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If marines all got refractor fields, it's likely the Herbert estate might finally take notice.

Seriously though, if they were pointed accordingly, I could see it being a squad option.

However, conservatively, it would probably fit being limited to veteran squads and terminators, though both already have access to storm shields...

Fluffwise, it's probably a bit too much upkeep to give them to every marine, and would likely put strain on the battery life on their power suits. Would provide a short-term gain, but marines wouldn't be able to remain afield as long in combat areas.

In the Imperium of Man, equipment isn't just a tool. It is also often a badge of office, honors, or rank. Marines don't get Refractor Fields because that is not an honor bestowed on Marines. They can eventual earn either an Iron Halo (Captain) or a Rosarius (Chaplain), but otherwise must depend upon their armor for protection, along with the role-specific Combat and Storm Shields.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
^Tanks and vehicles be used in urban combat, yo.

Yes, but usually only with infantry cover as they tend to be blind, easy to roadblock, and not well suited to dealing with attacks fired into their roofs from nearby rooftops and balconies.

Sure but
A: Marines have none of those problems
And
B: Tanks still employ camouflage

Tygre wrote:
In the 2nd edition Wargear book the refractor field "... produces a hazy band of light of light around the subject which makes it impossible for the wearer to hide." Which my be a setback for some. As a side-note - terminator armour does not mention any fields at all, just thick armour. Lieutenants did not come with refractor fields in 2nd. But could take 1 wargear card, which could be a refractor field.

I guess the main reason that they don't have refractor fields is the same reason they don't all have plasma guns.

Presumably you could just switch it off though, right? Turn it on only when combat has only begun.

Having an energy shield has the added benefit of less maintenance on the power armour itself. Also it could be a second layer of defence on what would typically be a weak point on the armour.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fluffwise, it's probably a bit too much upkeep to give them to every marine, and would likely put strain on the battery life on their power suits. Would provide a short-term gain, but marines wouldn't be able to remain afield as long in combat areas.

I have to doubt the former. If every Imperial Guard Lieutenant gets one, then there’s literally trillions across the universe. If we discount Lieutenants and say every Captain (aka Company Commander) gets one there’s still single trillions rather than hundreds of trillions. If we dial that back, skip Majors and move straight to Colonels. There’s likely still billions in circulation.

It can’t be a manufacturing bottleneck of the refractor fields themselves. I doubt it’s a power supply issue either. If a marines armour can power a jump pack then it should be able to use that energy to power a personal shield. Just make it so a jump pack or shield is an either/or option.

 Gert wrote:

Vatsetis wrote:
Camo works on tanks because tank combat engagement ranges are huge (1km or even further)... SM are supposed to engage at close quarters... Basic Camo on them will be mainly for aesthetic use... Even if they use some sort of high tech invisibility cloaking device the SM need to supress the huge noise a 300kg metal monster is going to produce when moving rapidly... Also SM use as a basic weapon an automatic high caliber self propelled rocket launcher (bolters) which also create huge noise, so every time they fire they will be inmediatly located from far away.

Weird considering Chapters like the Raven Guard and Raptors somehow manage to specialise in stealth warfare even before Primaris Phobos units were introduced. There are also weapons like Stalker Bolters that are specifically designed for sniper and stealth work.

Basically a SM has the concealment and mobility capabilitiea of a Hummbee armed with a 50 cal... Imagine 10 of those doing a stealth mission... They are useless as infantry in a tactical sense.

Yes because all infantry are stealth infantry.

From any feasible military POV SMs are a joke... All their "strenghts" (speed and durability) are surpass by far by their noisiness and inhability to conceal properly due to their huge size (not counting on their huge thermal and energy signal)... you shouldnt not overthink or take them seriously.

Almost like Astartes are used as rapid strike units intended for decapitation/seek and destroy missions rather than wandering through a jungle waiting for Genestealers to jump out of the trees.

And all of this is just wishfull thinking or simply fantasy... Imagine a SWAT team that is unable to trasverse a simple corridor because its members are just too big... Those are the SM.

40K is all about juvenile rule of cool power fantasies... it sound very "tactical" to speak about a stalker bolter which apparently wont make noise when fired ... until you realice that it cannot be a true bolter since those have incorporated selfpropelled ammunitions specifically designed to be noisy and conspicuous.

Is there any artwork of a marine doing something as simple as remaining prone and crawling? it is even possible with their stupidly oversized armour and muscled bodies?

After 1914 all infantry are either stealth infantry or dead infantry

Stealth SM make the same sense that Chainswords as a functional weapon... IE none... Infantry unable to trasverse dense terrain and remain conceal are mostly useless.

If a chaos or genestealer cult spreads on a hive city how are marines ment to fight them if they arent even able to exit the cargo bay for heavy equipment liftting areas... a simple staicase would be an uncoquerable tactical challenge.

The biggest plot armor of all 40K media is the fact that the universe (including hive cities, spaceships and forge worlds) seem to be designed specifically to allow 7ft and 500+ kg monsters to move arround with ease... even doe in universe SM are a tiny minority of human population.

From a combat perspective... Its irrelevant if you are tough, quick and strong if you arent unable to reach the area of operations without alerting everybody in a mile radious.

Isn’t the crux terminatus some sort of force field?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be fair though with all the resources of the imperium you could probably equip a thousand SM with lascannons with no issue.

It would just be a boring story, probably.

mrFickle wrote:
Isn’t the crux terminatus some sort of force field?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be fair though with all the resources of the imperium you could probably equip a thousand SM with lascannons with no issue.

It would just be a boring story, probably.

Canon size of SM forces makes no sense ( a 1000 strong force would be insignificant in a planetary scale war).

Since they are a power fantasy rather than a sensible concept... SM are portrayed simultaneously as special forces super soldiers that can defeat even in small groups whole enemy armies (because reasons) and also as sort of mass produce and standarice military unit (at least the basic types such as Tacticals and Intercessors).

There is even a complete cognitive disonance between the tabletop and fluff representation of the SM´s.

If taken to practice the SM´s would be a complete military liability (not speaking in abstract, Im speaking in universe).

Exactly which work can be done better by the SM that cannot be tackled in a more efficient and economic manner by Scions and/or Assassins? Im speaking of special forces/strike stuff... for attritional warfare regular AM armies are 100 times better than marines.

Vatsetis wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Isn’t the crux terminatus some sort of force field?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be fair though with all the resources of the imperium you could probably equip a thousand SM with lascannons with no issue.

It would just be a boring story, probably.

Canon size of SM forces makes no sense ( a 1000 strong force would be insignificant in a planetary scale war).

Since they are a power fantasy rather than a sensible concept... SM are portrayed simultaneously as special forces super soldiers that can defeat even in small groups whole enemy armies (because reasons) and also as sort of mass produce and standarice military unit (at least the basic types such as Tacticals and Intercessors).

There is even a complete cognitive disonance between the tabletop and fluff representation of the SM´s.

If taken to practice the SM´s would be a complete military liability (not speaking in abstract, Im speaking in universe).

Exactly which work can be done better by the SM that cannot be tackled in a more efficient and economic manner by Scions and/or Assassins? Im speaking of special forces/strike stuff... for attritional warfare regular AM armies are 100 times better than marines.

Yeah you just can’t analyse 40K like this. To use your assassins example, if you wanted to take down an ork army just snipe the war boss and the Orks will fight amongst themselves to determine a new warboss. Then take that one out and so on until they have destroyed themselves and no need for bolters, chain swords and heroic deeds of 1 thousand SM vs 1 million Orks

I imagine Space Marines don't have refractor fields because any weapon weak enough to be stopped by a refractor field is weak enough to be stopped by the armour. Of course, on tabletop it doesn't work like that due to the divergence of armour and invulnerable saves.

Space Marines in canon are a whole other discussion to themselves.
I like to imagine them as shock assault troops. They can get away without camouflage because their operational tempo and intense armour renders it redundant.
This is undermined by the existence of factions like Raven Guard or Phobos in general, but such is life.

And how usefull is a shock assault troop that cant cross a doorway without blowing up half of the building in doing so?

Im curious as to when did the SM in the fluff gain their superspeed and reflexes... because I dont remember this gimmick (another layer of absurdity to make super agile a type of troop anatomically unable to simply lay prone) was in place in the old days of 2/3 edition. Just curious.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I imagine Space Marines don't have refractor fields because any weapon weak enough to be stopped by a refractor field is weak enough to be stopped by the armour. Of course, on tabletop it doesn't work like that due to the divergence of armour and invulnerable saves.

Space Marines in canon are a whole other discussion to themselves.
I like to imagine them as shock assault troops. They can get away without camouflage because their operational tempo and intense armour renders it redundant.
This is undermined by the existence of factions like Raven Guard or Phobos in general, but such is life.

onl;y undermined if you assume the space marines only ever use one tactic and don't occasionally vary them as the situation requires. your average marine tactics are indeed shock based, but it's pretty clear they're willing to do things differant if it's required.

Vatsetis wrote:
And how usefull is a shock assault troop that cant cross a doorway without blowing up half of the building in doing so?

Im curious as to when did the SM in the fluff gain their superspeed and reflexes... because I dont remember this gimmick (another layer of absurdity to make super agile a type of troop anatomically unable to simply lay prone) was in place in the old days of 2/3 edition. Just curious.

Are you deliberately using ridiculous hyperbole or do you actually think it's impossible for a Space Marine to walk through an average doorway?
Where does "anatomically unable to simply lay prone" come from? They're humanoid, not inverted tortoises.

BrianDavion wrote:

onl;y undermined if you assume the space marines only ever use one tactic and don't occasionally vary them as the situation requires. your average marine tactics are indeed shock based, but it's pretty clear they're willing to do things differant if it's required.

I agree. But what I was referencing in regards to Raven Guard is that they're a chapter that specialises in stealth tactics who wears black and white armour. Huh. Or Scouts and Phobos, who are explictly stealth troops who maintain their chapter's standard bright blue or red or whatever armour.

GW recently showed off a Blood Angels army, whom had painted their phobos in 100% camo colours. This is much more realistic than the traditionally depicted bright red phobos that Blood Angels would be using.

In older Rogue Trader publications (and even in some later Forge World ones), they depicted Space Marine Chapters as having and using camouflage patterns. It could be perhaps that the big bright colours we see on things like Phobos Marines and such are just parade uniforms.

Or, you can handwave any of it and just say that it works. If you want camo Space Marines, there's room for that, and if you want bright bold Astartes, there's also room for that!

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Vatsetis wrote:
And how usefull is a shock assault troop that cant cross a doorway without blowing up half of the building in doing so?

Im curious as to when did the SM in the fluff gain their superspeed and reflexes... because I dont remember this gimmick (another layer of absurdity to make super agile a type of troop anatomically unable to simply lay prone) was in place in the old days of 2/3 edition. Just curious.

Are you deliberately using ridiculous hyperbole or do you actually think it's impossible for a Space Marine to walk through an average doorway?
Where does "anatomically unable to simply lay prone" come from? They're humanoid, not inverted tortoises.

I really wish I was joking, but is the plain truth... the doorway of my room is 70cm wide and 200cm high, a basic tactical Space Marine would have to crawl to get through and a Primaris will get stuck in it. I really doubt that my staircase will be able to put up with the 500kg plus with the high ground pressure of their combat boots without collapsing when the Marine comes storming upwards... so if this SM marine (and we are talking here of the tactical base smaller marine) wanted to engage me in hand to hand combat when Im in the second floor of my home (a regular joes place) the easiest way to do so would be to demolish the hole building. Seems quite a tactical liability to me.

SM are indeed humanoids but their armour dosent seem to be designed to do some thing as basic as allowing them to get prone without great effort.

https://images.app.goo.gl/ZbWZicpZvHfRm6gi7

SM are not practical to fight in any sensibly made human habitat. If you think about them for more than 10 seconds they are absurd. They go against basic physics and combat experience.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I imagine Space Marines don't have refractor fields because any weapon weak enough to be stopped by a refractor field is weak enough to be stopped by the armour. Of course, on tabletop it doesn't work like that due to the divergence of armour and invulnerable saves.

Space Marines in canon are a whole other discussion to themselves.
I like to imagine them as shock assault troops. They can get away without camouflage because their operational tempo and intense armour renders it redundant.
This is undermined by the existence of factions like Raven Guard or Phobos in general, but such is life.

Yeah, Marines make a lot more sense if you consider them as close quarters shock troops and limit their activities to boarding actions (I mean, they are Space Marines) and assaulting bunkers.
They are roughly comparable to knights assaulting castles, where the heavy armor would certainly give them an edge when trying to assault the walls.

To me, Raven guard being stealth specialists were more of an exception rather than a rule, to give them an idea just how skilled they are at stealth. You'd have to be pretty damned skilled to sneak in power armor, which gives the Raven Guard a certain amount of prestige.
In my opinion, Phobos completely ruins that prestige; in trying to make a tactikewl faction to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd, GW released something not only illogical (complete with a big dumb stealth mech) but also undermines a characteristic of a well known chapter.
It would be like if everyone started fielding Death Company; Blood Angels wouldn't be so special now, would they?

Vatsetis wrote:I really wish I was joking, but is the plain truth... the doorway of my room is 70cm wide and 200cm high, a basic tactical Space Marine would have to crawl to get through and a Primaris will get stuck in it. I really doubt that my staircase will be able to put up with the 500kg plus with the high ground pressure of their combat boots without collapsing when the Marine comes storming upwards... so if this SM marine (and we are talking here of the tactical base smaller marine) wanted to engage me in hand to hand combat when Im in the second floor of my home (a regular joes place) the easiest way to do so would be to demolish the hole building. Seems quite a tactical liability to me.

I wasn't aware that the doors, stairs, and rooms of the 41st millennium were built according to 21st century building guidelines.

Vatsetis wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Vatsetis wrote:
And how usefull is a shock assault troop that cant cross a doorway without blowing up half of the building in doing so?

Im curious as to when did the SM in the fluff gain their superspeed and reflexes... because I dont remember this gimmick (another layer of absurdity to make super agile a type of troop anatomically unable to simply lay prone) was in place in the old days of 2/3 edition. Just curious.

Are you deliberately using ridiculous hyperbole or do you actually think it's impossible for a Space Marine to walk through an average doorway?
Where does "anatomically unable to simply lay prone" come from? They're humanoid, not inverted tortoises.

I really wish I was joking, but is the plain truth... the doorway of my room is 70cm wide and 200cm high, a basic tactical Space Marine would have to crawl to get through and a Primaris will get stuck in it. I really doubt that my staircase will be able to put up with the 500kg plus with the high ground pressure of their combat boots without collapsing when the Marine comes storming upwards... so if this SM marine (and we are talking here of the tactical base smaller marine) wanted to engage me in hand to hand combat when Im in the second floor of my home (a regular joes place) the easiest way to do so would be to demolish the hole building. Seems quite a tactical liability to me.

SM are indeed humanoids but their armour dosent seem to be designed to do some thing as basic as allowing them to get prone without great effort.

https://images.app.goo.gl/ZbWZicpZvHfRm6gi7

SM are not practical to fight in any sensibly made human habitat. If you think about them for more than 10 seconds they are absurd. They go against basic physics and combat experience.

Why would they bother fighting you in a house though? They'd just blow it up. It is bloody hilarious though imagining a bunch of marines trying to storm a bunker, come across a tiny door and go "awww dammit. Brother Titus get out the lube, this one is going to be a squeeze."

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
To me, Raven guard being stealth specialists were more of an exception rather than a rule, to give them an idea just how skilled they are at stealth. You'd have to be pretty damned skilled to sneak in power armor, which gives the Raven Guard a certain amount of prestige.
In my opinion, Phobos completely ruins that prestige; in trying to make a tactikewl faction to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd, GW released something not only illogical (complete with a big dumb stealth mech) but also undermines a characteristic of a well known chapter.
It would be like if everyone started fielding Death Company; Blood Angels wouldn't be so special now, would they?

Well, the Raptors Chapter existed long before Phobos did, as well as 30k Recon teams. If we're going to complain about tacticool Marines being bad or taking away from the Raven Guard, we ought to levy it in the right place.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
To me, Raven guard being stealth specialists were more of an exception rather than a rule, to give them an idea just how skilled they are at stealth. You'd have to be pretty damned skilled to sneak in power armor, which gives the Raven Guard a certain amount of prestige.
In my opinion, Phobos completely ruins that prestige; in trying to make a tactikewl faction to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd, GW released something not only illogical (complete with a big dumb stealth mech) but also undermines a characteristic of a well known chapter.
It would be like if everyone started fielding Death Company; Blood Angels wouldn't be so special now, would they?

Well, the Raptors Chapter existed long before Phobos did, as well as 30k Recon teams. If we're going to complain about tacticool Marines being bad or taking away from the Raven Guard, we ought to levy it in the right place.

Weren't they a Raven Guard successor though? Successor chapters take after their progenitors, don't they?

mrFickle wrote:
Isn’t the crux terminatus some sort of force field?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be fair though with all the resources of the imperium you could probably equip a thousand SM with lascannons with no issue.

It would just be a boring story, probably.

The crux itself is not no, it’s just a badge with a sliver of the Emperor’s armour.

The confusion comes from the 3rd Ed Chapter Approved article that first granted them an invulnerable save being named ‘Crux Terminatus’, but the article itself just said it was because the armour was legendarily thick rather than due to a force field.

The issue was that they changed from 3+ on 2D6 in 2nd to 2+ in 3rd to simplify things, but then the designers decided they were being killed to easily by banshees and the like so added the 5++.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Vatsetis wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Vatsetis wrote:

Why would they bother fighting you in a house though? They'd just blow it up. It is bloody hilarious though imagining a bunch of marines trying to storm a bunker, come across a tiny door and go "awww dammit. Brother Titus get out the lube, this one is going to be a squeeze."

Yes it is hilarious and it is what would happen most of the time in universe. Why do human size enemies of the Spacemarines need to build their defences complexes in a scale that allows the SM to traverse their instalations with ease?

Space Marines as currently depicted by cannon arent unable to fight in 90% of the surface in human made instalations of a hivecity, spaceship or industrial complex... because of their stupidly big size, weight and footprint.

A Scion unit or an Assassin can do it without any problem.

Woa... Its very practical and "steallthy" to use a ton of bolter ammo or half a dozen of lascanon shoots just to reduce a small house into rubble... if instead of a detached building I live in an apartment block, would they call a battle barge to launch a planetary bombardement to tackle with me?

If SM exist only to mark the position for big guns, the Ratlings are the best SM in the galaxy.

SM are a joke outside Bolter Porn.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
To me, Raven guard being stealth specialists were more of an exception rather than a rule, to give them an idea just how skilled they are at stealth. You'd have to be pretty damned skilled to sneak in power armor, which gives the Raven Guard a certain amount of prestige.
In my opinion, Phobos completely ruins that prestige; in trying to make a tactikewl faction to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd, GW released something not only illogical (complete with a big dumb stealth mech) but also undermines a characteristic of a well known chapter.
It would be like if everyone started fielding Death Company; Blood Angels wouldn't be so special now, would they?

Well, the Raptors Chapter existed long before Phobos did, as well as 30k Recon teams. If we're going to complain about tacticool Marines being bad or taking away from the Raven Guard, we ought to levy it in the right place.

Weren't they a Raven Guard successor though? Successor chapters take after their progenitors, don't they?

A Raven Guard successor, yes, but not all Raven Guard successors (or even all successors) take after their forebears - after all, the Carcharadons aren't exactly much like their ancestors.

All I'm saying is that tacticool didn't start with Primaris.

Plus the Raptors are more special forces than just plain stealth like the Raven Guard.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I imagine Space Marines don't have refractor fields because any weapon weak enough to be stopped by a refractor field is weak enough to be stopped by the armour. Of course, on tabletop it doesn't work like that due to the divergence of armour and invulnerable saves.

Space Marines in canon are a whole other discussion to themselves.
I like to imagine them as shock assault troops. They can get away without camouflage because their operational tempo and intense armour renders it redundant.
This is undermined by the existence of factions like Raven Guard or Phobos in general, but such is life.

But it could stop something like a lascannon, krak missile, etc. Whereas typically power armour cannot.

I don't view refractor fields like that (flat chance to stop anything, that's just how they're depicted in games to give them an interesting gameplay distinction from armour.

I view them more like shields in video games. They're a regenerating layer of defence but they're not random, they stop a predictable level of firepower.

So a refractor field might reliably turn away a bolt round, but a lascannon will easily just overload it and blow through.

Err, no mate.

A Refractor Shield is not just anti-frag armor with a different name.

I mean, the biggest issue here is conflating game with background.
Platoon Commanders needed Refractor Fields so they wouldn't be utterly worthless in game, they still are but that's besides the point.
In novels, Refractor Fields are super rare and not handed out to every PC in the Guard. And as defence, a RF will keep the bearer safe from small arms but heavy weapons with high rate of fire or damage output will overload the shield and shut it down just like Void Shields.

Lexicanum says a refractor field is useful against plasma guns and lasscannons.

In short, lowly Guard officers shouldn't get invulnerable saves.

Also all my worlds spaceships have corridors too small for Primaris marines, making us untouchable!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Vatsetis wrote:I really wish I was joking, but is the plain truth... the doorway of my room is 70cm wide and 200cm high, a basic tactical Space Marine would have to crawl to get through and a Primaris will get stuck in it. I really doubt that my staircase will be able to put up with the 500kg plus with the high ground pressure of their combat boots without collapsing when the Marine comes storming upwards... so if this SM marine (and we are talking here of the tactical base smaller marine) wanted to engage me in hand to hand combat when Im in the second floor of my home (a regular joes place) the easiest way to do so would be to demolish the hole building. Seems quite a tactical liability to me.

I wasn't aware that the doors, stairs, and rooms of the 41st millennium were built according to 21st century building guidelines.

Facilities and hard ware are always build for most common denominator. Try buyings shoes or sports were when you are a woman over 190cm or a guy who is big, at 16. I have to buy my stuff in the adult section. Small people very tall people all have the problems. And not even the biggest humans are close to the size of an armoured space marine. Termintor armour, has to have some high grade grav plates tech, becuase with the weight it has, a running termintor suddenly stopping would start sliding even on hardened ground. And fighting on something like dirt on undergrowth would be totaly out of the question.