So you may be familiar with my work in producing rulesets for fielding characters of various races and factions using Only War rules and normally I would just go ahead and write up a ruleset if I wanted to but;

Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines.

Given there are already official rulesets for these, and the intended scale is radically different, I wanted to know the community's feelings on producing Only War rules for them, and if people would like them nerfed as has been done with other races, or maintain the Movie Marines feel?

Also, if you are for Marine rulesets, how do you think Comrades should be handled?

Go for it! There's no reason for why there shouldn't be more alternative rules.

Personally, I prefer the more gritty, down-to-earth version of Astartes to stay closer to the mechanical and narrative balance in the tabletop, but if you do not aim for a unified ruleset and mixed parties, you could just as well go for a more streamlined Movie Marines approach, for I have a feeling most players not interested in mixed groups would prefer that.

I'm pretty sure you will find some people who like it regardless of which way you go, though!

Also, if you are for Marine rulesets, how do you think Comrades should be handled?

If you'd base your ruleset around Black Templars, Comrades would be an ideal way for including Neophytes.

For a more general approach, I'm afraid other Marines would be the only way to use this feature. On the upside, you could use them to balance "normal" Marines to more prestigious and/or powerful archetypes like Librarians, Chaplains and Captains.

Or just leave it out. It's not like Comrades are a must-have thing just because you're basing your rules on OW.

I like your thinking. Let's see what others have to say.

I don't even use comrades in OW normally, and I don't see what they would add to an already overpowered superhuman soldier.

Comrades would (or should) be the equivalent of DW/BC followers or minions - probably usually chapter serfs, but sometimes the chapter-specific critters, like for a Space Wolf, a Fenrisian Wolf, could also be a neophyte/apprentice. There would, of necessity, be a wider diversity of what they can do, and more detail on the 'comrade' than OW has.

Perhaps there should be an option where you can trade having a comrade for some other ability/benefit, at least, for those specializations that allow/grant comrades. Not everyone who can have one is going to want a comrade.

That said, trying to balance the Astartes rules subset with the regular humans is going to be complicated at best. Astartes are, by default, superior to most regular humans in many ways, and then they get better gear and better access to better gear.

If this were for DH 1, I'd've said do up to the full-Astartes level in xp, as a neophyte, then for the transition to the ascension/full-astartes level graduate to full-astartes.

I'm not sure how you can have Astartes be Astartes, and remain balanced with regular humans without problems. One way to maybe do it is to specifically say that the Astartes are brand-new/young Astartes, and so have little or no real world experience, and so have no 'skills'(advances) beyond that which their basic training has provided them; and any regular humans they get assigned to work with on an ongoing basis are going to be proven veterans with a fair amount of experience and have a higher equipment budget, so to speak, because they've been assigned to work with Astartes. Because, let's face it - an Astartes that isn't brand-new/very young, is going to, or should, have more experiences and 'skills'(advances) picked up than the starting Astartes, and is probably older and more experienced than regular humans, yet with most of the ways to balance them - usually by giving the human more XP to work with - the regular human will have a significant versatility advantage, yet is probably younger and less experienced.

Perhaps there should be an option where you can trade having a comrade for some other ability/benefit, at least, for those specializations that allow/grant comrades. Not everyone who can have one is going to want a comrade.

Yeah. Alternative benefits are a good idea - the main problem I see with followers and minions is that, depending on your interpretation of the setting, they'd often just end up looking really odd, regardless of whether you have Marines from a mixed background or if they're all from the same Chapter. The latter would actually be worse, but this is what I think OP is gunning for.

For example, whilst a single Fenrisian wolf would be a cool, unique asset for a Space Wolf, once you have a squad of five Marines accompanied by five dogs, your party suddenly starts to look more like a K-9 unit. Likewise, personally I just don't see how a squad of ordinary Marines would hang out with their Chapter serfs on the battlefield, excepting some very obscure tradition of some single Chapter somewhere.

It would be easy if the ruleset was geared towards a specific Marine Chapter as then you could make sure that everything fits its innate culture. But a "one size fits all" mechanic like this will be much more difficult.

That said, trying to balance the Astartes rules subset with the regular humans is going to be complicated at best. Astartes are, by default, superior to most regular humans in many ways, and then they get better gear and better access to better gear.

Technically, OP could just ditch FFG's whole "Marines get better gear than the Inquisition" silliness and opt for what it says in GW's books. As he is writing his own adaption, he is not bound by FFG's rules or their version of the fluff.

(fun fact: the Deathwatch was originally invented because Games Workshop wanted a way to mix Marines with regular humans)

However, as far as I understood SgtLazarus, he's not even trying to make a ruleset for mixed parties (right?), in which case this would be a non-issue anyways.

Perhaps there should be an option where you can trade having a comrade for some other ability/benefit, at least, for those specializations that allow/grant comrades. Not everyone who can have one is going to want a comrade.

Yeah. Alternative benefits are a good idea - the main problem I see with followers and minions is that, depending on your interpretation of the setting, they'd often just end up looking really odd, regardless of whether you have Marines from a mixed background or if they're all from the same Chapter. The latter would actually be worse, but this is what I think OP is gunning for.

For example, whilst a single Fenrisian wolf would be a cool, unique asset for a Space Wolf, once you have a squad of five Marines accompanied by five dogs, your party suddenly starts to look more like a K-9 unit. Likewise, personally I just don't see how a squad of ordinary Marines would hang out with their Chapter serfs on the battlefield, excepting some very obscure tradition of some single Chapter somewhere.

It would be easy if the ruleset was geared towards a specific Marine Chapter as then you could make sure that everything fits its innate culture. But a "one size fits all" mechanic like this will be much more difficult.

Very true. I think most Chapter serf comrades would have to be employed as support/background - ie, caring for equipment when not on-mission, or attending to vehicles - which was one of their original roles. Most 'comrades' would likely need to be chapter-specific entities (ie, Fenrisian Wolves, Watchers of Caliban, can't actually name any others) or neophytes/apprentices that the PC is instructing, or servitors in the case of tech-marines.

Or, and perhaps preferably, swapped for some alternative feature/benefit. And an alternative feature/benefit to a Comrade is something FFG dropped the ball on with OW. Of course, Comrades are probably one of the weaker spots in the OW ruleset.

I think it'd have to be like the original OW char creation/regiment system - everyone's from the same regiment/chapter. No mixing chapters. If we wanted to do that, that's what DW is for. Besides Chapters don't normally get combined anyways - though I could maybe see some mixed chapter operations among familial chapters, especially amongst the Unforgiven - and that's probably where there's the most inter-chapter activity outside the DW.

That said, trying to balance the Astartes rules subset with the regular humans is going to be complicated at best. Astartes are, by default, superior to most regular humans in many ways, and then they get better gear and better access to better gear.

Technically, OP could just ditch FFG's whole "Marines get better gear than the Inquisition" silliness and opt for what it says in GW's books. As he is writing his own adaption, he is not bound by FFG's rules or their version of the fluff.

(fun fact: the Deathwatch was originally invented because Games Workshop wanted a way to mix Marines with regular humans)

However, as far as I understood SgtLazarus, he's not even trying to make a ruleset for mixed parties (right?), in which case this would be a non-issue anyways.

Better gear than the Inquisition? Not usually, at least, not for the upper ranks of the Inquisition - though the lower-level assets are probably not as lavishly supplied.

Better gear than most Guard units? Most assuredly.

Anyways, the point is, mixing Guard and Astartes in a remotely balanced way is probably going to be too complicated to be worth the effort - besides, unless they're tankers, operating other vehicles, and/or are heavy weapons teams, the Guardsmen aren't really going to add all that much to some Astartes when at the party level/numbers.

@cpteveros

If you don't use comrades then you probably don't know just how useful an asset they can be, especially when treated as more than an extension of your character sheet - and though they can be a logistical nightmare to transport, they often prove to be well worth the cost.

@javcs

On the subject of comrades, I'm inclined to believe that a better way to handle it for Astartes will instead to be to give class specific advantages - similar to those used by Stormtroopers in the base game, as an example - which they can spend XP to acquire. However, junior marines serving as Comrades is not beyond the realms of possibility.

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After having some discussion with my group, they are slightly torn. Some of them prefer the Movie Marines archetype, suited to the glorious fluff propaganda they are given, while others - myself included - feel that something more akin to the Tabletop Wargame would be more appropriate, where Marines are tough as nails sure, and have the best armour, but anyone who comes properly equipped for the job (i.e. packing plasma guns) probably won't have too hard a time killing them.

I like the idea that marines are superhuman, but there're limitations on how far "superhuman" can actually go. In the tabletop, my Imperial Guard army can stand up to space marines because of the sheer amount of special weapons I bring to the table. Sure the regular flashlights do nothing, but when you start bringing hotshots and plasma to the table, Marines go down.

One of my group argues that the tabletop game is the way it is because of game balance, so I'd be inclined to argue a touch, why is game balance not applicable in a game, even if it is a roleplay game?

Meanwhile FFG has very much gone for the whole "Space Marines are indestructible, and because they're members of the Deathwatch they all get obscene gear". Even the Chaos Marines in Black Crusade are ridiculously hard to kill at times, and they got a substantial nerf down from their DW counterparts.

In the tabletop, Space Marines are running in the 4s for most stats pretty much across the board, and don't actually have twice as many wounds as your typical guardsman, they still only have one.

I was thinking maybe we could gun for something a little in the middle. Let them retain some of their fluffy toughness, whilst bringing down the crunch a little so that while Space Marines are tough, they're not so horrendously durable.

At current, your typical Space Marine player character has 4 and 5s across the board, with TB and SB being 8+ as a minimum, generally, and various other benefits that allow a space marine to essentially take on so many times it's own number, not to mention that a Space Marine in melee is going to reduce your tank to a smoking wreck if they're packing any power weapon - possibly even a chainsword, when I consider that my Deathwatch Assault Marine was dealing 1d10 + 16 tearing with his astartes chainswords, that's going right through the back of a Chimera.

I like the potential idea of, perhaps, making the universal rules just give the Marines advances, and the Chapter rules (Origins/homeworlds) giving access to comrades that have various effects.

I'm not saying space Marines should all be guardsman level, hell no - they're far superior to that, but I am thinking that I wouldn't be so leery of including marines in mixed games if they weren't so ridiculous already.

The ruleset would predominantly be for fielding Tactical Squads of Marines fighting for their chapters across the galaxy. Not Deathwatch Killteams, or even lone marines operating in groups of humans. However, I like to give people options. I've tried to structure all my racial rulesets in such a way that if a group wishes to play with mixed races (Such as Tau with Gue'vesa allies), then they are more than welcome to do so.

I was considering reducing them by 5 points across the board, possibly, though the +30 is reasonably accurate to their actual capabilities. What doesn't sit quite right with me is the stats on their equipment (have you seen the damage on a Godwyn pattern lol?) and the Unnatural stats they get that elevate them so above and beyond what they're capable of on the tabletop.

Maybe halfing their unnatural benefits would be a good start. I'm open to thoughts and suggestions.

Try this . It is gritty, but it balances marines alright, at least for black crusade.

I'm afraid that's somewhat removed from what I was aiming for, I still want Space Marines to be pretty tough and hardy, just not as much so as they currently are. Thank you for taking the time to link it though.

They sure are with those rules, shrugging off small arms fire and anything short of power weapons with armour and toughness soak.

Except no silly helmetlessness or carrying on after meltagun to the head.

I think it'd have to be like the original OW char creation/regiment system - everyone's from the same regiment/chapter. No mixing chapters. If we wanted to do that, that's what DW is for.

Yeah, I think the same.

Ah, it was just a jab at Dark Heresy's core rulebook containing sentences about any bolters not made for Marines being "civilian versions", or how Ordo Malleus' Terminator Armour, for some inexplicable reason, has less AP than the Marine one. I just can't get over how readily cross-game compatibility was sacrificed here, not to mention how it makes anything but Marines look like unimportant extras.

When I contemplated a ruleset for mixed groups, my idea for the Imperial Guard was to make characters squad leaders and give them a bunch of NPCs to serve as meatshields and damage amplifiers. For this thread, too, I was thinking more about Inquisitors and other "high-powered" humans rather than the average IG grunt.

One of my group argues that the tabletop game is the way it is because of game balance, so I'd be inclined to argue a touch, why is game balance not applicable in a game, even if it is a roleplay game?

It is also notable that GW wrote their fluff to support the tabletop game's rules, not the other way around. If you start looking, you can spot some pretty ignoble defeats in codices and issues White Dwarf, from Marine commanders getting strangled by a bionics-boosted Guard colonel to entire companies getting pwned by PDF.

I think a lot of people such as that one player in your group are just more used to the protagonist bonus they get in Black Library novels and computer games. The downside of an IP where you have a single army hogging 90% of the heroic fiction.

I think "normalising" ranged weapon stats between normal humans and Marines would already do a lot for cross-game compatibility as well as reducing the general OPness. You can even keep Unnatural Strength and Toughness as well as the better melee weapon stats for realism, as in those areas they are supposed to be better. However, just by giving non-Marines the same kind of guns, you'd already allow them to deal an equal amount of ranged damage, and do just as much hurt to a Marine here as another SM could.

The Astartes would retain a huge bonus in terms of melee damage and general toughness, but this could be balanced by giving the other characters specific traits such as a Storm Trooper getting an AP bonus for being in cover. I'd also remove the Black Carapace's -10 penalty to an attacker's BS/WS, because (a) I don't see how this is supposed to help even against attacks you're not aware of and (b) the size modifier makes for a great balancing factor.

Also, as we can see from the Deathwatch "One on one vs a Bloodthirster" thread, the greatest facepalm is the result of stacking that game's talents upon one another, so you should probably cut down on that as well.

If you really want to fiddle with Unnatural stats and resilience, here's two ideas I had in the past:

Get rid of Unnaturals, as they are unrealistic (a human with Strength 55 will beat a Marine with Unnatural Strength 40 in arm-wrestling, provided they both roll the same dice results). Instead lower everyone's characteristics range whilst simultaneously lowering the gap:

• make normal humans start at around ~30
• characteristics advances are 5 x +3, having them cap out at 45
• Marines have Strength and Toughness start at ~50
• these characteristics advances are 5 x +2, making them cap out at 60 (= it gets harder to push your body even further if you're already at the end of what is natural)

This goes far beyond just writing Marine classes for the Only War ruleset, though, as it means fiddling with the game's basic mechanics. Still, I think it should work without requiring modifications to other parts of the game... Just an idea!

I definitely appreciate your suggestions Lynata, though I'm not sure I agree with all of them, they definitely give food for thought.

I don't want to completely rewrite the base mechanics of the core game - that's going a little bit further than I'm comfortable with. I'd much rather just bring the marines down to a more reasonable standard.

In the Tabletop Wargame, the stats for Astartes weapons ARE the same as the Guard weapons stats. Just compared the 6th edition codices for bolt weapons for both.

I'm considering now shaving Space Marines down to 25 + 2d10 compared to the human baseline of 20 + 2d10, with added base characteristic boosts for Strength and Toughness (Maybe 35 + 2d10) to replace Unnatural Strength and Toughness, with Unnatural Strength (2) being a core mechanic of power armour regardless of its wearer. Between that and potentially a unified armoury, that would produce a substantial rebalancing while still allowing marines to retain a significant edge over humans, especially in the fields of strength and toughness which are thematically their thing.

I don't want to completely rewrite the base mechanics of the core game - that's going a little bit further than I'm comfortable with. I'd much rather just bring the marines down to a more reasonable standard.

Hahah, it's okay, I figured as much - just wanted to mention it just in case!

Though the smaller advancements could still work, and they'd allow you to keep a higher starting baseline?

I think your 35+2d10 is a good start, though I'd be a bit worried about the randomness, as 2-20 is a pretty wide gap, with the maximum being fairly close to the fixed 35.

A character who has rolled well could start with 55, which by itself isn't very bad, but could become an issue after a lot of the RAW's +5 advancements made them 75.

Conversely, a character who has rolled poorly could start with a Strength or Toughness very close to or even below that of a human who has rolled well...

Maybe I'm worrying too much, though.

In the Tabletop Wargame, the stats for Astartes weapons ARE the same as the Guard weapons stats. Just compared the 6th edition codices for bolt weapons for both.

This is true for GW's d100 Inquisitor game, too.

http://s29.postimg.org/5rtw441if/bolters.jpg

And even specifically pointed out in some codices.

On average, a character would start with 45 Toughness and Strength, but consider that this would produce a maximum TB of 9 for a long-term Toughness oriented character through XP bought advancements, which is considerably better than a Space Marine that buys maybe two advances and is at TB10-12.

Alternatively could just make it 30 + 2d10. That +5 can make a lot of difference. What do you think?

I'm not so bothered by the thought of a Marine with near-human toughness tbh, surely the process must produce some weaker/slightly defective Marines after all, right?

Idk. Throwing ideas around without wanting to change the existing game mechanics too heavily. Meant more as an addon, than a rewrite.

Current proposed list of specialisations;

Basic;

Assault
Devastator
Sergeant
Weapon Specialist
Operator

Support

Scout
Librarian
Techmarine
Apothecary
Chaplain

Advanced

Captain
Champion
Honour Guard
Dreadnought (+ Librarian Dreadnought variant)

Could you please make a list of aptitudes for each of those specialties?

Well, no. Not yet. I haven't started developing them properly. I was hoping to get an element of community "buy-in" to go ahead with the project, given the fact that Deathwatch and Black Crusade exist. I'm also hoping people will point out if I missed any concepts that I should try to work in before I go ahead writing the mechanics up.

I'd just like to see deathwatch marines without solo/squad mechanics, without ranks but with aptitudes and using superior combat mechanics from BC onwards.

The rest, like balancing humans and marines, is both optional (some like marines being juggernaughts) and can be done by individual group since it could be tackled in multiple ways.

I'm sure something like that would be the result here. The goog thing about P&P is that we can just take what we like and change the rest, regardless of whether it's an official publication or a fanmade thing.

In terms of aptitudes, I think what I'd suggest is to keep them mostly uniform (to reflect their shared heritage in terms of homeworld and Chapter culture as well as training), but attach a single job-specific aptitude to each specialisation?

• Strength
• Toughness
• Willpower

• Social

• Agility (example: White Scars and successors)
• Fellowship (example: Ultramarines and successors)
• Fieldcraft (example: Raven Guard and successors)
• Finesse (example: Blood Angels and successors)
• Offence (example: Imperial Fists and successors)
• Perception (example: Space Wolves)

• Assault : Weapon Skill
• Devastator : Ballistic Skill
• Tactical : Defence
• Officer : Leadership
• Apothecary : Intelligence
• Chaplain : Knowledge
• Librarian : Psyker
• Techmarine : Tech

30+2d10 sounds good, if you want to stick to the default +2d10 of the RAW.

I still think lowering the advancements from +5 to +3 would have multiple beneficial effects, tho!

I'm not so bothered by the thought of a Marine with near-human toughness tbh, surely the process must produce some weaker/slightly defective Marines after all, right?

There's even fluff for that.

In my mind, the gap between normal humans and Space Marines is not as vast as some interpretations including the DW RPG make it out to be - after all, they don't suddenly become a different species but are "merely" augmented. Ogryns, another human mutation, are tougher and stronger yet! That said, I'd still avoid the risk of an overlap between ordinary (non-augmented) humans and Space Marines in those two characteristics. The Astartes being stronger and tougher is an important aspect of their faction design, and normal humans surpassing them would feel similarly odd as random people suddenly starting to copy the Battle Sisters' Acts of Faith (oh, wait ... ).

Social could be both chaplains aptitude or wolves/salamanders aptitude.

Since it is usually at least 7 aptitudes per character in OW/DH, I'd say 1 chapter-based, 2 space marine common (S and T, no Willpower aptitude for a flesh tearer), 3 specialty-based, 1 chosen at will by the player.

Granted, perhaps I've allowed myself to be misled by the term "social", because I don't think Marines - SW and Salamanders included - are very social at all outside their own organisation.

But given how in the rules, this is just a name that leads to some interaction-based Skills and Talents, some of which make perfect sense even for Astartes, maybe this reservation should just be replaced with a penalty on certain tests.

The "7 aptitudes per character" is a good point, and one which makes things quite a bit more difficult. With there only being 18 aptitudes at all, everyone having half of them brings a bit of a risk of increased sameness, sacrificing a more obvious specialisation. With the list suggested by me, people would have to spend more XP overall, but this could be countered simply by increased XP gain?

You do present a good alternative closer to the RAW model, though, as well as a good example for why Willpower doesn't really fit to every Space Marine.

Thanks, guys, but I won't be using that model.

Planning to go with 1 chapter and 5 or 6 class. Currently a WIP now in the House Rules section. If your chapter one overlaps with a class one, then you'll get to pick one.

Of course you are quite welcome to write your own if you'd prefer to.

P.S. I know where this "marines are aloof kill-machines incapable of normal interactions with humans" idea comes from. If you ask me, it's just the same thing as "marines are superhuman uberwarriors and humans, no matter the skill, don't even come close", over-the-top stereotypes. And while the latter can easily and bloodily be fixed with homerules, the former is up to players to play straight or not.

Absolutely; as with most things in 40k, it's all a matter of interpretations! Case in point: some people look at the Salamanders and say they're best buddies with the normal villagers, others see them as oppressive overlords who have chosen to usurp leadership roles instead of letting the humans live on their own. It all depends on how you read the material - and sometimes which material.

Regarding classes:

If you ask me, I'd cut it down to the aforementioned eight rather than keeping stuff like Sergeants and Captains separate, both to streamline things as well as to represent the Astartes being more versatile and thus featuring far fewer specialists than the Guard. In this, the Chaplain's idea is already fairly close to mine. Ultimately, I think Captains should just be Sergeants who have reached a certain XP threshold and/or point in the campaign.

I'm just not sure if I'd throw in Scouts, given the difference in resilience that a full suit of power armour can make compared to just a carapace breastplate ... although it would be fun to allow "Scout campaigns" where everyone plays a younger character as a sort of prelude, or as an alternative to standard Marine adventures.

Would it be possible to come up with a system where players can "progress" from Scout into one of the other classes? Perhaps by giving them only the Marine-based aptitudes, but nothing for the class itself? Granted, it feels a bit wrong to have Scouts not have get aptitudes for stuff like Fieldcraft, but I find it even more wrong if characters would just lose it when they change jobs. In this sense, perhaps those aptitudes would be reserved for veterans who remain Scouts, such as Telion.

I think that also suits better to what aptitudes are supposed to represent. After all, every Marine is a Scout at some point, regardless of whether or not they're actually good at it.