Lynata said:

I dunno, Space Marines in the fluff are miles more awesome than they are in the tabletop. A company of Space Marines, a force roughly 100 men strong, regularly turns entire wars around or can even engage in full scale planetary campaings completely on their own, which would be unthinkable by looking at their game rules. The tabletop game is as is is for game balance and thus regularly contradicts it's own fluff. Space Marines are, and always have been, gods amongst men in the Warhammer 40K universe and when FFG was faced with the challenge of actually representing them in an RPG they chose to extend that mythical demi-god superiority both to their equipment as well as the marines themselves.

I suppose I should clarify. I'm not going by any mechanical rules in the tabletop, I'm going by the fluff as written in GW's rulebooks and codices (which doesn't really contradict the rules as much as you imply, though). That is what shaped the setting for me, so it should be understandable why I invariably extend certain expectations to other products. I'm sure this is similar to how it works for a lot of other fans as well, just that their expectations may be formed more by various novels or whatever.

FFG and Black Library were not the first companies to present Space Marines in an RPG either, and I think it's telling that they are much less "OP" in GW's Inquisitor RPG. The funny thing is - do you know why the game designers even invented the Deathwatch back then? Because for Inquisitor, GW wanted Space Marine characters to operate in the same team as human combatants. Irony, I know.

But - as you say, promoting a different vision was FFG's choice, so I and other likeminded players will just have to deal with this. The good thing about a P&P game, however, is that it can at least be altered to better fit to whatever interpretation of 40k the group adheres to, so it's not all doom 'n gloom from my side either. And if people are looking for feedback or ideas to do so, why not discuss them here?

Lynata said:

I personally never played Inquisitor myself, though I always thought of it as a tabletop miniatures game with RPG elements rather than a true RPG, but regardless, from what I remember from the time the characters in Inquisitor were the like of Inquisitors, powerful Sorcerers, Hyper-Mutants, Rogue Traders and the like, which are all hardly "mere mortals".

But another thing I was trying to say is that Space Marines, by the very nature of their job description, HAVE to be "OP" in the fluff, because there's only a million of them to cover the entire galaxy, and it is extremely rare that a Chapter in the whole gets involved in any conflict, much less multiple whole chapters, which means there's barely a few hundred active Space Marines even in the largest campaings. The impact of such a meager number would be close to insignificant unless each was the like of heroes of legend like Herakles or Odysseus, and yet not only is their participation meaningful, they're often instrumental for victory.

Le sigh. Forum messed up the quotes again.

"from what I remember from the time the characters in Inquisitor were the like of Inquisitors, powerful Sorcerers, Hyper-Mutants, Rogue Traders and the like, which are all hardly "mere mortals"."

Not really, no. It's a wild mix of characters, some that have been put into DH, others into RT and yet others into DW around here.

The full list is: Inquisitor, Space Marine, Techpriest, Rogue Trader, Cultist, Imperial Guard Veteran, Desperado, Enforcer, Mutant, Cleric, Arco-Flagellant, Assasin, Daemonhost

And I find the obsession with "mere mortals" as it is so often propagated on this forum a bit distressing, anyways. What sets the vast majority of these characters apart from the average citizen is not some sort of inherent biological superiority - but the simple authority that comes from working for the Inquisition. You can give anyone this kind of political power and access to better tech and he'd cease to be a "mere mortal".

"But another thing I was trying to say is that Space Marines, by the very nature of their job description, HAVE to be "OP" in the fluff, because there's only a million of them to cover the entire galaxy, and it is extremely rare that a Chapter in the whole gets involved in any conflict, much less multiple whole chapters, which means there's barely a few hundred active Space Marines even in the largest campaings."

See, this is an interpretation I do not subscribe to. At all. Space Marines are not actually "OP" in GW's fluff, they are made this way elsewhere to have some novel be even more epic and actiony so the fans can swoon over how awesome their heroes are. Yes, occasionally you'll have an awe-inspiring legendary feat where a few dozen Marines did something particularly heroic, but the way they were designed to work in M41 has the Astartes act as shock troops doing rapid strikes to cripple weak points in an enemy's positions, not as immortal gods who wage entire wars all on their own. This is what the Imperial Guard is meant for - which, by the way, was even specifically pointed out as such in Codex material as well, with the exact quote going "sometimes an enemy is just too powerful, too numerous, too entrenched for Space Marines to defeat". And this is also why most Space Marine Chapters have, again in GW fluff, withdrawn their forces from Armageddon 3 after the initial assault phase, because their troops and tactics just don't work well in a war of attrition as it is now brewing there.

Space Marines are not OP, they are just "a lot better" and work nicely within the setting when used the right way. A bolter has always been a bolter, and a plasma gun has always been a plasma gun. This kind of equivalence made for a much more stable setting, as both weapons were able to kill a Marine, regardless of who held them. Marines are tougher, but they did the same damage in ranged combat, they were not invulnerable and they did not have some weird monopoly on gear that even outshines that of what the Inquisition is able to procure. We have countless stories where they work alongside other humans - the Black Templars' Vinculus Crusade, for example, has their Chapter Master and a Champion fight next to a Battle Sister Canoness against some uberhuge demon. On the flipside, the Battle Sisters still seem to be perfectly able to wipe out entire Marine Chapters, given that WD #382 (October 2011) specifically mentioned this. That just wouldn't work with FFG's ruleset - which needs to "cheat" via Horde Rules to make certain weapons a threat to Astartes characters at all. Tell me, why is a lasgun fired once by 10 people more dangerous than 1 guy firing his lasgun 10 times?

The open secret is that, on the whole, Space Marines indeed are pretty insignificant (as are Battle Sisters). It is the Imperial Guard that holds the Imperium together. That does not mean that the Marines' intervention may not be instrumental where it happens, though. It just means that, on the whole, I really do not believe their role is as important as a lot of fans make it out to be.

And Primarch Rogal Dorn agrees with my assessment.

I understand why a lot of people like the idea of playing Space Marines like Herakles or Odysseus. It's just still a different interpretation than what GW itself has propagated, and obviously it does have a negative effect on crossover games as soon as not each and every character in the party is allotted the same right to a certain amount of "plot armour". You're basically putting some Spartans and some Persians from "300" into the same group and expect that to work out. The Spartans being as good as in the movie is neither how it actually occurred in history, nor is this very fair to the players who end up playing the Persians. Unless they're masochists and don't want their characters to be able to keep up and play a meaningful role.

I also feel this discussion, as interesting as it is, should have its own thread.

Can't really disagree there. Astartes are supposed to be shock-troop+5, for when stormtroopers and artillery aren't quite enough, but a lance strike would be too much [or too dangerous to the ship].

Looking at even the "social" characters to avoid some of the "but the CSMs are just combat monsters, you TOTALLY need a human acting as their face", Apostate vs [oh hey look a social marine]Champion:

If the difference between the two [how many skills, talents, etc each has over the other] were all bought as rank 1 'true' save for those 2 skills at +10, excluding the "legion training" part of their proficiency talents and just taking half the weapon types since not everyone uses all the weapons all the time, after the 500xp difference the human character is about 1400xp behind. Both had just one trait not counting the unnaturals, but a mutation counts as just +1 to one unnatural, so if its truly equivalent to getting that eight times… ouch.

That's not counting the value of the unnatural attributes, Black Carapace, Acid Spit, the starting loadouts, and the simple fact that all stats except fellowship which will be equal, have a higher potential by 5% over the normal human's, whether for seduction or tearing your arms off. I see nothing stopping a Chaos Marine from taking Synthmuscle implants, possibly bringing himself to +8 if he doesn't mind losing some agility…

Its not like RT mixed with Deathwatch, where the incredible starting marine's values will get overshadowed by the difference in xp costs for both types of character: this is the same tables after all.

Still, it does give a good starting point for where a balancing point between the two starting character types find themselves. Give the human about 2500xp instead of 1000, preferably with a chunk of that being pre-set to humans or the class, and slightly more starting gear [maybe a cyber or starting mutation from a list or something instead of just more guns] and you'd be on even ground.

Alternatively it tells you that if a character dies after the party's gained at least 1500 xp and had one or two aquisition rolls or looting opportunities, the replacement probably be a marine with little worries even if the party was all humans.

edit: oh wait. right. there was the wounds as well. A human can't even PURCHASE that much Sound Constitution [and he'd be at his limit for doing so] without first training up his Toughness to 60. If he did though, that would be another 1200….

Lynata said:

Did you actually just type that?

Really?

An average Space Marine in Inquisitor (which, it should be noted, is not nor has it ever attempted to be an RPG - it's a narrative wargame) is colossally powerful, to the point where numerous alternatives were developed over the years that toned them down. The fact that they started with WS, BS and Initiative in the 80s, a strength of 200 (before the boost from his armour) and a toughness of 150 were enough to make them over-the-top, before you added the better-than-standard power armour (yeah, it was there too - the Sister of Battle archetype they released later had Power Armour… Space Marines got power armour with a pile of extras including extra ablative ceramite plating). A Space Marine in Inquisitor could shrug off a hit from a lascannon or a point blank blast from a multimelta without flinching, could throw rocks with greater force than a plasma pistol blast, and could generally walk through anything and everything without difficulty. One of the few things more broken than a Space Marine, was a high-end Eldar character, and that was mainly because Initiative was the most important stat in the game and Eldar had Initiative scores that started in the 80s and just went up from there beyond the 'unaugmented human' cap of 100.

It doesn't help that the Inquisitor rules are wonky in so many places, and the character archetypes as a whole have generally been condemned as overpowered by the communities I've been part of - the game works so much better if you run with characters who have characteristics in the 40-60 range rather than the higher values presented in the rulebook.

The rules in Deathwatch are far, far less over the top.

Personally, I'm of the believe that the Inquisitor rules for Space Marines are one of the main reasons why there are different rules for Astartes weapons and mortal-use weapons - it's ridiculous that throwing your sidearm at the enemy does more damage than firing it.

Oh, and just for reference, just because there is no canon… doesn't mean that there aren't restrictions on what can and cannot be written about. Certainly, I've hit subjects on about half of the things I've worked on that have to be excised or edited because of GW's requirements.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

The differences you are missing are that:

A) Thanks to how Inquisitor handles Injury Levels and Toughness, that Space Marine is not entirely immune to weapons that will kill his human teammates. It will just take more shots to down him as he has a bigger "buffer" between the different stages of injuries. Which personally I think is a far better way to handle Toughness, given that it does not simply negate incoming damage like a secondary layer of armour but actually represents how well your body can handle the damage that comes through.

B) More importantly: That Space Marine still had the very same weapons as everyone else, so human teammates are capable of fighting and damaging on a comparative level. The Astartes will be a killer in melee, but in ranged combat everyone can dish out an equal amount of hurt. Aside from the fluff, I also feel that this is important from a mere game-perspective, as it means that non-Marine characters actually have an opportunity to feel useful in combat when doing a mixed group.

So, no, I don't think that a Space Marine would "shrug off a hit from a lascannon or a point blank blast from a multimelta without flinching". These weapons have a rather high chance of at least injuring him - heavily - which is more than I can say about Deathwatch, where a certain game mechanic allows you to split incoming damage onto the entire squad and thus negate it completely.

I will say that FFG's games handle these weapons better in that they also feature Penetration, a mechanic which Inquisitor lacks entirely and forces it to rely on very random damage results (and an impractical number of dice) when it comes to these weapons.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

We're going to have to disagree on that.

Though you have a point regarding your theory for the reason why there are two types of weapons here. I would add, however, that altering the way damage for thrown weapons is handled might have been another solution, and that the end result would have made for increased intercompatibility in mixed groups.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

And I wouldn't claim otherwise. I know there are editors - yet at the same time it is obvious that there is sufficient leeway that we end up having stuff like Tau with toes instead of hooves ("Xenology"), Navigator-Servitors ("Eisenhorn") or the infamous Multilaser Marines ("Dawn of War" omnibus), to name just a few examples.

I actually believe that FFG's games have a much stricter oversight than the aforementioned Black Library books, but at the end of the day it still feels like a different world to me. I'm certainly suffering somewhat from faction bias, but having read the fluff I know what "should" be possible and see what isn't, or vice versa. Though even beyond these mechanical topics I will say that I found the original Deathwatch as an organisation cooler than the independent variant. As I said, though, some players will like it more, others less. I'm not deluded enough to not acknowledge that the former are certainly in the majority, at least around here, so I guess FFG made the right choice for their customers?

Lynata said:

Look at the weapon stats. A Multi-melta dealt 7d10 damage, reduced over range (because all Melta-weapons lost damage over range in Inquisitor). An average hit (38 or 39) to the chest (AV8, +4 ablative, +d6 ceramite because the weapon is heat-based - median of 15) deals 23 damage… enough only to cause two levels of injury (knocked prone, -1 Speed, from uninjured). So, not quite without flinching as I hyperbolised before, but still woefully inadequate compared to what you'd expect a Multimelta to do to a Space Marine. A Lascannon (4d10 damage) in the same situation only inflicts a light wound.

After that, the Marine's natural recovery (every character gets a Recovery test at the end of each turn; Toughness Test to remove d3 accumulated damage, +1 for every full 10 his Toughness is over 50… in a Marine's case, a 95% chance of removing 1d3+10 damage every turn. That's sufficient to shrug off the damage caused by an average anti-tank weapon hit in two to three turns - representing twenty or thirty seconds of combat.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Certainly, the specifics of the system in Inquisitor can be improved, but I still think the basic approach is much more sound. It is both somewhat more realistic (yes, yes, I know, realism in a game) as well as neatly circumnavigating the issue of high AP + TB rendering lots of weapons useless to a point where it just doesn't feel right - an issue which even exists in later games of Dark Heresy. In fact, there is currently a thread over in the DH forum where GMs suffering from this very issue are requesting advice.

Even more important is the weapon equality, though. Let the Space Marine be a toughness monster, he can be the "tank" of the group and lead the charge. As long as the other characters are able to dish out similar amounts of at least ranged damage against the enemies, I think the issue will not be critical, simply because everybody still has a chance to shine when taking out a particularly dangerous foe. In this, even DH's Scribe will be able to "keep up" with the group's Guardsman or Arbitrator simply because he, too, can get a nice gun.
As such, the Toughness rules aren't even the real issue in crossover games with Deathwatch (or any FFG games using Space Marines, for that matter) … it's that just about everybody gets subpar equipment due to some made-up monopole on badassery. There's a number of reasons why it exists, ranging from catering to the fans to mechanical necessities (as you hinted at), but ultimately it ends up destroying possibilities that some players might have expected, and that is, of course, disappointing to them.

Those players who think this is awesome, well … enjoy your games. Can't please everyeone, right?

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I'm still trying to figure out what your off topic discussion about how tough a space marine is in another game system not produced by FFG has to do with the topic of the thread.

The long and short of it is that each each game will make rules they feel are appropriate to their rules system and game balance.

As for bolt weapons I think they are perfectly fine damage wise in this system. I'd take a bolter over a lasgun any day. The only thing I would probably change is reducing the availability of bolter ammo from rare to scarce. Unless of course they change it so that specialist equipment gets added to that players standard regimental kit but I doubt that will happen.

From a fluff perspective bolters were not designed to go through power armor. That's what they developed specialized ammunition for. There are also many instances noting a marine bolter and a human sized bolter are vastly different in size. So for a human sized bolter I think the current version is fine.

The difference in size exists plainly, yes, but the rocket-propelled shells in that smoothbore are all supposed to be the same.

Difference is, its a big, extremely-rare, hard-to-resupply, very heavy, difficult-to-maintain mini-bazooka for the human, and a standard-issue "everybody has at least one" well-proportioned, ergonomic, straight-forward, rapid-fire rocket-pistol for the Astartes.

Kind of like if you handed a gradeschooler and a professional football-player a pistol chambered in .50, with a handle appropriate to the hand of each. One of them is going to have a far more comfortable day at the firing range than the other, but its otherwise still the same gun with the same ammo.

Droma said:

Apologies for the sidetracking, though. I have nothing more to add to the original topic, anyways.

Kiton said:

The fact that they're all supposed to be .75 caliber.

Its the same ammunition, and the weapon shunts the round out with the initial propulsion charge before its rocket actually ignites. Pretty much every description of the bolter, explains this part, really.

But what that means is that you've got the same round with the same charge exiting with roughly the same velocity. The fact that one barrel is hooked up to a larger magazine and a fatter handle won't actually change how much force the rounds fired impact with.

Kiton said:

Both a Desert Eagle and a Barret "Light Fifty" use .50 caliber ammunition, but they're miles away in terms of power, range and penetration, so the fact that both have the same caliber proves little.

I'm a bit late to the Inquisitor party but man, like No1 I'm floored by the claim Space Marines are less powerful in Inquisitor than they are in an FFG title.

First off, as much as I loved and played it to death, Inquisitor was such a half-baked game. It was much like Rackham's game Cadwallon in that it had novel ideas but left out critical pieces. It really was just slapping some elements from WarHammer Fantasy Roleplay into the Tabletop game. Man I still have my book somewhere, now I want to find it.

That said Space Marines were SO BAD that they could obliterate an entire team singlehandedly, didn't matter how lopsided a battle was as long as the player wasn't a complete moron he could massacre everything. On the one hand, this makes sense fluff wise (and don't tell me that codex fluff doesn't feature Movie-Marines, that has always been a disconnect between the fluff and the rules that were a couple pages afterward.), but on the other hand they were completely unplayable to the point the only solution was ramming a power breacher to the face simply to exploit the breacher's rule of always crippling an area, and that often required a flagellant hopped up on an entire scenario's worth of stimms just to get past the Marine's many many superior abilities and defenses.

I mean it says something when practically every issue of Exterminatus, the trade magazine for the game, had a discussion about how overpowered Space Marines were and tons of proposals to fix it. They sent more breath on trying to fix the Space Marine than trying to fix the game.

/rant I still loved Inquisitor but man you haven't followed the community much making a claim like that. Sorry for going off the trail.

JuankiMan said:

However , the sad absence of a canon policy means that anyone can make up their own ideas on the subject, so it is indeed moot to discuss the issue by referring to other publications. JuankiMan's suggestion that Space Marine bolter rounds should be longer is at the very least a good explanation that would work to explain the discrepancies between "weapon classes" in FFG's version of the setting, so perhaps they should adopt it for the next reprint of the book. Alternatively, I suppose it could simply be better materials; the Inquisition comes across fairly undergeared in comparison, so it would actually add to the RPGs internal consistency to drop a line on how the Space Marines' relative independence from the Imperium allowed them to retain better technology or something.

I still do not like it and consider it a hindrance, but I've come to accept that it isn't "wrong" - just a different take on the 'verse. And if one wanted to stick with that idea, these weapons do not require a change in OW as well.

WittyDroog: Can't say I agree with all parts of that statement, but in the interest of keeping this thread clean from further off-topic … interested in continueing it via private message?

Lynata said:

Human bolters are a scaled-down version of the Space Marine bolter, including the clip, so yes, human bolter rounds are indeed shorter (how much exactly it is difficult to say. I've been utterly unable to find a human and a space marine bolter in the same pic). Also, the difference could be like the difference between magnum rounds and regular ammunition: more/better propellant, higher mass, stronger propulsion for increased proyectile speed, etc. And why would they limit production of such rounds to the Astartes exclusively? For the same reason they have a monopoly on Land Raiders and other cool tech. "And with the mightiest guns will they be armed", said the Emperor.

Aditionally, could you cite where in the Codex is such a explicit claim of equality? I admitedly just skimmed my SM Codex, but I failed to find it.

JuankiMan said:

I'm pretty sure this is the ancient Witch Hunters codex written on animal hide in 500 BC to which Lynata likes to refer in the bolter discussions that pop up from time to time. The real issue here is that Lynata is mad that space marines are better than sisters of battle and will not accept that fluff has changed.

bogi_khaosa said:

That was both rude and uncalled for and, quite frankly, I was asking her.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude. I'll go slink off now.

JuankiMan said:

JuankiMan said:

Also, the fluff did not "change". GW will simply continue to work within its own vision of the setting, whereas FFG will continue to work within theirs. If, for example, you think the recent customer-driven change concerning lasgun power settings in Only War will have GW change their fluff from the 5th Edition Guard Codex, I believe you'd be mistaken as well. Thus, it quite simply does not matter what some Codex says or how old it is - for just like with any Black Library novel or comic book, it is well within FFGs rights to flesh out their own take on the 41st millennium, and if around here Space Marines are supposed to be immortal gods of war in reality and not just in myth and propaganda, then that's the way it is.

And just for clarification, I'm not "mad" that Space Marines are simply better (they should be!), I'm "mad" that they are -so much- better at and with -everything-. That is a difference I personally still consider to be unnecessary, inappropriate and counter-productive. I just don't get worked up on it anymore, except when people try to defend this version as supposedly being "more reasonable". It's a matter of personal preferences and interpretation, and we should leave it at that.

Bogi_Khaosa: No worries, you didn't really come off as rude. I've certainly heard worse in such debates. I do realise that my stance and stubbornness must be annoying to some; I just cannot resist jumping headfirst into discussions such as these, where I feel one or two things should be pointed out to raise awareness for the greater picture.

@borithan

While I generally like the idea of the Proven quality, Proven (3) doesn't do anything for boltguns. The Tearing rule ensures that Proven(3) comes into play in 4 of 100 damage rolls (1,1; 1,2; 2,1; 2,2), thus making it essentially a needless and useless complication.

@Lynata

The problem with Space Marines being a bit better is that it makes them irrelevant. As others have said, at any time there are ideally 1000000 Space Marines in the entire galaxy, meaning there's about a single company for every hundred worlds the Imperium has. Additionally, they're a logistical nightmare - their initiation process kills off the majority of aspirants and large parts of their high-end gear are used by noone else, so they'll have to supply their own stuff whether they use regular bolt shells or not.
If they don't generally turn the tide when they appear, I, as an Imperial Commander, would just petition for a few thousand more troopers rather than make use of allies that are technically not even under my command.

Space Marines, whether Death Watch or your preferred version, still have weaknesses when used outside their preferred areas of shock-trooping - they can't hold large amounts of ground because they're just too few and they're vulnerable towards anti-armour weaponry that can be moved to their position when the fighting gets stagnant and they fail to advance quickly towards their objective.

As for the horde rules, they're just an abbreviation of something that the usual system already provides, but would get bogged down in. A trooper can wound a Space Marine - it's called Righteous Fury (or Zealous Hatred, more likely) and always deals at least one point of damage despite TB and AP. So… you can roll for every attack of your fifty-man mob, roll for damage and roll for confirmation of every ten, but I think I'll go with horde rules.

Cifer said:

But yes, on a galactic scale, Space Marines in GW fluff are irrelevant. Their condition and their task in the 41st millennium simply makes them a far cry from the spearhead of human conquest they were during the Great Crusade. That doesn't mean that their arrival would not be capable of turning the tide. They remain the most powerful concentration of force in a single trooper, so if you want to fill a limited space (such as a breach in a wall or the command bunker inside an enemy stronghold) with as much power projection as possible then you'll go to the Astartes, plain and simple. That does not mean that this role could be filled by no-one else (again, Rogal Dorn's quote springs to mind) or that they are not generally nice to have, but to GW's world, they are by far not as important to the Imperium as a lot of players around here seem to think. In short, it's the important distinction between "most efficient" and "solely capable".

Case in point: Armageddon 3. In case someone missed it, this Force Organisation Chart, first printed in White Dwarf during the worldwide campaign, has recently been reprinted in the 6th edition TT rulebook. As you can see, 152 Companies from 24 Space Marine Chapters were engaged in this conflict, making it a whopping 15.200 Astartes (at the very least - I've been led to believe that, for example, Space Wolf Great Companies have more than 100 members?). If what y'all are saying would be true in GW's world, not even a tenth that number would have been more than enough to win that entire war all by themselves. Yet in the fluff, they've suffered heavy casualties, with entire Chapters being destroyed, and have now mostly withdrawn from the planet because their rapid-strike capabilities are of no use in the current stage of the war.

Imperial Guard Codex fluff specifically refers to the Space Marines as a fast reaction force that is incapable of fighting the Imperial Guard's battles for them. Personally, I like the concept of the Guard being the Emperor's Hammer, and the Marines being the Scalpel. I have a feeling, however, that a lot of people rather perceive them to be a broadsword.

There's just been a load of novels, movies and computer games catering to the idea that Space Marines need to be immortal behemoths whacking Daemon Princes around with bare fists. Whilst such interpretation is, of course, just as valid as studio fluff, I find it remarkable how such instances have seemingly been capable of shaping people's perception much stronger than the various instances of other novels and games doing the same for other armies - I've heard Gaunt's Ghosts regularly zapping CSMs left and right, for example, and even in Codex fluff we have a badass Catachan dude strangling a CSM Lord(!) to death. I can only assume the prevalent view is a mixture of both the popularity/abundance of Marine fiction compared to the other armies, as well as simple focus. Unsurprisingly, people are going to buy and read stuff about the factions they are most interested in.

Bottom line: I guess our interpretations and the sources we go by are just too different for our perceptions of the setting to be compatible.

Cifer said:

I think it's far more likely that Horde Rules were inserted to simply make a game of Deathwatch feel more "epic". Wading through an entire army, the team slaying dozens of opponents each round would just not be possible with the normal rules, and even if you grant NPCs the Righteous Fury option they'd hardly be a similar threat.

I'm actually somewhat surprised that we didn't get to see a toned down version of Horde Rules for Only War, now that you mention it (and to steer the discussion slightly towards OW again) - on one hand I suppose it would have been too deadly, but on the other I feel as if this could have been compensated by allied NPCs. This time, the players are moving within their own "Horde", after all.

Lynata said:

Since Black Crusade and Only War they do. If you roll a 10 on any damage dice your attack causes righteous fury (OW) or zealous hatred (BC).
If the attack deals damage roll 1d5, the target suffers that critical hit effect at the location with with the type of damage dealt by the weapon used (various smaller rules apply).
If the attack does no damage due to armour and toughness the attack deals one damage instead but no critical effect.

So every mook can kill every beast (except vehicle who are excempt from the 'at least 1 damage' part) in large enough numbers (and assuming there's no fear test to pass which can **** things up quite a bit).