>Which gets back to the point that Epic scale battles are piddling little
>affairs.
Yeah, I completely agree.
>>The space marines are elite forces that are
>>used when nessissary against especialy dangerous foes. Also war is on a
>>much more personal and smaller scale in the 40k universe. This is seen
>>when in the stories and text fluff as well as reflected in the games.
>The games don't reflect the background at all. To read the stories, you
>would think that each Space Marine was a god unto himself. In the current
>edition of Epic, a stand of five Marines has only a +2 CAF advantage over a
>stand of Guardsmen, better morale, and no chain of command rules. (Yet).
>I understand why they didn't make Space Marines into little demigods (Squad
>Adonai mops up the 4th regiment, and starts in on the 2nd. Squad Littonius
>charges the 8th regiment. And my commander charges the 4th and 9th...),
>but I think they should have toned down the background to bring it at least
>a little more in line. Going by their game stats, Marines are not so good
>that a million of them could be used as any sort of elite force.
Well I personally think they should have toned up the game stats to match
the background a little more. It would be kind of fun to have a Starship
Troopers style army, where each stand of infantry is as tough as a
detachment (maybe not a regiment...) of enemy vehicles, and has the
firepower to match. Maybe Squad Littonius charges 2 enemy Baneblade
companies, and slaughters them suffering only one casuality. And then gets
stepped on by a Titan (moral of the story: I like Titans, who should be
toned up as well).
Okay, so maybe that wouldn't be practical without god-like playtesters and
rules designers. But it sure would be fun if succesfully pulled off. ;)
>War should not be on a much more personal and smaller scale in the 40K
>universe than in real life. It should be grim and dehumanizing. (My
>opinion, obviously). If you've got planetary armies of 25 million+ men,
>if you've got hive worlds with populations of 200 billion, you've got a
>whole universe of malicious foes, and your motto is "In the grim darkness
>of the far future there is only war," then the whole scale has already been
>set up to make war a vast, faceless affair - my kind of fight.
In the grim darkness of a happier, friendlier Imperium, everyone is friends,
and with their buddies, the Imperial Guard and Titan Legions, the noble
Space Marines, by utilizing strength through knowledge, go around spreading
joy and mirth throughout the Imperium (and it is said, that in darker times,
the Imperium would also socialize with "Knights" and "Squats" (a sort of
Space Dwarf) but these rumours have since been refuted).
>At any rate, I don't see how war in the 40K universe could be any more
>personal, or on a smaller scale, than the American Civil War, which was my
>original example. And how can invading Tyranid swarms and ravening Ork
>Hordes be so polite as to adhere to these guidelines of limited warfare?
>To use the American Civil War again, if you gave all the casualties from
>Gettysburg bolters (that is, 50,000 troops), and then turned a 20,000 point
>Tyranid swarm on them (about 1000-1500 troops), the 'Nids would be
>outnumbered by 3-5 to 1. And that was back in the 1860's, in only one
>battle, in a single war, confined to just one nation (USA), on one planet
>(Earth). General Lee didn't have a battle-barge back then, and I bet he
>would have known how his Titans were armed in any battle he was supervising.
Ummm...yes, I have one of those larger variants of Titans, ummm...Warlords I
think they're called. Ummm...its outfitted with one of the big shooty
weapons, er, y'know, a Death Ray sort of thing. And it also has a little
one that shoots a lot, a weapons battery of some sort as well as a heavy one
that fires barrages. I think. Shhhh...I'm trying to concentrate on the
overall scheme of the battle, can't be bothered by little details.
Now have that command stand charge that unit, while having that one move to
this objective...
>If Epic battles are supposed to be large-scale conflicts, and Marines are
>in fact good enough to number in the millions, then should I be upset
>whenever I get 300 Marines downed in a 3000 point game? That's nearly a
>third of the peacetime Chapter strength. I just killed 0.03% (one
>thirty-thousandth) of all the Marines extant in the entire galaxy! (Using
>the generous estimation of a tenfold Chapter size during wartime).
>Admittedly, not all of those casualties are deaths, but I imagine that
>recovery rates can be pretty horrid whenever the Tyranids win.
Lost all of Ultramarine Company 1 (the vets and Termies) to the Tyranids,
and lost a couple of other chapters to them completely. Yeah, those
Tyranids have made a pretty good dent alright.
>Also, I wouldn't use the background stories to conclude that war is
>personal in the 40K world: the reason no one writes stories about
>faceless, meaningless conflicts is because they come across as faceless and
>meaningless (i.e., boring). It's still possible that the GW game
>designers' idea of a war is the Chechen engagement, or the Persian Gulf
>War; if so, then all I can offer up ,after this entire spiel, is a big fat
>raspberry:
>
>Ttttthhppppbbbbbbt.
And Amen to that brother! :)
>Howard
Mike the Liu
Received on Sat Mar 01 1997 - 05:49:56 UTC
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