'Real strength' Warhammer 40K

[Emperorsmercy]

In the game of warhammer, it is fairly obvious that for the game to work that all of the units have to be similair in strength, even though in reality and in fluff terms, they would be quite different.

Take a Space Marine for example. In the background, they are described as unstoppable, easily able to defeat dozens and dozens of opponents. In the game, a single marine would fall easily to maybe 4,5 guardsmen (Or maybe thats just my bad luck... :D ). They would be similair to the space marines shown in the heroic movie marines article on BOLS a few weeks back.

On the opposite side of the scale, Tyranid Gaunts would not even count on the scale, and would individually be worth about one-eighth of a point each.

What are your opinions? Do you agree on this or disagree, and what would some units really be like if the game was truly based on fluff and the true game.

[Nabterayl]

I think the biggest change necessary for a move to "true-scale" 40K is in the shooting and save mechanics. Double the range of all weapons, double the rate of fire for all weapons other than those that fire one shot each, and allow models to take cover, invulnerable, and armor saves (in that order) and I think you're more than halfway there for the infantry game.

It's not really clear to me that models' tabletop statlines are that far from the fluff. For instance, I expect a single ork meganob to be the equal of several marines in close combat, and the game gives me that. You make a good point about a marine vs. 4-5 guardsmen, but at the same time, in certain circumstances I do expect 4-5 guardsmen to defeat a marine in close combat, even going by fluff. I expect a marine to defeat 4-5 guardsmen in a fistfight. But if those 4-5 guardsmen each empty their clips into the marine at point blank range, my opinion on the marine's odds go down. The tabletop assault mechanics and statlines take both scenarios into account.

[Melissia]

The only way you could make 40K into a "true stats" game is by adopting d10, d20, or even d100 style stats.

[imperialsavant]

The only way you could make 40K into a "true stats" game is by adopting d10, d20, or even d100 style stats.

;) G'day Melissa, hope you enjoyed Chrissy & New Year & did not drink too much Tequila!

What do you mean by d10 etc????
Please enlighten me!:rolleyes:

[Melissia]

D# refers to the amount of sides on dice.

The standard die is d6, meaning six sided die. d10 would therefor mean a 10 sided die (as used in many roleplaying games), and d20 would mean a 20 sided die. d100 is a 100 side die, but technically speaking most of the time it's done with two 10-sided dies instead (each dice is a separate digit).

[RocketRollRebel]

Ork boyz at S3 is defiantly a balance over fluff rule. Fortunately it works out pretty well tho.

[Gotthammer]

Play Inquisitor.

[DarkLink]

Tactical and individual skill doesn't reflect in the statlines very well. That's where Marines tend to dominate, really, as well as armies like Eldar. Plus armor plays a much bigger roll. Power armor in fluff makes Marine practically invulnerable to small arms fire, terminator armor even more so. Things like that just don't reflect well on the tabletop.

[person person]

...Power armor in fluff makes Marine practically invulnerable to small arms fire, terminator armor even more so. Things like that just don't reflect well on the tabletop.

The BGB said during the assault on Black Reach when Sicarius T-hawk assaulted Zanzag's lair 30-ish terminators managed to kill scores and scores of orks only losing 1 terminator. 5 TH/SS terminators getting charged by 20 ork boyz are basically screwed in a game of 40k. A bolter round is about the equivalent of a 19mm rocket propeled shotgun slug. How does that have a 4 in 6 chance of killing a guardsmen on contact? A fully charged Lasgun can just barely chip the paint of power armour. That would just be unfair.

D10s and other types of die would probanly make the game a helluva lot more real. IMO, although army sizes would take ridiculous extremes eg 1000 gaunts vs 10 marines.

[fuzzbuket]

this would ruin GW sales

mr. a) yay today the consumer bought 1000 guardsmen and 200 baneblades
mr.b) and how many marines did we sell!
mr.a) ummm... 5
mr.b) gah!
mr.a) its in the rules and game balnce sir!
mr. b) muaahahahah
so..
http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/tt339/fuzzbuket/newmarinebox.jpg

-fuzz:p

[Polonius]

Well, you can have a recreation of the background, or you could have a game worth playing. The game would be a lot less fun if I had to field 250 IG while my opponent dropped a captain and two tactical squads, even if they were balanced.

[snikrot]

although i wild be fun to see a single marine gun down a whole guard squad in one turn

[Nabterayl]

Tactical and individual skill doesn't reflect in the statlines very well. That's where Marines tend to dominate, really, as well as armies like Eldar.
Gotta say I'm with DarkLink on this part. In my mind there's a difference between "true scale" 40K and "movie scale" 40K. Do I think that 10 marines can defeat 400 orks? Yes. Do I think they can do it by getting into a toe-to-toe brawl with 400 orks at once? Not even close.

[Fellend]

Brothers of the Snake:
10 Marines > thousands of dark eldar
100 Marines > Millions of Orks

[Hairy Piggy]

Marines should be superhuman. Incredible. Able to, using superior tactics, strength and firepower, defeat enemy armies many times their own size. Unfortunately, 40k is a wargame and Ultra-realism would slow the game down too much. Perhaps inquisitor is the way to go...?

[Nabterayl]

Brothers of the Snake:
10 Marines > thousands of dark eldar
100 Marines > Millions of Orks
Yeah, but how did they do it? Did those ten marines lock themselves in a room with thousands of dark eldar and proceed to bolt, chainsword, and punch them all to death? Oftentimes I feel like when people talk about "true scale" marines that's what they ask for.

There's a difference between ten marines beating a thousand enemies by being smarter, more mobile, and harder to find, and ten marines beating a thousand enemies by locking themselves in a room with a thousand armed and angry xenos and killing each and every one of them in an epic, hour-long fight sequence. Fluff marines can do the first. Not even fluff marines can do the second.

[Aldramelech]

Goodbye

[theabsolved]

Do you really want to play a realistic game? Or would you rather play an enjoyable game? That's the real question.

[Nabterayl]

I think it depends on whose version of "realistic" we're talking about. I don't want to play a "realistic" game that adheres to the vision of people who think that a single space marine can kill a hundred orks in a stand-up fistfight (not that I think such a game would be "realistic"). But would I enjoy a more "realistic" version of 40K than what we have right now? Sure, maybe. Like Aldramech said, realistic doesn't have to mean unenjoyable - and liking realistic games doesn't mean you have to hate the way 40K is right now, either.

[Subject Keyword]

Do you really want to play a realistic game? Or would you rather play an enjoyable game? That's the real question.
The second one.

Every codex hypes up its army. I hear a lot of Marine Players going "he's not as large or baddass as he should be." Yeah, neither is anything else in the game. There is a lot of inconstancy.

In the Marines 'Dex the Landraider is an ancient, holy artifact that is fueled with manliness and will never fall and is impenetrable and blah blah blah... In the Necron codex a small swarm of tiny robots that are easily produced by even the lowliest repair unit completely violates a Landraider with no effort at all. If either of these extremes were represented on the table, they would be unfair for, respectively, Marine and Necron players. So there is a happy medium that is unfortunately irreconcilable with the fluff.

Oh, and: TITS.

[Melissia]

Tactical and individual skill doesn't reflect in the statlines very well. That's where Marines tend to dominate

Bull****, the Imperial Guard's generals are much better at leading the Imperial Guard than the vast majority of Space Marines are. The Space Marine captains are trained and experienced in leading a few hundred Space Marines on a planetary scale, not a few million Guardsmen.

The thing is, tactical skill is up to the general, and THAT... is represented by the player.

[Nabterayl]

Bull****, the Imperial Guard's generals are much better at leading the Imperial Guard than the vast majority of Space Marines are. The Space Marine captains are trained and experienced in leading a few hundred Space Marines on a planetary scale, not a few million Guardsmen.

The thing is, tactical skill is up to the general, and THAT... is represented by the player.
I think what he was saying is that a marine's superiority is most attributable to his tactical and individual skill, which is an important thing to remember when discussing "true scale" marines. Ten marines do not beat 400 orks by being forty times tougher, stronger, and more accurate than an individual boy. They beat them by being better soldiers than the orks. And that's not something that really gets represented in the statline.

[Melissia]

Actually I would argue that as far as close combat goes, Orks are naturally extremely skilled tactically, equal to a Marine even (which explains their WS). Every piece of fluff that I've read that wasn't boring marinewank had Orks described as being naturally in tune to the combat environment in a way that is far beyond that of a human.

[Nabterayl]

Oh yes, I quite agree about that. I think it's fairly clear that orks have potential that is superior to marines in every respect. In application, however, orks are not often better soldiers* than marines.

I think if you told ten tactical marines to stop four hundred orks from working their way through a stretch of forest, the marines would be able to do so. They wouldn't do it by engaging the orks in a firefight, though (ten tactical marines barely have enough ammunition to kill 400 orks). They wouldn't do it by chainswording the orks to death in a massive brawl. They'd do it by picking off orks and running away, killing nobz to encourage infighting amongst the boyz, leading individual warbands and mobs away from the main body of troops ... in short, by applying their knowledge of the ork to derail the orks' advance.

* As you know, I am not of the opinion that marines make good soldiers when working alongside other forces of the Imperium. When operating solely with their battle brothers, however, I do think that marines can practically apply the art of soldiering better than most.

[Melissia]

A pity that GW fluff rarely has them actually do something intelilgent like that. No, GW fluff would have them engage in a firefight with those 400 Orks, going down to chainsword combat once they ran out of ammo (IF they ran out) and winning, often without losing a single Battle Brother.

GW fluff makes Marines look like lucky morons, mary sues, and plot armor wearing knights of suck.

[DarkLink]

I think what he was saying is that a marine's superiority is most attributable to his tactical and individual skill, which is an important thing to remember when discussing "true scale" marines. Ten marines do not beat 400 orks by being forty times tougher, stronger, and more accurate than an individual boy. They beat them by being better soldiers than the orks. And that's not something that really gets represented in the statline.

Right. Marines are experts at close quarters combat (which is much more than just hand to hand combat). A special forces operative that's effectively immune to small-arms fire? Look at what happened in Black Hawk Down, except that the SM's wouldn't have needed to worry about getting pinned down. They could literally just run through the city killing everything in their way, moving too quickly for the enemy to bring sufficient firepower to punch through their armor to bear.

For a real-life example, I remember a story about a 4 man recon team in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They're sneaking around when they run into a full company of Iraqis (~150 men or so). The Iraqis open fire.

Two of the operatives go to call in a helicopter to pick them up and get them out of there, while the other two lay down suppressing fire. They fired 77 shot, and killed 75 Iraqis. The rest gave up and fled.

Marines are in a similar position of being far better soldiers and shooters than pretty much anything else out there. But on top of that, they have their superhuman constitutions and equipment. Even if on of those Iraqis had gotten in a luck shot, it would have just bounced off power armor.

Those two operatives beat 150 enemies not by being tougher or faster or stronger, but by being far more skilled. And that's not reflected well in-game.



And Marines are master tacticians. You can argue over who is the best strategist (I recall we had a big old thread on that a while back), but tactics are things like room-clearing and individual/squad-level maneuvers and techniques, primarily. Marines are the best soldiers in the Imperium, bar none. They have mastered individual skills and tactics far beyond that of the Imperial Guard. It's kinda the whole point of their, y'know, decades of training just to earn the right to wear power armor.

Tactics is little picture, strategy is big picture. Marines are masters of the little picture, though you can argue about big picture stuff as it's a separate issue.

[Nabterayl]

I think you and I begin to part ways here, DarkLink. When I talk about marines soldiering, I don't mean so much things like how straight they can shoot so much as knowing what to do and doing it. Accuracy you can represent in a statline. To me, there are two standout things about marines' soldiering. The first is that in any given situation they can quickly formulate a plan accurately tailored to the situation. That's true from small scale decisions such as "should I advance to the next boulder" or "should I pull the trigger now, or in three heartbeats?" to larger scale decisions such as, "How do I stop 400 orks with only ten men, ten bolters, 1,000 rounds, 20 frag grenades, and 10 knives?" Now of course, there isn't anything exclusively marine about that. Plenty of people even today could figure out how to stop 400 orks with ten men, ten bolters, 1,000 rounds, 20 frag grenades, and 10 knives, and plenty of people today know whether to shoot now or in three heartbeats. The remarkable thing about marines is the concentration of such individuals in each squad, and the ability to formulate good decisions quickly and under extremely stressful conditions.

The second thing that is remarkable to me about marine soldiering is that, having come up with a plan, the fighting unit carries it through with almost robotic resolution and precision. More than most warriors in this universe, marines behave like characters in a video game - that is, without regard to psychological factors that might make a soldier make suboptimal decisions or delay his actions. Add in the fact that most squads will have made at least two dozen deployments together, and you have a unit that can carry out its tasks with very little of the "frictional" elements that impair group efficiency. Again, there's nothing exclusively marine about that; it's just a quality that marines have in spades.

Those two qualities, in my mind, are the heart of marine superiority. And those are things (particularly the first) that would be very difficult to write into game rules.

[DarkLink]

I think you and I begin to part ways here, DarkLink. When I talk about marines soldiering, I don't mean so much things like how straight they can shoot so much as knowing what to do and doing it. Accuracy you can represent in a statline. To me, there are two standout things about marines' soldiering. The first is that in any given situation they can quickly formulate a plan accurately tailored to the situation. That's true from small scale decisions such as "should I advance to the next boulder" or "should I pull the trigger now, or in three heartbeats?" to larger scale decisions such as, "How do I stop 400 orks with only ten men, ten bolters, 1,000 rounds, 20 frag grenades, and 10 knives?" Now of course, there isn't anything exclusively marine about that. Plenty of people even today could figure out how to stop 400 orks with ten men, ten bolters, 1,000 rounds, 20 frag grenades, and 10 knives, and plenty of people today know whether to shoot now or in three heartbeats. The remarkable thing about marines is the concentration of such individuals in each squad, and the ability to formulate good decisions quickly and under extremely stressful conditions.

The second thing that is remarkable to me about marine soldiering is that, having come up with a plan, the fighting unit carries it through with almost robotic resolution and precision. More than most warriors in this universe, marines behave like characters in a video game - that is, without regard to psychological factors that might make a soldier make suboptimal decisions or delay his actions. Add in the fact that most squads will have made at least two dozen deployments together, and you have a unit that can carry out its tasks with very little of the "frictional" elements that impair group efficiency. Again, there's nothing exclusively marine about that; it's just a quality that marines have in spades.

Those two qualities, in my mind, are the heart of marine superiority. And those are things (particularly the first) that would be very difficult to write into game rules.

Well, yeah, shooting straight is only one small part of it. I just happened to use an example of what skilled and disciplined marksmen can do when they have a bunch of easy targets.

[ZenPaladin]

Sooo just to throw it out there but how does one properly represent something like an Eldar Exarch that might have been fighting longer than the Ultramarines have existed?

[MVBrandt]

Notionally this is all an impossibility, esp. in a d6 system. Fluff and rules should be even more divorced, honestly. None of the fluff is real, the game IS real. You spend actual money on real models and real terrain, and spend actual time with real human beings playing a real game. Focus on keeping what's actually "real" functional, instead of screwing its functionality for the sake of the imaginary. Far easier to bend the fluff to mesh with the game, and to use your imagination to explain why things are the way they are.

[Subject Keyword]

Sooo just to throw it out there but how does one properly represent something like an Eldar Exarch that might have been fighting longer than the Ultramarines have existed?

Good point...
You can't, I guess. Making everything "true power" in 40k would be a ridiculous overhaul of the rules.

Phoenix Lords would be broken beyond all belief, the C'Tan would be worth 150,000 points each, Bloodthirsters would need a bit of tweaking, to say the least, and Landraiders would be AV 20.

I'm not sure if it would be fun anymore.

But, seriously, an Exarch would **** a Marines **** up EVERY TIME... It's just not in the rules!

[Nabterayl]

Eh, I don't know about that. There are two things that spring to mind on this subject:

First, exarchs may be old, but no eldar is at war all the time, or even most of the time. When a warhost gets back to its craftworld, the response is, "Whew, glad that's over; now we can get back to living ... pity the poor exarchs who aren't able to enjoy the respite we've won for the craftworld with precious eldar blood." When a marine strike force gets back to base, the response is, "When can we have another mission?" Not to say that marines spend every second of their lives fighting - not even the Black Templars do that, despite being formally "on crusade" for the last 10,000 years - but they spend a much higher proportion of their time deployed than eldar do.

Second, as any soldier will tell you, it only takes one bullet to end your career in a messy and permanent fashion. Even Phoenix Lords are killed. Do you really think the guys who survive for centuries attribute their survival to off-the-charts badassery? I don't ... I think those guys would most likely tell you they're just lucky sons-of-*****es. Are they badass? Sure. But nobody is badass enough to survive hundreds of deployments without a phenomenal amount of dumb luck.

So I don't think that the uber-heroes of the universe - the guys like Dante, Grimnar, Eldrad, Abaddon, etc. - necessarily need to be off the charts. They just need to be good, and to have had the fortune to not be killed yet.

[Duke]

I suppose that if you were to do this you would have to include a new stat called "dumb luck," you could call it "SOB" for short... with the SOB stat you could force that many rerolls per game/ turn.

Duke

[Melissia]

Yes, Phoenix Lords occasionally die, but they have the skill and intelligence of everyone who's ever worn the armor

[Nabterayl]

One of the reasons I've shied away from special characters so far is actually precisely the "dumb luck" factor. I can (and have) built my HQ fluff specifically to accommodate my HQs consistently becoming casualties (there's a reason my warboss has a cybork body ;)). I can't necessarily do that with, like, Logan Grimnar. And you know that one sergeant who just never seems to get killed? One day, through sheer dumb luck, he'll grow up to be an uber-hero :D

[Melissia]

That's one of the big reasons I never sacrifice my Canonesses like certain Sisters players do (damn Martyrdom rules).

[PhatCat]

The other thing to recall, and we all know this, is that 40K battles are (generally) designed to pit EVEN forces against each other in a pitched, skirmish-style battle for the purpose of a fun game. No commander, real-life or fictional, would voluntarily engage in an "even" encounter unless desperate and out of alternatives. I always assume that 40K games are the "accidental encounter" variety which would help explain why the Marines, Eldar, whomever are fighting on relatively "even" terms when they would ordinarily let themselves get into that scenario. I think if you read too much into the statlines, etc. it will break down the fluff pretty much completely.

[DarkLink]

One of the reasons I've shied away from special characters so far is actually precisely the "dumb luck" factor. I can (and have) built my HQ fluff specifically to accommodate my HQs consistently becoming casualties (there's a reason my warboss has a cybork body ;)). I can't necessarily do that with, like, Logan Grimnar. And you know that one sergeant who just never seems to get killed? One day, through sheer dumb luck, he'll grow up to be an uber-hero :D

My friend's TKsons army has a marine named Zelos the Pacifist Champion of Neutral Assaults, because in any assault he gets involved in, noone dies.

[The.Justinian]

So I don't think that the uber-heroes of the universe - the guys like Dante, Grimnar, Eldrad, Abaddon, etc. - necessarily need to be off the charts. They just need to be good, and to have had the fortune to not be killed yet.

You've hit the nail on the head. The way I see it, always have seen it, is that the characters of the 40k galaxy are compelling not because they're invincible...but for the opposite reason. They're not. The cliche of a grizzled veteran that goes into battle every time to help preserve the lives of his comrades, even though he's tired, very tired of war--That's these guys. And at some point, their time will be up. If I recall correctly, this is what happened to Eldrad a little while back.

(Or, in the case of Abbadon, someone for whom revenge holds more interest than retirement.)
(Or, for Eldrad, someone so devoted to a plan that they can't let go and retire.)

When we say that 100 marines can win a whole planet's worth of war, it's because they're first commandos and conventional soldiers second (they don't do linear warfare, that's the guard's job in the Imperium). When a 2000 point game goes off, the marines have dropped behind enemy lines from Thawks and are moving to demo the oilfield powering the Ork Waagh!. Or assassinating the warboss to provoke infighting. Or capturing the Eldar general to 'negotiate' a settlement. They aren't (in my mind) much better at fighting than the VanDamme quality SuperSoldiers would be while wearing power armor; instead they take Patton's adage of 'Hit'em where they ain't" and Clauschewitz Schwerpunkt over all other considerations.

In short, narrative fashion: the SM Commander in orbit arrives out of jump with perhaps 300 marines. Scans the planet, perhaps briefs with the guard commanders, makes a plan to win the war in a day. Perhaps three points are assaulted, commanded by captains or himself personally. Each of those points is one game of 40k.

[Melissia]

Saint Celestine obviously would be rather powerful, certainly nigh-unkillable (and comes back to life even if she's "killed"). But that's a very rare occasion to say the least. The Guard might have a dozen marbos, but there'd only ever be one Living Saint alive at any given time, more likely than not.