Anyone got any ideas how to incorporate them into this system? I figure can use the SM template from Black Crusade but what about codex powers and Grey Knight powers?

I personally wouldn't include them at all. In order to have a slight semblance of balance, the regular guardsmen would need thousands of XP, and even with that they would be shafted. Any foe that threatens a Space Marine, much more a Grey Knight, would absolutely brutalize a regular mortal, and there's nothing an Imperial Guard can do that an Astartes can't do better, so they would be hopelessly overshadowed.

@JuankiMan

Presumably, you wouldn't include both in the same game.

@Topic

Just set a couple aptitudes for the specializations, give them Unnatural Strength and Toughness (4), raise every characteristic by 10 and hand over a few thousand XP. Problem solved.

Are they meant to be more background NPCs, allies, or even enemies in combat encounters?

Why not just use Grey Knights as listed in BC. As far as marines, I'd just use a straight 40 stat block and the starting skills/talents/traits from DW. I'd drop the ammo selector from the boltgun.

As far as situations/themes they can be used in…

Space Marines would probably be a great way to abstract out a TPK where the party burnt fate points to keep going, but the GM needs an explanation as to how/why the enemies were fought off.

Grey Knights very much could be a moment of need sort of thing as well, but sadly, the threats they're usually sent against make it nigh impossible for a guardsmen PC to survive. They could make for a great final moment to a campaign, where the chips are down, the full scale daemon incursion has occured, the party actually sees the daemon prince on the field (and could actually shoot/charge it). GK teleport in, attack, injure, but fail to defeat the daemon prince (and then the GK themselves are slain by the great enemy). The party at this point will have as many turns as there are players as the daemon prince turns his attention to the party.

Personally, I wouldn't pit a party against Space Marines/GK. Just too anti-heroic for my liking. Also, I would downplay the whole "regiments of IG are executed to keep the GK secret" sorta thing.

What Cifer said. Space Marines are much, much tougher and way more powerful in FFG's games than they are in the tabletop or the Inquisitor RPG. Encounters like IG vs CSMs such as they occur in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, for example, are probably right out - the "power gap" has just become too big, and I feel a fight like that would require so much NPC backup that it makes the player characters look like extras, and even then a single attack by a Marine would probably waste a PC.

I feel the only way to work them into the system as anything other than a background element would be to do a lot of houseruling, and revisiting the way how Astartes work in FFG's systems from the ground up. Getting rid of silly Unnatural bonuses and the artificial equipment gap would go a very long way to bring them closer together; I'd probably transform the Unnaturals into a simple +20 bonus and give them additional Wounds so they are generally affected easier, but would be able to keep on going for some more time regardless. An even better solution might be to re-do the way how Toughness, Wounds and Injuries work and bring it closer to how it works in "Inquisitor" (thus avoiding some of the weird consequences that result out of treating Toughness like a 2nd layer of armour), but that'd require major changes to the core game …

A multimelta will waste a marine in 2 seconds flat. So will a Lascannon. As long as people have reasonable heavy weapons, Marines can be killed. If you arm your players with water pistols and rocks, don't send them against Marines, obviously. If they have Power Swords and Inferno Pistols and Multimeltas, the fights are a lot more even.

Multimelta is 4d10+5 Pen 13.

Marine Armor is AP 10 and TB is generally around 8. Thats a lot of wounds coming through.

2d10+16, but you've got a point - I forgot that it is actually theoretically possible for Guardsmen to lug around multimeltas here. Even a normal melta might do.

The only issue I'm seeing is that anyone who is not a Heavy Gunner or Weapon Specialist is flat out of luck and might feel a bit useless during the fight.

Then again, with the new Triplex rules …

Its 4d10+5 pen 13 on my Arch Militant =)

My Arch Militant is loads more dangerous than my Chaos Marine, it isnt even close =)

But yeah, if you wanna kill marines, you'd need to herd them into a Multimelta blast template, use melta bombs, Krak Missiles, Lascannons, all things the Guard has access to.

It isnt as easy as "Men, Fire your lasguns!" but then, I assume the point of the idea was a challenge? =)

But of course that's all good and gravy if you manage to kill all the marines during your round, if any of them survive it'll be a bloodbath when they return fire/charge/shoot magic lasers from their eyes/etc.

Also way to bring up an RT character in a discussion about OW, like that's a fair comparison.

A character in one of our games summed it up pretty well. "A Space Marine is not a man. It's a fast-moving tank with a chainsword and an exposed head."

Melta and Plasma weapons are important, as are any other AV weapons. Things like Sniper Rifles are also important; cutting through Unnatural Toughness is really hard. If they survive, they'll almost certainly waste at least one PC. But they can be taken down with clever thinking! A party I ran a game for spread themselves between two bunkers and alternated Sniper and Missile Launcher fire, then sprayed him with a Flamer and buried him with grenades. The Arbitrator died and the Tech-Priest lost an arm, but it was a victory.

I have rules for playing a Scout in my homebrew thread, if you're interested.

You got me there. I dont have the OW rules, so all I got is my AM's multi melta to go by, sorry.

Seeten said:

Yeah, it's apples and oranges.

Unfortunately, unless the melta/plasma/lascannon guy gets initiative [he probably won't], hits without being dodged or blocked by fields and rolls well on the damage, and there's only one marine, that entire squad would be down. There's little to no reason for the marine not to shoot the one threat to him first

Otherwise, ten guys with ten Lasguns would need ten triple-hits with tens on all the damage to inflict 30 wounds through Righteous Fury, possibly causing enough critical damage to kill him. Maybe.

However, Deathwatch's XP curve means that any other character, whether CSM or Scum or ratling, can annihilate a marine by the time they've reached those values of XP.

Yeah, its really not apples and oranges. OW characters have similar characteristic scores compared to Rogue Trader, if slightly lower, and Multi Meltas exist in both games. Heavy Weapons guys exist in the IG, in fact, if you've ever played the table top, the only army I know of with more heavy weapons than the Guard is the Sisters of Battle.

I brought up my Arch Militants multi melta specifically, because I know exactly how much damage it does, out of the box (4d10+5 pen 13), not due to any comparisons from game to game. If you read my posts contextually, instead of in an effort to nitpick, you'd have noticed that.

Just pointing this out, the OP never said he was intending to use them as adversaries.

Exactly! The Black Crusade race is a great starting point. You're just looking at 30-50 base for characteristics, with a TB around 8 and an armor of 8 all around. Throw on a Chain- or Power- weapon with multiple attacks and a Boltgun with upped damage and Pen. They can probably shoot any PC to death in two turns, and can easily erase one from the planet in melee with one.

Treat them like a tank, really. Heavily armored and heavily armed. Hit him with AT weapon and keep him away. The party should be clever and they could take him down.

As a helper or party member, it's really the same thing. My shot at something playable:

Space Marine Scout (0xp)

Characteristic Bonus: +5 T
Starting Aptitudes: Offence, Fieldcraft, Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness
Starting Skills: Athletics, Common Lore: (Imperium, War), Dodge, Forbidden Lore: (Adeptus Astartes; Xenos or Heretics), Stealth
Starting Talents: Die Hard, Autosanguine, Light Sleeper, Resistance: Poison, Heightened Senses: Hearing, Jaded, Bulging Biceps
Starting Traits: Size (Hulking), Unnatural Strength (+2), Unnatural Toughness (+2),
Starting Gear: Common-craftsmanship Shotgun (pump action) and 2 clips or Common- craftsmanship Bolter and 2 clips or common-craftsmanship Sniper Rifle and 2 clips, Common-craftsmanship mono-knife, 2 Frag Grenades, Light Carapace Armour, Cameoline Cloak
Wounds: 14+1d5

Plushy said:

That's a really good question. The "Hulking" trait supposedly makes people easier to target since they are just larger. Here it is applied to Space Marines in a rather weird way in that (a) they shouldn't really become that much bigger since they are already massive and (b) they can, for some reason, counteract this effect with their black carapace, as if that would make them any smaller.

From reading the explanation in DW, it very much sounds like two ideas ("hulking = size" vs "hulking = agility") clashing against each other. I suppose it's up to personal interpretation if it is applied best to the body, to the armour, or even not at all.

Musclewizard said:

I think ultimately it comes down to whether the group prefers FFG's vision that there is a difference between these weapons, or GW's vision that there isn't. I for one know which way would be more balanced and enjoyable for a mixed party in an RPG. Ultimately, an Astartes Scout is still going to shine - he's just going to shine more in CC and general survivability than in ranged combat (compared to other characters), which I think is the general idea behind Space Marines.

Personally, I would also abstain from Unnatural traits and simply give the class a flat +20, but that's just because I never understood the reason for Unnatural Traits in the first place and always thought they were more trouble than they're worth.

Lynata said:

The reason for Unnatural Characteristics works best with Strength. Unnatural Strength would only affect melee attack damage, whereas a +20 would also affect skills. I gave him Hulking because Space Marines are huge due to their surgeries and being easier to hit is a fine drawback. For this, I intended his weapons to be regular (trading fluff for balance) and am eager to try him in a playtest.

Plushy said:

That's true, but shouldn't it also affect skills? To me, it would seem natural that a Space Marine is just a lot better at stuff like climbing or intimidating. And I say that whilst usually argueing against people exaggerating their supposed abilities!

By keeping it at a "low" +20, it should come out rather okay'ish in that the character is the designated go-to guy for anything that involves muscle work, but at the same time doesn't result in an auto-win all the time. (I hope)

Lynata said:

With the current rules, you can bring a stat up by 20 points with xp. A space marine with lucky rolls could have S 60 as-is; by giving him +20 S, that would instead go up to 80. That's a bit much.

Plushy said:

I mean, by the point he reached that level of experience, I'd say he earned it (and should probably qualify to become a "full" Marine well before). You could also houserule that these stats can only be increased in steps of 3 or so, justifying it with something being hard to improve when it has already been "pushed" so much (by surgery, gene-therapy and implantation). This way, the highest such a character could achieve would be a 72 as opposed to 80. Not much of a difference, but still.

Just an idea off the top of my head, tho. Go with what you feel is best for your game!

Space Marines are big, but they're not so large as to deserve the "Hulking" trait. Hulking creatures are things like Ogryns and Ork Nobz.

JuankiMan said:

I think they've been statted out as such in multiple books before.

Plushy said:

I'm quite sure that's because they are wearing power armour in all books they appear in.