>>>Would people really pay a lot more for mini's that were an extra 4mm tall?<<<

While we are making them bigger we may as well make them decently bigger.

But I'd pay distressing sums of money for truescale Marines.

>>>And of course who the &^$& would bother to collect and paint the thousand strong ork army at over 10x the price?<<<

Aye, thats the real problem. But man it would be so awesome. For the Marine player anyway. Possibly one could swap sides every battle.

That soldier beside the Space Marine must be titchy... that size of that marine makes him stand at less than 5 foot tall.

borithan said:

No, the marine would be a little over seven feet tall.

28mm scale should be the bottom of feet to eye line = 28mm which is equivalent to around 5'9" or average height. GW uses "Heroic 28mm" scale which means nothing matters.

If that guard is 5' 9" then the SM is 8' 5".

As you say ItsUncertainWho, they heroic scale means they don't bother. Otherwise Tyranid Warriors would be all:

Lynata said:

Even lacking specific contradiction by later sources, it's still absolutely absurd to point to something 14 years old and 3 editions ago and act like it's the definitive word on the subject. Same goes for the number of Battle Sisters.

borithan said:

****, I should have known that, I'm Canadian and we basically use the same naming conventions (at least until we merged all the branches of the military)

The Regiment thing I'm not really surprised by though, since GW is a British company. I've always said that the "Marines" in the name Space Marines is more representative of the British Royal Marines than the US Marine Corps (without dragging us in to an arguement about the military in the process..).

(**** tempermental quote boxes)

ItsUncertainWho said:

And as far as "true scale" space marines are concerned, the GW space marines are actually not bad. The problem is 1) that all space marines go around in some weird squat that makes them look smaller than they would be if standing straighter (in poses more like the Imperial Guard miniatures) and 2) the Catachans are absurdly oversized (the Cadians are not much better). The current plastics scale quite well with the 2nd edition metal guardsmen.

borithan said:

The problem is that GW just doesn't care about proportion or basics of anatomy at all.

Some common proportional relationships for humans in European art are:

The average adult human figure is about 7 to 7.5 heads tall.
The idealized human figure is traditionally represented as being 8 heads tall:
- From the top of the head to the chin
- from previous position to the nipples
- from previous position to the navel
- from previous position to the crotch
- from previous position to mid-thigh
- from previous position to just below the knees
- from previous position to the middle of the shinbone (the tibia)
- from previous position to the feet

The Space Marine is actually around the 7.5 head mark where as the human is around 5.5 at best, with giving some for the bent leg.

If you put an actual 28mm fig next to a Space marine they are far closer to what the proportions should actually be vs the troll humans of the 41st millennium that GW puts out.

ItsUncertainWho said:

If you've ever seen any of Jes Goodwin's sketches (such as from the published sketchbook), interviews, or spoken to him, you'd know that to be false - indeed, when interviewed for White Dwarf when the current plastic Cold One Knights were released, he actually discusses proportions and anatomy a fair bit (specifically mentioning that miniatures of animals don't suit the norms of "heroic scale", as a larger head and forelimbs would make them look like baby versions of themselves).

The models are deliberately mis-proportioned - heads, arms and weapons are larger than they should be in proportion to everything else in order to emphasise them. It's significantly less pronounced on the 54mm models in the Inquisitor range, or the more realistically proportioned Lord of the Rings range (because they started as licenced movie merchandise, they have to somewhat resemble the characters as they appear on screen).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Laughably disproportionate by design doesn't make things better. I am aware of the need for slight exaggeration in miniature sculpting and other mediums, but the same effect can be achieved in much more subtle and less jarring ways. I find the human models in 40K are just plain hard to look at unless all the flesh is completely covered by armor, then I can let things go. I also cringe every time I see a space marine without a helmet on.

And no, I have never met Jes Goodwin and I am only vaguely aware of some of his work.

The LotR minis, from around the first release several years back, unlike the 40K line, were not as laughably silly looking. I have no idea what they look like now and I have never glanced twice at the Warhammer Fantasy line.

Ultimately, my point is 40K minis have no representation to the reality of the characters and their scale. They cannot actually be compared to each other as examples of how big something is since the mini's themselves conform to no standard scale other than what is in their respective line.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Since the late 80s, the imagery of Space Marines, Eldar, Sisters of Battle, Dark Eldar, the Adeptus Arbites, Chaos Space Marines, Tau... Jes Goodwin has defined more of the look of 40k than almost anyone else, and with that imagery, has defined so much of the background.

If you can find a copy, the out-of-print Jes Goodwin sketchbook that Black Library publised (it's called "The Gothic and the Eldritch") is an amazing resource for imagery and nuggets of background.

borithan said:

You gotta admit he looks pretty cool though.

I don't think people object to true scale Marines because they think no one would like Marines that big, but because they think to many people would love it!

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I just picked up a box of Dark Eldar Wytches (to use as bodyglove-clad assassins in DH)- is that why their pistols are only slightly smaller than fire hydrants?

ItsUncertainWho said:

Subtle... subtle... I know that word but with regards to GW it doesn't seem to have any meaning.

But yes they haven't even tried to maintain proper proportions for a very long time. Between stylistic reasons and the need for robust mini's for gaming.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Precisely, it's pretty much universal and Marines don't get it the worst just because they are your favourite.

I signed up for this forum specifically for this thread.

The bottom line comparisons between Deathwatchother elements of 40k rpg don't come down to failures of scaling between DHRT charactersDW marines because of gear.

Gear comparisons to the tabletop are not going to be analogous for the purposes of a roleplaying game. Additionally, many people take issue with the fact that the DW marines can "so easily" kill such large groups of individuals while being at little risk themselves. Unfortunately, that's an example of trying to use the tabletop game as your reference, rather than the fluff. Fluff marines lay waste to huge numbers of opponents in all engagements, so that shouldn't be an issue here.

The true issue, as I see it, between DHRTDW is in terms of wounds. It isn't armor. Space Marine armortoughness surpasses most available to other characters, but not enough to fall outside of issues scaling from a 1-10 system to a 1-100 system. What isn't scaling is that a marine has twice as many wounds as a human. This isn't appropriate, a guardsman on the tabletop has 1 wound. So does a sister of battle. So does a marine. And an Eldar. And a Tau. This scaled roughly appropriately in RTDH, as characters had roughly 8-13 wounds, plus some more depending upon how many Sound Constitutions they chose. Marines, however, magically have 18-25 woundsmore, scaling at a roughly 2-1 ratio instead of nearly 1-1. This will very much create problems of survivability for anything ported in with a DW character, either a DW char. in a DH/RT gamethe inverse.

My solution? Make Sound Constitution worth 23 Wounds for DH/RT chars. if any DW porting is going to occur. Make this true of non-eliteMaster marine opponents as well. Use Righteous Fury for non-mook bad-guys. All done, balance issues complete.

Sry, but I cannot agree with wounds statement.

Wounds in the TT and the RPG serve an entirely different purpose. It´s an entirely different system.

If you loose all your wounds in the RPG, you might be roughed upbruised all over but your´re still not seriously injured. If a miniature in the TT looses all its wounds its dead. When it comes to injurydeath rolls (when characters go critical) space marinesguardsmen use the same tables in the RPG.

One important factor there´s also to consider, is that the RPG uses individuals, while the TT uses generalized statlines. A Sergeant, Captain, Chaplainwhatever will always have better stats than a regular marine. A tactical marine will always be the same as another tactical marine, there isn´t one who aims better, one who runs fasterone who is a better swordsman.

Special characters aside you have no individuals in the TT, that´s imo why comparing statlines with the RPG is futile.

I can understand weapon comparisonscomparisons between things that are supposed to have a set relative level of power. But comparing RPG individuals (who would by the way be special characters if translated into the TT, by virtue of being individuals) with generalized TT units is kinda moot. Especially since the game systems in question are entirely different,rules need to suit different purposes (level of detail between TT and RPG comes to mind).

I can throw another contender to compare with in there and that´s the Inquisitor TT. Compare with the space marines from there. Now we got 3 game systems with levels of power for its characters or troops...

It imo leads to nowhere.

I agree that wounds is not a problemeven much of an issue. After all, Ascension even points out that as an option GMs may limit human characters to 25 wounds because of the limitation of the human body. I can only suspect that the reason for this rule is that it might be possible with number-crunching to make an Ascended character with more than 25 wounds, which of course is well into Space Marine territory.

And seriously, wounds in DH are hardly to 8-13 wounds, that's just typical for STARTING characters. DW characters supposedly have tons of experiencethis combined with not being truly human anymore makes it reasonable that they have around 25 wounds from the get go. And really not that bad compared to normal human Guardsmen with close to 20 wounds at a MUCH lower level.

Sry, but I cannot agree with wounds statement.

Wounds in the TTthe RPG serve an entirely different purpose. It´s an entirely different system.

If you loose all your wounds in the RPG, you might be roughed upbruised all over but your´re still not seriously injured. If a miniature in the TT looses all its wounds its dead. When it comes to injurydeath rolls (when characters go critical) space marinesguardsmen use the same tables in the RPG.

This isn't really correct. A tabletop model might be removed from play, but this doesn't mean it is dead. Rulebooks in the past have stated this explicitly,I believe current one does as well.

I can understand weapon comparisonscomparisons between things that are supposed to have a set relative level of power. But comparing RPG individuals (who would by the way be special characters if translated into the TT, by virtue of being individuals) with generalized TT units is kinda moot. Especially since the game systems in question are entirely different,rules need to suit different purposes (level of detail between TTRPG comes to mind).

Except that you cannot pickchoose your comparisons. You cannot say "well wounds function different, but weapons are the sameso they are directly comparable." The do not work the same, at all, for one; for another, mixing comparisons is not functionally reasonable.

In addition, I agree that they aren't directly comparable. I'm speaking to the 27 pages of this thread trying to compare guardsmen, SoB,marines on the tabletop to the roleplaying game. Within the context of that discussion the core difference is wounds, not weaponsarmor, based upon scaling of stats.

EDIT: Apparently this forum doesn't respond to standard bbcode quote tags? Formatting = fail, sorry.

Ultimately, it always comes down to your preferred source of primary canon. For those of us old school players who feel the Table Top is the defining source, Deathwatch marines feel overpowered. For those who prefer the novels as the primary source, Deathwatch marines are either about right,a little weak.

There really is no wrong way to play it. 40k has a loose canon structure. GW doesn't have tiers of canon the way the expanded star wars does. GW doesn't even try to maintain strict control over the canon. So fans disagree because different sources disagree.

Play the game how you want to play. If you want grittier space marines, a few house rules will do it nicely. It all comes down to what works for your group. As long as you are playinghaving fun, you are doing it right.

moepp said:

deinol said:

If you play the tabletop, Deathwatch marines are just right... according to fluff segments of the codex. Compared to on the table mechanical balance though, Deathwatch marines are worth at least 20 table top dudes, if not more.

The rest of this post I agree with.

Hell, I wish if was that much.

But if we use the TT as a guide for the power level of Space Marines then we get something that about 5 Imperial Guardsmen should be able to take down as a group. Or 10 Conscripts. Or 3 Orks, as long as its close combat.

Which is hardly impressive when you consider that the Astartes are suppposed to be these ultimate soldiers that are created at great expense.

Even in tabletop I don't really trust the fluff. GW uses unreliable narrators too often. So I play things much more conservatively. For me TT rules > TT fluff > all other fluff.

For example. In TT a shuriken catapult has always been roughly equivelant to a boltgun. Shorter range, but slightly faster rate of fire (assault 2 vs rapid fire). In Rogue Trader, their stats are fairly close to each other. In Deathwatch, marine bolters are practically heavy bolters. I'll stick to Rogue Trader stats.

But that's ok, you can have heroic marines, I can have gritty marines, we can all enjoy playing in the 40k universe.

I also don't agree that the TT fluff contradicts it's self, it goes to great pains not say that any one army is completely and utterly better than any other. Everyone is made to sound awesome in their codex's.

As per the "If I could have a thousand Guardsmen... barring that 100 Space Marines" quote I would want a Space Marine to be the equal of 10 Guardsmen. However you conclude what is 10x as good as a Guardsman I don't know, but that is the figure I would aim for.