Treatise on Space Marines (and Space Wolves)

[Legatus]

I have only breezed over the topic, and am probably posting prematurely, but.... How about using the Daemonic assault rules for SM?

If there only were rules allowing for an all deep striking Space Marine army...

 

...oh, wait, it's called "Drop Pods". :P

 

Seriously, every unit in the army list except Scouts, Tanks, and Bikes can deep strike. "Drop Pod Assault" even makes such an army playable.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

I have only breezed over the topic, and am probably posting prematurely, but.... How about using the Daemonic assault rules for SM?

The random bit would stop if being too powerful. Or you could put all your force into the 3+ half and take the chance of all coming down on T1....

Another thing, I would like to see Drop Pod Assault be 'up to half the pods come in on T1' that would give an option....

I have only breezed over the topic, and am probably posting prematurely, but.... How about using the Daemonic assault rules for SM?

If there only were rules allowing for an all deep striking Space Marine army...

 

...oh, wait, it's called "Drop Pods". :D

 

Seriously, every unit in the army list except Scouts, Tanks, and Bikes can deep strike. "Drop Pod Assault" even makes such an army playable.

 

I know, that's why I included it in my post :P

 

From what I understand, DPA is resented because of being forced to drop half T1.

People would like the flexibility to have from 0 to half for DPA.

DPA gets derailed by the enemy reserving his guys and then counter punching.

 

The little tweak of 0 - half would fix that somewhat.

 

Something like Daemonic Assault gives you the (chance of the) option for the whole lot to come down on T1 to having nothing come down T1. I think that would be a nice way of making the Marines not so 'by the numbers' for both Marine and baddies players.

[dizzy-xc]

Can Honor guard and HQ members DPA?

[Godhead]

Another good example of how space marines would fight a whole planet is kind of like the movie 300. It was loosely based on a real historic battle. They chose to fight at a strategic location which minimized the advantage of the persians numbers. In the end though they still died. They guard is a large army used to overwhelm and grind the opposition into dust. Space marines are the front line shock troops. Better armor, better mobility, more specialized weaponry to allow them to operate in a variety of enviroments and battle field conditions. If the guard can't drive their tanks to get in range, then what? Try playing a game with LOTs of difficult and or impassable terrain and see who has the advantage. Try city fight. Lots of cover where an opponent can dig and then you have to go dig them out. The guard isn't going to do that. It's not their job. The space marines most likely capture entire planets using the old addage, severe the head and the body will surely die. Capture and Control the strategic locations and then clean up the rest. Hell I wouldn't want to drop down onto some barren bombed out battle field to face 10000 to 1 odds. I'm gonna hope my battle cruiser holds up and drop an orbital bombardment on that crap. I'm gonna go take over the Planetary governors mansion instead and cut off communications and supply lines. Make the guard come to me and use terrain to my advantage. A cold hungry guardsman with only a bayonette left in hand after being bombed, harried and harassed would not likely relish the thought of fighting a space marine hand to hand or in close/short ranged combat.

[Legatus]

Can Honor guard and HQ members DPA?

Yes, they can.

[Valerian]

Somehow I do not understand the motivation for the original post.

 

Well, I talked about it in the Introduction, here: "This effort began solely as a mental exercise, to determine what I would do to change the Space Marines, if I were somehow able to influence GWs design decisions. I spent some considerable time thinking about the Adeptus Astartes to try to determine what a Space Marine army should be all about (in my own opinion, of course). In this effort I thought about the aspects of the Space Marine concept that most appeal to me, and, based on their fluff, thought about how such a force would/should “realistically” operate within the environment of the 41st millennium."

 

So, really, this began with me thinking about the whole concept for Space Marines, within the context of the both the background material as well as the in-game rules, and trying to reconcile all of that with my real-world understanding of military organizations, equipment, doctrine, operational tactics, techniques, and procededures.

 

Essentially, the gist of all this is that, well, the Space Marines weren't designed all that well. This is understandable, of course, as they were one of the first, and foremost, armies of the game. There are other armies that were available at the beginning, too, but those have gone through some fairly major overhauls in terms of their design, with accompanying "retcon" of background material to support those changes. The Space Marines, meanwhile, haven't gone through significant updates or modifications since their first incarnation all those years ago. Certainly there have been new units added occasionally, and minor adjustments, but not much new.

 

Let's look at another army in the game as an example of what I would consider "good" design. The Tau are a "new" addition to the game, being introduced in 2001 (about 14 years after the release of Rogue Trader and the creation of the 40k universe). Whether you like them or hate them, GW developed a concept for the Tau, developed and expanded the concept, and designed the army to consistently fit that concept. The Tau are characterized by rapid scientific and technological development, and their society is bound by a strict caste system, with all members working within the social structure to advance the greater good. They are physically weaker than humans, and some of their senses and reflexes are less well-developed, too. They make up for these difficiencies, by leveraging advanced technologies that are beyond the capacity of the human Imperium. There is a pretty good description of Tau doctrine on that Wikipedia page in the Warfare section. The doctrine that the Tau have adopted fits everything that we know about them, including their force size, organization, armament, vehicles, weapons, etc. Everything looks right, feels right, and plays right on the tabletop; they are well-designed.

 

Now let's look at Space Marines, and their "fundamentals". The Space Marines are genetically-enhanced, psycho-surgery engineered super-soldiers developed by the Emperor to assist his human armies in reunifying the disparate human colonies throughout the galaxy in his Great Crusade. The Imperial Army consisted of literally billions of soldiers and supporting war-machines, while the Legions of the Adeptus Astartes probably numbered between 2-3 million. The Space Marines are stronger, tougher, faster, have greater endurance, and are significantly better trained than their human counterparts in the Imperial Army. Additionally, the Marines are much better protected, wearing suits of either powered or tactical dreadnought armor, each with fiber-bundles to assist movement, auto-senses to integrate their natural and mechanical senses, and black carapace connectivity to integrate the suits to their own nervous systems. The are much better armed, with high-explosive .75 caliber Bolt Guns as their standard armament, and supporting advanced man-portable ranged and close combat weaponry also widely available.

 

Clearly they are far superior to normal human warriors, but at the same time they are much, much smaller in number. Additionally, a lot has changed in the past 10,000 years of the game universe, with at least half of all Space Marines turning traitor, and the remaining Legions being reorganized into Chapters of approximately 1,000 Marines each. Also, these Chapters typically fight independently, although they can be incorporated into larger organizations of Imperial forces.

 

Starting with these fundamentals as our base, and with the freedom to ignore any and all other fluff-based assumptions or pre-conceived notions, how would you design the Space Marines? What support vehicles and transports would you provide them? How would you organize the subordinate elements of a Chapter? Where would you allocate special and heavy weapons, or special close combat weapons? What would be their governing doctrine? How would you choose to employ them and why? How would you minimize their disadvantages while exploiting their advantages?

 

These were some of the issues that I was considering when I made the original post.

 

I appreciate all of the discussion on the thread, and everyone's participation, although not everyone really understood what I was doing or why.

 

Regards,

 

V

[Dilgar]

Dunno if it is said or not but teleportation is almost a lost technology in the Imperium, only the Grey Knights use it "often" anymore. Librarians etc might also use psychic powers or so. So some SM still do it (fitting BTW that this wasn´t "known" as the GK are soo very shy of themselves ;)).

 

A more practical approach:

 

I think this was mentioned in some way. But has the guy who started this thread thought about the fact that maybe the SM actually have "deployed" rapidly close to the battlefield (read table), so they can deploy and fight. While for example the IG might "be" close to the battlefield (again table), because they are usually a defense force in the Imperium. The Eldar has "skimmed through the warp" to get to the battlefield (table) and so on and so on.

 

Maybe the "problem" is how u think about this little thing, that the SM are not the "rapid deployment force"/marines of space that they should be ;) .

 

Maybe the players should start say 5 km/miles from the table, except that the SM player has a Helicopter and the IG player have to walk :D .

 

 

It´s late and I´m tired :blush: .

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Faced with the fluff of Space Marines there are a number of tweaks I would make.

 

Suspensors. I loved these in Space Crusade. Every Space Marine with a heavy weapon also has suspensors. These make the model "slow and purposeful" so they can move and fire (albeit more slowly). Obviously they have the option of moving at normal speed but then they can't shoot. This would make drop pod armies more powerful as those falling devastator squads could start shooting the moment they hit the ground.

 

Vehicle deployment. All vehicles can be deployed by deep strike (to represent being dropped off by Thunderhawk). That includes Rhinos and their contents. Whirlwinds can fire directly with normal ordnance rules.

 

I think with the tweaks the price of all marines would have to increase, but not by too much.

 

All terminators (including ours) can teleport.