Heh...

Post of videogame trailer creates long running exchange about SMs and how they do/n't measure up...

Did you guys enjoy the trailer at least?

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

No. My connection wasn't fast enough to watch it smoothly, and it wouldn't buffer.

What I saw was pretty cool, tho'.

@Hellebore

Cifer, when someone says that a MOVIE version of something is realistic I begin to worry. Is the movie version of a police officer the real one? All cops are John Maclane?

Ah, you mean realistic in the sense of "are these guys comparable to your everyday super soldier that you can presently meet at every corner"? I prefer the "do they make sense in the context of the rest of the setting? Can I suspend my disbelief?" version. And in this way, it's easier for me to accept that the Imperium would support a million (that's less than individual nations of our Earth have, by the way) expensive and partially insubordinate soldiers whose armaments are a horror for their supply chain if they get an appropriate amount of oomph out of them. Space Marines as implemented in the TT are a joke and wouldn't ever be considered militarily efficient or even just notable.

The fact it was the 'movie marine' list alone tells you it's not 'realistic'. It had stunt doubles as upgrades and a COOL DUDE MARINE as a unit choice. Last time I checked space marines don't drag stunt doubles around with them or have a rank called 'cool dude' or whatever the hell it was called.

Of course it was rather light-hearted - but that's true for the entire 40k universe. Last time I checked Necrons weren't in the habit of saying "I'll be back" either.

The space marine stats in that list were also bollocks. S6 T6? Space marines ARE NOT as strong or tough as a Hive Tyrant not matter how many times fans whack off in an attempt to make it so.

Why not? The technology for creating space marines was developed by the Emperor who likely had access to most of the DAoT-tech, representing 23 millenia (that's about 12 times the time from the carpenter of Nazareth until now) of nearly unbroken technological advance. Considering what we managed to develop in that time and what improvements to the human form are almost within reach today (or a few hundred years from today), are you telling me it's not possible?

Cifer said:

I think it is, because if the humans can achieve it then it's a pretty poor tyranid norn queen that can't get the same muscle density. And the necron's... they have been around for millions of years have obtained technologies far beyond human dreams.

You see I'm with Hellebore on this.

You see, what Space Marine o'philes forget is that space marines are strongest, toughest, quickest things in the galaxy. Just the strongest, toughest, quickest they can make a human. And they have to be to face the countless horrors that the rest of the universe throws at them. For every squad of marines that killed a bazillion heretics there's an equal number of marines that get hit by that renegade artillery, get vaporised by a d cannon from a wraithguard, get hewn in twain by a deamon.

You could you could give all space marines stats of 8 in the TT if you want. But all genestealers, necrons are going to need the same stats (but faster or slower) and tyranid warriors will be stronger, aspect warriors will be more skilled.

Yeah movie marines are not that realistic. It puts a better gap between them and normal humans but brings them too close to other things.

The problem is that the whole lower end is crowded trying to represent too many things and the higher end stuff is too weak because they havn't used the top end of the stat lines. To fix it would require a whole rewrite of all of the codexs so it wont happen but the first step is to take the C'tan out of normal 40K because with them at the top it essentially blocks a whole load of units from approaching their proper power levels (since none of them should be able to go toe to toe with a god). Rumours are that this is what they are doing in the new Necron book and the models are going to represent Necron Lords who basically have a massive god complex and have had themselves necrodermis bodies fationed that look like C'tan.

Oh yeah and I liked the trailer.

On the subject of TT Space Marines,

Of course giving them 8s everywhere would put them too close to the big demons and necrons and the likes.

But, the current stats put them way too close to an average human soldier and it doesn't make sense. With everything the Imperium puts into them, even if tey aren't going to be one man armies like we see in the books, they sur as hell are going to be able to crack some nuts.

The way I see it, Space Marines are kinda like special ops. You rarely if ever put them in line in front of the ennemy. You send them to capture specific objectives or to kill specific huge ass monsters/warboss/demons/communication system. You send them to critical locations where victory is not an option. Fighting the whole army is the Imperial Guard's Job and they're good at it.

But, TT isn't like that. It needs balanced armies with numbers of units that wont turn the players away. I guess somewhere halfway between Fluff and TT would be best.

Out of curiosity...

What's wrong with a slightly powered down version of Agamorr from Shades on Twilight?

Kaihlik said:

Noo! I like my C'Tan!

Especially because my Nightbringer once achieved one of the most epic crowning moments of awesome of all time. He went, HEAD TO HEAD... With a friggin Tyranid Hierophant Biotitan when we played an Apocalypse match. AND he managed to destroy the beast ALONE!

Sure, the Nightbringer died whilst doing it (in fact it was his "self-destruct" necrodremis power that took the last wound from the Biotitan), but still. Nightbringer vs Biotitan. That means normal 40K-model killing an Apocalypse only model. THAT MEANS 360 pts taking out about 1300 something pts, single handedly!

If that isnt godlike, then i dont know what is. And yes I felt extremely, ridiculuously proud and giddy when it happened.

(another plus was the fact that I won the battle, but at that moment I couldnt really care much about winning or losing. When one of your miniatures can add a Hierophant biotitans head to their trophy-rack, you have not just won "morally" you have spanked your opponents silly! )

Zarkhovian_Rhythm said:

Am I the only person who thinks that Agamorr is not tough enough? He doesn't even have Dodge (not to mention a load of other skills a Deathwatch marine should have, like, say Forbidden Lore (Xenos)). Hell, the DARK ELDAR in that scenario don't have Dodge.

The Dark Eldar raiders can't touch him (unless you give them RF, as I do all my NPCs for just this reason), but the army of Warp Beasts should slaughter him if you play the combat out. Their Warp Weapon attacks ignore his power armor.

Well the C'tan were also rumoured to be becoming 1500pt Apocalypse datasheets all on their own, reflects their status as gods a bit better dont you think .

@ Slime: You are right they aren't accurate to fluff by a long shot for the reasons I already pointed out, the bottom end is too crowded but also because makeing them accurate to fluff would reduce the models in your army which GW is obviously not in a hurry to do. All of the armies would need a rewrite to make space marines more accuarate as you have to create some space my making everything that should be better than a marine more powerful. This would take much more resources than a stuggling GW currently has and since it would result in the sale of less marine models which are by far their biggest seller I dont see them rushing to make marines fit the fluff on the tabletop.

Its not really a problem, most people dont mind too much and would rather have 40 marines in thier army to make it look nice than 15.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Not necessarily. The TT mechanics aren't a more legitimate source of info than any particular novel, game, WD article or throwaway piece of fluff. In fact, IMO the TT stats are an inherantly flawed source of information for 40k. A piece of fluff can, theoretically, depict a SM or a Hive Tyrant correctly. The TT stats are limited by mechanical and game balance issues.

Let us assume for a second that the fluff is correct and that a SM can shrug off las shots and eat Ogryns for breakfast. Say we try to reflect that on the TT with a S and T of 6. As has been pointed out, that would put him into the same league as some of the nastier 'nid-spawn. So, we compensate by upping the 'nids to S and T of 8. Of couse, that means we have to up the greater 'nids and daemons... etc etc. Pretty soon your looking at Greater Daemons with stats approaching 20. Which becomes a problem when your a chaos player and your buddy has a guard army.

No, SMs shouldn't be arm-wrestling Hive Tyrants. But the fact is that the TT stats don't reflect the SMs as portrayed in the entirety of the fluff. While some of that fluff may be OTT, I think the stats presented in sources like DH and Inquisitor hit the right spot... not that they don't have some problems of their own.