Fluff related rant. Again. Sorry guys, venting.

[Fueldrop]

Ok, now as some of you may remember I'm an Eldar player, and apparently what we love to do is complain. Well, since I hate to break character:

I'm starting with the space marines. Now if I'm honest I used to quite like the space marines, and I probably still would if it didn't feel like GW is trying to ram them down my throat. But enough of that.

Issue the first: Space marine scouts and sniper rifles.
I want you to imagine the scene: The chapter master is talking to the master of the armoury.
MotA: We've got a shipment of sniper rifles in. what would you like me to do with them?
CM: Give them to the new guys. It's not like our veteran marksmen will be able to use them better.
Clarify for me: The single most precision based weapon in the entire space marine arsenal, and it's being given to the rookies. I mean, I'm all for throwing the new guys in the deep end, but wouldn't it be more effective to give the precision weapons to the chapter's crack shots? The space wolves had this one right, sorry ultramarines.

Issue the second: Devastator squads. OK, having recently completed your tour as a scout, learning to use either sniper weaponry (A skill that will never again be of use) Close combat (Very useful) and boltguns (Get used to that one, you're going to be spending a LONG time shooting boltguns), we will now entrust you with the most dangerous weapons you can carry, making you both a prime target for the enemy. Oh, and if your aim slips with this one you could wipe out a full squad of your battle brothers. No pressure! Once again the space puppies have it right, putting the most competent and well-practiced marines into the role of heavy support.
Say one thing for the space marines, they really believe in on the job training.

I may come back to space marines later, but now for something completely different: an eldar player complaining about eldar!
The Eldar should have died out through sheer stupidity several thousand years ago. Seriously, unless they breed like rabbits or something then there is no way that they should still be around. Let's take a look at their track record:
Space marine codex 2008: The battle of Sepulchre. The Eldar, in their infinite wisdom, attempt a frontal assault against a fortified position defended by space marines. A FRONTAL ASSAULT. Not using air superiority and hyper maneuverability to, you know, outflank the entrenched supersoldiers, nope. we'll just walk right up to their front gate and smash them.

Genius, guys.

Codex Eldar lacks any stories of Eldar victories. Nope, I'm serious. In their own codex there are no stories of Eldar winning any battles by a decisive margin, with the few battles mentioned leaving the survivors merely limping on.

I don't have any other codexs on me, so I can't really speak for them, but seriously: The Eldar can see into the future. That's kind of their thing. And yet they regularly, almost routinely, lose or win with massive casualties. So... they see they're going to lose the fight and commit their forces anyway? Their future sight isn't so hot after all? Why is it that an army with the ability to foresee the future loses so often?

The answer is simple: Because they're stupid.

The 5th edition core book contained several demonstrations of this, from Creed pwning Uthwe to the time that they failed to foresee the possibility that someone might investigate the expedition they just destroyed going dark. A race of mind readers with every reason to avoid unnessesary fights turned an ally into an enemy over a cultural misunderstanding? Ok, that's just taking the piss now.

The Eldar have consistently shown IN CANNON that they can't win without devastating losses, will start a war at the drop of a hat and are generally too dumb to live. So why the hell are they still around?

Don't bother with a new codex GW, the Eldar must have wiped themselves out by now.

More may come later, depending on how I feel about tau, IG, ect. Chaos and orcs are both completely insane from the human perspective so any peculiarities in their cannon is forgivable. Likewise, the entire 'nid codex is pure guesswork and this explains any irregularities. Good night, and hopefully you don't take this too seriously.

PS: GW are absolute trolls to the dark eldar. A ballistic skill 9 character... with no ranged attack?!? You fiends!

[bfmusashi]

Eldar and Humans are races in decline for a reason.

[Defenestratus]

I share your frustration about the Eldar. Even in the Eldar "Path of..." books, they manage to get totally annihilated before finally reaching a truce.

They are the perennial doormat of the 40k universe for some reason - and it is rather effing annoying.

Even in the Night Lords Trilogy... a damn Phoenix Lord falls for a dead man's trigger ... the oldest trick in the book. Thats not to say the other grievous "miscalculation" that the Eldar make in that story.

I agree - for a race that can see the future, they're rather bad at it from the stories that we're told.

[bfmusashi]

Farseers are future seeing addicts, I think they can't stop doing it to focus on the now or even be sure they're making the correct future happen. Their defeats could even be parts of larger plans. I imagine they're incredibly annoying even to other Eldar.

[Wolfshade]

I was going to say that I understand the logic behind the first issue, but I am not sure that I do either.

Certainly the progression from Devastator->Assault->Tactical, I can kind of see how that happens.

They are "fresh" promotions from the scouts and so need to learn the intricacies of battle and so are able to watch and observe from the rear of the battle with the devastators.
Then up close and personal in the assault oriented.
The when "fully experianced" have the balanced act of tacticals
[Either that or it is GWs push to sell more tacticals]

When it comes to the Scouts, I can see the idea of giving them snipers, stealth killers hiding and shooting from a distance, patiently waiting for the target to cross the cross hairs. But then the CC scout blows that theory out of the water, indeed surely a CC scout should go to the assault companies instead?

I don't have an issue of scouts becoming devastators as the scouts are already veterans of countless war zones and should be much better than elite vetran guardsmen.

[Tyrendian]

also, Scouts are not entrusted with full Power Armour yet, which means they are better at sneaking around (something made pretty much impossible by the sound of your backpack alone, unless you're Raven Guard and capable of some innate magic that prevents that) - so why would they give Sniper Rifles (premier ambush weapon) to guys inherently incapable of effectively ambushing most anything? And about CC Scouts: sneaking up and slitting throats is their job, not running in screaming like Berzerkers - so that's again fitting...
Another point: maybe Scouts need the help of Sniper Rifles to be precise and Tacs don't any more? Because Boltguns definitely have more firepower than a Sniper Rifle...
Concerning the progression to Devs, I also fail to see your problem... it's not like they are complete fails when they leave the Scout stage or anything... but their slight lack of experience makes it sensible to keep them a little in the back field, which promoting them do Devs first does..

On the other hand, i completely agree about the Eldar: They seem awfully stupid... I means one has to assume Craftworld Malan'tai had not a single Missile Launcher, Brightlance, Fusion Gun, Farseer, Fire Prism, Wraithlord etc. etc. on board, each of which would have hard countered the Doom (I know that's mixing up rules and fluff a little but I always found that bit incredibly hard to believe...)

[Shotgun Justice]

It's an unfortunate trope that the Eldar must be tragic, lazy writing means no huge victories - especially stupid when the Eldar way of war is one of minimal risk and hit and fade attacks.

On the Space Marines it makes sense doctrinally - Space Marines have a defined modus operandi and scouts do not fit it - Power Armour is apparently hard to hide in and most Space Marines consider camouflage cowardly and proudly display their colours as part of their shock and awe attacks. As such why would a marine want to be a sneaky sniper? It is also a less used tactic and so sniper specialists in the battle companies would be under used, with such small fighting numbers holding some back to provide sniper support would be a sub-optimal use of a marines fighting capabilities.
Once a scout has graduated to a marine he is already experienced with missile launcher and heavy bolter. He then fights as a bolter armed devastator before rotating through the heavy weapons. The whole point of this progression is that the tactical marine is the cornerstone of marine combat doctrine. As such he can operate bolter and all the heavy weapons by the time he reaches a tactical squad.
Since most Space Marines do not suffer detrimental ageing it makes most sense to have your experienced specialists operate as sergeants and the rest of your experienced warriors fight in the key role of tactical marine. For some reason Space Wolves get old and wheezy so have to be left on a hill, in the sunshine and with a blanket in case they feel a chill. During the afternoon their sarg will break out the biscuits and a flask of tea and they can forget their grandkids' names while telling rambling "sagas"
The rules and the fluff are contradictory in an important sense, devastators are able to move and fire to better keep pace with the advance, hence why they carry their weapons around rather than on carriages / tri-pods. The rules don't let them do this.

[bfmusashi]

Y'know that scout sniper thing is starting to bug me to no end. They always go on and on about how savage the Space Marine recruiting worlds are and I can only think of a few (like Iron Fists from Necromunda) that have guns. So, you have Space Conan/Tarzan and you give him a specialist weapon and may be introducing him to an entirely new conception of warfare. It's like teaching them how to hack into a suit of power armor through the comm line and make the reactors go critical.

[Tyrendian]

Y'know that scout sniper thing is starting to bug me to no end. They always go on and on about how savage the Space Marine recruiting worlds are and I can only think of a few (like Iron Fists from Necromunda) that have guns. So, you have Space Conan/Tarzan and you give him a specialist weapon and may be introducing him to an entirely new conception of warfare. It's like teaching them how to hack into a suit of power armor through the comm line and make the reactors go critical.

again you seem to assume Scouts are total noobs, straight from the recruiting world... which they are most definitely not! They have already completed the most rigorous and grueling training regimen in the entire Imperium (excpet maybe Assassins and Custodes, which we know nothing about afaik). So while they might have found their weapons unusual at age 10 when they were inducted, at that point they didn't even get to see a weapon - and after all the Hypno Conditioning and stuff their new life seems completely natural...

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Scouts are fairly reasonably skilled, BS/WS3 represents a well-trained career soldier (poorly trained humans are BS/WS2). Chances are the spess mahreens just judged that full-fledged battle brothers are best-used when equipped with Bolters etc. I wouldn't mind seeing Stalker Boltguns become an optional replacement for Bolters in Tactical/Devastator squads, though. It'd give the vanilla 'dex a nice little thing unique to it.

[DWest]

I think this might actually be written out in one of the Codices somewhere, but the way it makes sense to me is the following:
-Scouts get Sniper Rifles to get them in the practice of precision aiming and careful, lethal kills, or pistol and knife to hone their commado'ing skills. Space Marines have always been stategically stealthy (i.e. flanking maneuvers, surprise attacks, generally poking at the enemy's soft bits) if not tactically stealth (power armor going clomp, clomp, clomp instead of sneak, sneak, sneak).

-Once a Marine is finished with his Scout training, he's fully vetted to wear Power Armor, but not fully integrated in the Chapter, so he goes in the Devastators to get oriented with being in the main line of battle while being exposed to the least pressure (yes, there is a possibility of whiffing and hitting an ally, but not nearly as big as the tabletop abstraction makes it to be); compare standing back and shooting tanks until they turn into pretty fireballs to being plopped into the middle of the battlefield and having to handle enemies on all sides while sitting on an objective you have to hold.

-Then comes the tour in the Assault Squads, and the reason why is this now fully-vetted Battle Brother is going to have a bit of swagger and jock attitude at making it this far. For all their training, the Space Marines still have emotions, and to put it bluntly, the Assault progression is to weed out the ones who are too stupid or hotheaded to live.

-Once the advancing Marine has shown himself to be competent in all aspects of warfare, and able to keep his head screwed on straight in a firefight, he is then added to the Tacticals. This way, the officer corps knows that anybody with the fat arrow on his shoulder is going to get the job done, whatever they tell him to do.

-The final stage of progression, the 1st Company, works in sort of reverse, where the jack-of-all-trades Tactical Marine goes back and re-specializes himself according to his skillset and preferences, as Vanguard, Sternguard, or gun/assault Terminator.

At least that's my theory.

[Nabterayl]

My view generally agrees with DWest. Remember that Astartes sniper rifles are not actually particularly powerful weapons. For most sharpshooting applications there are better options, such as a Stalker pattern bolter and/or an M40 targeter. Sniper rifles have superior range and probably superior precision, but they shoot crystallized toxin.


"Let me get this straight, Sarge ... you want me to take this needle of solid poison, which is so fragile you warned us not to break it, and can't even penetrate a plate of flak armor, and you want me to shoot it between the plates of that xeno over there, 800 meters away? And we can't use a bolter with hellfire rounds for this ... why?"

"Because, recruit, you can't do it with the ******* sniper rifle yet."

The typical space marine progression makes sense if you think of space marines as commandos, instead of infantry. The very first thing a space marine learns is how to be a scout sniper. Then they learn supporting fire. Then they learn close assault. The skills of the infantryman are fourth on the list.

What all this says to me is that although space marines "go loud" very frequently, they consider the foundations of their craft to be those they learn as a scout - how to identify an enemy's weak spots, determine how to exploit them, carry out the exploitation, and exfiltrate before a proper response can be organized. That's exactly how we see even veteran space marines acting. Though clearly inspired by the Mobile Infantry, space marines actually fight like British Commandos in SPAAAAACE (TM). Even the dude schlepping the lascannon is, at heart, a raider.

[pgarfunkle]

Yeah I'm sure I've read something along similar lines DWest, at least for codex marines.

I think in a previous version of the Blood Angel Codex the roles were a bit reversed. As the new marines tended to be very aggressive when young the majority of scouts were combat oriented, which is why heavy weapon scouts were limit to 0-1. Once out of the scouts marines went to the assault squads, then the tactical units and finally the devastators.

By that point they were expected to have aged sufficiently to be able to control the rage and not charge towards the enemy. (This was when each unit rolled a d6 at the beginning of the turn and on a 1 advanced towards the enemy).

I'm not sure how this stands now as it seemed similar to space wolves so was perhaps forgotten for the most recent codex.

[Wolfshade]

I imagine it is a bit like the assassins progression as described in Leon...

[The Sovereign]

PS: GW are absolute trolls to the dark eldar. A ballistic skill 9 character... with no ranged attack?!? You fiends!

While as a DE player I agree that they got the shaft by 6th Ed, remember Lelith has plasma grenades, so technically she can now make use of her amazing BS. That's not even considering putting her on a quad gun or something (as un-fluffy as it would be...).

[FireHazard]

I think in a previous version of the Blood Angel Codex the roles were a bit reversed.

In an even earlier BA Codex, the scouts were veterans.

[Tyrendian]

In an even earlier BA Codex, the scouts were veterans.

which they still are, of sorts, when it comes to Space Wolves... although putting it as "the guys without friends" might come closer to the truth... but we Sons of Fenris don't care about your stupid Codex anyways so... :)

[skilgannan]

If you look at how are armed forces work you do not need combat experience to become a sniper. You do your basic training and if your a good shot at the range then your instructors would suggest that your specialist training should be marksman. It could well be the same for space marines.

[Nabterayl]

Look at the special forces organizations around the world, too. Plenty of them turn out highly competent, very dangerous operators without requiring a whit of infantry experience.

[euansmith]

The future is bright. The future is blue. I,for one, welcome our Ultra Tau Marine masters. Want to know more? Press the red Self-euthanasia Button to disagree.

[Azrell]

Blood angels shouldn't really have scouts... They get shoved in a coffin and pop out full marines. Indoctrination and training happen with "the machine spirit" in the coffin. Most chapters train the old fashioned way, but blood angels don't really have the luxury when your trainers could go mad and fly into a blood lust at any moment.

[pgarfunkle]

I don't think they pop out full marines, from my understanding the majority of the surgery and implants are done while in the sarcophagus. Once released they go one to train in the 10th company. Also I think all/majority of chapters use hypno indocrination/some sort of machine programming to teach the initiates the basic information they will need before they reach the scout company.

[GordPotts]

I think the reasoning behind most chapters making their initiates into scouts first is that they don't want to entrust a suit of power armour, which is in very short supply in most cases, to a new recruit. The amount of work that goes into building a new suit of power armour is immense, and if someone is going to go and get it atomized on their first day, the chapter takes a big hit. Think of the Night Lords books that have main characters salvaging armour off fallen foes just to keep themselves in a full suit.

[bfmusashi]

I doubt it's a trust thing since the far rarer geneseed has already been used.

[Fueldrop]

I think the reasoning behind most chapters making their initiates into scouts first is that they don't want to entrust a suit of power armour, which is in very short supply in most cases, to a new recruit. The amount of work that goes into building a new suit of power armour is immense, and if someone is going to go and get it atomized on their first day, the chapter takes a big hit. Think of the Night Lords books that have main characters salvaging armour off fallen foes just to keep themselves in a full suit.
Considering some of the ways to die in the grim darkness of the future, I see that being a big problem for all space marine chapters anyway. I mean, when a full auto self propelled armour piercing grenade launcher is considered your side arm...

[Lexington]

I don't have any other codexs on me, so I can't really speak for them, but seriously: The Eldar can see into the future. That's kind of their thing. And yet they regularly, almost routinely, lose or win with massive casualties. So... they see they're going to lose the fight and commit their forces anyway? Their future sight isn't so hot after all? Why is it that an army with the ability to foresee the future loses so often?
Well, they don't just "see into the future." Farseer see probabilities, possibilities, paths, etc., and can often use those to manipulate events to their advantage. This doesn't always win them the day, but it's important to remember that a win for the Eldar involves not being on the battlefield whatsoever. They can't win in open war. They can declare victory, achieve objectives, etc., but they still lose Eldar in doing it. If you're playing a game of 40K, things have already gone pretty badly for your side. It's the basic situation of the race.


The Eldar have consistently shown IN CANNON that they can't win without devastating losses, will start a war at the drop of a hat and are generally too dumb to live. So why the hell are they still around?
Thankfully, when it comes to the ugly period of 5th Ed Codex background, everyone's stupid. The primary background writer for the period is loathed for this, among other reasons, and his contemporaries didn't fare much better. The whole Studio seemed to be under a "write for idgits" order at the time. This has lessened up a bit as we've moved on to 6th, so hopefully it'll continue with the Eldar book.

[Rissan4ever]

Well, they don't just "see into the future." Farseer see probabilities, possibilities, paths, etc., and can often use those to manipulate events to their advantage. This doesn't always win them the day, but it's important to remember that a win for the Eldar involves not being on the battlefield whatsoever. They can't win in open war. They can declare victory, achieve objectives, etc., but they still lose Eldar in doing it. If you're playing a game of 40K, things have already gone pretty badly for your side. It's the basic situation of the race.

It's funny, but I was just about to post this exact point. If the Eldar have to go to war, it's because things have already gone horribly wrong. They're at their best when they manipulate other races (usually those lovably gullible Mon'kei) into doing their fighting for them.

[Sure]

My two cents:
Space Marine Scouts, while the new guys in the chapters, have already gone extensive and ridicluously realistic (deadly) training. In order to go from neophyte to scout they've got to show they probably can handle themselves and be decent marksmen. That's why I don't agree with them being BS/WS 3 - they should be better than guartdsmen but then that would mean you've got to bump the Battle Brothers so I get why their skill is on par with a guardsman from a game mechanics viewpoint.
So giving them sniper rifles makes sense since their job is recon and infiltration - plus snipers often have to get into small spaces and other spots that power armor would be too big or heavy to pull off. So the sniper thing is totally acceptable from a fluff POV for me. So...devastators. The new Battle Brother is put in a Dev Squad and given...a bolter and then told to spot for their more experienced brothers with the big-boy guns. While enemy fire is raining down on them they're learning to rely on their power armor as well as using cover, they're maintaining their fire, and focusing on their target/objective while their brothers in tactical and assault squads keep the enemy from getting very close. At this point the chapter's concern isn't their aim - by this point many years of constant training have honed them to a high level of skill. At this point the concern is that the new Battle Brother gets used to fighting in power armor. This probably includes a lot of interface features displayed in the fiction. They are learning when to rely on the armor ro just take a shot or when they're going to have to take cover. Devestators may wind up under fire, but they probably aren't going to be within pistol-shot of the enemy if the other marines do their duty.
Once the marine learns fighting from far, they master fighting up close, then if they have the acumen required they join a tactical squad that does both as the situation requires. Things like how well a marine aims is not considered, because fluff-wise they're aim should be amazing before they ever even take the field in the name of the chapter as a scout.
Instead the progresson goes from a job with limited or extremely specific mission parameters (Scouts), fighting the battle at long range and recognizing major target priorities and support functions (devastator), then getting so close to the enemy you can hit him with a sword and recognizing the value of mobility and where their squad will have the most impact (assault), and then comining all these lessons seamlessly so that any and all these objectives can be achieved at any given time (tactical).

[Nabterayl]

I think it boils down to two things: sniper rifles being training weapons, and the use case. In re: training weapons, remember that according to the codex stalker pattern boltguns are superior to equal or superior to sniper rifles in every way. I wish that they were available to scout sergeants as a matter of course, but we have enough fluff sources to know that they aren't artifact-level rare. More like ... say, power armor-level rare. Not something you give to somebody with six years of live fire training but no actual combat experience.

In re: the use case, a long-range sniper rifle is only really useful if the enemy doesn't know you're there, and that means infiltrating a long distance on foot. That's not really how power armored space marines fight, with the possible exception of the Raven Guard. It makes sense to me that those weapons (either sniper rifles or full-up Stalker kits) would end up in the hands of scouts, who are routinely tasked with infiltrating a long distance on foot, and that power armored marines - even ones who desire extreme precision in their weapons - would generally simply slap on an M40 and call it done.

[clively]

As others have pointed out regarding Eldar, if they are fighting then the situation is dire. The question then is: why fight?

There is a lot working against their farseers. Tzeentch is one. If you want to control someone who sees the future, then you drive them into a position where every future is dire. As they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. So this path might be littered with false hopes. A good writer would take this manueverability into account, which would certainly be good reading.

On top of that their numbers are small and they can't see everything. The latest path book essentially showed how the top farseers of a craftworld overlooked certain future possibilities because they thought it was insignificant, and then due to political reasons ignored one of their own that brought it up.

That said, doing a frontal assault against an entrenched marine position is...stupid. Makes you wonder how they fought alongside the old ones against the necrons.