My issues with scale between miniatures and video games.

[Volt]

 

I’ve never heard anyone describe a round half again bigger than a .50 as incredibly small

Compared to what GW thinks they are? They are incredibly small. Hell I have a .264 magnum round casing on my desk right now, and while obviously the bullet is just .2 in diameter (well, if this wasn't fired), the base of the cartridge is actually .5 inches. Bolts basically never are depicted with a flared cartridge, so the base of the round is probably .75 as well, meaning the rounds themselves are just incredibly long but roughly thumb sized in diameter. You could fit a lot of those into depicted bolter magazines compared to marine hand size.

 

[image snipped]

 

The black cylinder is a bolt round to scale, the gun is an M4A1, and the scale assumed is the marine being exactly 7', or 2.1336 meters. The bolt round is 19.05 x 123.325mm, allowing you to cram a ton of ammunition into a single sickle mag.

Uhhh, Volt? Bolters are referred to as .75 Caliber (19.05mm to use another metric) and some other bolters are .998 caliber (about 21mm) [note: These are in Relic's games, so Dawn of War and Space Marine].

 

To compare, this is a lineup, with a .50 BMG (12.7mm) on the left:

 

That's still 6.35mm smaller than a Bolt.

 

The standard Bolter bolt size is bigger still than the .700 Nitro Express (17.8mm), which is an elephant gun cartridge.

(.700 Nitro Express bullet and case with .45 ACP cartridge (center) for comparison)

 

For comparison, in IRL firearms, 20mm cartridges is autocannon level. THIS is a 202mm round with .50 BMG rounds, golf ball, and a stick of SDRAM computer memory for size comparison:

 

The biggest known bolter caliber is 21mm.

 

And then the Heavy Bolter uses a 1.00 (25.4mm wide) round, which if you need a scale size idea:

 

No, Bolts are really huge.

 

You're looking at the cartridges themselves and not the actual rounds themselves, the cartridges are typically larger in base diameter than the rounds themselves, although this isn't the case for bolts which look like two stage rockets. I actually have already made a life size bolt as an image, looking something like this (although the tip would be different, my skill with mspaint is lackluster).

 

 

 

 

Gents, has anyone ever actually seen a bolt round?

 

No, I haven't either. Let's try and keep it a little more in the realm of "we aren't talking about real things" - depicting real thing and expecting this made up world 38K years in the future to follow the exact same conventions regarding explosive charges, casing lengths, etc., doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

Let's dial the real world vs. made up world discussion back and focus more on the actual game information.

 

Granted, there's a lot of stuff about the game world and game scale that doesn't necessarily make sense either, but that's why there's the "Space Wizards Did It" explanation, which is a legit explanation in this situation.

 

Honestly scale-wise on the models themselves is the size of the bore - it's always seemed far too large for the caliber round they are supposedly kicking out - mini-rocket after standard cased propulsion or not, it has always just seemed too big overall. Even saying "Heroic Scale" (say like a time and a half larger than needed), it still seems like the bore as produced by GW on the Heavy Bolter is like a time and a half/two times too large.

Yes?

 

Also, despite people's comments on the movie, we do see bolts in the Ultramarines movie, including the "soda can" sized Heavy Bolter rounds.

 

The issue is that all of these are wrong both in terms of length and in the construction of the bolt themselves. The cartridge is too short and small to actually match bolt cartridges seen and provide enough propellant to make the bolt do anything more than accelerate a couple feet before simply falling out of the barrel. It also doesn't make sense in magazine size, because bolter magazines bear similarity to standard rifle round mags, not pistol calibers such as a 9mm stick mag holding small and fat rounds. If bolts are only like 50mm in length, either half the space in the magazine is wasted or you could increase the amount of rounds stacked and possibly increase magazine capacity as much as 30% or more by alternating the round's position. Ultimately this is what happens when you have guns designed by writers who have likely never even fired a gun though.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Volt

[MegaVolt87]

Aren't bolts meant to be caseless though? The ejection port doesn't eject the cartridge but the gasses? 

 

Edit- interesting, wikipedia talks about caseless ammo and has an article about gyrojet ammo, seems pretty close to IRL bolter equivalent to me. Guess thats where the bolter inspiration came from in part? 

Edited September 9, 2020 by MegaVolt87

[Gederas]

Aren't bolts meant to be caseless though? The ejection port doesn't eject the cartridge but the gasses? 

 

Edit- interesting, wikipedia talks about caseless ammo and has an article about gyrojet ammo, seems pretty close to IRL bolter equivalent to me. Guess thats where the bolter inspiration came from in part? 

Bolters are actually explicitly based on gyrojets, yes.

 

So Volt, your "bolt" is completely wrong because it has a casing. Bolters are caseless, and the bolt round pictures I posted show exactly how bolts are depicted. Single rounds, no casing.

[Ramell]

Did you people somehow miss all the artwork and models where bolts have cases, where bolters are ejecting casings as they fire? The 5th ed. C:SM has an example front and center.

Bolters are not caseless.

[MegaVolt87]

Did you people somehow miss all the artwork and models where bolts have cases, where bolters are ejecting casings as they fire? The 5th ed. C:SM has an example front and center.

Bolters are not caseless.

 

Pre 5th ed artwork/ lore has had reference to ceaseless ammo etc, and also artwork depicting bolters as traditional cartridges. Casless vs non caseless bolter ammo has been a thing depicting bolt weapons for years. 

[Bryan Blaire]

So Volt, your "bolt" is completely wrong because it has a casing. Bolters are caseless, and the bolt round pictures I posted show exactly how bolts are depicted. Single rounds, no casing.

Gederas, I don't know what you are looking at, but there's clearly a case on each of the four rounds in that first picture you posted. It's much longer along the length of the bolt than in the second picture though, appearing much closer to a modern bullet for a pistol, as opposed to a necked rifle round.

 

The actual text in the second one you posted specifically says outer case and depicts the lip of the casing about 1/4th or so way up. :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

Bolts fire from a case, and become rocket propelled as they leave the bolter or very close to...

 

And y'all are still trying to apply modern ballistics weaponry understanding to a decidedly non-modern weapon. :facepalm: The rounds don't have to be designed to "work properly" according to current solid-projectile ballistic understanding of rifled weaponry, they don't have to be sized for it either.

[Volt]

Aren't bolts meant to be caseless though? The ejection port doesn't eject the cartridge but the gasses? 

 

Edit- interesting, wikipedia talks about caseless ammo and has an article about gyrojet ammo, seems pretty close to IRL bolter equivalent to me. Guess thats where the bolter inspiration came from in part? 

 

 

 

Aren't bolts meant to be caseless though? The ejection port doesn't eject the cartridge but the gasses? 

 

Edit- interesting, wikipedia talks about caseless ammo and has an article about gyrojet ammo, seems pretty close to IRL bolter equivalent to me. Guess thats where the bolter inspiration came from in part? 

Bolters are actually explicitly based on gyrojets, yes.

 

So Volt, your "bolt" is completely wrong because it has a casing. Bolters are caseless, and the bolt round pictures I posted show exactly how bolts are depicted. Single rounds, no casing.

 

Bruh.

 

 

Bolters also have charging handles. That's not a dust cover, bolters share more in common with Russian or British gun design or older American firearms than the modern AR-15 platform where the charging handle is on top of the gun. Not only are they commonly depicted with casings flying out of the ejection port, but almost all bolters have a lip on the ejection port that is the charging handle which cycles as the gun fires. Caseless guns don't do that.

 

Also the Marksman's Honour is a literal bolt case fired by Guilliman awarded to marines and hung from their neck or their gun.

 

 

 

So Volt, your "bolt" is completely wrong because it has a casing. Bolters are caseless, and the bolt round pictures I posted show exactly how bolts are depicted. Single rounds, no casing.

Gederas, I don't know what you are looking at, but there's clearly a case on each of the four rounds in that first picture you posted. It's much longer along the length of the bolt than in the second picture though, appearing much closer to a modern bullet for a pistol, as opposed to a necked rifle round.

 

The actual text in the second one you posted specifically says outer case and depicts the lip of the casing about 1/4th or so way up.

 

Bolts fire from a case, and become rocket propelled as they leave the bolter or very close to...

 

And y'all are still trying to apply modern ballistics weaponry understanding to a decidedly non-modern weapon. The rounds don't have to be designed to "work properly" according to current solid-projectile ballistic understanding of rifled weaponry, they don't have to be sized for it either.

 

I mean they do. Ballistic physics don't change regardless of how time goes on, the only thing that can change is efficiency of propellants and alloys used in the missile itself, but the way things shoot and fly is eternal. Although we actually have an edge over bolters in the modern day, as experimental projectiles like EXACTO have resulted in literal guided bullets with over 30 degrees of course correction to nail a target. Corner turning bullets probably aren't far off.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Volt

[Bryan Blaire]

Sorry Volt, they don't have to - you yourself said this stuff is from folks who themselves likely never fired a weapon, they may have some concepts, but even the VoxCasts, while describing that they try to think about how things work and give them a sense of versimilitude, they aren't trying to actually engineer these things properly. Analyzing the models and concepts as if the functions will be real world accurate is a fool's errand, they may be close, but I sincerely doubt they are trying to get so close as to be describing correctly functioning past a conceptual level.

[Fajita Fan]

Sorry Volt, they don't have to - you yourself said this stuff is from folks who themselves likely never fired a weapon, they may have some concepts, but even the VoxCasts, while describing that they try to think about how things work and give them a sense of versimilitude, they aren't trying to actually engineer these things properly. Analyzing the models and concepts as if the functions will be real world accurate is a fool's errand, they may be close, but I sincerely doubt they are trying to get so close as to be describing correctly functioning past a conceptual level.

This must be the only forum I’ve been on where you can see the word “verisimilitude” used.   +1 point

 

edit: actually what do you guys think of Phobos armor’s proportions?

Edited September 9, 2020 by Fajita Fan

[Lord_Caerolion]

Exactly. Jes has been very clear that they aren't trying to make things that actually work, just that give the impression that they would. They design Knights that actually look like a functional machine that could reasonably move, but they're not perfectly planning out each specific section to ensure that it would literally work if built in real life.

[Closet Skeleton]

 

As for some other models - even some in-universe numbers are suspect. A Land Raider supposedly can carry a full terminator squad. Plus, fuel, ammo, generators, etc... All those things take up volume. Most vehicles to me look too small or have hypespace storage inside. The new flying transport being probably the most obvious.

 

 

The Wave Serpent is 50% too small, Rhinos are fine.

 

Terminators were smaller when the Land Raider was released. 5 of them fit in fine (though the land raider interior is not to scale with the exterior).

 

APCs are cramped. The M113 fits 11 and looks smaller compared to a person than a marine does to a rhino. Open it up and there are two pairs of 3 seats at most 20% too small for three typical old marine bums along with enough crouching space for another 4 marines. Land Raiders also carry the exact same amount as a rhino.

[TrashMan]

@Volt - nice breakdown and comparisons.

One thing I want to ad, that a lot of time gets glossed over, is that the caliber itself is not that important when determining bolter power. Whatever the imperium is using as explosive and propellant is a lot more advanced than whatever we are using today, so even if a bolt was an exact copy of a .50 cal in size and shape, it's destructive power would probably be much higher.

 

 

[Fajita Fan]

 

 

 

As for some other models - even some in-universe numbers are suspect. A Land Raider supposedly can carry a full terminator squad. Plus, fuel, ammo, generators, etc... All those things take up volume. Most vehicles to me look too small or have hypespace storage inside. The new flying transport being probably the most obvious.

 

The Wave Serpent is 50% too small, Rhinos are fine.

 

Terminators were smaller when the Land Raider was released. 5 of them fit in fine (though the land raider interior is not to scale with the exterior).

 

APCs are cramped. The M113 fits 11 and looks smaller compared to a person than a marine does to a rhino. Open it up and there are two pairs of 3 seats at most 20% too small for three typical old marine bums along with enough crouching space for another 4 marines. Land Raiders also carry the exact same amount as a rhino.

Okay for video games I feel like vehicles should absolutely be true scaled. Landraiders should be huge and Baneblades truly massive.

[MegaVolt87]

 

 

As for some other models - even some in-universe numbers are suspect. A Land Raider supposedly can carry a full terminator squad. Plus, fuel, ammo, generators, etc... All those things take up volume. Most vehicles to me look too small or have hypespace storage inside. The new flying transport being probably the most obvious.

The Wave Serpent is 50% too small, Rhinos are fine.

Terminators were smaller when the Land Raider was released. 5 of them fit in fine (though the land raider interior is not to scale with the exterior).

APCs are cramped. The M113 fits 11 and looks smaller compared to a person than a marine does to a rhino. Open it up and there are two pairs of 3 seats at most 20% too small for three typical old marine bums along with enough crouching space for another 4 marines. Land Raiders also carry the exact same amount as a rhino.

Okay for video games I feel like vehicles should absolutely be true scaled. Landraiders should be huge and Baneblades truly massive.

Yeah but then you hit a slippery slope of making legion super heavies larger, then the mastadon, then the thunderhawk and stormbird need a scale bump, then titans.... It is stange though admittedly, my falchion feels the right size, while I feel the LR could be slightly larger and my spartan slightly larger again, odd. Sicarans feel properly scaled for me as well. Small profile preads and rhinos make sense, they are like that to reduce visibility compared to guard tanks like a Russ. They should have more movement value though to compensate for a less robust construction.

[Fajita Fan]

I see no problem with this in a Battlefield 1942 style video game (but then I'm dating myself here).  Big vehicles would look cool against the backdrop of buildings that reach into the clouds!

[Lucerne]

I actually wonder if the Rhinos are to lore scale if you take the humanscale (eg: Blackstone/newer guardsmen type models like the Rogue Trader voidsmen) as being human standard at 1.8m corresponding to about 3.2 cm give or take

 

Land Raiders are probably too small to be lore accurate?

[Fajita Fan]

The vehicle models are much smaller proportionally because otherwise they'd be massive on the table.  Terminators are supposed to be 10' tall and probably almost as wide at the shoulder, fitting 5 to 8 in a vehicle tabletop-scale would be a contortionist act worthy of Cirque de Soleil.  They're cavernous inside and that's a gun platform that's also a transport.  An Abrams tank is much shorter than most people think but it's length and width are huge for something that's just big enough inside for a gun, a magazine, a tiny crew, and a gas turbine. 

 

Heck Baneblades mount titan-scale weapons in their chassis, they'd be monstrous when true scaled.  Since graphics quality and CPU power is high enough there's no reason for video games not to encompass the truly massive scale of 40k.

 

I'm telling you guys, a Battlefield 1942 style game set in 40k would be awesome.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Fajita Fan

[Volt]

The vehicle models are much smaller proportionally because otherwise they'd be massive on the table.  Terminators are supposed to be 10' tall and probably almost as wide at the shoulder, fitting 5 to 8 in a vehicle tabletop-scale would be a contortionist act worthy of Cirque de Soleil.  They're cavernous inside and that's a gun platform that's also a transport.  An Abrams tank is much shorter than most people think but it's length and width are huge for something that's just big enough inside for a gun, a magazine, a tiny crew, and a gas turbine. 

 

Heck Baneblades mount titan-scale weapons in their chassis, they'd be monstrous when true scaled.  Since graphics quality and CPU power is high enough there's no reason for video games not to encompass the truly massive scale of 40k.

 

I'm telling you guys, a Battlefield 1942 style game set in 40k would be awesome.

  What, no they aren't. Space Marines are only 7'6" on average at most and Terminator Armor reduces height via hunch, not increasing it.

 

[TrashMan]

 

 

 

As for some other models - even some in-universe numbers are suspect. A Land Raider supposedly can carry a full terminator squad. Plus, fuel, ammo, generators, etc... All those things take up volume. Most vehicles to me look too small or have hypespace storage inside. The new flying transport being probably the most obvious.

The Wave Serpent is 50% too small, Rhinos are fine.

Terminators were smaller when the Land Raider was released. 5 of them fit in fine (though the land raider interior is not to scale with the exterior).

APCs are cramped. The M113 fits 11 and looks smaller compared to a person than a marine does to a rhino. Open it up and there are two pairs of 3 seats at most 20% too small for three typical old marine bums along with enough crouching space for another 4 marines. Land Raiders also carry the exact same amount as a rhino.

Okay for video games I feel like vehicles should absolutely be true scaled. Landraiders should be huge and Baneblades truly massive.

Yeah but then you hit a slippery slope of making legion super heavies larger, then the mastadon, then the thunderhawk and stormbird need a scale bump, then titans.... It is stange though admittedly, my falchion feels the right size, while I feel the LR could be slightly larger and my spartan slightly larger again, odd. Sicarans feel properly scaled for me as well. Small profile preads and rhinos make sense, they are like that to reduce visibility compared to guard tanks like a Russ. They should have more movement value though to compensate for a less robust construction.

 

 

Yeah, its' a big problem in tabeltop.... But NOT in virtual tabletop or RTS.

The power of the PC can be used to give proper scales, but unfortunately, that doesn't sell expensive plastic miniatures.

 

When you can get a new marine for free and quickly customize it in the painter (+custom textures/decals), since it's all digital data, you can create an entire chapter for the price of the game. Trying to do that in real tabletop would bankrupt you (and make GW a lot richer).

 

 

 

 

  What, no they aren't. Space Marines are only 7'6" on average at most and Terminator Armor reduces height via hunch, not increasing it.

 

 

 

 

 

Old lore. If a space marine isn't 9-10 feet tall, he's not TALL ENOUGH.

I want them to be CLEARLY superhuman, big and wide enough that you cannot possible, EVER confuse them with just a big tall man.

 

Death of Hope is how is should be. YUUUGE.

Edited September 11, 2020 by TrashMan

[Fajita Fan]

I don’t think that picture works with other art, they aren’t hunched in termie armor to my knowledge. I seem to remember HH era terminators being described as towering over others and different artists do them differently.

 

Either way look at the shoulders and consider they’re carrying weapons too, a plastic Landraider isn’t big enough but work on the tabletop. A bigger Landraider in video game crunching over a trench would be cool.

[Gederas]

  What, no they aren't. Space Marines are only 7'6" on average at most and Terminator Armor reduces height via hunch, not increasing it.

 

 

Old lore. If a space marine isn't 9-10 feet tall, he's not TALL ENOUGH.

I want them to be CLEARLY superhuman, big and wide enough that you cannot possible, EVER confuse them with just a big tall man.

 

Death of Hope is how is should be. YUUUGE.

Mate, that's not old lore. Thar's current, active lore. Space Marines are canonically, ON AVERAGE, 7'6 in Power Armour. Primaris are described as a head taller, so 8' tall.

 

Terminator armour doesn't add much in the way of height, it adds more with width and bulk. Like, I'd say a Terminator-armoured marine, in-lore, would be about the same height as your average 8' tall Primaris.

 

A 9-10 foot tall Space Marine is the OUTLIER, like Pasanius (Ultramarines novel series), Asterion Moloch (Minotaurs Chapter Master) and the Chapter Master of the Iron Snakes who's name I can't recall off the top of my head.

 

I'm also pointing this out: Humans don't get up to over 7' often. You're not going to mistake the army of soldiers, all roughly in the 7'6" range, armoured as a tank, as "big tall men"

Edited September 11, 2020 by Gederas

[Bryan Blaire]

Especially when in comparison to the average human height, which is 6' or under, you're talking about a foot and a half or so of height difference - that's going to be really noticeable. Even if the average height for a human in armor is 6'6", a foot of difference is still remarkable (as in you'd remark on it, even if only to yourself, seeing it from a distance). Right now, people seem to usually remark on folks that stand just half that high above the crowd...

 

7.5-8 ft tall and in pretty fluidly moving power armor is definitely going to be enough to make any human brain scream "superhuman".

[Doghouse]

The problem with scaling in 40k is that there is no official set scale and it changes all the time. In one of the Vox Casts Jes Goodwin actually says that a space marine is between seven and ten feet tall when explaining their armour. :D

 

For scale typically the best way to establish it is terms of the scale of the head. I personally take it as 43mm from eyes to soles of the feet for marines.

 

For those interested though the 4th edition Space Marine codex has proper scale pictures of marines stood next to all the vehicles (except the dreadnought if I remember correctly) which is the most accurate you will get in a game where nothing is fixed with an emphasis being on player interpretation.

 

Jes put it best in regards to details when he said what they do is take the real world and view it through a 40k lense.

[Scribe]

Saying Marines need to be 10 feet tall to not confuse with normal humans...

 

You either live in a land of literal giant men, or have issue visualizing what a 400-500 lbs walking talking tank would look like. :D

 

There would be no problem picking out Marines in armour, among humans.

[Gederas]

Saying Marines need to be 10 feet tall to not confuse with normal humans...

 

You either live in a land of literal giant men, or have issue visualizing what a 400-500 lbs walking talking tank would look like.

 

There would be no problem picking out Marines in armour, among humans.

Pretty much this. Iirc, the "average height" for the Imperial Guard was given by GW at between 5'9-6'1.

 

Like, look at this comparison:

You have Yao Ming at 7'6'' (ie: Adeptus Astartes Genericus Heightus), Shaquille O'Neal at 7'1'' and Kevin Hart at 5'4" (shorter end of average for adult male height).

 

Space Marines don't need to be 10 feet tall to look massive compared to normal humans.

 

Even the idea of them being 9" is ridiculously huge compared to average humans. Compare Robert Wadlow (8'11.1" and 439lbs at the time of his death at 22, tallest recorded human ever) to an average height human male:

 

Or a picture of him with his father, who was 5'11", taken when a few months before Robert Wadlow's death:

 

Or the tallest confirmed "true giant" (not due to a pathological condition, just really tall), Angus MacAskill at 7 ft 9 in (2.36 m) (pictured here next to a 6'5" man)

Edited September 11, 2020 by Gederas