Lancer wrote:Ryan, if you're basing your opinions off of 40kTT, then look up the "movie Marines" fan codex. It's somewhat over-the-top, but it's a more accurate depiction of what Space Marines are like, as it pays only a token effort to maintaining balance. Game balance is the single reason why Eldar, Necron, and Space Marine army lists are far less impressive in 40kTT than their fluff equivalents.
Somewhat. I simply don't have access to any Black Library books, so everything I know is based on the Codices, the 3rd- and 4th-Edition rulebooks, and the Index Astartes.
I'm not stupid enough to suggest something like, for example, that a lasgun hit will only have a 50/50 chance of turning you into a casualty, though, like some do.
I do, however draw comparisons between the effectiveness of heavy bolters and the effectiveness of pulse rifles, though, as they have similar stats.
Teleros wrote:I can't imagine that something like that wouldn't have some sort of benefit, though.
I think you're assuming that, because it's bigger, longer etc, it must have some advantage over the smaller lasguns etc. <snip>
Well, no. I'll admit that plays some role in my thinking, whether I like it or not, but I try to ignore it.
I was referring to the stabilizer, and only the stabilizer. Of course, I guess that it's entirely possible that they're used to make the huge rifle manageable rather than enhance its accuracy.
Ford Prefect wrote:Ryan Thunder wrote:Yeah, yeah, better armoured than their own bloody tanks.
If you're going to make an assertion as silly as this, I would like you to provide evidence some actual basis for it.
I retract that statement. I'm not sure how it got past me when I previewed the post. Take it as a concession, if you like.
Conversely, the Destructor variant can likely hit stuff beyond visual range as well. In the end, none of those weapons (autocannon, battle cannon or railgun) are as accurate as a lascannon.
The Destructor variant isn't as much of a threat to tanks as the Annihilator variant, the stock Leman Russ, or the "Railhead," however. Well, not unless it's mounting the sponsoon lascannons, anyways.
I'd hardly consider what a Leman Russ does while firing "moving." Especially when a Hammerhead can pull the same stunts at almost double their ideal road speed.
Prove this. A hovering vehicle is not a stable platform for a heavy duty KEW.[/quote]
Sophisticated electronics on the Hammerhead let it fire while moving at high speed with a decent chance of hitting the target, according to the Codex. Consider that the Leman has a top speed of 40 km/h in open, flat terrain (
Imperial Armour volume 1), compared to the Hammerhead's highest
recorded speed of 60 km/h (
Imperial Armour II). In retrospect, I shouldn't have said "almost double," but oh well. Poor choice of words.
It's worth mentioning, of course, that the Leman's 40 km/h top speed is actually due to limiters which, apparently, aren't that difficult to remove. So, excluding particularly strict regiments, it's probably a bit faster than that under ideal conditions, but still, any sort of rough terrain will still slow it down more than it would the Hammerhead.
[...] a little digging reveals that XV8s are grav-assisted for their jumppacks.
On a slightly related note, some of the artwork from the 3rd-edition Codex would indicate that the Tau can issue jetpacks for relatively unarmoured infantry. The one on the Ethereal I saw looked about the same size as the jetpacks mounted on the XV8s that were flanking him on either side.
And what Imperial grav tanks are we talking about here? Land Speeders? Those aren't tanks, even if they are grav-assisted.
The Imperium has had gravtanks for ten thousand years. They were fielded by the Imperial Army and probably discarded over the millenia for one reason or the other.
Are you referring to the old Rogue Trader stuff? I remember hearing something about Predators that "looked like a shoe."
Yes, I'm aware of that, but the Imperium doesn't hand them out to just anybody. I've never heard of them being employed by any non-Astartes. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the only the Deathwatch and Grey Knights use them with any sort of regularity, and perhaps Devastators, as well, to some extent.
As mentioned, their actual 'rarity' has more to do with need; suspensors are common but uneccessary for the most part.
You have to admit, there's something to be said for the fact that the Tau have and continue to fix a technology that the Imperium uses only sparingly onto every bloody rifle in the Empire.
Err, only if there is some actual benefit to be had, otherwise it is just wasteful. What benefit would there to adding some sort of gravitic stabiliser to a massless beam weapon like a lasgun?
Guardsmen might not be as skilled as say, Storm Troopers, but they're still elites compared to members of the far larger planetary defense forces. One would think they might find a use for suspensors in their heavy weapons teams (autocannons and heavy bolters, in particular), if they were as common as you say.
Not to mention that some Imperial Guard regiments use autoguns rather than lasguns, so there would be advantages to be had there, I think.
All I have are table top mechanics for that, I'm afraid, so I suppose I'll have to concede it.
Table top mechanics also have Tau 'elites' being more or less inferior to every Space Marine alive when it comes to skill with firearms - even XV8 Shas'vre only have a Ballistics Skill of 3.
Haha. I'm not going to dispute that a Space Marine is easily a better shot than the vast majority of battlesuit pilots. In most cases, they've probably spent longer firing their boltgun at moving and dangerous targets than the Shas'vre in question has been alive.
I can't imagine that something like that wouldn't have some sort of benefit, though.
It probably does, but consider that it takes Tau longer to focus on objects at a distance compared to humans. They also, as I recall, have on average inferior hand-eye coordination.
Yeah, I think I heard about that somewhere. Xenology, perhaps?
They aren't using their own eyes to see, though, as a general rule. The configuration of the lenses on their helmets would seem to indicate as much. That scope on their gun is probably wired into their HUD, as well.
Yeah, I know. Everybody and their dog has NVG. Blacksun filters are just better than that. I don't know what their nature is, though.
This would be highly dependant on the actual low-light seeing device you're using, wouldn't it? A Space Marine's optical enhancements without his helmet (as the old joke goes, the Mk.VII Eyeball
Yes. My understanding was that (regardless of the mechanism involved) it generally allowed the Tau to engage from longer range than their Imperial Guard counterparts during low-light operations. That's all I know, and that's all I was trying to say.
Course, I forgot that the Imperium does have auspices, actually, which are better than Blacksun filters anyways, unless I'm mistaken.
Again, dependant on the auspex and whatever sensing method it uses. For example, there are soem auspexes which operate by detecting souls, while others just pick up 'biomass'.
Yes, but regardless of the 'how', they detect things that a Blacksun filter won't help with at all, from a similar if not further distance.
Erm, a friggin laspistol is going to cause a Marine more concern than a modern 20 mm cannon. What tech base are we talking about here?
Are you paying attention? I said assault cannon mounted on an ornithopter gunship - do you know many modern militaries that field ornithopters? [/quote]
Yes, but this is in the same universe where we have 'feral' Imperial Guard regiments armed exclusively with various close combat weapons.
Also, please do not make the mistake of directly comparing the energy content of a laser to that of a solid projectile. Connor has explained it many times, and indeed has pointed out that different weapons express their energy content in different ways in this very thread. Ceramite has amazing thermal handling properties, and it is more likely to be damaged by kinetic impacts in comparison, though even int hat respect it is highly impressive.
Yes, I know that. It's a shitty habit of mine. In any event, I was referring to threat level, not to the characteristics of a weapon.
The 'soft' parts of the Flak armour worn by Guardsmen is shrapnel-proof. Based on that, I don't think a 20 mm cannon (unless it were basically a boltgun equivalent or better) would be any more of a threat to a Space Marine than a laspistol. Which is to say, it wouldn't be a threat.
This does beg the question of why a tank survived longer than a bunker under the same punishment. I mean, Connor mentioned something about trade-offs, and a tank has to move, after all...
Difference in construction. As I mentioned above, ceramite can handle heat. It is basically a super-ceramic (it's there in the name), and we have ceramics today which can take getting heated by thousands of degrees. Comparitvely rockcrete cannot.
Yeah. I just figured bunkers would be generally more resistant to firepower than a tank, though, by virtue of not having to move and thus not having to worry about getting slowed down by a metric fucktonne of armour.
"galling" you say? I find it galling that a fucking commander and his body guard packing plasma miniguns
Irrelevant. I trust I do not need to talk about thermal handling a third time. It is just clear that the power generated by a pair of XV8s is not enough to overcome the protective abilities of a suit of Power Armour, even if they can do significant damage.
About that; they were ripping large portions of his armour off, according to the fluff in question, and then suddenly seemed to have no further effect on him whatsoever. One would expect that, once they got through the tougher outer layers of the stuff, they would have an easier time of actually hurting the guy.
would be utterly helpless to harm what amounts to an overtrained zealot,
Your personal personal distaste for Space Marines is irrelevant. The fact remains they are among the most dangerous lifeforms thundering about the galaxy; they have been fighting wars and conquering stars since before the Tau had fire. They are ludicrously killy; one thinks of a bunch of Iron Snakes killing so many foes that when one took off his helmet and dropped it, it
floated away.
when he didn't even have the decency to so much as
try to avoid their fire. I thought Marines were supposed to be smarter than regular Humans, anyways. Killing the three of them by ambushing them with the power sword somehow, I could believe (well, except for all the sensors those suits are supposed to have, but they aren't omni-directional), but just blithely strolling up to them like that? Give me a break. That's the kind of behaviour I'd expect from a lazy Killa Kan pilot.
It seems clear to me that the situation was not appropriate to that; from what I can gather from th passage, the Shas got the drop on Kage and friends, and their friendly neighbourhood Deathwatch is taking the initiative back. It was a tactically unfavourable position, and the Brother made the best of the situation and drove the enemy off due to a combination of guts and superior equipment. As far as I can infer, in any case, perhaps someone else can further clarify.
When I say "they aren't helpless" I mean that killing them isn't like slaughtering, say, Grots, or children. Even as an Imperial Guardsman, Fire Warriors are nothing to be sneezed at. They're better protected than you, for one, and about as well-trained and as well-disciplined as you are, for another. On top of that, they're packing boltgun firepower, plus a stabilizer and some kind of scope, into a rifle the size of a long-las. Some of them even manage to fit grenade launchers into that package. You're stuck with nothing more interesting than ironsights, if the models are any indication.
So why the annoyance that they are inferior to Space Marines? That's just something you have to put up with.
Here is exactly what I think; Fire Warriors (including Pathfinders, gun drones, and what have you) should get slaughtered by even a few Space Marines or even fewer Veterans, but they can hold them off for a bit (a
bit) under absolutely ideal conditions (i.e. the sort that the Space Marines are intelligent enough to avoid like the plague.)
Stealth suits are basically heavy infantry. I wouldn't expect them to hold up very well to bolter fire, either, even accounting for the stealth fields and jetpacks and heavier armour.
A Crisis battlesuit is another matter. This isn't infantry you're dealing with any more; this is an armoured vehicle that uses its jetpack to avoid enemy attacks while accurately raining down volumes of special- and heavy-weapons fire in return. No, its not a bloody Gundam, or an Armoured Core, by any stretch of the imagination, but its nothing to be taken lightly in a skirmish, either. Lascannons and battlecannons shouldn't leave much that's recognizable. Autocannons (the big nasty sort they put on the Leman Russ Exterminator) should put one down fairly quickly. Plasma guns are almost ideal. A meltagun will put one down faster than you can say "vermin", but you have to get close enough to hit it, first. Same issue with power weapons, but more extreme. Heavy bolters should be about as effective as they are against other armoured vehicles. Boltguns and pulse rifles should be enough to disable one, with some difficulty, and lasguns, hellguns, along with most other small arms should do exactly fuck all.
A bog-standard Tactical Marine simply isn't equipped to easily deal with that kind of armoured cavalry on his own any more than he's equipped to deal with a Vyper or a Land Speeder; yes, he can kill them, and probably kill lots of them over his career, but attempting to take out an entire squadron of veteran pilots at once, when they have nothing else to draw their fire, is suicide.
And some corrections here, pulse rifles are not boltgun equivalents (they're closer to Hellguns), and having your primary assault weapon as long and unwieldy as a sniper rifle isn't exactly positive.
Connor seems to think they are, if his Kill Team analysis is any indication. Correct me if I'm wrong.
