I realized there was something that really bothers me about space marine stats in Deathwatch. I always figured most of the stories about how tough space marines are were exaggerations and propaganda. Certainly they are the finest warriors the Imperium has to offer, but in table top they aren't that much better than an imperial guardsmen. The implants give them better stats, +1 overall (+10 for the RPG). They have the best armor, 8 AV seems about right compared to imperial guard 4 AV flak. I personally probably wouldn't have put Unnatural Strength and Toughness into the game at all, but they've been fairly liberal about giving those to aliens (orks, eldar, genestealers, etc), so I can accept that more easily.

On the other hand, what is with the "astartes" boltgun (and other "just better" wargear)? I know I haven't played TT since 2E, but I doubt the boltgun stats have changed that much. A lasgun was S3 with no armor pen, which translates nicely to 1D10+3, 0 pen. A boltgun was a bit better, S4 with some pen (-1?), which translates nicely in Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader to 1D10+4, pen 4. So why are the "astartes" boltguns so much better? If I recall from the tabletop game, there was only one type of boltgun. Nobody else uses them. The "standard" boltgun is the "astartes" boltgun because that's the only kind there is. Boltguns are the weapons created by the imperium for space marines. They don't build a cheaper kind for normal people, they gave those guys lasguns. Eldar have their shuriken catapults, etc. As it is, the "astartes" boltgun is almost as powerful as the "normal" heavy bolter.

It just doesn't feel right to me. I know most of the fans will disagree, but I would have actually preferred a game closer to Rogue Trader in power level. Space Marines don't have to be demigods to be fun.

I'll still enjoy the game, and it is overall well done. Someday I'd like to see an expansion that let's you play the earlier years of a space marine, starting as a scout and working up through the basic ranks.

I realized there was something that really bothers me about space marine stats in Deathwatch. I always figured most of the stories about how tough space marines are were exaggerations and propaganda. Certainly they are the finest warriors the Imperium has to offer, but in table top they aren't that much better than an imperial guardsmen. The implants give them better stats, +1 overall (+10 for the RPG). They have the best armor, 8 AV seems about right compared to imperial guard 4 AV flak. I personally probably wouldn't have put Unnatural Strength and Toughness into the game at all, but they've been fairly liberal about giving those to aliens (orks, eldar, genestealers, etc), so I can accept that more easily.

You're making a mistake here - +1 in the TT is not +10 in RPG. Consider this: What chance does an RPG character have to make a strength test when he's got 50 strength? And what chance has a TT model to make it with 5?

On the other hand, what is with the "astartes" boltgun (and other "just better" wargear)? I know I haven't played TT since 2E, but I doubt the boltgun stats have changed that much. A lasgun was S3 with no armor pen, which translates nicely to 1D10+3, 0 pen. A boltgun was a bit better, S4 with some pen (-1?), which translates nicely in Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader to 1D10+4, pen 4. So why are the "astartes" boltguns so much better? If I recall from the tabletop game, there was only one type of boltgun. Nobody else uses them. The "standard" boltgun is the "astartes" boltgun because that's the only kind there is. Boltguns are the weapons created by the imperium for space marines. They don't build a cheaper kind for normal people, they gave those guys lasguns. Eldar have their shuriken catapults, etc. As it is, the "astartes" boltgun is almost as powerful as the "normal" heavy bolter.

Your comparison is flawed for two reasons: Firstly, the scales are way off. A TT boltgun (strength 4) has a chance of 2/3 to incapacitate a normal trained human while a lasgun has a chance of 1/2. That's certainly not represented by a single point of damage.

Secondly, there are more boltgun users - Commissars and a few other guys from the guard are equipped with them, as are most Sororitas (though let's please not talk about them). Now, if you have a boltgun model a mere "mortal" can use - does it make sense to issue the very same model to your genetically modified supersoldier in his power armour?

As for the question of how powerful a Space Marine has to be... ask yourself the question of his cost/gain relationship. For the amount of surgery, gene tampering, hypno-doctrination, the cost and horrible logistics of their armaments, the Imperium could probably get a platoon of guardsmen, if not far more - and those don't have a tendency to just not fight in a war because it isn't honourable enough. So either Space Marines aren't actually all that important and they were already dissolved a long time ago... or they're somehow worth all those disadvantages. The latter case leads to the "demi-god" (though I personally wouldn't call them that) Marines of Deathwatch.

1 TT point should equate a range of between 6-21% in the RPG (in actual terms, the average percentage change of BS 3 to BS 4 (and comparative characterisitcs) is 16.666666% infinite) and for damage that would largely depend on how you interpret wounds. If the average 1 wound model is represented as 8+1D5 wounds, then yes 1D10+3 and up to 1D10+5 seem adequate for a S3 attack, but Toughness works different in the two games, so you must take that into account.

I have to agree with the thought that AP 8 armour would have been fine for DW Space Marines (all areas) and am content with US and UT being applied. The scale becomes fuzzy though as you add in this modifiers and degrees of super human ability. When it comes down to it you want to have your average space marine able to wound your average space marine, and 1D10+5 is not going ot cut that even with PEN 4. So you get the 2D10+5 damage bolters for astartes.

In the end you have to give up some of the truths of the novels, some of the truths of the video games and some of the truths of the table top game to have the RPG function.

Which is why Dark Heresy is probably the safest, closest to the Table Top version to play, in my humble opinion.

Yes, I know the conversion rate isn't exactly +1 to +10, but it works fairly well for "lower" stat levels. A Dark Heresy Guardsman has a base 30 to for all stats, a DW marine has a base 40. This pretty much matches their TT stats x10.

The bolter's increased killing potential is already included with the armor penetration (which ignores imperial guard flak, ork flak, eldar mesh, etc) and the tearing trait. As it is a lasgun can't even damage a space marine without righteous fury.

I can see marine bolters being a little better than a regular bolter. But a marine bolter in DW is better than a "regular" heavy bolter. Ok, so there are more guys with bolt guns in table top than I remember. They still all have the same stats in TT. Space marines getting "best-crafted" boltguns makes more sense than getting guns that are just twice as powerful.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I am coming to appreciate Dark Heresy more and more. It really is a fantastic game.

I'm guessing you are not a Marine fan.

I suspect Deathwatches Marines may prove to be an unhappy medium - not as awesome as a Marine fanboy would hope, not as naff as Marine haters would like.

AluminiumWolf said:

That's funny, I own 100 raptor legion marines from back when I did play tabletop. Plenty of them died to normal gun fire back when I played. I'm just a fan from before there were novels. I love Space Hulk, but even in awesome terminator armor they still die if a genestealer gets too close. I can still be a fan and not think that they need to be 10x as powerful as a normal guardsman, just a notch above normal humanity. I just prefer to have a bit of a challenge, instead of easily destroying armies with a 5 man kill-team.

I can still be a fan and not think that they need to be 10x as powerful as a normal guardsman, just a notch above normal humanity.

Then answer me: What's the point in having them for the Imperium if they're just a little bit better when they cost quite a bit more than ten guardsmen?

Cifer said:

Lots of reasons. Why do we spend millions of dollars on a jet fighter when we can just hire a lot more army soldiers for cheaper?

Mostly because Marines are brainwashed to be super loyal. Thus, when an uppity planetary governor tries to defect the imperial guardsmen under his command are still no match for the more heavily armored space marines. As I mentioned before, the Dark Heresy stats for a boltgun (1D10+5 Pen 4) easily tears through Imperial guard armor where a lasgun (1D10+3 Pen 0) needs a 10 to even scratch a normal marine (or actually can't if they aren't allowed righteous fury with a marines TB of 8.)

Also, matters of economics don't matter nearly so much when the marines operate outside the normal economy. The emperor says their should be marines, it will be made so. When they are what guarantees your hold on power, no price is too high.

Just for contrast, when I play my character is going to be a chainsword/powersword wielding assault marine. I know that's not as effective as, well, any ranged attack character. I also realize that power axe/chainsword is a better combo, or flamer, or, well, lots of other choices.

Point is an Astartes Power sword or Astartes chainsword is very close to the standard ones from Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader. They are about what I would expect as a "best crafted" powersword. Not the huge increase of power that all the bolt weapons seemed to get.

Most Space Marines will have at least a 40 S, given that the average on 2d10 is an 11. That means they do 1d10+13 Pen 4 with a Chainsword, which is basically the starter melee weapon akin to a basic bolter. The Dark Heresy stats for a bolter are significantly inferior to that. Even the possibility of multiple hits with auto fire would not make up that difference. 2d10 + 5 is still actually lower on average, but at least it's in the same ball park.

Let me ask this....why have the Marine Corps when you can just have the US Army?

The reason is cause they are trained for different missions. The Imperial Guard is the Hammer of the Emperor. The Astartes is His scalpel. With the fact that the galaxy in Warhammer 40k has intelligent fungus that will use it's own dismembered limbs to beat you to death and giant bugs that consume planets because that just what they do.....then you need superhuman soldiers to help you deal with the threats that would get the average human, or even the above average human torn to shreds.

Now what are you going to equip them with? Giant flashlights? Or the best possible wargear this side of the warp? Space Marines are built for war, so you give them the best tools available to fight that war with. You give the Guard the watered down and/or cheap stuff, cause lets face it....the Imperial Guard is there to choke the enemy to death with the bodies of the dead.

We all understand and agree that Space Marines can shoot and kill Space Marines, they can kill Guardsmen, who (if lucky) can kill Space Marines in return.

Now, your generic Space Marine is AP 8, T 40 (80) with 20 wounds. The 'standard' boltgun is 1d10+5, Pen 4.

This means that the 'standard' boltgun has to roll 8+ ((16 - 4) - 5) to inflict a single wound. This means that it would take an awful lot of shooting to remove those 20 wounds and kill that Space Marine, something which happens a lot more easily in the table-top (something like a 50% chance of dying horribly using 2nd Ed... 4+ save, 4+ to wound, only 1 wound).

In comparison, the 'Astartes' boltgun only needs to hit 4+ on each die, much more achievable, and it reduces the "wound sponging" by potentially throwing up to 11 wounds at the target, without triggering Fury.

Unfortunately, generic Guardsman has AP 4, T 35 and 10 wounds.

Either way, he's going to get ripped through with bolter fire, the 'standard' needing only ((7-4) - 5) 8+ to kill the poor guy, as he's automatically wounded by 2 points anyway. The 'Astartes' still needs the magic twin 4+ rolls to have the same killing effect.

But we said that he can kill the Space Marine in return, didn't we? So let's run that.

Lasgun 1d10+3, Pen 0 vs Generic Power Armoured Space Marine AP 8, T 40 (80), 20 wounds.

So... Yeah. Good luck with that Guardsman Dave. You'll need Righteous Fury and a 4+ to wound that monster in front of you.

But what's this? You brought all your friends too? Congratulations Guardsman Dave, you've formed a Horde! You've realised that one-on-one the genetically enhanced superhuman warrior who has known nothing but war for the past one hundred years might just kill you, so you've brought a magnitude 30 platoon to even the odds. Well done!

Horde Lasgun (M30) 3d10+3, Pen 0 vs Generic Power Armoured Space Marine AP 8, T 40 (80), 20 wounds.

Now, they still have to chew through the AP, but given that a lasgun can be deflected by a particularly bad fog, that seems plausible. What does become fun is the 3d10 damage the Horde can throw out. This means they now need to roll only 4+ on two dice and a 5+ on their third to wound the behemoth in front of them. Three 9's let's them kill the smug swine, who would probably just giggle at them before being flashlighted to death.

This is the equivalent of having your Guardsman squad, or platoon (30pts per squad IIRC) shooting at a single Space Marine (300pts per squad last I knew... So 30pts each) in tabletop, something which usually ended the same way.

Space Marines are considered godlike among men. According to the lore a marine can take on 20+ guardsmen and just slaughter them.

Space Marines in the TT are downscaled to fit into the game system. Just have a look at a marine in the Inquisitor TT.

deinol said:

SM are demigods indeed (reed Soul Hunter and Helsreach ) & Astartes bolter differ from standard 'human' bolters that really exist.

moepp said:

Agreed. The TT game makes Power Armor relatively ineffective, for one thing. Another thing is that the scales of the games are soooo far off. Aside from the ridiculously slow rates of fire of weapons in either game (relative to real world weapons), the Marine that is removed in 40K is simply unable to fight. He might be stunned, blinded, or just injured. That same guy will stay around in Deathwatch and fight with one arm if he needs to.

I think that Deathwatch, overall, does a fairly good job of capturing the reality of the 40K fiction, much better, in fact, than the TT game does. I also think that, honestly, the starting Deathwatch marine should be a good bit more skilled and capable than even the game makes him, as these are supposed to be Heroic Space Marines, who have served for years, or possibly even decades, before being seconded to the Deathwatch.

My only quibble is that Toughness is much too important, and armor is much too unimportant. Marines are wearing ceramite armor, with autoreactive shoulder pads, and their base Toughess protects them as much (if not more) than their armor. That's weird. I think, overall, that mechanically it works, but it doesn't pass the taste test for me. I would much prefer a higher armor value, with a chance of penetrating a weak spot at the joints or gorget or lens. However, if I wanted that much detail, I would run Deathwatch in GURPS, and there would be much rejoicing (for all but the GM who would gnash his teeth at the great deal of work required).

Brother-Sergeant Cloten said:

I think this is the disconnect. For me, the table-top is reality. The prime source; it came first. The stories I have always treated as just that, stories. Probably exaggerated, the sort of thing they tell guardsmen to keep them scared. So if you treat fiction > TT, the game works. If you are like me and feel the TT > fiction, then the game feels overpowered.

deinol said:

I believe you're failing to take into account how ridiculously abstracted the TT is to the fluff, were you to have marines bumped up to that level you'd need no more than a squad in a regular game(which they did write a list for, look for the movie marines list)

If you're blazing through sessions with near contemptuous ease then your GM is doing it wrong, very, very, very wrong.

deinol said:

While most of the Codex books are written with the feel of Imperial historians and propagandists(is this even the proper word?) writing them, what you read about marines is pretty spot on for their abilities and combat capability.

DW Space Marine said:

I think you mean 'author avatar', which is better then godlike, as even gods will fall before the almighty plot armor of the Speeese Maaaareeenz.

It's sort of like those 'battle reports' where they played it through five times to get the result they wanted. (when they don't out and out fudge the numbers entirely. I'm still sore about the BFG campiegn for 13th Black Crusade. "We'll just count the Imperial victories a few extra times and put them on different pages of the results. No one will ever actually notice..."

After all, if Failbaddon actually won, wtf would we do to explain it away?

(I suppose they'ed do like they did with Empire in Flames death of Karl Franz and just retcon it the very next year)

As I read the topic , i found this:

Brother-Sergeant Cloten said: Published on 10/6/2010 - 23:13:46

...

My only quibble is that Toughness is much too important, and armor is much too unimportant. Marines are wearing ceramite armor, with autoreactive shoulder pads, and their base Toughess protects them as much (if not more) than their armor. That's weird. I think, overall, that mechanically it works, but it doesn't pass the taste test for me. I would much prefer a higher armor value, with a chance of penetrating a weak spot at the joints or gorget or lens. However, if I wanted that much detail, I would run Deathwatch in GURPS, and there would be much rejoicing (for all but the GM who would gnash his teeth at the great deal of work required).

Yes there toughness protect them as much as their armour, but it only reflect the fact that you can't kill a SM by hitting his heart or you will need two call shot to damage the two hearts, same fact with respiratory system with three lungs, etc...

Yes you can hurt and wound them but take them down is something far more difficult.

Hello, Brother-seargent Colton

I can relate to your dissatisfaction myself, having just recently bought this game after two-years or so of anticipation, and as such I will try my very best to thoughtfully, with both tact and neutrality dictate the reason so that we might have a better understanding of why Deathwatch is currently what it is =]

Firstly, as you yourself have stated, it is completely different from the TT in any version; weather it be 2nd or our current 5th edition. With that having been clarified we can now move on as to why that might be.

As per its origins, Warhammer 40k began as a very different game than even its current manifestation, this is due to the basic fact that when all franchises begin, they are for all intents and purposes modest and relatively unknown. A space marine now when taken and juxtaposed to its earlier 1987 version is apples and oranges, the concept has moved on and evolved to fit an ever expanding fan base.

And what begins as a hobby, such as warhammer, gains such popularity as it has now, certain elements have to be incorperated to make it more attractive to i.e the masses. This evolution is too often simplified as residing on the same coin; A line most certainly exists between what warhammer was, and what warhammer currently is; A form of escapism, which is a more fiendish counterpart to our humble friend the hobby =P

It is a slow but definite process that progresses increasingly more apparent and often as time progresses, as it grew in its popularity, games workshop saw an ever increasing margin for profit, and if they could successfully market what was first intended to be an RPG of sorts into something product based and give buyers a need to covet and possess each and every new product, so now we have to understand how Games Workshop accomplished this task. A hobby is something one does in their spare time to usually better themselves or hone a certain skill, no matter how mundane that might be, however what these might be are as varied as the individuals that pursue them =P however we have now transformed what was a hobby into escapism, namely something a person is quite "attached" to and feels a need to constantly revisit, a mild addiction of sorts mkaay =P not to pass any judgments, this is simply a marketing technique, create a need for an individual to buy from you and you shall have them in droves, most if not all successful corporations, businesses have somehow implied this method and every single human being that consumes has purchased something from one of these brokers; But in order to attract customers and convince them they have to buy dozens of miniatures, made of plastic, un-asembled, and unpainted a rather fetching story must be in order don't you think?

So, as more people displayed interest in a story, the developers had to adapt or die, after all who wants to spend 100+ dollars on barely superior "space marines" and then have to go through all of the labor required just to get them up and running? The solution, change and adapt, allow authors to free reign to come up with as much crap as they can spew, and in the process you make coin not only on the royalties the books reeled in, but now an adamantly fixated public ready to spend. All is good no? The public has their escapism and Games workshop has their profit, so long as nobody asked questions all is fine.

My basic point is this, Space marines did not start out as the deified incarnation of absolute bulky monstrous death explosions of my chainsword up your ******* ass if you question it =P but became so in order to sell product and reign in a "crowd" if you will. So naturally the rule were based of a much weaker version of the marines and it never became necessary to change that, nobody noticed and the balance was fine, so why fix something that is most certainly not broken? The answer a resounding, hell no.

So when creating a modern "true" RPG in this modern epica fantasia that has become warhammer 40k what does one do if they have absolutely any hope of selling books? after all whats better than being able to create an RPG than being able to make profit off it as well so you might still be able to produce games... Needless to say, in order to justify a "Space Marine" roleplaying game that felt any different than the previous editions, so that people felt a need to purchase, FFS had to appeal to the Ultra fluffy novels, with a sense of "I'm every religious icon ever in the history of man clad in 5-in thick armor with grenades and glowing swords... IN SPACE motha-fucka, put that on a stick and crucify it!"

*as the marine sticks his size 36 up your ass*

So it was either, more damage, more strength, more everything in droves or it would have just been a DH game in space marine armor, which was stated out in the other books anyway, so you can imagine how terribly agitated one who just purchased this new game only to sit down and realize he could have had the same experience without having to drop another $60...

All in all it was a little bit of both on FFS part, a way to not only sell books, but deliver an "epic" novel feel to the game, so boh parties got what they asked for, personally I wouldn't have minded just standard bolt damage, as I agree with your previous statement in that the TT came first so stick with that balance, but the vast majority of people just don't want even the slightest chance of that imperial guard getting a hit off on your badassness, but thats what hordes are for and luckily you as the DM can Homebrew!!! >=3 *cackles nefariously*

either way it's nothing absolutely detrimental and it shouldn't get in the way of having an absolutely awesome gaming experience, and if it does your just being to lazy to improvise

So thats my two-Chinese dongs, and please do take this with a grain of salt and not too seriously, I am merely trying to be as accurate and neutral as possible, although perhaps with a tad bit of paprika to the mix, so I hope you like your posts spicy hahaha

~Best Wishes~

BaronIveagh said:

You've hit the nail on the head there. In any story your heroes are going to be larger than life winning against insurmountable odds. The problem is is that there's so many Space Marine stories that it seems like the standard, books about other races are much less prevelant AND OFTEN DISMISSED ENTIRELY because they go against what readers have come to expect, or, for some races they have no stories from their point of view at all.

And i've read so many times about how the TT games 'nerf SM' so they can sell more figures. When in fact Space Marines and all GW armies have always intended to be played on that scale, that's the point why would GW come up with a backstory that doesn't fit the game it's based on?

Although saying that of course, it is possible to play Ork or IG army with several hundred figures if you took a spods of spods but that's a dull army for most collectors.

BaronIveagh said:

Well Abaddon is gigantic looser (and he goes on about how Horus was a failure, lolz).

Hopefully they've learn't their lesson and won't have future campaigns try to do stuff that they aren't willing to keep up with. It would have been a peice of piss to have Chaos Claim a few sectors outside of the Eye of Terror, but nooo...

Face Eater said:

Seems the current trend is to create a planet no one had heard of, create a strange reason why every army in the game is there, and then release a precanned ending once the fighting is over. It was fairly obvious from the get go that Tau were not going to be allowed full warp travel, regardless of the outcome on Medusa V, and that chaos was pretty much doomed, as it was being led by a guy they'ed already killed once in a previous campaign (IIRC).

Of course, since more people play space marines in 40k TT then most other armies, there will, on average, be more space marine wins. It's one of those sure-bet sort of things.

deinol said:

In my experiences in TT, my IG troopers regularly exploded in droves when faced with a squad of Space Marines. Can't recall the precise edition we played with, I think it was 3rd. With each marine being 3x as expensive and powerful as my lowly standard trooper, they got their clocks cleaned. His standard tac squad with one heavy bolter and 9 more marines with botlers, with something like a 50% chance to hit and me with a 15% chance to not explode, then there was the heavy bolter that rolled one or two of those artillery dice to see how many of my guys died. Toe to toe was NOT an option. I had a what, 20% chance to hit and he had a 50% chance to live once I hit him? The thing that allowed me to win battles against them was the fact that I got 30 dice to hit and damage to my opponents 10, and the fact that I used Leman Russ tanks and Commisar Yarrik with his 2 or 3+ invulnerable backup save when he hit 0 wounds. That and orbital bombardments.

I see something similar in Deathwatch- it takes either a horde of guardsman, or for the guardsman to be smart about what they're doing in order to take the Marines down. The scale isn't perfect but it's there. Then you add in the heroics and the scale of the RPG, and have to realize the RPG is really all about fluff. Without the fluff, what would you have for an RPG other than a combat simulator, and that really kind of reduces the scope of the whole 'role' part IMHO.

In specific regards to the bolters, I agree that something feels 'off' about them, but something about the DH bolters being so weak felt really off to me as well.