I think Assault Marines get a lot of really cool stuff, it's just that they get it too late. Whirlwind of Death, for example, is something that really ought to be available before rank 8, between how hooped melee is vs. hordes (low damage potential, no defensive measures beyond force fields) and Devastators getting Storm of Iron at rank 4. I think Preternatural Speed probably ought to be available way before Rank 8, too.

I've modded my Space Wolves so far by dropping the starting +5 to Fel (makes no sense to me when in their descriptive text it says they are truthful to a fault and are not afraid to rub folks the wrong way) and allow them to take either a +5 to WS or BS instead. I think that allows for some varieties of experienced SW. I'm still debating changing their Solo ability to something different while letting them keep the heightened senses for smell.

E

ak-73 said:

There aren't a lot of rpgs where guys with swords are battling along with guys with fully automatic weapons.

Ranged combat has a huge amount of advantages, that if a setting also includes melee....there should be a very good reason. If melee is just weaker than ranged, then why would you have melee?

Stalker0 said:

The fact is close combat is also part of our modern warefare "setting". Close combat has always existed and will always until we find the solution to the tiny little problem called AMMUNITIONS. Marines can pretty fas be confronted to the "Out of ammo" problem, and if they aren't, then you aren't doing a good job as a storyteller. Unlike TT marines, DW marines are one man armies (closer to the fluff), but unlike TT marines, they have a limited amount of ammunitions. If your players don't count their bolts, then you are probably missing what build the thrill in a game of a few versus many.

Look into modern history, some of the most famous battle ended in a savage close combat, not because it was better (it isn't, if it was we'd never invented firearms) but because there was no other choice. The assault marine shine when there is no more hope, when enemies are close and ammunitions are low. He shine when there is a need for true heroic deeds.

Wow this is a long and diverse thread, and having taken the effort to read through it I feel it is my duty to comment.

1. I like the idea of space wolf counter attack, I think it fits in with an image of a patient hunter waiting until the foe is off balance and then striking. plus makes me think of assassins creed but yeah hardy 4 ranks early is an absolute gem

2. I agree that blood angels may be good in melee but they are by no means the best. Personally I had a BA and BT assault marine in my game and the BT was always outshining the BA simply because he had hatred at practically everything I threw at him.

3. I like the idea of full auto being less effective at greater than short range, and it makes sense, I'd be surprised if anyone could full auto and hit every time at greater than 50m with a bolter.

4. The bolterchainsword issue. I will agree that by raw the bolterchainsword is superior to a chainsword. However to make effective use of both you have to boost both WS and BS and there is no bolterlightningclaw attachment or bolterpowerfist or anything like that. personally I have found that the most effective thing my blood angel did was frenzied charge with twin lightning claws, He managed to roll 10 degrees of success which by raw dealt 1d10+40 tearing, pen 6 and no matter what he rolls he counts as having rolled a 10 because of the lowest die becoming your degrees of success. at the time I was still using broken righteous fury rules which resulted in a 150 pen 6 damage roll. (this was actually the roll that convinced me to change righteous fury) but yeah my point is there are many melee weapons that are superior to a chainsword attachment, and even if you don't like lightning claws if u focus on melee then later on you can go power fist storm shield or whatever you want and you wont have wasted a load of xp on bs

5. Having said all that, an interesting way to improve the melee/ranged balance if a bit arbitrary. What about retaining the DW righteous fury rules for melee attacks, reasoning that the Emperor loves you more if you are actively physically in the face of the enemy smiting him for his evils. It would fix the issue of bolters having too many shots and thus too much righteous fury and yet retain amazing 1 hit axe to the face style kills in melee. what do people think? not something Ive playtested, just came up with it then.

[edit] yeah also forgot too add one of the biggest issues with the melee combat balance is the arbitrary "everyone has infinite ammo rule" personally I think setting ammo limits appropriate to the length of time the space marines are gonna be away from the watch fortress is a good idea. Ive seen lots of ideas for how much ammo is the right amount up here, personally I make it just less than the amount I estimate the marines will need

Narkasis Broon said:

I'm curious about this. More specifically "because the lowest die becoming your degrees of success", which doesn't seem to fit. You get your DoS from how much you manage to succeed on the WS test to attack with the claws, so if you roll 05 on the WS test, you need to have 105 WS to test against. That means you had 10 DoS, which equals +20 on the damage for twin claws.

ejacobs said:

Two Words: Meade Hall.

I don't believe any other Chapter has traditions involving the consumption of copious amounts of booze.

BrotharTearer said:

Theres a little known rule (don't have my book with me, cant reference page #), where you may replace a (single, 1) damage die, with the amount of DoS you got with an attack. So in this case, 10 DoS = 10 damage instead of rolling a die. It however, is not a chance for a RF. The rule exists to allow perfectly rolled attacks to not totally fail still.

"I rolled a 01 to hit (with a target of 135), but a 1 on the damage dice with my lasgun, so 3 damage total"

The rule exists to allow awesome rolls to hit to still be good.

This is then, added on top of the damage with lightning claws, which is how the original value was reached (I think, don't have book to double check, but I'm guessing 10 SB, +20 from the LCs, and +10 from........random talents+slightly higher SB? 75 would be max, so 95 w/ armour, 18 SB w/ unnat str, +2 damage from talents, so +40 is possible)

As for the rest of this thread, I think I made my case weeks ago, don't feel like adding anything.