AluminiumWolf said:

Fundamentally, never getting in a fair fight is just common sense and/or a matter of circumstances. That won't change no matter what you're doing or with what characters. Fighting smart, using your advantages and your enemy's disadvantages to the fullest is something that should never be disregarded, whatever the nature of the player characters.

The differences aren't there.

An Acolyte has, as I have commonly told my players, exactly enough freedom and authority to get themselves in trouble, but never quite enough to get themselves out again without a good mixture of skill, luck and cunning. Once they're on the ground, a cell of Acolytes has the freedom to operate as they wish towards the end of uncovering threats to the Imperium - groups of adversaries that are inherently (and justifiably) paranoid about being found out by the authorities. The scope is an investigation, with healthy doses of politics and violence thrown in for flavour. What an Acolyte does is a task ill-suited to armies of Guardsmen or squads of Space Marines.

Where it differs between Guardsmen and Astartes is both scale and scope. A squad of Space Marines can achieve things that a company of Guardsmen cannot, and vice-versa (everything has its place, and Space Marines simply don't have the numbers or tools for a variety of tasks). A person playing a Space Marine has access to a different range of tools (in the forms of character abilities, wargear, and viable strategies and tactics) to a person playing a Guardsman, and thus can approach a situation differently.

Consider the following combat situation from the perspective of two forces. The first is a platoon (4 squads plus a command section) of Imperial Guard Infantry of a decent standard - Cadian Shock Troops or similar - armed with a good variety of heavy and special weaponry. The second is a five-man Deathwatch Kill-Team consisting of two Tactical Marines, an Assault Marine, an Apothecary and a Devastator. The situation is as follows:

A densely-built urban area, roughly 400 metres square, used as an encampment by Orks. Several ruined buildings form the outskirts of the area, reinforced with crudely-built but solid-looking barricades made from rubble and scrap metal. Sentry towers dot the edges, mounted with crude guns and manned by Gretchin slaves. The inner section consists of three buildings that are more-or-less intact, with holes from artillery and bombing runs patched with sheet metal bolted into prefabricated slabs of ferrocrete. Two of the buildings are former hab-blocks, each five storeys high with numerous windows covered by plasteel riot shutters - fairly defensible, but not fortified. The third is a thirteen-storey Administratum building, separated from the hab-blocks by a broad street. The Administratum building is designed to be able to withstand civil disorder and impress upon those nearby the might of the Imperium, and as such is solidly-built and fortified by design. Thermomantic augury performed by Priests of the Machine suggests that there may be between thirty and fifty Orks and between fifty and eighty lesser greenskin organisms present within the area, while recent recon suggests that they are well-armed with heavy weapons and are constructing an artillery battery on the roof of the Administratum building. It needs to be cleansed of their taint.

One situation, but the Guard and the Deathwatch will (and should) approach the situation differently - Space Marines can succeed at tactics that would be suicidal for the Guardsmen, while the Guardsmen have the numbers and the firepower to approach the situation more methodically and thoroughly. The experience of playing a Deathwatch Space Marine comes with having all the tools, advantages and capabilities that define a Deathwatch Space Marine, and employing them to their fullest.

+++++Fundamentally, never getting in a fair fight is just common sense+++++

Like I say, it is good advice for life, but it can be very samey and often leads to bad wargames scenarios. I mean, while unequal sides can be fun, you wouldn't want to ALWAYS play the side with more points.

+++++Consider the following combat situation from the perspective of two forces.+++++

Well, I'd be aiming for something like,

IG:- 'Okay gentlemen our mission is to take point gamma, to take point gamma, to take point gamma. I want Squad 1 to set up a base of fire in the ruined building at point alpha. The mortars will fire smoke to cover the assault, then switch to HE on targets designated by the assault teams. Standard attack - I want two squads up, one back as reserve. Move in fireteams - one suppresses, the other advances. Any questions? Good. Synchronise chronometers. We go in ten minutes. Sunrise is 0830. Good hunting people.'

Space Marines:- 'Fifty Orks? Don't waste my time - give me a real target.' 'But my Lord, that is the densest concentration of xenos in the district! And intelligence indicates it is the encampment of the fifth stage Ork leader designated Zeus!' 'Old One Eye? Well that is something at least. What do you reckon brothers - clear this up then go looking for a decent fight?' 'My blade thirsts for Ork blood brother, but these are slim pickings indeed. I shall fight left handed.' 'Yes. And there is no need to waste ammunition on this filth. Melee only. Brother Bastion needs the practice.'

'ORK! I COME FOR YOU ORK!'

In essence, the Guard are soldiers, while Space Marines are warriors.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Definitely. A Carny is supposed to be able to rip the average SM apart without slowing down. Taking one down is supposed to be something awesome and heroic, something that challenges the champions amongst the Astartes.

I can't help but feel that what people want is for characters to take on a million to one shot and win.

Unfortunately, if the rules make the million to one shot really a million to one shot, 99.9999% of the time you are gonna lose.

Which is part of the reason I use the errata weapon stats. With the book stats the Bolter is so powerful, the Storm Bolter moreso, and the Heavy Bolter even more than that, that it wasn't a challenge to fight anything. I drilled a Carnifex from full wounds down to around 10 in a single volley of Storm Bolter fire the first time we faced one. I saw a Heavy Bolter plough through an unwounded Tyrant Guard and then kill the Hive Tyrant it was protecting in a single round. And then there's the time the game actually came to a complete and utter hold when the Heavy Bolter in the group finished off Mediphast (from The Achilus Assault) in two rounds, and before that he had killed two CSMs in a single volley. At that point it stopped being fun because there was simply no challenge.


Compare that to post-errata Bolters, where we've faced down a Crisis Commander with full bodyguard on the hull of a Manta that was leaving the atmosphere (and on fire!) where every attack had to be planned lest we make a mistake, and where one of us was blasted to pieces (and my Storm Warden lost his hand!). Or the time when our crazy Librarian pushed everything, resulting in two vortexes in the same enclosed space, only for us to be ambushed by a Trygon, a Mawloc and 'What Lies Beneath' simultaneously. Again, two of us walked out of there nearly dead, one having burnt Fate.

Challenges, sacrifices and a cost to be paid. Way more fun than "Brothers there are fifty Orks beyond the ridge line! Shall we each fight them with one hand tied behind our backs?".

All that said, I do kinda see where AluminiumWolf is coming from, and not just because he spells 'aluminium' correctly. It's one thing to have a challenge, but it's another to ignore statistical probability in a game that involves rolling dice. Now what Nathan has said elsehwere is correct that balance can be inherently subjective and there's also the fact that writing a balanced game is exceptionally hard if not impossible, especially where the game has so much freedom of choice like an RPG. But, as I just said, ignoring statistical probabilities in a game that involves dice is a bad idea. Say for sake of argument the Hierophant did 10d10+50 damage with each attack. You could easily justify that from a fluff perspective, but think about from a dice perspective - that's an average of 105 damage. Even when you factor in the frankly pathetic Pen that all Tyranids have, that's still more damage than any Marine can take. It doesn't matter if the game is about heroic sacrifice or the cost of a real challenge and a sense of accomplishment when you can be squished in a single hit like that. Fate Points only get you so far, and games where the difference between participating and not participating are a single dice roll (rather than a struggle) can be quite bad for making the game fun for the players, no matter how realistic it was.

At the same time, the occasional threat insta-death can actually make for a good story. A good example is in a game I played when we were testing The Jericho Reach. Long story short we'd just fought our way through swarms of Vespid and then against a torrent of Gun Drones (Gun Drones are dangerous in every version of 40K... they frighten me, and this is for someone who has nothing but contempt for the Tau!) and were about to move onto the final portion of our mission when a bloody great Hammerhead showed up. Anyone familiar with the Rail Gun rules know a single hit = death to pretty much every Marine. Even the team's tank, a Tech-Marine with as much poured into his armour and toughness as possible, was worried about this thing. It could kill him in one hit with average dice rolling, where as it would kill any of the rest of us with even low rolling. It wasn't a case of challenge or heroism, it came down to simple probability - there was nothing the GM could not roll that would not result in max or near-max critical damage for any of us bar the Tech-Marine. It was that simple. Black and white. If we got hit, and did not Dodge, our character would die. No if's, no but's.

Being the team's leader I instigated the Storm Warden Squad Mode that gives us a Surprise round, and we rushed the Hammerhead. We ran around behind it and got as close as we could (under the barrel so it couldn't shoot us without changing position). I planted a Meltabomb, the Tech-Marine smacked it with a big Servo-Arm hit that damaged it heavily, and our nutcase friend used every Solo Mode he could conjure to give himself enough power to cause damage with his knife! He even managed to cause a bit of damage. Then myself and the Tech-Marine ran. The Rail Gun fired at me, and missed. It got a shot off at the Tech-Marine, and it hit him. The GM rolled slightly below average, and it took a Fate Point and Renewed Vigour to keep the Tech-Marine just out of Criticals. Had the GM rolled average or even just above, the Tech-Marine would have been toast. Our crazy friend with the knife decided not to run, and when the Meltabomb went off he was insta-gibbed (and Burnt Fate to stay in the game). That was a situation where the thread of death was assured if we had been hit (other than for the Tech-Marine, who had a slight edge over us in damage sinking), and I didn't have a problem with that as it made for a very tense and entertaining situation.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Incidentally, I am thinking of the Boasts from Fable.

Well we already have something like that - the Oaths that Space Wolves can take from the rules in First Founding. That fits with the Wolves because that's the kind of Marines they are. Not all Marines are boisterous, gregarious and boastful warriors. Some are taciturn, some are paranoid, some are uncontrolled psychopaths, some don't say a word in combat at all.

BYE

Fair enough.

And I certainly accept that fate points are a fine solution. Give out enough points and it doesn't matter how many times the PCs get splatted.

I do think we could examine how save or die effects are used in video games though. For instance, the explosive squigs in the Space Marine video game are getting on for one hit kills. But they are telegraphed - the squigs make a distinctive roaring sound - and avoidable, in that the squig stops and takes a second or two to blow up one it reaches you, giving you time to roll out of the way.

Similarly, in the Uncharted games, some of the enemies have guns that kill you in one hit. But again they are telegraphed (by having a laser sight that you can see) and avoidable (by ducking behind cover or rolling out of the way).

So I don't know. One hit kills that always take a round to warm up, giving you time to take cover? So before splatting you the giant tyranid always rears back and roars for one round?

Or, rather, the big Tyranid telegraphs its appearance by roaring, and after that your players should take the hint to GET OUT OF MELEE RANGE - unless they have plan, like, say, hugging its leg affectionately with an active Vortex grenade on your hip. That's one of my player's grand plans for if he ever needs to do a Heroic Sacrifice. "Let's hug it out, Warsmith" is his prepared line. I guess he wants to fight Iron Warriors.

But yeah, your character IS still incapacitated, leaving you unable to play, if you walk through a door and suddenly have to burn a Fate Point because of the Lascannon trap or whatever. Always providing some manner of test (a dodge, concealment vs detection, etc.) to give them a chance to react is a good thing. In the end, it IS a game, so you don't want to be unfair with your big guns, and it is always more dramatic for the big guns to hit something or someone to demonstrate the stakes (The Worf effect, or how every monster beats up poor Anguirus) before taking out your players, and through that demonstration, I think the players might get the hint that they need to think HARD before leaving cover or what not.

So give the players some way of knowing the stakes via foreknowledge or demonstration, but unless you have a higher motive (all GMs being devious to some degree), don't pull the punches if they screw it up or don't take the threat as seriously as they should. Yes, Space Marines will be cool with facing down a Carnifex, but they won't do it like IDIOTS. They KNOW that the big bug can squash them, so they outsmart it, outmaneuver, outsomething it. They wouldn't RUN in the vast majority of cases, they'd still kill it. They just know what it's capable of and act accordingly.

But sometimes all bets are off if the event/big gun is preventable, or a result of some form of negligence in role playing or mission thoroughness. Sometimes they've gotta suffer for their mistakes or presumptuousness, and incinerating somebody's Fate Point is a good, controllable cost for such things.

But if you can't play a cocky son of a ***** when playing a mighty Space Marine, when can you play one?

Like I say, surely concerns about punishing presumption are more appropriate for the lower key soldiering of Only War.

In short, if you are just going to play your Space Marine like a frigging Guardsman, what is the point?

Why do you keep thinking that Marines are ‘cocky’. Most Marines fit into the ‘warrior monk’ mould, and while there are certainly Chapters fall into the category of boastful warriors (the aforementioned Space Wolves), they’re not all like that.

BYE

Plus this isnt a video game. If i wanted to play a video game, guess what? If you guessed id play a video game. This is a chance for my friends and I to make our own view of marines, not rehash someone elses.

Well in answer to the OPs post, you can kill the big tyranids. Right now we are using a combination of the Deathwatch supplements and No-1 H3r3's tyranids. Our campaign only just having entered into the tyranid salient. Our GM has us use FL: Xeno to learn about the bug before we fight to determine weaknesses so that we don't melee the stuff we should shoot at and vice versa. When we are done we make note of the bug, its adaptations and what to look for in the future. For the most part you want to shoot them, a bug way over there is better than a bug right next to you. Our devastator fluctuates between Heavy Bolter with Kraken round backpack to Plasma Cannon, less so on the Plasma Cannon now that he is out of fate points. The techmarine fluctuates from bolter/melta combi weapon to lascannon. We also use the errata on weapon damage.

Now to relate to the discussion of combat viability versus big tyranids, you can as No-1 said fight them if you are equipped or really skilled. Our Storm Warden apothecary fought a carnifex for three rounds before he had to fall back. The fight itself was epic and believe me the player did not want to do it but we goaded him into it. Granted he did have an Iron Halo and the GM was rolling crap, but one hit got through and **** near killed the apothecary. Cinematically it allowed the guard forces to rally and as soon as he stepped back the Leman Russ took out the carnifex. But believe me the apothecary is very well thought of by the guard in that area.

Just yesterday we fought 2 ripper swarm hordes (which are not fun), 3 Venomthropes, 1 Malanthrope, and 1 Trygon. (At least I think those were the ones we fought.) When it was all said and done, I was at half wounds (assault marine) but unconscious from suit damage in the environment we were in, the devastator was up with zero wounds, and the techpriest was at half wounds. It was 90% melee, and never underestimate the power of a hand flamer in the hands of a devastator with Cleanse and Purify. They do wonders in horde attacks since he is abysmal in hand to hand. Normally, though I would prefer shooting with large weapons and then glory hound when they got close.

My assault marine has a storm shield, 60 agility, 74 weapon skill, dodge +10, lightning claw, and wall of steel. This is the only reason I can even fight that big stuff and I still had to use 3 Peerless Warrior rerolls and 2 fate points to avoid possible instant death. The week before I did take a -8 crit and lost a leg to the big bastards. Lets hear it for the pain suppressant to ignore the critical for 9 rounds to keep my happy butt but alive until the apothecary got to me.

H.B.M.C. said:

Even then, Space Wolves think it's a pretty big deal to match your words. They're just more willing to go ahead and say what they're pretty darn sure they can pull off than Marines of other Chapters.

H.B.M.C. said:

Largely because guys like Achilles, Lancelot, Leonidas (from 300) etc. tend to be fairly secure in their abilities.

Perhaps more importantly, I find it endlessly entertaining to go around saying things like 'Our artillery will block out the sun!' 'Good, then we will fight in the shade'.

I suspect it has to do with the feel of a lot of British historic casual disrespect for anyone who isn't from this fine island - Wogs begin at Calais and whatnot - that means striding the stars acting like a warrior demigod with the attitude of a Victorian naval officer surrounded by an angry mob instructing his translator to 'Tell these ugly bastards that I am not going to tolerate any more of their bestial habits' is a very attractive fantasy.

AluminiumWolf said:

I love the IG tactical prep! My Space Marine Brief would sound a little more like this:

Brothers! We face a force of some 50 Orcs with assorted lesser Greenskin scum at their beck and call. The Drop pod will deposit us on the top of the Administratum building. We will cleanse said rooftop while brother Tychus (The techmarine) disables the Nascent artillery battery. After completing secondary objective Alpha we will proceed into the Lower levels and Primary target designated Zeus. Datafiles on target have been uploaded to your onboard dataslate. Upon termination of Primary objective we will exfiltrate through the main thorughfare to point Xray designated on your HUD. Exfiltration will be by thunderhawk gunship at 0830. Total estimated mission time: 1 hour 52 minutes. Remember; Our father is watching us! And we shall know no fear! (Repeated by all).

As to killing REALLY big nid's; There are support options in Rites of battle that include lance strikes from orbit! Keeping that marker in your back pocket is a good cure all for annoyingly large boss monsters!

AluminiumWolf said:

That's the complete opposite of my impression of Marines. IMO even the more rabid chapters approach each situation with tactical considerations in mind (with the exception of a small number of truly insane marines, such as the BA's suicidal beserkers or the Black Templars, who are just idiots). What might seem like recklessness to a guardsman is simply good tactics for the marines, who can use their strength, speed and toughness to avail of strategies that would be suicide for normal troops. Every attack is carefully coordinated, risks carefully calculated and minimised etc. The marines spend most of their lives training in such tactics until they become second nature.

Marines can certainly be cocky, but cocky does not equal stupid. They are cocky because they know they are very good at what they do, not because they are mechanically immune to damage. And if you play your marine like a moron and put him in a position where he should get squished by the 'nid BioTitan.... then he should get squished by the BioTitan.

To call SMs mere warriors is to denigrate their abilities. They aren't just warriors, they are soldiers, something far more dangerous. They are in fact the ultimate soldiers. Orcs are warriors, Marines are better than that.

My concern is to try and make Marines play differently from just being a guardsman with a slightly bigger gun and no social life.

Social Life =/= Marines acting like Jocks.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Well, that may just be because I think it is funny, but I think there is room to allow different approaches to solving problems rather than enforcing one way of doing things.

AluminiumWolf said:

Now this I agree with! I do believe that there ARE Astartes that do act like steroid crazed jocks! There was one in the Ragnar Blackmane stories. I doubt they would be even squad leaders though since that attitude tends to get your people killed. As to the warriors vs. soldiers argument: Most Astartes in the books refer to themselves as "warriors". Much like the scene in 300 where Leonidas encounters the Athenian Hoplites. Also Like the Spartans though; being a "Warrior" does not (and in reality cannot) infer a lack of dicipline or crazed overconfidence! Rather the opposite. True warriors (Like the aformentioned SEAL team 6 of today) are acutely aware of any tactical situation that they put themselves into. Whatever bluster they may show on the outside (A trait that was VERY rare in the SEALs I have personally known!) is for public consumption and not a reflection of how they think or operate "in the field".

I fail to see how Deathwatch doesn't allow for aluminum's uber marines....is that not what horde combat is for? So that one or two marines can absolutely destroy a whole gang of lesser bad guys in a gory fit of glorious blood and triumph? I find that we do that sort of thing all the time...the marines duck away from biotitans and so forth; but are warrior-gods-of-glorious-destruction when it comes to dealing with hordes of chumps. My game seems to have the best of both worlds...and i don't seem to be mis-using the rules too badly....does Deathwatch not inherently cater to both war-gods and grim-dark?

I say: Yes, it does.

I have spent a lot of my roleplaying career running from fights. If I have to run from fights when I am playing a mighty Space Marine as well, I will never not be running.

AluminiumWolf said:

To be honest that's between you and your GM. You have a preferred style of gaming that you want to indulge in when playing SMs - that's fine. But your preferred style of SM play is anathema to others (such as myself). The kind of game you want to play sounds amazingly boring to me. I'd neither run nor play in such a game - to be honest I'd probably throw out the books in disgust. What you seem to want is for DW to enforce such play mechanically by making SMs invulnerable to damage from... well, from anything really. Which excludes the vast majority of players who don't want to play your style of game. It's easy to take DW as-is and run your style of game - just never put the marines up against anything that can threaten them. DW marines are certainly powerful enough that this style of game is easily accomplished.

macd21 said:

I have to disagree here. I have no problem with the player emphasizing the "know no fear!" part of the SM ethos. But as has been posted earlier; There are critters out there that WILL stomp your fearless hero into red goo if they do not excersize some tactical preparedness! At higher levels your character joins the ranks of Kayvaan Shrike, Ragnar Blackmane and Marneus Calgar (Although a chapter master would undoubtedly be level 8!)! These types of characters have historically engaged in legendary feats of martial prowess! Why should your character be any different? That being said, The Caveat is still "Stupid hurts!" If you play your character as brash but tactically sound I would reward your efforts. If you insist on charging the Carnifex with your combat knife, plan on a heroic sacrifice!