unnownrelic said:

Well, as far as I remember Infiltrate allowed you to place your unit 12" away from enemy units as long as they didn't have line of sight. 12" is the distance you usually (if no los-block or difficult terrain is in between) can cross within one round to punch your enemies in the face.

Which obviously begs the question of how much time "one round" would be in the TT. Considering maximum lasgun range is 24" which should translate into something like 300m (was maximum range 3x or 4x standard range?), I find it relatively easy to believe that you can hide a whirring, clanking armour 150 metres away from someone who hasn't got Line of Sight to you under battlefield conditions - even with the -30 penalty. Also, as infiltrators are only hidden before the game, nothing is said about how they got into position, how long they've already been there and how much noise they make when actually moving.

Trying to translate things like that from TT to RPG or back is painful. For example I'm incredibly sure that if someone would charge you over 150m in the RPG you would get plenty of opportunity to shoot him. If someone charges you over 12" in the TT you never get the chance to shoot. And if Infiltration were a matter of simply arriving before the enemy and laying low everybody could do it.

...meaning that the comparison as a whole is pretty meaningless because the TT is far more abstract in its rules than the RPG. I quite agree.

Right, that's basically what it amounted to. AT BEST, I've found the only things you can reliably translate between tabletop and 40kRP is stats, using the corresponding stat as the 40kRP characteristic's bonus, and even that works poorly without some serious number massaging.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I don't like resurrecting a thread that's been dead a few weeks but....

Which book and what page is this referenced? I can't find it anywhere.

For Black Crusade specifically, the Power Armour section on p175 only states that you become Hulking, there is no specific mention of stealth penalties there (unlike, say, Deathwatch). Refering to Table 4-8: Size on p142, Hulking gives you -10 to Stealth.

I've not found any further rules in Black Crusade. There are no extra stealth rules in the Armour section, nor under the Stealth skill (except GM decided penalties) or in Playing the Game, as far as I can see. There may be another hidden sidebar somewhere mentioning the old rules (like -30 to stealth for powered/AP 7+ armour), but I've not found it yet.

Orthus said:

It's not in the Black Crusade book but may be in one of the other books. I'm just wondering which book it is mentionned and on what page it can be found. It's frustrating because it's hard to say whether or not it's been left out intentionally.

Lecram said:

It's not in BC, but I've houseruled it to apply in BC too. I think armouring up in a heavy suit of armour should have some penalty.

Jackal_Strain said:

I never said that I didn't use common sense, but the discussion in this thread seemed to centre around power armours in various forms. I use conditional modifiers heavily in my games, and if players take the time to prepare properly for a situation, the penalty for various heavy items might be negated altogether.

Example: Scouting an enemy camp in a thick forest in the middle of the night. As long as the players keep out of hearing distance, take care to dull or soot any shiny objects and stay low, I'd probably give them bonuses instead of penalties. Even in power armour or primitive heavy mails or plates.

Reverend mort said:

the -30 is not BC is I am correct so no need to impose it on any Ap7+ armor. Anyway the "Powered" trait is the oen that requires a reactor/engine, that as power armature, sealed, etc.

1st - in a sealed environment, you won't hear much of your surrounding then you need speakers/microphone to listne and hear.

2nd - 40 freaking K, like in the 40th millenium there is lots of eltronic googles, termo, etc. -30 for the power armor fits there.

3rd- it's big, you walk with a new 10 inch between your legs, human in PA is bound to make noise with out hours and hours of practice. metal boots are noisy...

Reverend mort said:

RT Section 5: Armoury, Pg 137. AP (Armour Points) under the first paragraphs in the right hand column.

"Any armour that provides 7 or more APs inflicts a -30% penalty on the wearer's Concealment and Silent Move Tests."

Larkin said:

FFG have also previously clarified that the "7 or more APs" only applies to armour that is naturally 7+AP, and not to armour that is Best Quality armour that was originally 6AP (but due to BQ, is now 7AP).

Deathwatch p160 under AP adds "Any armour that provides 7 or more APs (including Astartes power armour) inflicts a -30% penalty on the wearer's Concealment and Silent Move Tests."

The size tables in Deathwatch (p134) & RT(p367) also includes the -10 to Concealment for having Hulking size, which the black carapace rules don't appear to cover (which is a separate argument I know, so I will ignore Black Carapace for this post). So potentially you'd be at -30 for Silent Move & -40 for Concealment in AP 7+ armour.

However, Black Crusade only has the combined Sneak skill, so the penalty for hulking under the size table(p142) applies to Sneak. You'd probably want to house rule this if you feel the penalty should apply only to hiding.

Playing Deathwatch, we stuck to -30 to either skill for simplicity. For missions where stealth was a factor, a cameoline cloak (+20 to Concealment) and a stummer or two (zone of complete silence) generally got us through with little problem. Only for the mission where being caught basically equalled death did I switch to the Deathwatch Scout Armour (rites of battle) which, while partially AP 7, does state in it's description that it allows for natural stealthiness (or words to that effect) which we took to mean it ignored the standard penalty otherwise why would anyone ever wear it over power armour?

I'm inclined to go with graduated penalities. Such as -5 to flak, -10 for carapace, -20 for light power armor, -30 for normal power armor.

I would be more accepting if there were graduated penalties... it just seems very strange that there is this sudden increase at AP 7 (-30 being a BIG penalty, especially as having slightly less gives you a penalty of 0). Obviously something had to be done, as Rules as Written there was no difference in sneaking between a body glove and a massive suit of powered armour, and if that was the case why aren't temple assassin's running around in power armour (of course in 1st edition 40k there was such a thing as "skin tight power-armour" but that is another story entirely)? However, this quick fix just doesn't work. It is too arbitrary: AP 7+ gives you a massive -30 penalty (which RAW suggests should stack with the -10 for hulking, but I don't think was intended and we have ignored) while anything else is ignored.

Personally I don't think it should be as easy to sneak in carapace as in mesh. Heck, even flak might justify a small penalty on some occasions (giving all the more reason to use mesh, rather than just the weight reduction), and Primitive plate armour deserves some sort of penalty as well. What should have been done was either a detailed system of assigning individual penalties to the different armour types (and all new equipment having it listed as well), which would have entailed a lot of work for not that much gain, or a simple clarification in the armour section and/or the relevant skill listing. Something like "GMs should take account what a character is carrying/wearing while assigning difficulties to Move Silently checks, particularly armour and/or weapons. An assassin clothed only in a body glove would find it significantly easier to remain undetected than someone walking around in feudal plate or power amour." I don't actually think there should be any hard or fast rule regarding penalties to concealment for armour. The increased size is already taken into account in the penalty for hulking, and breaking up the regular lines of an figure is a basic part of camouflage and concealment. Obviously they are now both subsumed into Stealth, but they are different skills and so really deserve different considerations.