefer non-marines...well admech to be specific(probably wont happen due to man of iron conflict), I dont understand why people think the marine would be stronger.

They released the 40k stats for these heros...and they arent regular joes. The rogue trader by himself would absolute wreck most marines...multiple at once even. I wont even bother comparing the man of iron to a marine...and the imperium better pray there arent more of them.

We know what power level gw considers the current heros relative to 40k. Unless a random chapter master shows up, im not really concerned about a marine throwing off the balance.

If they released a Blackstone Fortress: Kill-Team expansion that has a Deathwatch Kill-Team it would not only be really confusing from a branding perspective (!), but it allow a 'Marine Group' in the game without having to find ways of justifying Marines walking around with Ratlings, Eldar Rangers and Men of Iron.

 Yodhrin wrote:
It's a shame the setting makes a mini-expansion allowing an all-Marine party to be chosen from the named characters in DW:Overkill unlikely, given the timeline, that would be a fine way to allow for Marines without it getting into everything. But for real, they will put Marines in eventually, it's Marines. Marines have been depicted doing stuff solo and in small groups before, even when not seconded to the Deathwatch; Iron Snakes off dealing with calls for aid, the Blood Angels from Blood Quest, Templars who're the last/few survivors of a Crusade refusing to abandon their oaths & purpose, Red Hunters in service to an Inquisitor etc etc.

Interesting idea, they did a White Dwarf option for overkill using Scions, so I think it’s possible. And having a Marine only expansion / mission pack would be a good way to solve the balancing issues.

 Jadenim wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
It's a shame the setting makes a mini-expansion allowing an all-Marine party to be chosen from the named characters in DW:Overkill unlikely, given the timeline, that would be a fine way to allow for Marines without it getting into everything. But for real, they will put Marines in eventually, it's Marines. Marines have been depicted doing stuff solo and in small groups before, even when not seconded to the Deathwatch; Iron Snakes off dealing with calls for aid, the Blood Angels from Blood Quest, Templars who're the last/few survivors of a Crusade refusing to abandon their oaths & purpose, Red Hunters in service to an Inquisitor etc etc.

Interesting idea, they did a White Dwarf option for overkill using Scions, so I think it’s possible. And having a Marine only expansion / mission pack would be a good way to solve the balancing issues.

It also hit me that Genestealer cult could be a quick and easy addition for blackstone as a new hostile group.

With all the stranded ships near the Blackstone Fortress it can be easily some of those had a cult within and spreaded into the construction and it's now trapped there. This would also open the possibility for the more odd hybrid since it could be explained as adventurers being infected and remaining with the cult like Orks or Eldar hybrids.

Did you see the front of the new Black Library Blackstone Fortress book ? There is a new Character on the side of the Rogue Trader...looks like another kind of navigator or because of its Staff a Psyker ? Could he someone who is in the next Expansion ? ;-)

That's just a different take on the Navigator already included in the game.

 Bulldogging wrote:
While i would prefer non-marines...well admech to be specific(probably wont happen due to man of iron conflict), I dont understand why people think the marine would be stronger.

They released the 40k stats for these heros...and they arent regular joes. The rogue trader by himself would absolute wreck most marines...multiple at once even. I wont even bother comparing the man of iron to a marine...and the imperium better pray there arent more of them.

We know what power level gw considers the current heros relative to 40k. Unless a random chapter master shows up, im not really concerned about a marine throwing off the balance.

One marine in the fluff is like 10 marines in 40k. Underpowered Marines is fine in that game because you need to make them viable as an army, but in BSF it would look silly for an Astartes to be weaker than a human character, no matter who it is. He should basically be equivalent to all the rest of the characters put together.

Really? You think a Tactical Marinelet is stronger than a Man of Iron?

There's already 3 chaos marines in the boxed game so no reason why they can't include a loyalist one as well. Guarantee though it would be a Primaris and not a regular space marine.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Really? You think a Tactical Marinelet is stronger than a Man of Iron?

Yeah, the power is no issue.


Also, I I really don't understand all the people here opposing GW releasing rules for marines and other existing plastic characters. You don't have to use them, but some people might want to. Sure, I want them to make new models for this game too, but that doesn't preclude giving rules to already existing models too. More choice there is the better.

Yeah really, there's no point in complaining about making Space Marines look weak when the boss is already a Chaos Space Marine LORD and can be taken out by anyone in the party.

Astartes and Primarchs are already as strong or weak as the fluff requires them to be. That's a major part of why Gathering Storm and other events that led to the Terran Crusade and Ultima Founding are just terrible. Abaddon, who's supposed to be Primarch level at this point, was stopped dead in his tracks by an Inquisitor with relatively weak psyker abilities and then a short while later Guilliman manages to escape from a Daemon Prince who's one of the most powerful pyskers in existence because... Plot. Consistency!

Just make it a Space Wolf Scout sworn to the Deathwatch that wandered off on his own. It's fluffy, and he doesn't need to be terribly powerful. I've already got a model converted for it too.

I’d like to see a Marine. But one who’s a renegade or who’s been with the Rogue Trader for decades, so he’s not just “brother so-and-so of the Imperial Fists”, but something wildly unique.

I'm in the non marine camp. I'd love for basically everyother faction to be present in the game, but leave astartes and custodes out of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and nuds aside from genestealer cult would be silly, but then Im kinda skeptical that even stealers wouldnmake it in there.

Id much prefer to see a gallery of new heroes the likes of which have never been seen on tje table top of 40k, amd new enemies to match

A couple of scouting Carcharodons would be cool!

Otherwise I would like to see stuff for both existing and new models........and space ships.

model space ships....

 Mymearan wrote:

 Bulldogging wrote:
While i would prefer non-marines...well admech to be specific(probably wont happen due to man of iron conflict), I dont understand why people think the marine would be stronger.

They released the 40k stats for these heros...and they arent regular joes. The rogue trader by himself would absolute wreck most marines...multiple at once even. I wont even bother comparing the man of iron to a marine...and the imperium better pray there arent more of them.

We know what power level gw considers the current heros relative to 40k. Unless a random chapter master shows up, im not really concerned about a marine throwing off the balance.

One marine in the fluff is like 10 marines in 40k. Underpowered Marines is fine in that game because you need to make them viable as an army, but in BSF it would look silly for an Astartes to be weaker than a human character, no matter who it is. He should basically be equivalent to all the rest of the characters put together.

Which fluff? Ive seen marines killed by non-heroic soldiers(which the characters in blackstone apparently are heroic) many times. In some of the books ive actually felt bad for them..lol.

Just going by 40ks own fluff there are genetic modifications for non marines that enhance them heavily, and using the rogue trader as an example again(he could easily afford that) he actually has higher tech gear than them.

Id actually find it more immersion breaking if there werent people in the massive...massive..galaxy that couldt take out a mass produced super soldier in average tech.

With that said. Marines should be the last addition. We need more non marine characters. Which reminds me, admech has 1 special character, and they add a robot to the game that admech cant really use. Thanks gw, super cool of you.

An article about the tiles is up:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/11/15/warhammer-quest-blackstone-fortress-designing-the-tilesgw-homepage-post-2/

I can't make sense of their design. Like, what am I even looking at.

Could do an expansion where you play as a chaos party going up against the fortress's defenses and either the original rogue trader party or new imperium explorers/defenders/etc.

Mallux and some new chaos characters maybe. Or hell, just straight up make Abaddon playable when he gets his new model.

 Geifer wrote:
An article about the tiles is up:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/11/15/warhammer-quest-blackstone-fortress-designing-the-tilesgw-homepage-post-2/

I can't make sense of their design. Like, what am I even looking at.

Because their game design is "Sell these models to collectors while pretending there is a board game worth playing inside". That's basically every GW board game except the classics designed by Priestley and Chambers.

Would be nice to have an article on the traitor gards...

 Kirasu wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
An article about the tiles is up:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/11/15/warhammer-quest-blackstone-fortress-designing-the-tilesgw-homepage-post-2/

I can't make sense of their design. Like, what am I even looking at.

Because their game design is "Sell these models to collectors while pretending there is a board game worth playing inside". That's basically every GW board game except the classics designed by Priestley and Chambers.

Except every look I have seen at this game makes it look like a fantastic game...

 bullyboy wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
Because their game design is "Sell these models to collectors while pretending there is a board game worth playing inside". That's basically every GW board game except the classics designed by Priestley and Chambers.

Except every look I have seen at this game makes it look like a fantastic game...

FANBOY!

But seriously, looks like they picked a mid point between original and AoS Warhammer Quest. Like to see this dialled in over a few games.

The interior of the Fortress is crystalline caverns - that's what the floor of the tiles is - with outcrops and glowing sections underfoot. Amongst that are relics and machinery left by previous explorers.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Inquisitor Kallus wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Single Marines can run around with other random adventurers just fine, see 40k RPG.

Aha haaa, just fine. Yeah, ok, you obviously didn't play the games then or just ignored the fact that a special set of rules had to be made (Black Crusade) that allowed Marines and other characters to exist 'in harmony' whilst playing together in the same game.

You obviously didn't play Wrath and Glory then. You know, the current version of GW's view on how adventuring in the 40k galaxy works.