Polaria said:

All very good points. Also, lets not forget WS in that equation and the ork Waagh rules.

Many systems incorporate melee skill as part of Strength (in fact, the overly muscled Catachans of the previous IG Codex before the new one, had thier strength represented by the Hardened Fighters doctrine which was +1 to WS). So true strength in TT is WS, S, A and I as far as Close Combat is concerned. Enabling orks to whip up on humies with ease.

All it would take is a space marine special rule. Bolter Mastery: Space Marines use high quality bolt weapons with precise and deadly skill. Any bolt weapon used by a Space Marine has the Pinning special rule. There, done, finished. Makes the bolter special without altering the game too much.

As for humans in TT and their respective strenghts, Gunnery Sergeant Harker has a S 4 and Colonel Straken has a S 6.

Kid Kyoto said:

Id actually go with WS 5, BS 5, S 4, T 4, W 2, I 5, A 2, LD 9 with Power Armour giving them Furious Charge and a 3+ save. Terminator Armour would give them a T 4 (5) and Furious Charge and 2+/4+ save.

And Chain Swords would work like old school chopper rules (max save 4+) or give +1S.

I wouldnt bake thier bolters super awesome cool but would have them count as Assault weapons.

I would effective double the cost of the model in army point standards, but scale it back some and to ensure models are purchased (not just 10-20) Id lower the point cost of figures in every army.

Something which I don't think has been mentioned is the term "kill" in the TT.

Just because you've been killed in the TT doesn't mean you're actually dead. In some cases (Alot for Astartes) it could just mean "combat ineffective". Obviously "instant kill" in most cases would be just that.

With the right special character you can field an army of 72 orange monkeys with laser fingers. Totally outside the fluff there. So much about this codex is just... stupid.

Excuuuuse me!

But the Jokaero Legion has a fine and well respected history, having fought on battlefields all over the galaxy! They pay homage to the emperor's name with their victories, and all the wierd **** they make out of the scrap left over from their battles.

Do not birsmirch their honour sir!

borithan said:

While I do not like the idea of a 72 Jokaero strong IMPERIAL Army, I am glad they are in the game. I would like to see official stats for more of the elusive critters in the 40K Universe. Perhaps we will see Hrud and Demiurge in future releases.

I don't have too much of an issue with them being in the game (or at least the background), but it is clear that for a good long while GW thought the idea of techno-savant orange monkeys was a little daft and so just relegated them to a joke in the background they would make references to. This is a rediculous turn around. Now, I have no problem with there being one in an Inquisitor's retinue (even though the background used to make clear that it was pretty much impossible to make them work for anyone), and I even think the model is quite nice, but allowing people to make whole squads of them is daft. Maybe if they had a limit of 1in the henchman team.

And they were never really a race you could make an army of. They ran around in family units numbering maybe a couple of dozen (including young) so the idea of a Jokearo army doesn't fit either.

Weren't the Jokaero another one of the Old Ones' specially engineered anti-Necron races? With the C'Tan acting up, it would actually kind of make sense for them to be gaining the ability to co-operate on a larger scale. I dunno about the Imperium basically fielding an entire unit of xenos though.

Then again, rules quirks can allow strange things to happen in any game.

Peacekeeper_b said:

But you get the idea, Gunnery Sergeant Harker is aberation, colonel Straken is half bionic, for everyone else you increase in strength is insignificant, even up to Inquisitors and Commisar Lords, where as ork's actually get bigger, a lot bigger. It works better I think even though it penalises some races.

Chain weapons for instance, used to be standard weapons you used weapon strengths rather than the models. Great for Humans Orks and Eldar, just extra pen for SM's, now they are pointless except for striking scorpions who's Chainswords still put them up to S4. Not sure if adding +1 for everyone is the way forward either though, S5 SM's are good, but S4 orks (5 on the charge) might be too much (although If GW went with that they'd probably not let orks have them anymore). Maybe CC weapons should have a penetration value.

borithan said:

I love the Jokaero. What I particularly liked was the ambiguity over whether they're actually sentient or not. I hope they haven't discarded that aspect to make them friendly comedy space monkeys. They should be ambivalent comedy slightly creepy space apes, in my humble opinion!

Face Eater said:

Straken is the real aberration since he can pound a Land Raider to scrap metal with his arms he's so powerful. He's Strength 7 on the charge with 5 attacks. He can crush space marines with contemptuous ease.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Exactly, the original Titanicus game was a normal civil war, both sides had the same equipment, there are no Chaos titans or mutations on the Horus side. Just the same stuff with a different paint scheme.

A year or two later it morphed into Epic Space Marine which had Orks and Eldar, and soon Chaos in the form we (more or less) recognize. Though that Chaos had trolls and minitaurs as well as the normal Daemons.

Polaria said:

You forgot Logan Grimhammer Great Wolf of the Space Wolves, he has the added bonus of striking on 3's regardless of WS and can be S8 with his mingy axe. WS/BS8 S/T4 and I7 are nothnig really to fear on the TT game even with poisoned 2+ weapons, it's the points cost for something that skilled if it's less than 200 I'd be very suprised. Taking Monsterous Creatures out is unfair my Hive Tyrant Squishes the upstart wannabe killer.

Tthe most expensive temple assassin is 145 points.

Ghazkhull and Draigo would eat most TA's no problem, and (Crowe, Vulkan, Wazdakka, Kor'sarro), a Broodlord, GK or Codex librarian or brotherhood champion has a pretty good chance. An Ordo Xenos inquisitor MIGHT, based purely off of how lucky they are with Psychotrope grenades, and a GK captain might with Nemesis Force Halberd. Some of the Dark Eldar HQ's probably could, but I don't know them very well. people in parenthesis would lose to a Callidus.

Assassins haven't changed much since last codex through, the only difference I see is WS/BS 8 instead of 7, making all of this sort of silly. Assassins have always been about this hardcore, the Vindicare is the only one to see a major boost.

I know, personally, what has always drawn me into the setting of 40k is the thematic despair, systematic decay of humanity amidst impossible technology, and the ability to field an army of whooping gibbons with laser-tails.

Jokaero4ever

Jokaero appear to be one of many things GW lifted from other science fiction sources, in rhis case Niven and Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye .

SomVone said:

Actually they were only 5 from the DHWH codex. They were good but not that awesome. They still die easy though. At least the Vindicare can reliably wound stuff now. At a typical 4-5 shots per game they only wounded half the time. Now I can pluck out that Powerfist model pretty easily whenever I want.

I read Mote, I don't remember anything simian in it. The aliens in that book always struck me as more amphibian but maybe I missed some key points. Obviously the whole "idiot savant" thing with technology but that wasn't too unique an idea.

Though in general I agree that 40k is a pastiche of stolen ideas from more inventive authors. Mostly Frank Herbert's Dune.

At Last Forgot said:

I mean the idea of animals that understand technology on an instinctive level. Remember the human ship gets infested with them? They weren't simians true.

In addition to the explicitly sci-fi stuff, 40K is full of things that were cool in the 80s but seem strange now -- acid spit, gaining memories from eating things.

Inquisitor sapiens potensque said:

Wait, when exactly was gaining memories from eating things cool?

Peacekeeper_b said:

I was a teenager in the 80s, and I remember everybody (including me) going ga-ga over those experiments with worms that supposedly showed that they could absorb the memories of other worms by eating them.