Warhammer and Such

[vital barn]

and their standard heavy transport carries assault troops and a demolisher cannon at the same time, which covers so many sins it isn't even funny

a Nostraman volume of sins can be obscured by the muzzle flash of a Dracosan line

[hollow laurel]

Oh huh. But yeah anyway.

So, it seems like my anger came from a specific issue where there wasn't the FW stuff but also the GladLan and RepEx hadn't been fielded yet.

[vital barn]

I admit I did see the RepEx when it came out and burst out laughing

it just looks so goofy

they started photoshopping guns on that thing and forgot to stop

minus some of the extraneous dakka it's a neat enough tank

[thin ibex]

repex is a modern problem of a 90's era War Machine art where the guns have guns on the guns

[vital barn]

hey, comes pre-looted for Ork players

[thin ibex]

and doesn't do it as well as, say, a baneblade

which does have an egregious amount of guns, but also they for some reason look good on it

[vital barn]

it's less crowded

there's enough space and there are fewer kinds of gun

the RepEx has fifty different guns and they're all piled right on top of each other on a smaller machine

[hollow laurel]

Yeah, the RepEx does fall into the How Many Different Guns? issue.

[vital barn]

my favourite example here is the Tau Manta, which had.... over forty guns, I think?

some stupid number

but ruleswise it had small gun, medium gun and big gun, there were only three different profiles

[pale narwhal]

four if you took seekers I guess

but yeah

manta has a lot of guns on it

[vital barn]

(a couple of dozen burst cannons, some ion guns for medium firepower and the two big fuckoff railguns on the front)

[thin ibex]

i feel like its one of the only mega units that might have an appropriate amount of guns on it for what it is lol

[vital barn]

so it still looks cohesive

[thin ibex]

like i feel like titans are under armed for what they are

[pale narwhal]

but all of them are either longbarrel burst cannons, cyclic ion, or the railguns yeah

(they might actually be ion cannons)

[hollow laurel]

But yeah, the Gladiator Lancer is absolutely up my street as just like, what I wanted the Predator to be?

[vital barn]

yeah, I am a huge fan of the Manta's guns-everywhere aesthetic

[thin ibex]

they should have so many secondary point defense guns

[rocky shale]

The repex got its gun count condensed in 10th rules but it's still like 7 guns to fire off

[vital barn]

big slow hovering flyer pumping out dakka in all directions is my ideal lord of war

[pale narwhal]

the gladiator lancer fucks immensely

It's my favourite variant

[thin ibex]

ironically im sad theres no autocanno ngladiator

[vital barn]

back in HH1e, it was actually legal for Mechanicum to take a Manta

[thin ibex]

im an autocannon lover

[hollow laurel]

Isn't there a BRRRT Gladiator instead?

[vital barn]

because they had a boxout that said "mech, your list is small but lore Mechanicum gets weird with it, so take anything from Imperial Armour as a Lord of War"

not everything in IA is Imperial, so hey, manta time

sadly that vanished with HH2e

I would totally have converted some giant Mechanicum aerodyne if it was still here

"large, manta-like Cyclotrathian aeroships" are mentioned deploying Cybernetica formations in Black Book 5, so possibly a writer was commenting on the meme

[hollow laurel]

Cursed Mechancium idea: Earthshaker, Icarus Autocannon, Assault Cannon.

[vital barn]

what, all on one vehicle?

[hollow laurel]

On a flier.

[vital barn]

not quite legal on anything I know of yet but you could get close in 1e with Ordo Reductor

who had build-a-bear tanks

[hollow laurel]

Oh it's not legal, but that's why it's cursed.

[thin ibex]

40k AC130?

[hollow laurel]

Exactly.

[vital barn]

I would totally run Mechanicum heavy fliers if they had them

alas, so far they are stuck with normal planes and the Vultarax

which is amazing but fairly lightweight

[thin ibex]

i want tau to have a hover flier that isn't the manta, but my dream will never come to fruition i think

[vital barn]

it's about dreadnought sized

utter terrors against light infantry and unsupported armour

apparently the warheads on those missiles are some kind of freaky undepleted uranium penetrator or something because they can either fragment and give an entire infantry platoon fatal rad-poisoning or stay intact and punch through the side of a Land Raider

downside is that they are fairly fragile and they don't have amazing mag depth

[thin ibex]

the fliers i imagine range from like a big drone thats just a seeker bank that links into a battle net to use with markerlights, maybe has a swiftstrike burst cannon for point defense; I also imagine like just close air support drones; one big unit instead of a shoal of remoras

i also kind of imagine something like a more airborne rendition of a pirahna maybe

[vital barn]

really I just want the 30k Mech equivalent of a Fire Raptor

big air support automata like a huge vultarax just bristling with guns

[hollow laurel]

It'd probably make a good army ability for high-altitude air support, rather than like, what we normally see?

Stormtalus (Relatable 2) | MSMC ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161696278640594954 message) 40k AC130?

[vital barn]

Legion airpower is extremely cool, although all the art is 80% motion blur

[hollow laurel]

Something like the Guard's off-map siege artillery.

[thin ibex]

i also want a broadside loaded out with long burst cannons, but also thats not happening

[vital barn]

couldn't the old Forge World Hazard-type heavy crisis suits do something like that?

[thin ibex]

yeah the hazards had quad bursts iirc

[main pagoda]

yeah

[thin ibex]

two sets of twin linked burst guns

[vital barn]

they were kind of funky, I liked them

[thin ibex]

im hoping to see them get reimagined as mainline gw instead of fw

at some point

[vital barn]

somehow I doubt we're getting any of the Forge World stuff back for the forseeable

they axed half the dark eldar codex rather than take it out of resin

I am glad Kroot got new models at some point, though

Vespid too

both look very spiffy

[thin ibex]

its copium on my part but i hold out hope to see them come through eventually, not soon of course

[pale narwhal]

the hazards would be sick in plastic, yeah

double bursts, fusion cascades, or those weird ion submunition guns

[thin ibex]

honestly as they are now they have no niche, they'd need to be imagined differently i think, lore changed a bit

I'm thinking something ghostkeel scale

still rolling with its whole doubled up gun stuff

[pale narwhal]

even squads of two, slightly smaller than ghostkeel but larger than an enforcer suit

[past sphinx]

I'm still pretty disappointed that we got the Dorn instead of a plastic malkador

[pale narwhal]

the malcador is such a funny tank

used to be a cavalry tank, is now a heavy tank because the engines decayed over time

[floral herald]

We do have a plastic malcador but it's 30k

Though I actually really dig the Dorn

So I am maybe biased haha

Except for the front mount heavy stubbers, which are dumb as fuck

[past sphinx]

Oh wait no

Macarius

And utter peak design

[thin ibex]

the hardest thing to buy out of tanks for me is that the stormblade, with its plasma blast gun, is a S8 gun

and is supposedly meant to be a budget shadowsword

wait stormblade?

the plasma one, i forgot what it was called

[past sphinx]

the second coolest one

it should give you the ability to obliterate terminators but uhhh

aint no blast templates here

it has the same problem all plasma does rn

[vital barn]

many of the baneblades are a little sad in 30k but the Shadowsword continues to take names, as does the plasma variant

due to the way blast markers work it really struggles to miss its intended targets and it gibs Spartans on a 2+ to pen

the Solar Auxilia unique one is pretty damn cool, actually

even more barrels of hell than the regular baneblade

they also have a unique pattern of Stormblade but its currently only in tiny LI form

[mental birch]

cackles s10 ion!

[sour sequoia]

I’m way late to this but there’s a worthwhile qualification

I will be having all the fun

Literally cried today from having under 120 bodies on the table 93 models is 2 elite 4 me

I miss you host of ascension and my 140 deep striking bodies

[pale narwhal]

well yeah genestealer cults players are freaks (/positive)

[thin ibex]

So not game wise, but lorewise, a demi company of marines would be enough to win most wars right? Most often marines deploy in a single squad to respond to requests still right? Barring how the imdimitus crusade adjusted doctrine?

[pale narwhal]

I think so, yeah

a single squad turns the tide of a battle. a demicompany wins a war

[jaunty dawn]

I want ghostkeel sized xv9 hazards so badddd

I think Id make the squad of two just like. Yeah two ghostkeel equivalents is reasonable in 2000 points

Like 3 squads of two was like an Apocalypse formation (i.e a kinda ridiculous amount to use in a regular game) but in their old size etc 6 wouldnt even be weird. Game has outgrown them kinda as well as the tau range

I feel like the fusion collider is an antecedent to the fusion cascades and non stealth xv9 that just dual wields ghostkeel weapons works as a base I think

[broken dew]

Fair enough!

[floral herald]

My understanding is that it’s usually a larger force for a war and is subdivided into tasks once there

Space marines are such small forces they can kinda do everything bespoke but the “default” unit for picking a fight is a strike cruiser with RSV escorts

Which under ideal conditions is a company with the ability to split up either 2-4 ways or if warp traveling thunderhawks are canon today, hundreds

[brittle salmon]

When did warp capable thunderhawks get written??

[floral herald]

The only place I remember offhand is one of the old space wolf comics

I think it might have been Lone Wolves?

[brittle salmon]

Ah man, okay

I cannot imagine that's stuck around at all

[floral herald]

Probably not

I think it was fairly dubious then

It just sticks in my mind cause I got into 40K via the comics and read em early before I had much other lore

[jaunty dawn]

I think some things imply company + secondments from 1st and 10th company is the highest order unit on average

Where if more is needed more companies are sent

Usually like a line company + appropriate reserve company or something

And usually a company has a ship each yeah

[main pagoda]

normally you'd see attachments from the reserve companies as well as thats where the tanks and aircraft are manned

[sour sequoia]

Day 2 of this GT is starting off with me, lone GSC player, fighting the lone AdMech player

I have never played into AdMech before I hate anybody running factions as complex as my own

Showoffs

[vital barn]

Gameplay and story integration, every Admech or Mechanicum player requires a PHD in tabletop games to make the army go, same as an actual Magos Dominus

30k mech is a nicer list but no less fiddly

[sour sequoia]

On the other hand having the two armies that function on interplay of like sixteen rules is gonna be funny, basically just us shouting rules at each other like a wizard duel

[vital barn]

actually 30k mech is fairly straightforward in play, it's just list building that requires you to interpret a series of hadiths to determine which of your units can score

[tranquil ivy]

Walks in and audibly slides a giant metal sign across the table before scurrying away like a wet napkin

[west zealot]

A while back when some chuds were trying to chud, there was a very funny and lovely post from one of the moderators on a 40k subreddit going "khorne cares not where the blood flows!" And pointing out this means trans rights, so take your chuddrry and stuff it

[tranquil ivy]

Khorne is best chaos god confirmed

[west zealot]

Aww damn, the original post is gone

But this reply still exists and it's great:

"Based. All are welcome in this community, except for sorcerers, who are cowards and will be killed"

[broken dew]

Lmao

Khorne cares not from where the blood flows unless it's filthy sorcerers

Khorne when sorcerers

[thin ibex]

I was generally of the impression that barring a crusade, a single company and it's ship would be in- system and it would dispatch like a single thunderhawk with a single squad to go respond to distress signals and calls for aid, with the idea to escalate if needed. And of course pre indomitus, those squads were almost always a little bedraggled or spread thin or under strength

[main pagoda]

it really depends on the chapter

and what they are responding to

https://wahapedia.ru/wh40k10ed/factions/drukhari/

its up

[broken dew]

this does make the original idea i had for the Dusk Defiant where they would always send like, a company to deal with whatever situations they get called for really fucking funny

they would get almost nothing done

compared to other chapters at least

extreme overkill type shit

[main pagoda]

they are a crusading chapter right?

[broken dew]

yup

they have two big ships that they roam around with

the Indefatigables Return, their Fortress Monastery, and the Dread March

their focus is mostly on fleet combat and boarding actions

which is why they have a lot of heavy armor units and marines with void hardened armor

the big fault with their chapter is that they field so much old and difficult to maintain gear that almost any loss is catastrophic, so they tend to deploy in larger numbers to mitigate the chance for losses

[tired cairn]

This might be an artifact of being a really convenient way for video games and TTRPGs to work?

[dense idol]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1146180043106684959/1429491189480165618/IMG_2025-10-19-15-44-34-409.jpg?ex=68f654ea&is=68f5036a&hm=09a8db748ce11420dcb3ebcd5289a3d50d1cfaa913c4e590b3c4e01fb5007d3b&

behold, 196 individual eye highlights

[broken dew]

wowie

[dense idol]

i used these funny bugs as an opportunity to trial a bunch of colours and recipes for the wider army

i also included 2 Ultra-Rare Scarabs for funsies

[broken dew]

why do you ask btw?

[thin ibex]

It's also how a lot of media around space marines worked portrays it. The blood angels series on warhammer TV, the Ultramarines movie, the space wolves novels, the salamander squad in that one series on warhammer TV, etc

Often times the operational unit of a space marine deployment is a single squad used to problem solve

[broken dew]

it's easier to do stories like that if you don't have like 100 dudes you gotta worry about

[thin ibex]

Something like 30 or 40 marines in one place is the martialing of a lot of force

[broken dew]

Unless you're Sevastus Acheran, in which case the most you can spare is 3 men

[thin ibex]

Sevastus "Pawn Stars" Acheran

[broken dew]

yeah lmao

Titus and co. really had to lock in since they didn't really even have a squads worth of dudes

[thin ibex]

But yeah, obviously space marines will try to deploy in proportion to a problem, but especially pre indomitus, many chapters were spread thin and trying to use the minimum necessary support. That and outside of the game, a single tactical squad can get a hell of a lot of work done

[broken dew]

yeah

which again does make my original idea for my chapter of sending out 100 dudes as a standard operational force ridiculous

surely this is a good use of resources

[thin ibex]

A bolter and a marine combat knife are, in reality, equal to most tasks xD

Throw in some krak nades, a melta charge or two, and they're a complete tactical package

[broken dew]

Asit turns out, Space Marines are pretty fucking good at problem solving actually

[vital barn]

also helps that 90% of their jobs aren't "go move this entire army out of the way by yourself" like they frequently were in the Great Crusade

they're good, but they're not that good

[broken dew]

Yeah

[broken dew]

For these kinds of assignments sending 100 dudes kinda wouldn't be overkill

[main pagoda]

it makes more sense for a crusader chapter to deploy a larger force

[broken dew]

yeah

i mean on average they would still deploy maybe a few squads even if they don't deploy a full company because that would be massive overkill

i imagine other chapters might not look too favorably at them for deploying overly large forces and scavenging so much

also thinking about maybe changing their librarius equivalent that i came up with to just be integrated into the chaplaincy to make them do both roles, since they don't use psykers anyway and it makes more sense to have such an excess of chaplains if they are also doubling as the anti-daemon support

and it gives more of a reason for them to have a whole renamed organization going on for the chaplaincy if it has different uses to a normal one

[vital barn]

there were plenty of Great Crusade and Heresy battle that wiped out many thousands of Space Marines

so I'd be more worried about your Company deployment being caught out by one squad of big scary things and losing like 30 guys

[broken dew]

i wanna stay with the idea of having just like, a full company worth of chaplain equivalents and if they are pulling double duty as dedicated anti-daemon warriors it makes more sense

[broken dew]

ic ic

Great Crusade and Heresy were some helluva times

[vital barn]

in practice Average Marine Losses seemed to go down massively post-Heresy, presumably because they were split up into little penny-packets everywhere and thus couldn't lose that many guys end of

[broken dew]

yeah that makes sense

as TTS Emperor puts it, the codex Astartes spread the Astartes too thin across the Galaxy, like the last spread of an Astartes butter on the galaxy bread.

[jaunty dawn]

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nullificator these used to be a thing in horus heresy and I thought you might find them interesting

[broken dew]

ooooh

[jaunty dawn]

They’re like similar anti-psyker/daemon tech of the loyalist esoterists but like, not psykers themselves. Using hex warded armour n such

[broken dew]

yeah

[jaunty dawn]

They didnt get updated for 3e :(

[vital barn]

yeah, those guys are cool

[broken dew]

i did look at hex wards and such for the anti-daemon dudes

and flamer weapons

[vital barn]

shame they got no 3e rules, but they have good Bootleg Grey Knights vibes

[broken dew]

since apparently flamers are pretty good against demons

[jaunty dawn]

Oh yeah and they’re cataphractii dudes

[broken dew]

big fan of Cataphracts, i am

it must be said

[jaunty dawn]

Aether shock mauls which are…volkite power mauls, apparently

[broken dew]

i don't think my uh, guys can have a lot of those

[jaunty dawn]

For the same fire effect of flamers I guess

[broken dew]

which is fine since they're going to be chaplains, they'll use Crozius Arcanum's instead whenever possible

i imagine they are probably a bit too rare for all of my chaplains to have but at least the elite ones

[vital barn]

30k generally avoids giving exact troop numbers anywhere but a plot-irrelevant side battle got the best part of 10k astartes killed between the Iron Warriors and the Space Wolves

[broken dew]

considering my chapter is going to have like 100 chaplains where a chapter normally has like 10

i genuinely don't know if Crozius Arcanum are rare-ish or just that nobody fields that many chaplains to need many of them

[tired cairn]

There is definitely, many, many more space marines in 30k than 40k though

[vital barn]

eh, not really

[jaunty dawn]

You could have baby chaplains replacing sergeants a few to each company

[tired cairn]

Really?

[vital barn]

if you add up all the legions they come to about 2.5 mill

[broken dew]

but uh, i would imagine it's more of a rarity thing

that tends to be the thing

[jaunty dawn]

Similar to apothecaries in red scorpions

[vital barn]

so they had more marines than the Loyalists for most of 30k->40k had, but mostly because they had twice as many legions' worth of guys

[jaunty dawn]

Or terminators in iron hands cause they never stopped doing that in my heart

[tired cairn]

If I can do math, that would ostensibly be 2500 chapters?

[vital barn]

and then Primaris number "in the millions" so they're back up to strength

[tired cairn]

I thought they recruited harder. But I guess they also probably died more frequently

[broken dew]

i also want to have a bunch of apothecaries and tech marines

[jaunty dawn]

I feel like any number from the books you should just replace with Bignumber

[broken dew]

but i don't know if folding too many of my specialists together would be a good idea

[tired cairn]

Oh, I guess they also recruited harder when Primaris showed up

[jaunty dawn]

There are Bignumbers of primaris

[vital barn]

the Ultramarines get larger throughout the Heresy, every legion is recruiting lots of shitty inductii

so I generally just eyeball it is as "stayed roughly constant, except legions noted to have taken unusual losses like the Istvaan three, the Space Wolves/Thousand Sons, the Terran loyalists etc."

[broken dew]

one of the main things i was going for with my chapter was them just having enormous amounts of specialists to try to have better and survival for their smaller squads

[jaunty dawn]

Like when they say that space marines number in the millions that just means theres a lot of them

[broken dew]

but it also becomes a bit excessive to have like a hundred of each type of specialist because that is an enormous amount of marines

[jaunty dawn]

One cant extrapolate

[floral herald]

There’s actually more space marines in 40K but the modal space marine is is a black legion thinblood

[vital barn]

the legion numbers actually matter in 30k, to be fair, if you lose 2000 guys that is a relevant pile of losses

in 40k you just pull more chapters out of your behind whenever necessary

[tired cairn]

40k uses million like ancient Chinese use 10000

[jaunty dawn]

I kinda did something similar with having a company for each specialty branch (and then another company of non specialists who support each one)

[vital barn]

post-Primaris, space marine numbers are definitely "mid six figures, stop whining about it" but in 30k they are fairly circumscribed

[jaunty dawn]

But its like, any given line specialist is not anywhere near the traditional specialist who’s part of chapter command

[broken dew]

yeah

i just thought it would make sense for them to field a ton of specialists to try to keep maintenance and losses as well as possible

[jaunty dawn]

And it was stuff like sternguard veterans were considered part of the apothecarium because they develop their own toxin rounds

[floral herald]

There’s I think quite loosely like 4-5 million space marines around and (potentially thanks to some iffy numbers) about 20% of them are the black legion

[tired cairn]

Where did they put all the Primaris marines if chapters are still ostensibly capped at 1k

[broken dew]

we want tons of medics and tech marines because our marines all field customized void armor so they can fuck shit up in space

[vital barn]

they made many many many more chapters

[jaunty dawn]

Mostly in new chapters

[floral herald]

Mixture of ground down chapters, greyshields, and oops just overstrength

[vital barn]

they convince the Space Wolves to take Primaris mostly because it allows them to found actual successor chapters

which they'd been unable to do for eight millenia

[jaunty dawn]

Oh yeah and using them outside of a chapter and dying before they get sent to join/found one

[vital barn]

and also were about to be wiped out because Logan Grimnar suffered a sudden rush of shit to the brain

Wolftime is a very odd book

[broken dew]

also i really like void hardened armor

i like the idea of tons of my dudes wearing hackjob space armor that is really expensive and likely to break

[jaunty dawn]

The ultramarines were capped at 1000 but gulliman used arbitrary amount of grey shields. Cant be limited to a 1000 if youre not part of a chapter

[broken dew]

mostly because they made terminators to fix the issue and since they are rare now my guys just defaulted to the shittier version

[vital barn]

most of the books about said greyshields also have them taking losses hand over fist because they're all totally unseasoned, even with Firstborn officers

[floral herald]

Roboute “can’t believe no one thought of this” Guilleman

[broken dew]

the funniest part is that uh

[vital barn]

so possibly they were doing WW1 shit where you deploy a 1.5x strength chapter on the assumption that a third of them will be dead by the time they know what the fuck they're doing

[broken dew]

Roboute Guilliman literally wrote that rule

it was him

he did that

it's his rule

[hard whale]

the codex astartes is more what you'd call a bunch of guidelines

[broken dew]

true

[jaunty dawn]

Tbf to gulliman the point was to limit the power of space marines and hes not a space marine

[vital barn]

Huron Blackheart and friends looking at the giant war that started because they did a little legion-building and going "so NOW you tell us?"

[jaunty dawn]

Like the codex astartes never bound Sector Lords

[broken dew]

i'm going to need to invest some time into how i wanna structure my chapter anyhow

prolly will fold the librarius equivalent into the chaplains though

that does feel like a solid idea

[jaunty dawn]

I like it!

[vital barn]

so how many fundamental chapter components have you given new names and roles?

I find it tends to work better if you keep most of the titles the same, at least

[thin ibex]

Look Guillimam literally wrote the book on how chapters work

[broken dew]

yeah

[thin ibex]

Of course he knows how the exceptions work

[broken dew]

i gave too many of them new names and such

[vital barn]

Guilliman also can't be called out on it

[broken dew]

which is why i was gonna rework em

[vital barn]

whereas anyone else who tries to jump through that loophole is in for a purging

apart from the Black Templars, who have built up enough cred at this point

[thin ibex]

He also was able to circumvent chapter restrictions because he was on crusade, same exception the black templars use

[broken dew]

at minimum the chaplaincy is staying as is

especially since i'm making them double as the librarius

[jaunty dawn]

yeah like

[hard whale]

it's not even that he needs to know any exceptions, the codex is literally just advice. He can say "circumstances changed, here's my new advice - everyone gets successor chapters"

"and skimmers, those are important"

[jaunty dawn]

The legion building that Huron did mostly became a problem retroactively cause he wasnt paying taxes

[thin ibex]

To be fair the Imperium did not take the second founding as "just advice"

[jaunty dawn]

Even though he was doing the exact same thing that ultramarines are rumoured to do, he wasnt the ultramarines

[broken dew]

considering folding the tech marines and apothecaries into one thing for just like, overall chapter maintenance, i will need to ponder it

[jaunty dawn]

And the ultramarines pay taxes. Kinda. Ultramar is complicated

Instead of paying taxes they just build new roads on their own initiative and the imperial government is like. Thats probably fine

[vital barn]

almost anyone but Gulliman who tried to do this would be extremely stabbed

[thin ibex]

Ultramar is one of the stranger fiefdoms in the Imperium

[floral herald]

The whole imperial fists recruiting complex is quietly kind of not adherent but they get away with it

[thin ibex]

Heck I'm pretty sure they tried to stream g man about it too

[vital barn]

he is rewriting the rules because he makes them, rather than because he knows various clever rules-as-intended things

[thin ibex]

His decisions weren't universally popular

[jaunty dawn]

Instead of paying taxes that fund the imperial guard they just make their own private army and if the imperium asks nicely they can use it

[thin ibex]

Several former high lords, the ecclesiarchy, and large portions of the inquisition are not fans of gman and likely have tried to organize his demise and have just failed

[jaunty dawn]

But also gman isnt rewriting the rules, theyre just not rules that bind him in any way. The rewrites restrict the power of space marines just as much

[thin ibex]

Iirc he's currently writing or he did write a fresh codex? Or he was writing a codex Imperium that's not finished yet

[broken dew]

he's the demigod of paperwork so he can just write new paperwork if he needs to

[jaunty dawn]

The codex has been updated yes

Just not in a way thats acually relevant to the conversation

Like him being like “when splitting squads, you can use different numeral designations up to 20 for ease of organisation” isnt anything to do with the chapter strength limit

[broken dew]

i thought i heard of something about chapter limits being less restrictive with whatever rewrites he did, but that might just be with him making chapter organization less restrictive?

[hard whale]

apparently it was added to a bunch of times while Robby was in stasis, it's not clear by who. He wrote a new version as a stopgap while he works on the Codex Imperialis

[thin ibex]

Reaching back a bit, to my comment about the average deployment being like a single squad usually or a squad and some change; that's why I generally imagine that a tabletop 2k point army (just accounting for numbers and not stats) are actually a reflection of a serious concentration of space marine force

Like meant to solve most big problems kinda serious

[broken dew]

i do think it was quite good for me to just go all out on working on my chapter to begin with and reign it in a bit later

[marsh tree]

wish Age of Sigmar got more love

[tardy vault]

how so? Player base wise it seems to be doing fine and GW just released a new army.

[floral herald]

It kinda depends on the source

There’s a lot of large unit deployments in the codex blurbs and such

Novels are kinda all over the place

The video games mostly love tiny squads for sure

I think it is just “it depends”

Brothers of the Snake is a good grab bag for this

Even though the iron snakes are weird (no battle companies)

[marsh tree]

Its fanbase seems almost anemic

It seems to have so much less a presence than 40k or even Old World does

[tardy vault]

you're comparing it to the the 40k playerbase

which is insanely large

[marsh tree]

true

[tardy vault]

Old World depends on area

[floral herald]

There’s always people playing AoS at stores near me

[marsh tree]

I'm waiting to start my Age of Shitmar journey until they finish the Cities of Sigmar update

Since they're by far my favorite faction

[floral herald]

I think the internet footprint is smaller because there’s no good AoS video games but the online Warhammer fanbase is a plague

[marsh tree]

ah

[tardy vault]

Like, if you're not 40k (and even then sometimes, we've heard of the odd 40k desert) then the availability of games varies wildly depending on the local scene.

[marsh tree]

I have a dedicated Warhammer store near my house

[floral herald]

The local stuff around me is pretty broad but it’s also mostly Warhammer and naval games

And that Star Wars one

[tardy vault]

For us it's 40k, Battletech, AoS, and Necromunda when those guys have a campaign going.

(AoS shares a night with Necromunda and it gets tight with a 50/50 split of tables)

[marsh tree]

I should work on fixing the 3d printer

[floral herald]

Munda is also pretty common near me

[marsh tree]

then again, it is a first party Warhammer store D:

[tardy vault]

Hope you're ok with Humans, because smart money is elves and dwarves not surviving the codex

[marsh tree]

Tbh, I'm thankful for that, since those are pretty much all just repurposed Fantasy models

[jaunty dawn]

I mean ideally finishing the cities update means having actual city elves and dwarves

[marsh tree]

we have an ogre unit FWIW

and the Goofy Little Guys

[upper bluff]

I hope that the dwarves and elves survive the cities codex because the index literally has rules for each one, right?

[jaunty dawn]

Did daughters of khaine get a battletome yet?

I mean idk hexwraiths didnt go anywhere

Or get refreshed yet

Im not really tapped in with gw in general lately but Id be surprised to see them gone without releases to replace them

[marsh tree]

Blood Bowl is definitely my favorite spin-off game

[thin ibex]

That's fair, my perspective has been strongly shaped by is idea that space marines often activate in very small deployments all over space, often in single or double squads alone, with only the gear they can bring in the thunderhawk, where dreadnoughts are almost never deployed. A full battle company might be present in a sector but it's deployed in every war zone in the sector with small, surgical teams who are often doing back to back deployments. In this paradigm they only conglomerate for major strikes, commitment to a traitor war zone, or as part of a crusade.

I feel as though this fits the concept that a single battle company is often a largely autonomous fighting force; and that in almost all of the smaller scale deployments, other imperial forces are active and present.

It lends itself to this idea of (prior to primaris) marines were stretched thin and forced to do a lot with a little

[floral herald]

It definitely happens that way some yeah

There’s a bunch of larger scale decisive deployments as well

Brothers of the Snake was nice for it because it’s I think, a little over 50% small unit undertakings

Going through the list there’s:

• a single Initiate (Priad) sent to deal with a crashed dark eldar ship
• single squad deployment to clear a refinery from chaos stuff
• single squad under a librarian to a wall, I forget the scope of the full deployment
• 4 squads vs a cult
• single squad sent as diplomatic reps to a coronation, hijacked by Inquisitor
• 25+ full squads (Iron Snakes don’t use companies) vs orks

So for them at least yeah smaller deployments are common

But the Iron Snakes are also kinda small deployments guys

[broken dew]

they sent one single dude to deal with a dark eldar ship

[floral herald]

He’s also basically Joe Tactical Marine

(Albeit he winds up being promoted to squad leader after the old one dies, so it’s not a total literally who in the chapter)

[thin ibex]

I know in blood of asaheim something like 46 marines was considered a considerable force and an appropriate deployment to destroy a legendary space hulk in a boarding action, led by Njall and only having like 3 wolf guard in the entire force

[broken dew]

still feels bad sending one singular dude to go fuck with Dark Eldar shit

[floral herald]

There was also Black Reach which was a pretty extensively written on operation (5e starter set lore) which was almost exclusively a single reinforced battle company

[broken dew]

how many of those were termies?

[thin ibex]

Just njall iirc

[broken dew]

huh

going at a space hulk with one termie huh

[thin ibex]

Iirc wasn't the old ultramarines movie one squad and a few extra?

[floral herald]

It was but it was basically just Some Guys entertaining a personal trip for a Chaplain

[broken dew]

i need to read up more about Space Hulks

one of the things i wanted my guys to specialize in was dealing with shit like space hulks, since they field so much heavy armor and VHA for space stuff

[thin ibex]

In the warhammer TV series that featured the salamander, I vaguely remember there being 3(?) Thunderhawks on planet, our heroes being shot down

[broken dew]

i'm still just a bit unsure how feasible it is to be dealing with space hulks a lot

[thin ibex]

So, Terminator Armour is ideal for hulk fighting, but its also a chapter relic and rare. I imagine in most cases for chapters that have 1st companies, they get the honor of clearing hulks. But also space marine armor as is is excellent for void warfare

Space marines in general are really well suited for ship to ship combat

Better armor, shorter weapons, persistent assault tactics

[broken dew]

yeah

[jaunty dawn]

Breacher squads technically exist in 40k (and originiated in it)

Which is power armour with boarding shields

[floral herald]

It’s traditional because of Space Hulk

[thin ibex]

Assault shields are a thing in lore yeah

We just don't see them in 40k tabletop

[jaunty dawn]

And especially mark3 when a chapter is able to get it

[floral herald]

Which initially featured the Deathwing so they’re terminators anyway

[broken dew]

my chapter specializes in heavier armors and using Void Hardened Armor which is a sort of inefficient predecessor for Terminator armor

[thin ibex]

Iirc assault shields were like the cheaper cousin to storm shields and were just like ceramite slabs right?

I wonder how good Gravis is for boarding actions

[broken dew]

they are heavy armor and boarding specialized

[jaunty dawn]

Yeah basically

[broken dew]

which is partially for doing Space Hulk shit

[jaunty dawn]

Better than a combat shield but much heavier

[charred bridge]

Ending wedding vows with "you may kiss Alpharius"
https://www.rxddit.com/r/alphalegion/s/SXYkV6Gaii

[thin ibex]

Space marines doing the bullgryn before bullgryns

Death guard made frequent use of those breacher/ assault shields didn't they? Same with imperial fists

[broken dew]

would make sense

Death Guard was all about the tanky shit

[deft crest]

Putting together my scourges from the battle force box and the heavy weapons are such a tough choice

[broken dew]

what are your options

[mental birch]

Scourge drukhari right?

[deft crest]

Ye

[mental birch]

What is your army missing?

[deft crest]

So if I'm reading this right, I'm not allowed to bring five heat Lances right?

I bought the real space raiders Battle Force lady malys the mandrakes

Going to get a start collecting box for harlequins

Have a star Weaver/voidweaver

And like twoish squads of clowns

Kind all over the place but going to be playing the Halfandhalf detachment

[mental birch]

Correct you can bring 4

[broken dew]

Librarians having that weird blue color scheme makes me glad my guys don't have a librarius, it'd clash horribly with their normal colors

[rocky shale]

Only 4/9 since the solarite doesn't get one

Generally the picks are haywire, dark lances, or shardcarbines now that those have a separate datasheet

[broken dew]

Huh Psychic hoods can protect against psychic attacks as well as amplify psykers, interesting

[west zealot]

These look amazing, though I don't like the all gold one. Still that's just taste. Great work

[broken dew]

Giving Immagan one even though he isn't a psyker since he's going to be the leader of the Chaplaincy/Librarius mix and it will give him some extra warp resistance

plus it's funny to have it go with his totally not psyker-y warp sniffing powers

[floral herald]

Psychic hoods are only protective if you’re a psyker iirc

[broken dew]

Ahhh

[brittle salmon]

Psychic hoods don't work for non Psykers yeah

[broken dew]

Well it's still funny if he wears one

[brittle salmon]

Just give him a null rod or something

[broken dew]

I will give him a null rod, as a treat

Nobody in the chapter has any reason to wear one but it's funny if he does it

Have it be part of his armor that's a relic or something for lore spice perhaps

Unforchies that most of the anti-magic gear the Imperium has is wizard pre-reqed

Yeah i'll let him have one for flavor since they probably would have had some psychic hoods lying around unless they bartered them or something

Does also quickly shorthand his shtick to other chapters along with his skull mask

[broken dew]

Part of the official attire of the head psyker hater being a psychic hood would certainly lead to questions

[floral herald]

Huh, the grenade lore

[broken dew]

Is that an Ork Weirdboy attacking a Terminator with a weird sword

[floral herald]

Just a normal ork I think

[broken dew]

Also marble sized grenades...

[broken dew]

Looks like it is shooting lightning is all

[floral herald]

That’s a Terminator Librarian I think

[broken dew]

Ahh

Hard to tell

[floral herald]

Oh huh the weird sword is an axe

[past sphinx]

force smatchet!

[valid brook]

Feels like a straight Starship Troopers pull, ol Bob describes something very much like that in the novel

[floral herald]

It sure might huh

They gotta bring it back

[broken dew]

An axe???

[floral herald]

Actually I can see it

[floral herald]

It looks like a cleaver to me haha

[jaunty dawn]

This too

[floral herald]

Oh even more so

[broken dew]

Same

Least axe-y looking axe i ever did see

[broken dew]

The more i think about it the more the idea of psyker haters having a mastercraft psychic hood that one of them wears appeals to me

Feels like the sort of waste of resources a chapter tradition might cause

[broken dew]

@little bay the Dusk Defiant are reasonable chill with normal people, not overly accomodating but not total assholes

Unless you are a psyker

[little bay]

i see

[broken dew]

You get a plasma shot, melta shot, or get burned to a crisp by a flamer if you're a psyker and you're not sanctioned and in some important retinue or something

They kinda like guard for tactical purposes but they aren't like the Raptors or anything that work a lot with guard

Notably if there is chaos involved being a civvie around them is also not the best since they are pretty zealous about rooting out and annihilating warp taint

[little bay]

i see

[broken dew]

Other chapters aren't always happy working with them since they shun psykers completely including librarians

Also makes dealing with chaos more precarious

They're probably more chill with Sisters since they have a lot of religious practices overall as a chapter

[little bay]

i see

[broken dew]

Also due to how Rune Priests work the Dusk Defiant really do not like Space Wolves

Though they would certainly share the Space Wolves disdain of the Grey Knights

[little bay]

makes sense

[broken dew]

Mostly the Rune Priests say they are totally not psykers but the Dusk Defiant would reasonably call bullshit on this and be angry at the Wolves for telling them they have no Psykers

"We have no wizards" said the space wolf while some dude drew a rune and shot lightning out of his hands in the background

[quaint compass]

It's called chakra and it's good for you!

[hollow laurel]

Does runic magic use the Perils table?

[main pagoda]

Do you mean SW runes or dawi runes?

[broken dew]

this chakra is witchcraft then

[quaint compass]

https://tenor.com/view/dragon-ball-super-saiyan-goku-gif-5009523

[broken dew]

yeah see that's just straight up heresy

heretical xeno-sorcerer Son Goku

[hollow laurel]

SW runes.

Fetus ↩️

[Reply to:](#1161696278640594954 message) Do you mean SW runes or dawi runes?

[floral herald]

Lore wise it’s supposed to be a safer technique to channel the warp but I don’t know of a game where it’s treated differently mechanically

[broken dew]

Presumably the spirits of fenris filter out a lot of the warp bullshit

[floral herald]

It’s just symbological afaik

The warp doesn’t really care if something is materially or symbolically real and there’s several groups which use similar techniques of using a planet symbolically to mediate accessing the warp

(The white scars and exodites, albeit the latter way more)

[broken dew]

Icic

[broken dew]

https://youtu.be/C02uXK8ZFJo?

Vlka Fenryka type shit

[vital barn]

Ruleswise, I believe Space Wolf psykers have always rolled on the same perils tables as everyone else

[floral herald]

Ah cool

I wasn’t sure about HH

[vital barn]

Rune Priest runic armour gave slightly better Deny The Witch in HH1, that was it

[pastel rampart]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/jaa76ljd/bring-chaos-to-the-old-world-with-a-horde-of-rampaging-marauders/

[vital barn]

Not sure about 2/3e, I'll check

3e psykers work slightly differently but in a way I like

[jaunty dawn]

I think if it were anywhere it would be like deathwatch rpg

[vital barn]

In 3e they don't bother modelling runic armour and rune priests just get Hatred (Psykers) instead

[floral herald]

I don’t recall them having any special rules

In Deathwatch

They had chapter specific psychic powers like everyone else

The only special case was BT, who couldn’t be librarians

[vital barn]

I think that means that if they could somehow get an Overload melee weapon they'd get a bonus to wound themselves

[broken dew]

makes sense since BT don't have librarians

[main pagoda]

short answer yes

[main pagoda]

chaos eating good

2 new AOR, new models and the marks

[vital barn]

and yeah, 2e/1e had either a 4++ against psychic stuff or better Deny from runic armour, nothing unique to the psykers themselves since you can put that armour on other guys

[pastel rampart]

It's a final goodbye to the original plastic marauders which came out about...oh, 25 years ago

[floral herald]

Waow

That’s really quite some time haha

I dig the new models

[broken dew]

25 years ago huh 😭

[floral herald]

Admittedly I like all chaos models basically

[main pagoda]

still looks great

[pastel rampart]

Oh sorry 23 years ago, Hordes of Chaos came out in 2002.

[main pagoda]

dynamic but not too dynamic

[vital barn]

Ah, the 1e wolves are interesting, their psykers can reroll one die on a Deny The Witch but they're capped on the amount of juice they can use at once

so they can't reliably cast the biggest powers

[floral herald]

I think that’s their usual treatment in lore?

[vital barn]

more juice in 1e meant higher chance of cast and of Perils

[floral herald]

That the runes and planet-spirits limit the risk and power they can use

Kinda like how the CWE do it

But not as well

[main pagoda]

the new sea wolves AOR is sick and the named lord is a monster

[jaunty dawn]

space wolves in deathwatch got wolf scouts and wolf priests as their unique stuff

missed out on powers even seemingly

[vital barn]

Usually, yeah, although one of their standout named characters is their chief librarian so the weakness tends to be an informed attribute, they want Njal to be cool

(he is cool, I have no great issue with this)

[floral herald]

Wait really?

I thought all the core book chapters got them

[main pagoda]

they did

its CRB

[vital barn]

I quite like how 3e HH does psychic power disciplines, I was building some psykers the other day and it's nice to have the juice in there

each is just a grab-bag of things that you use when they come up, rather than a whole independent psychic phase, but they're relatively uncomplicated and you buy them in bricks so you don't have to memorise 1000 different powers like in 1e

[floral herald]

Probably my least favorite part of 10e 40K is how incredibly non-juicy the psychic powers are

[vital barn]

the Trait doesn't do anything, it's just a keyword for other rules to hook into

so +2 init in challenges, a buff to grant precision shots and a challenge gambit that lets you hit on 2+ regardless of relative weapon skill

and then you have six more disciplines to pick from

Magnus with Divination is an utter monster

it also means psykers have little permanent effects that are active regardless of whether they actively roll for powers or not

Divination guys are duelists, Telepaths are passively spooky and have Fear (1), Pyromancers have Explodes 4+ like they're flamer tanks

[floral herald]

Good shit

[vital barn]

and then 1kSons get like eight extra disciplines that they can put on any of their squads, some of which are a bit cracked

but the basic idea works well, at least when you don't have the ability to look through a deck of 50 buffs and find exactly what astartes unit they'd be most powerful on

Biomancers are funny, they get a single S12 AP2 D4 attack in melee, so your puny little rogue psyker can tear the tracks off a Land Raider even if he's normally S2

[vital barn]

yeah, I was skimming CSM rules because I may as well use my 30k Alpha Legion in both settings, and the sorcerers seem useful but extremely boring

they don't even seem to be able to blow themselves up in funny ways anymore

[floral herald]

Yeah they’re relevant buff dispensers

[vital barn]

I guess Chaos Boons are narrative play only, but eeh

I liked seeing guys get spawned or daemon princed mid-fight

[floral herald]

But almost all psykers just have a baby plasma gun and a unit buff special rule in an edition where every datasheet has a special rule

[vital barn]

I can get behind making mind bullets regular weapons, but the buffs themselves are a little drab

[jaunty dawn]

I think psykers almost always have more abilities than an equivalent non psyker unit

though for librarians and primaris psykers that's just psychic hood or legally distinct psychic hood

[vital barn]

HH1e Knight Errants provided my single favourite psyker build, the deepstriking solo libby who fired off Smite, Aetherkine Projectors and a combiplasma for 10 mid-strength AP2 shots on the turn he came in

you showed up, force lightninged a squad or a dreadnought and then booked it to the nearest LOS blocker or objective

rare actually relevant blaster caster build

[pastel rampart]

Turning mfers into chaos spawn is THE funniest goddamn thing

[vital barn]

can 1kSons still do that?

if they can't are they even 1ksons anymore

inflicting sudden tentacle explode on the enemy warlord was peak

[pastel rampart]

Silliest list I ever made in the 3.5 dex was a unit of Tzeentchian sorcerer chosen on discs that flew around and cast Spawn of Chaos at people.

Auto-succeed on cast, better make that toughness save buddy

[vital barn]

there was the big fuckoff lord of change unique in 7e that had an apocalyptic blast spawnification gun

I think it mostly turned people into Horrors because Spawn would have been too strong but it was still fun to watch an entire tac squad get zapped and start flailing around everywhere

[sour sequoia]

Cyan. Cyan look up the Magus

You’re gonna be so bummed its maybe as dogshit as the 10th ed commissar

[vital barn]

you know I'm flicking through GSC rules on a whim and genestealers are a lot less stabby than I remember them being

poor guys

[floral herald]

Ok that one is kinda neat

[vital barn]

aberrants have zero options?

RIP the lump of concrete with rebar in it being a significant melee weapon upgrade

that was always high comedy

[tired cairn]

Hey, sometimes the psyker buff has a 1/6th chance to fail and hurt you!

It's kind of funny that in order to retain any flavor, the psychic stuff feels like a downside as the explicit downsides of psychic keyword makes it hard to see the presumable strength-increase of the power

[jaunty dawn]

Psychic has always been a downside pretty much

But the way its presented now makes that more clear

The main upside of being a psyker in 8e/9e was smite existed as a baseline for all factions

The other thing was that psykers could deny other psykers but thats like. Both an upside and a downside so

But like an effect you dont have to roll for and/or doesnt have specific counters in every codex is just better. Like even bombers which were on ocassion super problematic are just doing the same thing as psykers without the downside of being psychic

But like. Having a different procedure is really important for making something actually feel like youre doing something different

[thin ibex]

As a tau player, I was never fond of the psychic phase being entirely non interactive except for a single relic we could access

And that's informed my opinion of the psychic phase in general, in that it was unnecessary. Anything done in that phase could be done in other phases.

If they wanted more complexity there could still be psychic disciplines, though I think that's a little clunky if the effects aren't dramatic.

That also leads to clearly better psychic disciplines than others.

Which in turn makes balancing a lot harder when most balancing is done via unit costs and not specific rules text

"Gotta make the rune priest 300 points because jaws of the world wolf was hella op again"

I do also find that in practical terms, generally only one option was used out of a psychic discipline

[sour sequoia]

I am maybe a little late but. I assure you, they are not pillow fisted

Aberrants butcher anything termie or smaller and also survive to a fucking comical degree outside specifically
mass S6 AP2 D3 or D1 which is a really bizarre profile to get

GSC’s tricks always appear as solid weapon profile + character attach + strat + enhancement

[vital barn]

Oh no I mean the actual purestrains, not the faction in general

[sour sequoia]

Metamorphs clap berserkers for fractions of the cost but its because I’m slinging together the detach rule, the enhancement for +1 hit/wound vs character units, wound rerolls from jumping out of a truck, the 4+ FnPs and reanimation

[vital barn]

the others seem to hit very well

[sour sequoia]

Ohhh yeah they’re a lil niche now because infiltrating purestrains is incredible regardless of their weapons and buffs

You’ll see em in Biosanctic and Final Day, with a patriarch.

They get you that push of wound rerolls and buffs to attack counts/wound rolls

[vital barn]

Makes sense

There seem to be a lot of units in 10e that come as basically a two part with a standard issue attached character

[marsh tree]

currently frustrated at kitbashing

I don't want to have to buy a new kit just for bodies

At that point, why not just get the normal kit to begin with

[glad spear]

Maybe there's a store that sells bits or maybe theres someone online selling bits you need?

[marsh tree]

I'll see what I can do

I feel wasteful having spare bits not doing anything

[glad spear]

I like making bits on the ground with them

Like body parts and stuff as debris on the floor

[thin ibex]

In Nids and GSC, are genestealers generally still decently killy?

[marsh tree]

not a bad idea

I would try 3d printing torsos, but my local game store is first-party Games Workshop

[pale narwhal]

Nids they are fairly killy

Especially with broodlord

They’re very nice in vanguard onslaught for advance + charge

[tired cairn]

They can do a lot of mortals if you have a broodlord and can connect with the squad. Otherwise they are mostly for blendering light infantry

[sour sequoia]

In Tyranids, with Broodlord in Vanguard.

In GSC, in biosanctic or Final Day with the patriarch.

Those squads butcher any brick of MEQ or smaller. As 5 mans or min squads with no leaders, they’re incredible screens and generally will kill their equivalent units on a charge, but don’t expect more.

[broken dew]

decided i'm gonna do art of the Dusk Defiant 1st Company captain next

[floral herald]

https://bsky.app/profile/opensketchbook.bsky.social/post/3m3nkfypjx222

🤔

[broken dew]

oooh

interesting

[floral herald]

This fuckin rules actually

[broken dew]

Big E getting spitroasted lmao

[floral herald]

We should make this a quiz

[broken dew]

very nice

[deft crest]

LAZgun
And plasma should be green,
And i used to think melta's should be a big laser but i acutally really like the SM2 melta vibes

[broken dew]

lore accurate

[broken dew]

i like the blue look on the coils for a plasma gun personally

[deft crest]

Well you are WRONG /s

[broken dew]

green is pretty solid though

just make sure you're not painting it the same green as Necron glow

unless your marine has a necron plasma weapon i suppose?

i don't know if Necrons use plasma

[deft crest]

woman vikings or dog girls. I win either way

[deft crest]

In a sense

[broken dew]

https://tenor.com/view/i-can't-stop-winning-lets-go-gambling-gif-7706745854605433240

[floral herald]

hi im Jhyred, 19, and I never fuckin learned how to read

[charred bridge]

All hail the godempress of womankind

[broken dew]

i like how many options are presented for the gender thing

[floral herald]

Actually a lot of space marine recruits are probably only literate from hypno-indoctrination

[deft crest]

I don't think that they have a hazardous weapon off the top of my head in easy reach

[broken dew]

Cawl my goat

🙏

[deft crest]

Thats geniunly my biggest headcanon is Cawl would have done that, not out of equality but because the dude was wondering if he could

[broken dew]

if anyone would try it

it'd be Cawl

[charred bridge]

My headcanon is the emp's had a huge ego and since he modeled all of the primarchs based on aspects of himself and is a man then the space marines must be men too.

[broken dew]

i think Fabulous Bile could probably do it too

[deft crest]

Fabulous bill IS doing it actually

[thin ibex]

cawl be like "they said that women's bones were wrong for space marinification; but they were stupid and I am not

[broken dew]

but i think he's on too much freak shit with his ubermensch thing

[charred bridge]

If emps was a woman the space marines would be women in this headcanon

[deft crest]

There are a lot of Nuhumans that are women that play a big role in the books

[broken dew]

oh

cool

[tired cairn]

The cultural shift can also be solved with hypno-indoctrination - Cawl, probably

[broken dew]

honestly i do like the idea that Cawl just solved it and didn't really think twice about it

[deft crest]

-# I don't remember what his Nuhumans were called because i listened to the books and never saw it spelled out

[broken dew]

fuck you woman marines actually

[charred bridge]

Cawl: the Emperor said only men could receive his seed, but I don't care.

[broken dew]

42 thousand daughters to Roboute Guilliman Primarch of the Ultramarines

[floral herald]

Real

[broken dew]

that was pretty neat ye

[tired cairn]

How much of this is rules and how much of this is headcannon ideas lol

[deft crest]

yes

[broken dew]

this is

very interesting

neat that the traitor primarchs go unnamed but are included

[floral herald]

It’s 34k words

There’s a lot of mechanics

I dig it it’s like an executed system for my “deathwatch band camp” campaign premise

[broken dew]

i'm going to give this a serious read tomorrow

[charred bridge]

Alpharius is the secretive one

[broken dew]

i actually kinda wanna play this now

[charred bridge]

Jaghaitai Khan did not hold many secrets, he just didn't say anything unless it was relevant

[floral herald]

This rips

[broken dew]

not sure which one is Alpharius Omegon

but the others are pretty clear

[charred bridge]

Like when Magnus encountered Jaghaitai and complained about the trials and Jaghaitai was like, the stormseers are psykers but we're not dumbasses about it and channel the warp directly so emperor doesn't care but he cares your sorcerers are channeling the warp

[broken dew]

i guess it's "In courage we have no equals"?

or "Knowledge is power, hide it well"

[floral herald]

choose a personality, they are all unacceptable

[broken dew]

going off of Blood Ravens being listed under [Knowledge is power, hide it well] i assume that's Magnus

i am utterly shocked, i do say

[desert jay]

They're in legion order, Alpharius Omegon is the 20th and last

[broken dew]

oh

ic

so traitors hand is Alpharius Omegon and Horus is Courage i guess

i've not memorized the legion order so i was just going off the vibes

[desert jay]

The traitor primarchs, in order:

• Fulgrim: Pure in Body, Pure In Heart
• Petruabo: Hatred Steels Our Resolve
• Curze: Fear Is The Mind Killer
• Angron: Success Is Measured In Blood
• Mortarion: Only In Death Does Duty End
• Magnus: Knowledge Is Power, Hide It Well
• Horus: In Courage We Have No Eqyals
• Lorgar: Zeal Is Its Own Excuse
• Alpharius/Omegon: The Traitor's Hand Lies Closer Than You Think

[broken dew]

ok yeah

i just mixed up Horus and Alpharius Omegon

i love when my equipment list includes psykers in a box

[desert jay]

Or for Dusk Defiant, blank in a box

[tired cairn]

Psykers in a box sounds like an admech thing

[broken dew]

i do like blank in a box

[tired cairn]

(though I guess they are all technically admech things)

[broken dew]

absolute kino

best equipment imaginable

[broken dew]

pretty sure there is a gun that is actually just like, psychic meat in a backpack that lets you shoot warp beams

unless i'm hideously misremembering

[floral herald]

These are very good

[floral herald]

It’s a reference to the Secret Level 40K short

Augh how do I know this

[upper canopy]

You're broken inside Cyan

[desert jay]

I know it because I watched the Secret Level b/c I'm a fan of short animation

[broken dew]

the Guilliman one lmao

[upper canopy]

creator now in the thread

[rocky shale]

What is this all from?

[upper canopy]

@strong owl reception is good

[rocky shale]

Oh nvm found it

[upper canopy]

I also know the pain as I also made a Space Marine RPG in a feuge state over the course of 5 days

[floral herald]

I wanna run this

Or play in it idk

[broken dew]

i wanna play this

[strong owl]

yeah the thing about this is

it's a shitpost with headcanons

and is also

a dead serious examination of who space marines are

and to be one it must be the other

a lot of the dumb bullshit exists to make the rest more meaningful through contrast, which is how 40k works overall anyway

[broken dew]

if nothing else i'm definitely going to sit down and make a character for this

it seems very fun

[floral herald]

Yeah it’s something which is missing or hard with the games which are out

Deathwatch kinda drowns it in being super OP and also spending all your mental energy knowing the rules

W&G is easy to elide specific space marine stuff

[broken dew]

lovely that it immediately supports custom chapters so i can stick one of my blorbo's in there with reckless abandon

[strong owl]

im in a deathwatch game rn and its a part of the motivation for writing it

i dont think that its about them being OP its just... there's so few meaningful mechanics around non-combat decision making

[floral herald]

I never ran that dark heresy supplement which lets you play as grey knights but I assume it’s like deathwatch

[strong owl]

in deathwatch

[floral herald]

That’s true

Deathwatch combat can also be weird because the enemies are so often undertuned mechanically

[vital barn]

I am personally fond of WANG so far because it lets me make someone who isn't a space marine who doesn't fundamentally suck

amazingly, the other place to do this is in the Horus Heresy Militia list, where you can make infantry who are situationally better than Marines at the cost of being really scrungly when out of their element

the all-rad-grenade mortal squad is tactically interesting

[broken dew]

oh cool you can do termies too

[vital barn]

high-XP dark heresy characters could kind of hang with Marines but only at the kinds of advancement levels where the system starts to fundamentally melt

heavy bolter devastator go brrrr

[strong owl]

you can, technically, be a dreadnought

[broken dew]

oh baby

nice

i've been on a terminator kick with my custom chapter though

so if anything i'd run a termie or go for Iron armor

[strong owl]

i need to add more like... its missing a bunch of vehicles mostly

but its comprehensive in terms of space marine armoury and options

[broken dew]

mhm

my lads are big on whatever the heaviest armor they can run is so all the characters i've made art of so far are in Terminator gear

[strong owl]

we left out being chaplains (bc it conflicted with the core mechanic) and didn't enforce some mechanically unusual shit like black templar and space wolf structure

but

you can play essentially any kind of marine

[broken dew]

actually no i did do one Dread

[desert jay]

Hey you have more drivable vehicles than either of the two Space Marine games

[broken dew]

heyo

nice

[strong owl]

though it does like... deliberately lean toward being Basic Marines early on (while still trying to make them cool)

[broken dew]

yeah

that's fair

termies and dreads are sort beyond the scope of being a basic lad

[desert jay]

... Wait, has any 40K video game had player-controllable vehicles without being a strategy game or an Ork game?

[upper canopy]

Eternal Crusade

[floral herald]

Space Marine 2 pvp

[broken dew]

Just a little guy :D

[floral herald]

Counting Dreadmoughts

[broken dew]

ooooh Chapter Specific equipment

[upper canopy]

They added Dreads to pvp?

[broken dew]

very nice

[floral herald]

It’s a special mode iirc

You can control a dread/brute as a boss or smth

[charred bridge]

Ye it's a more recent one

[broken dew]

yeah i'm gonna need to like, seriously sit down tomorrow and take a good read of this

[main pagoda]

theres hellbrutes as well

[desert jay]

TIL that the online PvP game let you drive tanks

[main pagoda]

there was PVE

[desert jay]

Oh yeah missed that there's a PvE mode too

[main pagoda]

it just wasn't very good

[vital barn]

the Paragon Blade appears to have the Power Fist's fluff

[strong owl]

whoops

will fix

[floral herald]

I gotta do another read

[broken dew]

Bloodletters don't seem to have any stats or anything

[vital barn]

ooh, AL power knives, yes please

[floral herald]

I am really digging the boiled down combat and focus on mental states

[main pagoda]

if you want to count mods the Men of war assualt squad 2 40k mod had alot

[dense idol]

this looks excellent, erika

[floral herald]

Can put these astartes in awkward situations, the best thing about them

[vital barn]

the AL Headhunters are some of my favourite units in lore, since they are almost literally Better Tacticals

[vital barn]

tacs have bolters and knives, Headhunters have storm bolters, better ammo and power knives

truly groundbreaking technology from the Alpharii there

[main pagoda]

DW does suffer from being quite old and rough as a system compared to the later FFG stuff like DH and RT

[dense idol]

the perfect intersection between "this is so fucking badass" and "this is so fucking dumb" that warhammer 40k is at its best inside

[floral herald]

Deathwatch is more recent that RT but there were a bunch of system reforms it caused

[broken dew]

agree

[floral herald]

(Namely the change to additive not multiplicative unnatural stats in BC)

[main pagoda]

sorry not RT meant OW

[floral herald]

Ah fair then I agree

[main pagoda]

which is probably the most comparable in the 40k TTRPG space in terms of what it is

eg combat combat and a slice of more combat

[broken dew]

yeah i'm gonna deep dive in on this for many hours when i get home from school tomorrow

gonna make a basic bitch marine of my custom chapter

[strong owl]

yeah the enemies aren't fleshed out fully yet

[main pagoda]

im about to start a DW three shot and im looking forward to it

[broken dew]

fair enough 👍

[strong owl]

i didn't want to spend all my time on that before people run through the rules

[broken dew]

just thought i'd mention it in case there was supposed to be something there

[broken dew]

entirely reasonable

[floral herald]

This is so good

[broken dew]

not quite comprehending the Sanguinius one atm

gonna need to sit down at some point tomorrow and reread it a few times until it makes sense in my brain

seems like it is, reversed from the others

0 is the goal and 10 is the failure point

[strong owl]

it is

it works completely differently

[broken dew]

ok cool

[floral herald]

Yeah blood is usually good and for BAs blood is a tempting call which will put you in Situations

[strong owl]

all the others are kind of about like... how do you embody your primarch and their potential best qualities. this one is avoiding giving into the psychic trauma

[broken dew]

had to reread it a few times

[broken dew]

given it's the Blood Angels that makes sense

i imagine if you go to ten you might start seeing Horus or so

[strong owl]

that is, indeed, the thing

[vital barn]

I do like the Alpha Legion formalizing the One Alpha Legion Plot from everyone's deathwatch cmapaign

[broken dew]

i do like that some of them have way worse consequences than others for hitting zero

[floral herald]

I think it makes sense

[broken dew]

sometimes you just fucking lose your mind entirely, sometimes you get benched, and if you're one of Lorgars lads you just fall to chaos on the spot

[vital barn]

the Iron Hands are fine (tm)

[floral herald]

There’s a fuck ton of Guilliman’s lads around it’s not a big deal if you’re only a little like the big guy

It’s not like that for some gene-lines tho

[broken dew]

yeah

i do know which one i'm gonna pick for my basic bitch marine

kinda neat that Mortarions lads do not get a 10 reward but instead just get feel no pain if they have more than 5 blood

also Ferrus Manus lads seem to also have kind of a reverse between 10 and 0, but not quite in the same way as Sanguinius lads

glorious

yeah i'm gonna sit down tomorrow for a proper read

[strong owl]

wooo

the new white scars jet bike HAD to go in

[broken dew]

this is really fucking fun

[strong owl]

its just so fucking sick

[broken dew]

jetbikes supreme

sadly my lads are slow lads so no jetbikes

[vital barn]

it took them an uncountable number of editions but they finally got one

I am too busy playing a techpriest to play this, but I very much like the Primarch sections

[broken dew]

yeah i'm a big fan

[vital barn]

my usual use for Space Marine is as a convenient benchmark to determine how killy any of my characters is, in the same way that a lot of my Celestial Exalted are designed to not-die when confronted with a standard issue Solar Exalted swordsman but I never actually play Solars

but this does make me actually want to play one somewhat

[broken dew]

i like space marines for the oc potential and have capitalized on it by making my own chapter, thus i am fulfilled

[strong owl]

a lot of this game is synthesizing my love of Old Marines and the reluctantly-developed love i have for Primaris marines

(as a result of smushing the two together for my army)

[vital barn]

my two WIP Space Marine armies are perhaps the least Your Dudes armies I've ever done, one is a shameless rivet-counting exercise where I recreate the exact force composition of Crysos Morturg and Calleb Decima on Istvaan III as described in HH1: Betrayal

so they're someone else's dudes that they never expanded on and as such I was able to just steal

[broken dew]

they're all witch hating lunatics who skulk around space hulks and loot just a little bit less than the Blood Ravens insofar as they don't directly try to steal everyones shit

[vital barn]

the second is Alpha Legion, so all their characters are titles who pass to future marines if they bite it

[broken dew]

they usually corpse loot while nobody is around and ask people to give them all the broken shit they have so they can fix it and use it

[strong owl]

(my boys, btw)

[vital barn]

their elites kill themselves constantly by carving warpy symbols on their flesh to make themselves better snipers, they're not lasting long enough to produce player characters

the upside is that I can melt a Primarch in one round of HH3e, and that feels real good

[broken dew]

lmao

i imagine it does

[vital barn]

large adult son removal service

[floral herald]

I gotta paint more

[broken dew]

i've been having tons of fun making a group of marines that are basically one bad fight away from just like

[floral herald]

I’ve been getting back into the hobby side

[broken dew]

collapsing on on themselves as a chapter

[floral herald]

But it’s all assembly so far

[vital barn]

oh yeah, all my Alpha Legion canonically die in the Scouring

[broken dew]

since they use old, expensive and difficult to repair shit

[vital barn]

they systematically killed off their entire future officer corps by assigning them to the daemon snipers unit, they have no leadership

I think one of them will live to become a Daemon Prince and that's it

[broken dew]

if they incurred horrible loses like say, The Lamenters or any of the Blood Angels at The Devastation of Baal

they'd just fucking implode

honestly even just losing like, a company would be devastating

they're serious scrunglers and they definitely would all die at some point ramming their fortress monastery into something or in some kind of pathetic whimpering slow doom

[vital barn]

the Alpha Legion 516th Company died after six months of making the Scouring utter hell for the Ultramarines, who had to deal with random officers being constantly sniped and any rebuilding efforts sabotaged by totally out-of-their-mind Inductii with the marksmanship skills of elite veterans and zero self-preservation instincts

unfortunately the downside to having no self-preservation instincts is that you fail to preserve self

[broken dew]

yeah preserving the self tends to be useful

[strong owl]

my horus heresy army is an AU where they are fighting the entirely secular Space Marine Revolt

they are blood angels but arent even called that they’re just 9th legion

[vital barn]

50% of my boys' inspiration is a funky rules interaction where Possessed marine units can be buffed with the Mechanicum buff that's meant to work on daemon engines, since it targets the Malefic keyword

[strong owl]

they wear hats

[broken dew]

hat wearing space marines...

[vital barn]

so I can possess vet sniper squads, buff them up with an attendant magos and pop heads at 3x prior effectiveness due to the way BS scales in HH3e

the other 50% is a letter written by a young lieutenant on the Western Front that I found in the Imperial War Museum, who agonized for a full page over discarding his shoulderboards to make himself not-sniper-bait on the grounds that this would betray his men and his own standards of honour and as such defeat the entire point of being a British aristocrat going to war in the first place

the 516th exist in an attempt to make Loyalist marines write the oath of moment version of that letter

we fought this whole damn stupid war over everyone's egos, wouldn't it be easier to fight if you all discarded all your own individuality along with the glory?

(the last platoon of the 516th went extremely Tzeentch and shot each other over this philosophy to enforce the most solipsistic ego death possible, the last survivor ascended to daemonhood while totally convinced that there are no conscious individuals in the universe whatsoever, including himself)

[broken dew]

fun stuff

[vital barn]

I wanted to do a fatally chaos-corrupted army that didn't dissolve into axe murder, so instead you get what's basically the CSM equivalent of Stormboyz, a cargo-cult space marine legion

they fight like an organised, disciplined and capable insurgent movement but without any of the defining ideology whatsoever, they made themselves into the paper-target bad guys from a terrible Hollywood war film

[broken dew]

Interesting

[vital barn]

(also on a more prosaic note this approach means I am freed from the requirement to actually write OCs except maybe the reverse-solipsist daemon prince)

[broken dew]

I had less of an interesting reason for making my lads, i just found the Pre-Mortarion Dusk Raiders to be described interestingly

Made my lads be incredibly religious about it and utterly hate warp stuff

[vital barn]

don't get me wrong, my actual reason for making this army is "damn, snipers are good this edition, aren't they?" and then "hey, that's a funky combo"

the ideology is just me extrapolating normal alpha legion very slightly and also making them Tzeentchy because I think more of them should be Tzeentch cultists

[broken dew]

Fair enough

I just like Mortarions dense lads

And giving them crippling angst about dad being a giant moth demon would do something interesting

[vital barn]

I do like Loyalist Death Guard

my HH allied detachment is the twenty loyalist DG and seven loyalist WE that show up in some of the chapter fiction for the Horus Heresy campaign books

they also all die, apart from one guy who survives to be in a short story later on

I'm not sure what gets me to kill off 99% of my Space Marines

[thin ibex]

I've never put on depth ideas on how id want to do my own personal my guys space marine chapter

I kinda want to do a offshoot of the space wolves though

[desert jay]

And speaking of the Dusk Raiders, also shout out to the War Hounds, Luna Wolves, Imperial Heralds, and Ghost Legion

(And for OG names on the loyalist legion side there's the Angels of Death, Star Hunters, Stormwalkers, The Rout, War-Born, and Dragon Warriors)

But I really like the idea of loyalists from the traitor legions readopting their pre-Primarch name

[thin ibex]

oh post primaris, are there now more than 1000 chapters?

[desert jay]

There might've been more than 1000 pre-primaris

[upper canopy]

The funniest thing I ever did

was mentally manipulate CYAN into accidentally putting in one of my homebrew chapters into his game

[broken dew]

🫡

[junior summit]

The goal of most space marines is to die gloriously so it's a pretty fitting end

Also 40k in general is a high turnover setting for people who don't have named models

[broken dew]

It's a cool idea

[broken dew]

But yeah the three things really behind my chapter are Dusk Raiders rule, Dad angst and how much hatred can we physically and spiritually have for Typhus the Traveler

The answer to the last one is a lot, and happens to be half the reason they are KOS when it comes to psykers and warp related shit(the other half being Mortarion influence from death guard days)

[fossil violet]

Is Belisarius kind of a “you basically need this in your army or it’s suboptimal” deal for admech

[broken dew]

Very fun since i'm pretty much always the designated magic lady so completely going the other way with my chapter has been good

[rocky shale]

Currently yeah

[broken dew]

Unsurprising to hear

[fossil violet]

Bummer

[broken dew]

He's the Admech guy rn so i'm relatively unsurprised

[pale narwhal]

it only took stapling Oath of Moment to him to make him good

[vital barn]

filling in the characteristics for a Fulgurite electropriest is very straightforward

[floral herald]

Lmfao

[main pagoda]

Ah yeah it's all coming together

mind the phone camera being utterly dogwater

[mild glen]

Raaah. 1k game against Knights this Wendsday. Morning Mecha Match. Woo.

[stark cypress]

Plasma through the tulips

[pastel rampart]

https://tenor.com/view/look-what-youve-done-to-my-peonies-gay-deceivers-get-off-my-lawn-marigolds-gif-18175432

[stark cypress]

Imma do this for the Pathfinders too.

Ohhhhhhh. Maybe for that Kroot Stalker Warband I've been seeing.

Be funny doing that basing and having pretty flowers next to the birb mercs with fuck off guns.

[pastel rampart]

See if you can't model one of them leaning down to inspect a flower.

[stark cypress]

That would be funny

[thin ibex]

I want a named or generic electric priest

They're cool

[vital barn]

genestealer cultists removed from play

twenty militia with autoguns did not in fact survive the plasma cannon and assault cannon unloading into them point-blank

[hollow laurel]

We didn't even need the volley gun </pos>

However, I do need to think about what pairs with the plasma cannon and assault cannon.

[floral herald]

Wow

[hollow laurel]

Yeah, I did have a lascannon to mind. Like, for range.

Or the Hot-Shot Marksman Rifle because er. Blaaam at long range. :3

The third contender is an Autocannon because well. B-tches love cannons. >:3

Problem is, none of them really fit with the whole trench fighter shtick.

[past sphinx]

the gay deceivers refence in this day and age?

[hollow laurel]

We have found an insane solution.

[untold swallow]

The insane solution is a heavy navis shotgun with a combi-melta

[sour sequoia]

Hey I’m way late to this but honestly no

I played into a batshit crazy list this weekend

Won only on being slightly more familiar with admech than he was with GSC and when we are running the same kind of “run punch up trash down the board” and mine Comes Back it works better. Would be happy to send you the list but Haloscreed is just batshit as a detach

[untold swallow]

Oh hey gyrtop

[untold swallow]

I'm running a T4 Wrath & Glory game where genestealers are the main antagonists so far, and both Misc and Brair pointed me in your direction lol

[rocky shale]

Any kill teamers here know what the good setup for Novitates is?

[vital barn]

I'm so glad melee Admech is real now, I wonder if I can get a new army fielded before edition change

little short on cash to rebuild the 40k mech right now but I do have half of a decent army

[west zealot]

‘I am Alpha Legion,’ Solomon said. ‘We are above such petty concepts as revenge.’
‘Solomon, I don’t know how best to concisely recount the events of the last ten thousand years, but–’

[fossil violet]

Yeah I’d like to take a look at it ty!

[thin ibex]

What's the detachment to play for nids if I want to build a thematic stealer list? Vanguard?

I imagine bio sanctic for gsc

[rocky shale]

Vanguard Onslaught is the only one that ties into their keyword

[thin ibex]

Unfortunately for a theme list, 3 broodlords don't make any sense

But I can live with that

[west zealot]

For some reason I now have the mental image of one broodlord driving a gsc four wheel drive, and the other two acting like dumbarse teenagers riding on it

[pale narwhal]

so I've read through Oath of Moment

goddamn does this fuck immensely. The entire vibe of it. I both want to play it and run it now

[broken dew]

yeah

same

i wanna play it

honestly as soon as i'm home after my lesson today i'm going to sit down and make a character

[pale narwhal]

genuinely considering trying to run something for the first time in years, the various sliding scales tickle my brain very nicely

[broken dew]

i'm considering if i can goad my friends into trying it

[pale narwhal]

it feels as though it'd lend itself well to play-by-post as well, given it's got like. five 'stats' to track and then equipment and xp

and how combat is fairly abstract in layout