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Martel732 wrote:
I guarantee the same goes for serfs. Or would go for serfs, regardless of the bolter porn.

It doesn't bar some outliers like Space Sharks.

We have different ideas of bolter porn...

Isn't that a weird statement to make though? "Regardless of bolter porn" which translates to: "Regardless of what the writers and designers of the lore say....", as if you have a unique perspective on a fictional universe? That's a pretty head-scratching statement.

You're making it sound like you have inside information on what really happens...in a fictional setting which is solely dictated by a game company which designed it?

pm713 wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Nurglitch wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, I forgot that. I don't get into the lore much. I forgot the marines had slaves.

*Ahem* "Chapter Serfs" and "Servants" please. Only Chaos Space Marines have slaves.

You are aware that the difference between a serf and a slave is pretty much spelling? In fact the etymology of the word comes from the Latin word "servus" which translate to "slave" in modern english and "serf" in middle french.

But there is a significant difference between them in-universe. Serfs have a pretty privileged position, are well treated and get above average quality of life. Slaves can be killed whenever a Chaos Marine has a tantrum.

I'd say it depends on the chapter or legion in question. I wouldn't want to be a Flesh Tearers serf or a Word Bearers slave. Ultramarines or Night Lords (at least 10th company, if you can stay away from Uzas) probably wouldn't be any worse than how your average lower class hive city citizen has it.

 Elbows wrote:
Isn't that a weird statement to make though? "Regardless of bolter porn" which translates to: "Regardless of what the writers and designers of the lore say....", as if you have a unique perspective on a fictional universe? That's a pretty head-scratching statement.

You're making it sound like you have inside information on what really happens...in a fictional setting which is solely dictated by a game company which designed it?

A bunch of superhuman donkey-caves are gonna treat humans like gak based of how things actually work in reality.

Martel732 wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Isn't that a weird statement to make though? "Regardless of bolter porn" which translates to: "Regardless of what the writers and designers of the lore say....", as if you have a unique perspective on a fictional universe? That's a pretty head-scratching statement.

You're making it sound like you have inside information on what really happens...in a fictional setting which is solely dictated by a game company which designed it?

A bunch of superhuman donkey-caves are gonna treat humans like gak based of how things actually work in reality.

So this is just an excuse to gripe.

Whatever man. Just calling like i see it.

Quasistellar wrote:
As far as realism goes, about the only thing in tabletop 40k I have trouble hand-waving away as a gaming abstraction, is tanks not being able to shoot when touched by infantry (especially the chaff infantry).

This is a good example of immersion breaking that might work in epic, if a tiny tank on an expansive battlefield were completely surrounded by tiny units of infantry which may be assumed to also have grenades and even mines or melta bombs, so the tank is busy trying to keep the troops pinned down, and being surrounded is unable to move away because to do so would open a rear end or underside to attacks of opportunity. I could see this, at such a scale, but at the 40k scale I do not understand the reasoning behind this mechanic at all besides it is over "simple" that makes the game more difficult to understand because it breaks from intuitions which we learn through our daily engagement with our shared reality. Honestly, this runs so contrary to intuition that it does hurt the game. It hurts my head, also, but this is beside the point, I guess.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nurglitch wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, I forgot that. I don't get into the lore much. I forgot the marines had slaves.

*Ahem* "Chapter Serfs" and "Servants" please. Only Chaos Space Marines have slaves.

And cats, also... cats also have human slaves, err... serfs, or, servants. Whatever. Dogs too. Orange godbeasts who nap on battlefields.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think the fiction should be written to more closely match the tabletop.

You mean every so often the battle ends because "Fluffy the Orange Godbeast space cat" descends upon the battle and chooses to nap upon the main field of war.

Martel732 wrote:
There's still way more plasma guns than marines. And everyone knows the marines might be coming. They aren't exactly subtle. No one is going to be surprised by these guys.

I think you under estimate the speed at which a marine strike force can hit.

Sure, whatever. Marines exist. People would prepare counter measures if they were a big problem. That's the way conflict works. Maybe they aren't a big problem, but given the effectiveness of so many weapons against power armor, I don't see what the big deal is.

I really hope they make the lore like the table top, hoping for the novels where every weapon has a range of 40 meters and people get bionic augmentation that disappears after five minutes.

BrianDavion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
There's still way more plasma guns than marines. And everyone knows the marines might be coming. They aren't exactly subtle. No one is going to be surprised by these guys.

I think you under estimate the speed at which a marine strike force can hit.

Martel prefers to ignore what the lore is in favour of his fanon it seems.

It's all fanfic. What difference does it make? I just prefer less marine fanboy masturbatory fanfic.

Martel732 wrote:
It's all fanfic. What difference does it make? I just prefer less marine fanboy masturbatory fanfic.

By definition it's not. The difference is one of them derails attempts to converse with you and the other does not.

The point is sound though.

Everyone knows about space marines, everyone knows they could appear. They also know their enemies deploy tanks as well

Ergo, no one is going to be surprised if tanks and or marines show up in combat at some point.

And as there are more tanks in the galaxy than space marines, there will always be enough anti tank weapons lying around to use against them.


The thing is that marines are conceptually designed for asymmetric warfare, where they control the how of a battle meaning they deliberately only attack areas of the enemy that are advantageous to do so. Ie ones that don't have a lot of anti marine weaponry.

But the game doesn't play like this.

And the sheer amount of materiel makes it impossible for them to do this realistically.

The thing is that the 100 to 1 propaganda works against them. Because if they are facing 100 opponents, that's 10 squads of guard with up to 20 anti tank weapons for 1 marine.

They're supposed to be going through those 100 guard a handful at a time, to maximize their armour and power. No5 facing down 100 at once

But anti-tank weapons are designed to be used against tanks. It's a hell of a lot harder to hit a single roughly human sized target with one. Especially when said target is super humanly fast with super human reflexes.

Not to mention the fact that those targets are deploying right in your face from tank sized missiles from orbit, dropping in on jump packs, or teleporting. And did anyone mention that they're armed with guns that fire explosive rounds that bore into your buddies flesh before bursting them into bloody shrapnel that showers all over you? That would probably add to the difficulty of hitting those targets.

And of course this all happens after the aforementioned orbital bombardment.

Gadzilla666 wrote:
But anti-tank weapons are designed to be used against tanks. It's a hell of a lot harder to hit a single roughly human sized target with one. Especially when said target is super humanly fast with super human reflexes.

Not to mention the fact that those targets are deploying right in your face from tank sized missiles from orbit, dropping in on jump packs, or teleporting. And did anyone mention that they're armed with guns that fire explosive rounds that bore into your buddies flesh before bursting them into bloody shrapnel that &showers all over you? That would probably add to the difficulty of hitting those targets.

And of course this all happens after the aforementioned orbital bombardment.

That works when dealing with Guardsmen.

What about when dealing with Tyranids? Necrons? Orks?

 JNAProductions wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
But anti-tank weapons are designed to be used against tanks. It's a hell of a lot harder to hit a single roughly human sized target with one. Especially when said target is super humanly fast with super human reflexes.

Not to mention the fact that those targets are deploying right in your face from tank sized missiles from orbit, dropping in on jump packs, or teleporting. And did anyone mention that they're armed with guns that fire explosive rounds that bore into your buddies flesh before bursting them into bloody shrapnel that &showers all over you? That would probably add to the difficulty of hitting those targets.

And of course this all happens after the aforementioned orbital bombardment.

That works when dealing with Guardsmen.

What about when dealing with Tyranids? Necrons? Orks?

Argh, the original argument was hundreds of guardsmen. Do I really have to go through every fething faction?

Of course there are ways for everyone to beat marines. Otherwise the game wouldn't work, unless it was hh.

But there's also ways for marines to win. But in a straight up all of one faction vs all the others without any of the elite factions getting to use their elite tactics? It'd come down to guard, orks, or nids just because of numbers.

How many Tyranid warriors do you think there are?

 JNAProductions wrote:
How many Tyranid warriors do you think there are?

As many as the hive mind wants obviously. But against something like a full scale tyranid invasion sm wouldn't be alone. The guard would be there first. And possibly other imperial assets.

Is this about that Blood Angels book? Because I haven't read it, but I know Guy Haley wrote it, and knowing the godawful way he writes Night Lords I wouldn't consider that to be a very good measuring point.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
But anti-tank weapons are designed to be used against tanks. It's a hell of a lot harder to hit a single roughly human sized target with one. Especially when said target is super humanly fast with super human reflexes.

Not to mention the fact that those targets are deploying right in your face from tank sized missiles from orbit, dropping in on jump packs, or teleporting. And did anyone mention that they're armed with guns that fire explosive rounds that bore into your buddies flesh before bursting them into bloody shrapnel that &showers all over you? That would probably add to the difficulty of hitting those targets.

And of course this all happens after the aforementioned orbital bombardment.

That works when dealing with Guardsmen.

What about when dealing with Tyranids? Necrons? Orks?

Argh, the original argument was hundreds of guardsmen. Do I really have to go through every fething faction?

Of course there are ways for everyone to beat marines. Otherwise the game wouldn't work, unless it was hh.

But there's also ways for marines to win. But in a straight up all of one faction vs all the others without any of the elite factions getting to use their elite tactics? It'd come down to guard, orks, or nids just because of numbers.

Exactly. Those are the factions that matter. The elite ones are too small to have a meaningful impact.

" Especially when said target is super humanly fast with super human reflexes."

Initiative four is not that much better than humans at init 3. And marines never had extra movement.

 JNAProductions wrote:
How many Tyranid warriors do you think there are?

A bajillion bajilliion.

But WMDs can make numbers near-moot, and marines aren't intended to directly deploy against a bajillion bajillion Tyranid Warriors. Marines are there to board Nid ships in the void while they hibernate, and destroy vital ship organs to destroy it, slow it down, disrupt the fleet, whatever.

Martel732 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
But anti-tank weapons are designed to be used against tanks. It's a hell of a lot harder to hit a single roughly human sized target with one. Especially when said target is super humanly fast with super human reflexes.

Not to mention the fact that those targets are deploying right in your face from tank sized missiles from orbit, dropping in on jump packs, or teleporting. And did anyone mention that they're armed with guns that fire explosive rounds that bore into your buddies flesh before bursting them into bloody shrapnel that &showers all over you? That would probably add to the difficulty of hitting those targets.

And of course this all happens after the aforementioned orbital bombardment.

That works when dealing with Guardsmen.

What about when dealing with Tyranids? Necrons? Orks?

Argh, the original argument was hundreds of guardsmen. Do I really have to go through every fething faction?

Of course there are ways for everyone to beat marines. Otherwise the game wouldn't work, unless it was hh.

But there's also ways for marines to win. But in a straight up all of one faction vs all the others without any of the elite factions getting to use their elite tactics? It'd come down to guard, orks, or nids just because of numbers.

Exactly. Those are the factions that matter. The elite ones are too small to have a meaningful impact.

Okie dokey, then I guess we should call the joint chiefs of staff and tell them to disband the rangers, seals, green berets, and any other special forces you can think of. Because if they can't take on a country's entire military by themselves they obviously have nothing to contribute. Never mind that they're for asymmetrical warfare.

Seriously, is your argument that marines should be able to take on an entire guard regiment or hive fleet by themselves? That's not represented in the game, unless you've ever seen a 2000 point guard or tyranid army consisting of a million models. And any book that represents that is just bad writing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
How many Tyranid warriors do you think there are?

A bajillion bajilliion.

But WMDs can make numbers near-moot, and marines aren't intended to directly deploy against a bajillion bajillion Tyranid Warriors. Marines are there to board Nid ships in the void while they hibernate, and destroy vital ship organs to destroy it, slow it down, disrupt the fleet, whatever.

Right.

ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE. It's a thing. Look it up.

"Because if they can't take on a country's entire military by themselves they obviously have nothing to contribute."

They don't matter on the grand stage. And a galactic conflict is the grandest possible stage.

"should be able to take on an entire guard regiment or hive fleet by themselves?"

No, they obviously can't. Which makes them unimportant on the grand scale.

If they can board the hive ship that controls the local tendril of Nids, and take it out, disrupting Synapse system-wide, then they matter.

Martel732 wrote:
"Because if they can't take on a country's entire military by themselves they obviously have nothing to contribute."

They don't matter on the grand stage. And a galactic conflict is the grandest possible stage.

"should be able to take on an entire guard regiment or hive fleet by themselves?"

No, they obviously can't. Which makes them unimportant on the grand scale.

They take out strategic resources and command structures, which allows conventional forces to win the bigger battles.

Honestly I don't know why we're arguing military tactics with someone who can't figure out how to deal with hordes and dreadnoughts in a game of toy soldiers.

 Insectum7 wrote:
If they can board the hive ship that controls the local tendril of Nids, and take it out, disrupting Synapse system-wide, then they matter.

They have no way of knowing which one that is, and even if they did, there are probably many redundancies. Marines work against poorly written antagonists to facilitate a power fantasy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Because if they can't take on a country's entire military by themselves they obviously have nothing to contribute."

They don't matter on the grand stage. And a galactic conflict is the grandest possible stage.

"should be able to take on an entire guard regiment or hive fleet by themselves?"

No, they obviously can't. Which makes them unimportant on the grand scale.

They take out strategic resources and command structures, which allows conventional forces to win the bigger battles.

Honestly I don't know why we're arguing military tactics with someone who can't figure out how to deal with hordes and dreadnoughts in a game of toy soldiers.

Then let's let it drop. We fundamentally disagree about the effectiveness of groups of 1000 superbois when entire planets are being fought over.

Done.

if you remove C&C infrastructure(guard commissar, synapse, etc), youd be surprised how a seemingly effective fighting force can wither and die without that in place.

Marines aren't the tip of the spear, they're the entire damn thing. they have their own supply chain, reinforcements, orbital assets, fog of war mitigation, etc...

which are all real-world analogues, I can almost guarantee any military would probably kill to have even the humble old lasgun, or if they could teleport in instead of H.A.L.O. dropping Seals/Spetsnaz out of a airplane. That's not even going into the genecraft and technomancy that 40k would present.

All oif this discussion recalls the earlier point, that the game lost something when the "lore" forgot that the empire was failing, that high-tech like plasma was old and unreliable at best, deadly at worst, that tanks and heavy machinery ran on literal prayers for lack of parts and skilled craftsmen able to repair them, that orks enjoyed guns for the smoke and noise as much as actually hitting anything, that yes, equipment matters and guardsmen have less of the good stuff and none of the best stuff, ever.

Why? The marines come and get that 5H1#

Also forgotten is that Tau individually have no personal initiative and that chaos and traitor marines have too much, and so on and so on with the critical flaws in every thing and every one in this universe... until baby Blue Bells comes back from the dead with his truescale restartes and the heretic Cawl with his floating tanks ... all heresy, all obvious chaos trickery, because the universe doesn't run that way...

Proof: the game is worse for it. All of it.

The realism, the gritty grimdark realism, made the game work. The high fantasy shiny heroes in sphaezzz just make the game into a CCG with dice cannons and the abstractions employed to make this work all take away from intuitions that were reinforced in the original resource environment.

In lore and in game, plasma is supposed to be VERY RARE and deadly
... And Marines have better intel than you do
... and better gear.
So they tend not to drop down in front of 100 pasma guns.

They might drop a few thousand guardsmen instead, or a nice big orbital bombardment to melt all those plasma guns first.
Plus smoke, and radiation, and all that good stuff that made marines so badazz... this is all gone.

For what?
For cards. Gimmicks. And restartes on floating tanks. Who shoot bullets that don't need line of sight. For the lulz.

"if you remove C&C infrastructure(guard commissar, synapse, etc), youd be surprised how a seemingly effective fighting force can wither and die without that in place."

Assuming you know where that is, and there are no redundancies. Like how armies have a general with colonels below them? And then generals in charge of multiple armies? They're gonna kill all of that? Okay. With 1000 guys total?