AtoMaki said:

Topics drift… I think it's kinda raises an interesting question. The Imperium is ruthless, callous, brutal and - let's face it - evil. The question is, does that mean that the people of the Imperium are ruthless, callous, brutal and evil? Can you have "good" people serving this evil empire? Because AtoMaki is right. This sort of behavior is perfectly in keeping with the overall behavior of an Imperium which will sacrifice entire planetary populations for the sake of a strategic gain… over even just to make an ideological point. Should we really expect a line guardsman to value the life of his comrade more than the Imperium values the billions of lives on a planet?

As players, and GMs, a lot of us want to play the "good guys." We want our characters to be heoric and selfless. A lot of us find this callous behavior abhorant, but again, AtoMaki is right. This is the way the Imperium as a whole behaves.

Myself, I can see a balance between the two. I can see the line guardsmen standing shoulder to shoulder, fighting to protect each other and the Imperium while the High Command callously throws their lives away without a second thought. It's the WWI trenches feel… where the guys in the squads stand with their brothers-in-arms in the muck and filth and death while the officiers sit miles from the lines, sipping fine wine and sending these squards to die by the thousands for a few feet of wasteland. That, to my mind, brings home the horror of the Imperium even more than AtoMaki's every-man-for-himself brutality… because here we have "good" people fighting and dying for an Imperium that doesn't value them, doesn't care and barely even notices their deaths.

AtoMaki, far be it for me to tell you how to run or play a game that you are involved in. I strongly believe that we play these games to have fun, each game having easily shiftable tolerances for the execution of this primary purpose. So before reading this post believe me when I say if you're having fun doing what you're doing, keep doing it. Have fun and embrace what you like doing in a game with your group. My opinion is only my own but I do feel compelled to share it.

I think portraying interactions with comrades as you do, is incorrect and is a type of pastiche of the life of Imperial Guard with many different sources and concepts. I think that you suggesting that is the likel approach is untrue, just from looking at how many people here disagree with that take on it. Just looking at the background of how an Imperial Guard unit is formed it seems unlikely that - outside of a penal legion - you'd get a squad so callous they'd ever consider doing this. Your regiment is raised as one entity, your squad is trained, lives, eats and exists as a unit.

Each of you share the knowledge that you are leaving your homeworld, you will likely never return to it, never see your family again - chances are that you'll die in combat, it is certain you'll see otherss die. In my opinion all those experiences bind you together as a unit, it makes you trust the person next to you because they are your friends, your family, the people you confide in. In short, they are all you have. Just from the practical side of things, trust is essential to the effective operation of a military unit. If your new ammo loader knows that he's only there because you've chewed through the previous five ammo feeders you bet he's not loading the ammo as effectively because he's watching his back like a hawk.

Whilst it is possible, with some tweaking to use comrades as shields against known threats and initially that may seem grimdark I think eventually it lessens the impact. For me, what is grimdark is the GM roleplaying your comrade, you getting to know him - to like him - to rely on him and then having to watch that comrade die and having to know there wasn't a **** thing you could have done to save him. Having them as bullet shields isn't grim, having them as people is - because the loss of people can be more keenly felt.

Thanks, everyone, for your input. I read the rules in further detail, and discovered that Comrades are (rules-wise) basically "buff bots" with no statlines, that can give you certain improvements or bonuses when you issue them certain orders. They can't even be targeted unless the GM rolls doubles, and even then, the player can use his own reaction to "dodge" for the comrade, simulating the character pulling his buddy out of harm's way or something like that. If they are hit once, they count as wounded, twice and they are seriously wounded, and the third hit automatically kills them. Although as GM, I would put in some rule to discourage players from simply using Comrades as "meat shields," and some of the roleplaying suggestions posted here sound good. Another idea is to give Comrades some extra abilities over time (perhaps even making them able to fire their own weapon), and then if you lose a Comrade, the new one starts without any of those abilities you accrued on your previous Comrade. That would encourage players to try to keep their comrades alive. And of course, in those rare instances where the Comrade is seperated from the group for some reason, the GM can always use the generic NPC Guardsman stats from the back of the book when needed.

Eldartank said:

IIRC only the Ogryns Comrade gets the "seriously wounded" state. All other Comrades go from Healthy to Wounded to Dead.

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I think that the abilities that the Comrades might pick up are reflected in the Comrade Advances. Losing the Comrade means losing all those Comrade Advances that rely on the Comrade being around until you can get a "replacement".
The problem with Comrade Advances and Comrade Orders is that there aren't enough bonuses or different abilities avaiable to make them all that viable. Some specializies like the Operator, the Heavy Gunner and the Ratling certainly would lose a lot if their Comrade died mid-mission but for the othere it's not that bad. Which is partially why I wrote up a set of new Orders and Comrade Advances.

AtoMaki said:

Well don't worry, there's nothing "heroic" about the style of play you do. But it's also just not realistic even in a game where demons pop out of portals and giant mechs held together with psychic energy are par the norm. Your style of play does not portray the overall behavior of ANY Imperial Guard regiment, rather it portrays the style of Traitor regiments such as the Vraksian Renegade Militia who constantly kick their fellow men around for the only argument of "I'm bigger and more important". Sure there are Guard Regiments such as the death Kreigers who are willing to sacrifice every man in order to win the war, but that doesn't mean they would so flippantly toss lives away. The whole point of a squadron is that you work as a cohesive unit, any squadron that uses it's spare men as simple armor is not going to have spare men for very long (at the least no Commander would send you replacements as you're obviously not capable of keeping them alive, if he decides to keep you in his Regiment at all). Do not translate the tone of 40k into "Everyone is willing to kill you at the drop of a hat" because there is much evidence to the contrary.

Like others have said, play the game how you want. Hell turn it into "Only Tea Parties" for all I care, but don't be shocked when no one agrees with you in your perspective of the game.

Eldartank said:

I thought of an easy one to implement and not altogether unreasonable given the idea of brothers-in-arms. If your Comrade dies, make a Fear (1) test. It's characterful and it mimics the morale tests from the tabletop. Sure a tough, experienced Guardsman could shake off the death of his buddy, but a tough, experienced Guardsman probably has Jaded, Resistance (Fear) and/or enough Insanity to be immune to Fear (1).

WittyDroog said:

Consider that for Death Korps and similar units, the Comrades - guys with no special skills or value beyond the basic grunt - simply are more expendible than the PC character types. They are expected to die before allowing harm to come to the sergeant, the medic, the heavy weapons guy, etc. - because those guys have the special skills to get the mission accomplished. What special skills does the Comrade have to get the mission accomplished? None, so his noble sacrifice might be the only reasonable answer.

Outside of the metagame distinction that prevents it from ever happening, Comrades simply hope to survive long enough to develop the skills to become PC-like themselves.

HappyDaze said:

While I would freely admit that Comrades and "redshirts" are fairly synonomous, there is a HUGE distinction between that and deliberately using your comrade as a "meat shield"! Also, the experience spent on comrade orders I would consider lost when a new comrade replaced one lost for any reason. Comrades also have some fairly useful abilities even as listed. They can also carry stuff. Most Larger heavy weapons (Such as Autocannon and Lascannon) cannot be effectively moved by one person. Instead it is broken into to pieces of approximately equal weight to move it. In real life the Browning .50 cal. machine gun (A roughly analogous weapon to the autocannon) works like this.

Radwraith said:

Actually, a good Heavy Gunner can hail around even a Man-Portable Lascannon all alone without much problem. Oh and a Browing .50 is somewhere between the Lasgun and the Heavy Stubber. The Autocannon is roughly equal to a 50mm rapid firing solid projectile weapon.

I also told my friends that I shared the Comrade-usage of our party, and lots of people disliked it. The GM said that since the Commissar can kill a Comrade just because a PC dared to drop to 0 Wounds (removing 1D5 Damage from the PC and making him immune to Critical Damage for a Round) it is really weird to assume that wasting a Comrade when the situation turns hot is necessarily a bad thing.

Radwraith said:

Having spent xp die with the Comrade will only ensure that such Advances are rarely taken, which isn't really going to help things, since without those Advances in play, the Comrades will offer even less benefit while alive and thus there's less incentive to try keeping them alive…

Having been in actual combat and served in the Marine Corps as a infantry men I can tell you that no matter how "grimdark" a battlefield may be using a comrade in arms is not in any way shape or form realistic. The bond you build with the guy next to you is a tight one and even if you hate that fool outside of combat back in the "real world" you will lay down your life for him. That comrade could save your life someday. In fact PC's are the "John Basilones" of the game, the guys who go to great lengths to save their compatriots and lay waste to the enemy.

As far as heavy weapons, sure you could carry the equivalent of a .50 cal by yourself but you can not fire that thing without it's tripod and sure you could carry the tripod too, but what about the rounds a standard load is about 400 rounds. Now consider that the gun weighs in around 84lbs the tripod is 44lbs and 100 rounds in a ammo can is 35lbs (now times that by 4) and you'll start to see that your a-gunner is important. In fact a crew served weapon like the M2 .50 cal is operated in teams of not two but three (team leader, gunner, and a-gunner).

Anyone who intentionally is grabbing and throwing their comrades in front of fire is in my opinion thinking of them as a game mechanic and not a actual person. In a role playing game you should be thinking about them as a person as far as I'm concerned.

Edit: A M2 .50 cal would not be between a lasgun and a heavy stubber. A heavy stubber is closer to M240 medium machine gun.

DrNo172000 said:

Thankyou! Ive been saying for years that an M2 .50 would be far heavier (fully loaded) than a heavy stubber. Chambered in 12.7mm/.50 caliber.

Heavy stubber analogue in real life is a light support weapon, so chambered in something between 5.56mm/.22 and 7.62mm/.303.

Comparitively an autocannon is likely chambered similar to its real life counterparts, so chambered in roughly a 20mm/.78 caliber.

As such the conclusion can be drawn that an M2 would be somewhere between a heavy stubber and an autocannon in performance.

I'd envisage such a weapon to have the following statline.

Type: Heavy

Range: 150m

ROF: -/-/5

Damage: 1d10+5 Impact

Pen: 4

Clip: 100

Reload: Full

Special: Tearing

Weight: 40kg

DrNo172000 said:

Finaly! Someone gets it! Yes, this is the root of everything, and it will go like this: Comrades are useless (as game mechanic) -> Players realize it -> Players invent "new uses" for them -> Players justify it (it will be easy) and turns the GM to their side -> "Meat Shield Cormades". And you can't even say that the players abuse the "family" feel - the PCs will do form a family, it is just one thing that they won't consider their Comrades as part of it.

But yeah, I guess it is partially my failure too… I've got stuck with explaining Step 3…

DrNo172000 said:

Actually, it is. A Boltgun is equal to a 20mm full automatic grenade launcher (read its fluff - it effectively fires RPG-7 warheads!) and has roughly the same damage as a Heavy Stubber. And in my book, 12.5mm is between 7.65mm (lasgun/autogun) and 20mm. It is just one thing that in the Imperial Guard, people use the Heavy Stubber as a SSW.

AtoMaki said:

To my knowledge no caliber has ever been given for a heavy stubber in a official source. I am well aware that a boltgun fires a .75 caliber bolt (as you stated roughly 20mm). Now keep in mind that a weapons caliber doesn't always have to be large to cause a lot of damage the M134 Mini gun which I don't think anyone would question it's damage dealing capability fires a 7.62x51mm round much smaller than the M2's 12.7x99mm.

However I am not saying a heavy stubber is not a Ma Duece because of caliber but rather the heavy stubber can be fired standing while being held by a person. That is simply impossible to do with the M2, it can only be fired mounted.

But to put this back on track to a comrade discussion I think some of ya'll are missing the point on comrades. Sure they only do a few things mechanically for the player but you are forgetting that they are more importantly a unique game and roleplay tool for the GM. I fully intend to give my players comrades back stories and use them in roleplay situations with the demeanor as a guideline. I'll also be using them as a way to give hints to the players when they are stuck. Suddenly private schmuckatelly has a great idea to share with the squad kind of thing. That way when one dies cause I rolled doubles too often and the players pull out that letter to his pregnant wife from his pocket and it's covered in blood they'll feel a impact by it. Remember roleplaying games are much more than a combat mechanic.

DrNo172000 said:

Imperial Armour Volume 5/6 - Siege of Vraks Part 1/2: the DKoK heavy stubber uses 14mm "heavy rounds". Though in Part 2, the Vraksian heavy stubber uses 8.25mm "long rounds". So dunno, in the tabletop game, the lasgun/autogun has Strength 3 (from 10, and 10=nuke), while the Heavy Stubber has Strength 4… and the Autocannon has Strength 7…

DrNo172000 said:

A character can also fire an autocannon, a man-portable lascannon or even a plasma cannon while standing, and without any external support. It just takes a Bulging Biceps Talent…

AtoMaki said:

hahaha well I guess 40k is just low on realism (no duh right) as no human being could ever lift and fire a M2 .50cal heavy machine gun.

Didn't know about those imperial armour entries only thing I'd ever seen was the round being described as around the size of your thumb. I'm guessing since there are two different entries "heavy stubber" is just a universal way of saying med to heavy machine gun.

AtoMaki said:

See, to me, this isn't even "cynicism and ruthlessness" - it's derpy and horribly metagame-y. The characters aren't treating them as actual soldiers would their colleagues, instead the players are gaming the system and trying desperately to justify it as "grim, dark and ruthless", to the extent of stopping the GM from trying to stop them from gaming the system.

It's the sort of metagaming crap I'd expect from my old (I mean about 6-7 years ago) group for DnD, and is exactly the reason I left - it's not roleplaying, or at least any version I'd put up with.

^Wow, you say taht like the COmrades would be the only opportunity to roleplay… Thank you, we like to explore our characters through their internal strifes, as they face the Monster within and go through the never-ending nightmare what is the Warhammer 40k universe. And in this case - as we found out - the Comrade serves better as the abusable underdog instead of the base material for some cheap and cliche drama (because lets face with it, it can go cheap and cliche very easy…).

AtoMaki said:

I agree. It's a sad bit of fact that in RPGs if you want an NPC to be treated like a real character, the NPC needs to have stats like a real character (but not necessarily the same way of generating/building such stats and characters). The Comrades are mechanically just a few options and stat buffs for PCs, so that's going to color some players' perception of them as not being as 'real' as even the NPC Guardsman in the back of the book.

HappyDaze said:

At which point it becomes funny that Chaos Minions, who actually should be thrown ruthlessly in front of oncoming bullets, are given full stats…

If you roleplay based on game mechanics you are meta-gaming. In twenty years I have never had this problem with a pen and paper and neither has anyone I know of. Unless you are roleplaying that you fell to Khorne it makes not sense.

DrNo172000 said:

Meta-gaming isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes, it can help add to the game when the numbers support the story. With the current Comrades rules, we'll never have a Comrade that just happens to have an odd skill that might be helpful or that might actually be better than his PC partner at something (which does not de-protagonize the PCs). Why can the PC with low Perception and Awareness not find a way to get buddied-up with a Comrade that has sharp senses?

In RT, we must be meta-gaming when we realize that a squadron of three frigates can likely kill a cruiser despite the fact that the fluff (which holds over from BFG) says the cruiser will likely wipe out the whole squadron without too much trouble. Yep, knowing the numbers is meta-gaming, but it keeps the expectations more consistent with the outcome.

HappyDaze said:

Knowing the numbers is not meta-gaming, in fact that's part of the GM's job. It's when you use player knowledge that your character wouldn't have to make a decision for your character that your meta-gaming. When you do that your actually breaking your role, and no longer role-playing. For me role-playing games aren't about "winning" it's about immersion. When I play my Dwarf character in the One Ring I put a pipe in my mouth and talk in a accent, I try to only think from his perspective. I don't think of PCs as PCs or NPCs as NPCs, rather I think of them as actual people or creatures. So in RT it wouldnt' be meta gaming to know that about different Spacecraft, it's a RTs business to know that stuff. But would the average guardsmen know anything about that probably not. The tech priest most likely would though.

Why do you think you roll demeanors and names for your comrades, there's no actual mechanical benefit to this. However there is a huge roleplay benefit in it. These things help a GM flesh out the comrade and roleplay them. A large onus is in fact on the GM to make your comrades someone you care about or possibly even dislike for instance one of my players has a comrade with the strict demeanor they probably will grow to dislike her. For instance my group has only done character generation but I've already fostered some attachment to their comrades.

Essentially if you are making decisions based on things that your character wouldn't know than you are power gaming. Also asking for a comrade that mitigates your weaknesses is also power gaming since it's essentially min/maxing. Now there is nothing wrong with power gaming if that's what you enjoy. It's not what I enjoy but you need to play the game the way you enjoy it.

On a side note I actually think mechanicly the comrades are very useful, I don't know any other game that gives you a free built in +5 to ranged attacks or a free built in auto gang up for close combat. And some of the comrade talents are very useful, Armsmen comes to mind.

In conclusion play the way you enjoy!

DrNo172000 said:

Just as the RT knows somethign about starships (like the numbers), the Guardsman will quickly realize that his Comrade is, for some reason, totally incapable of accomplishing any task independently . It doesn't take long for the character (no meta-gaming required) to realize that there are two kinds of Guardsmen: True Guardsmen - those (PC and NPC) that can make Tests and do things (including provide assistance) and the Comrades that barely exist other than as the 'shadows' of True Guardsmen.

BTW, your definition of power gaming is incorrect (it's the definition for meta-gaming, but not power gaming; the two are quite different).