Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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Fearless: Sep 3, 2003; DRINK MORE MOXIE

MariusLecter posted:

I never considered that description of being a very long delay at all. Like milliseconds after impact where the "Mass Reactive" part kicks in where I read it as the round reacting to hitting something, it's either gone through or not. Either way it's gonna make a boom.

I don't think it's a long delay at all-- just long enough to let burrow into the target a little and blast a big chunk out of it. Naval armour piercing shells worked in a similar fashion: the initial impact armed a fuse, which detonated the charge a split second later.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 02:58

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 21:15

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

Guy Goodbody posted:

Am I the only one who hates the Sigilite? He just ruins everything he's in. Whenever I'm reading a HH book and a Space Marines runs into a wizened man in a robe, because that's how he's always introduced, literally every loving time, like we're supposed to be continually surprised, I know it's gonna suck. Best case scenario, it's just a lovely scene where Malcador is very wise and mysterious and has his own schemes going on. Or worst case scenario, it's that and world-building that actively makes the 40k universe worse and stupider.

Waroduce posted:

I like Malcador alot op

malcador is bad
hes probably the second worst after the emperor
he could even be worse than the emperor, who after all has the excuse of being a weird inhuman warp-gestalt monster rather than a person
we cannot know this since malcador remains inscrutable

I also am not real sure what he contributes to the fiction, other than being a person you can blame the Inquisition on

clutters up the emotional space the loyalist primarchs are soap-opera'ing their way through

# ? Aug 23, 2018 05:01

Guy Goodbody: Aug 31, 2016; by Nyc_Tattoo

PupsOfWar posted:

malcador is bad
hes probably the second worst after the emperor
he could even be worse than the emperor, who after all has the excuse of being a weird inhuman warp-gestalt monster rather than a person
we cannot know this since malcador remains inscrutable

I also am not real sure what he contributes to the fiction, other than being a person you can blame the Inquisition on

clutters up the emotional space the loyalist primarchs are soap-opera'ing their way through

It's a really neat idea that human fallibility and the inherent flaws and monstrosity of the Emperor's vision made the Imperium inevitable, so why not ruin it and say that it's actually because of that guy. That one dude did it.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 05:14

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

i mean im convinced that GW actually has no idea what Malcador's super secret sinister agenda is, and he will remain monotonously inscrutable until he gets psych-fried

edit: oh my god, Malcador is just the 30k version of Cypher

PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Aug 23, 2018

# ? Aug 23, 2018 05:23

Dick Trauma: Nov 30, 2007; God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Wasn't there a Chaos infected AI controlled tank in the Gaunt book on Gereon?

# ? Aug 23, 2018 05:30

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

Dick Trauma posted:

Wasn't there a Chaos infected AI controlled tank in the Gaunt book on Gereon?

yes, although i think it was an actual daemon-engine - interior filled with warpstuff and everything - rather than a tank with chaos-corrupted AI

# ? Aug 23, 2018 05:33

MMAgCh: Aug 15, 2001; I am the poet,
The prophet of the pit
Like a hollow-point bullet
Straight to the head
I never missed...you

There was a mention in the 5th edition Space Marine codex of an uncrewed Land Raider that embarked on a one-tank war against an Ork warband. Of course, that�s far from common Imperial technology.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 06:17

Telsa Cola: Aug 19, 2011; No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

Spaceships will straight up talk to jacked in techpriests or techmarines. There was that one preheresy ship that was true ai though it hosed off to the galactic rim.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 06:18

Shockeh: Feb 24, 2009; Now be a dear and
fuck the fuck off.

There's always Ultio on the Vengeful Spirit...

# ? Aug 23, 2018 06:24

Duzzy Funlop: Jan 13, 2010; Hi there, would you like to try some spicy products?

Verloc posted:

From my understanding, a bolter round is basically a rocket assisted mechanically fused HEIAP round. So there would be a delay between round penetrating -> round going boom, but with the round moving at ballistic speeds the delay would be so short it's imperceptible.

Semi-related, I did some digging around on their weapons, and holy gently caress are Astartes terrifying when you dig into the numbers. From the quick research I did on various 40k wikis, it looks like standard bores on 40k era bolters are .75 caliber/19mm for handheld bolters, and 1.00 caliber/25mm for heavy bolters. So that means your standard infantry weapon is basically an automatic anti-tank rifle, and the standard support weapon is essentially the same as the Bushmaster auto cannon mounted on Bradley APCs.

But wait, there's more! HEIAP rounds are incredibly nasty things. For example, the Roufoss Mk211 is a popular 12.7mm HEIAP round used by a lot of NATO countries. It's supposedly about as damaging as a 20mm cannon round. Assuming similar performance/scaling on bolter rounds, then a 19mm bolter round would be about as damaging as a 30mm cannon shot, and a heavy bolter round would be up in 40mm round territory. So a couple of 5-man tactical squads could pump out an equivalent amount of firepower to an A-10 Warthog. Astartes with heavy bolters are like walking 40mm bofors guns, and when you add fun things like plasma, missile launchers, melta guns, etc. to a devastator squad, they would be putting out an equivalent amount of firepower to a company of tanks or a small naval vessel.

In conclusion, Astartes are levels of good at space murder.

I mean, I'm not disputing your assessment of Astartes lethality, but standard bolters already have the muzzle size of something like a Mk19, easily around 40mm, while heavy bolters look like snub-nosed 8,8s

I've never been one to scrutinize the 40k art over concerns of realism, but the first thing that stood out to me as a kid was how any guns at all in the 40k universe could possibly be sustained over comparatively tiny magazines that - looking at the apparent caliber of the guns - couldn't possibly hold more than like 5 rounds or something.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 06:37

D-Pad: Jun 28, 2006

Miguel Prado posted:

Next up is Lords of Silence by Chris Wraight, anybody get a chance to start on this yet?

I am a little less of a 1/3rd of the way in and really loving it. Chris Wraight is great and needs to start entering the conversation when we talk about Abnett and ADB. This is the first post-heresy depiction of the Death Guard I have read and I am really enjoying them and they have risen high in my Chaos legion rankings.

Immanentized posted:

Yeah, it was implied that part of that work gang was effectively Neo, but grimdark who could reconnect the lobotomized minds of the servitor he knew. The only thing is they never cleared up whether the other servitors are acting off their own will, or his projection of what's right/wrong. IIRC, there was a bit about the Ark Mechanicus having some straight-up sentience that nudged the process along as well.

I really liked this and I am surprised it hasn't been explored again in the lore. Basically this guy was a saint of the omnissiah with all the power of an Imperial Saint just with a Mechanicus twist. He was able to control all the servitors on a Mechanicus Ark as well as do crazy poo poo through communion with machine spirits. I think it makes sense if there are Imperial Saints there would be Mechanicus Saints too...

Guy Goodbody posted:

Am I the only one who hates the Sigilite?

What? Malcador is awesome.

MMAgCh posted:

There was a mention in the 5th edition Space Marine codex of an uncrewed Land Raider that embarked on a one-tank war against an Ork warband. Of course, that�s far from common Imperial technology.

Doesn't something similar to this happen in Baneblade?

Telsa Cola posted:

Spaceships will straight up talk to jacked in techpriests or techmarines. There was that one preheresy ship that was true ai though it hosed off to the galactic rim.

Yeah so there are some differences in the fluff based on who the author is and how long ago it was written but for the most part the level of "sentience" follows a scale that ramps up the bigger and more complicated the machine is. Some Titans and Ships are 100% sentient based on their actions and that they can literally talk, but it isn't really acknowledged or considered so by the Mechanicus. They just hand wave it off as having one of the most advanced machine spirits etc etc.

Along the same lines of when it was written and author, the rituals and prayers that are said to appease the machine spirits sometimes seem to be just a straight up maintenance task with prayer wrapped around it and others seem to actually be demanded by the machine before it will "allow" itself to work, like it actually needs to get some lovin' before it will perform its function because it actively wants the respect.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 08:05

Dog_Meat: May 19, 2013

What was that short story (literally a few lines of code) where a servitor is brought online, is in incredible pain, requests to scream and has the request denied by it's programming? Because that kind of summed up servitors for me.

That, and the opening to Ravenor where he's sifting through all the minds in a hab and he touches on a servitor stacking boxes and "the boxes have an arrow on them so I know which way to stack them"

# ? Aug 23, 2018 08:20

Angry Lobster: May 16, 2011; Served with honor
and some clarified butter.

MMAgCh posted:

There was a mention in the 5th edition Space Marine codex of an uncrewed Land Raider that embarked on a one-tank war against an Ork warband. Of course, that’s far from common Imperial technology.

The war for Rynn's world, the defense of the Crimson Fists homeworld. That story appeared in the third edition Space Marine Codex. Basically after the destruction of the chapter's fortress-monastery, the machine spirit took over and initiated search and destroy protocols.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 10:55

Verloc: Feb 15, 2001; Note to self: Posting 'lulz' is not a good idea.

Duzzy Funlop posted:

I mean, I'm not disputing your assessment of Astartes lethality, but standard bolters already have the muzzle size of something like a Mk19, easily around 40mm, while heavy bolters look like snub-nosed 8,8s

I've never been one to scrutinize the 40k art over concerns of realism, but the first thing that stood out to me as a kid was how any guns at all in the 40k universe could possibly be sustained over comparatively tiny magazines that - looking at the apparent caliber of the guns - couldn't possibly hold more than like 5 rounds or something.

I just pulled those caliber numbers from lexicanum and fandom wikis, so no guarantee on their accuracy. Magazine size in proportion to the round size always bothered me as well, they're insanely puny for the number of rounds they're said to hold.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 14:26

Immanentized: Mar 17, 2009

Dog_Meat posted:

What was that short story (literally a few lines of code) where a servitor is brought online, is in incredible pain, requests to scream and has the request denied by it's programming? Because that kind of summed up servitors for me.

That, and the opening to Ravenor where he's sifting through all the minds in a hab and he touches on a servitor stacking boxes and "the boxes have an arrow on them so I know which way to stack them"

Was that put in from of the Thallax guard story? Those heresy era skitarii dudes have some of the most horrific backstories in all of 40k, the mesh of cybernetics and organic tissue makes the hosts experience constant nauseating maddening pain, and all of the troopers are quite insane because of it.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 14:39

Hot Dog Day #82: Jul 5, 2003; Soiled Meat

There is also the bit about a servitor in Master of Mankind who flashes back to being torn from her child while she is dying in the webway :/

# ? Aug 23, 2018 16:33

Orv: May 4, 2011

Verloc posted:

I just pulled those caliber numbers from lexicanum and fandom wikis, so no guarantee on their accuracy. Magazine size in proportion to the round size always bothered me as well, they're insanely puny for the number of rounds they're said to hold.

Bolter shells - just pour in heretics!

# ? Aug 23, 2018 16:46

Immanentized: Mar 17, 2009

I'm going to keep spamming this, but the Red Sunz audio dramas are 3 bucks each on audible and are really loving well done. And hilarious.

Get 'im

# ? Aug 23, 2018 18:13

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Duzzy Funlop posted:

I've never been one to scrutinize the 40k art over concerns of realism, but the first thing that stood out to me as a kid was how any guns at all in the 40k universe could possibly be sustained over comparatively tiny magazines that - looking at the apparent caliber of the guns - couldn't possibly hold more than like 5 rounds or something.

Good organization :science:

# ? Aug 23, 2018 18:22

Orv: May 4, 2011

Reading more HH stuff, I could use a slight clarification. Astartes are eight meters on average, right? Primarchs are Big Astarters and the Emperor is a Big Primarch.

Do they ever get more specific than virtuous honorifics on the latter two? There's that really good old art of Horus killing the Emperor where the scale is crazy but it's hard to tell exactly how crazy it is. Is the Emperor like forty feet of motherfucker?

# ? Aug 23, 2018 20:09

susan: Jan 14, 2013

Orv posted:

Reading more HH stuff, I could use a slight clarification. Astartes are eight meters on average, right? Primarchs are Big Astarters and the Emperor is a Big Primarch.

Do they ever get more specific than virtuous honorifics on the latter two? There's that really good old art of Horus killing the Emperor where the scale is crazy but it's hard to tell exactly how crazy it is. Is the Emperor like forty feet of motherfucker?

Oh Gods, they're 8 Feet, not 8 meters

. And Big E is intentionally malliable in size; some see him as a normal Human, some as a Giant.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 20:15

Azubah: Jun 5, 2007

Sisters of battle see chaos spawn as just ugly dangerous slugs while people who can be affected by the warp see walking nightmares.

The emperor works like that, only no one has been able to see his normal form.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 20:19

Orv: May 4, 2011

susan posted:

Oh Gods, they're 8 Feet, not 8 meters . And Big E is intentionally malliable in size; some see him as a normal Human, some as a Giant.

I so vividly remembered reading eight meters that I typed it out without considering oh, yeah that'd be dumb.

And fair enough on the E.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 20:20

Groetgaffel: Oct 30, 2011; Groetgaffel smacked the living shit out of himself doing 297 points of damage.

Azubah posted:

Sisters of battle see chaos spawn as just ugly dangerous slugs while people who can be affected by the warp see walking nightmares.

The emperor works like that, only no one has been able to see his normal form.

I've definitely read a snippet of a Sister of Silence seeing big E, I believe it's in Master of Mankind, and all she sees is a man in pain.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 20:28

Azubah: Jun 5, 2007

I stand corrected, I haven't read any HH books beyond the first heretic & betrayer. Once the series got too long I didn't want to make the investment.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 20:41

Immanentized: Mar 17, 2009

Groetgaffel posted:

I've definitely read a snippet of a Sister of Silence seeing big E, I believe it's in Master of Mankind, and all she sees is a man in pain.

Same thing with potent enough perpetuals, they see that one rear end in a top hat they met in Persepolis that one time who's swollen with his own ego.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 21:00

Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

Azubah posted:

Sisters of battle see chaos spawn as just ugly dangerous slugs while people who can be affected by the warp see walking nightmares.

The emperor works like that, only no one has been able to see his normal form.

Blanks/Pariahs would probably see him as he actually looks. Otherwise, isn't it always psychic shenanigans on his part?

# ? Aug 23, 2018 22:28

Senjuro: Aug 19, 2006

Question about Gaunt's Ghosts: what enemies do they fight throughout the series? Is it all Chaos all the time?

# ? Aug 23, 2018 22:35

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

Senjuro posted:

Question about Gaunt's Ghosts: what enemies do they fight throughout the series? Is it all Chaos all the time?

Usually what would be called 'Traitor Guard" (or "The Lost and The Damned" if you're old-school), sometimes Daemons and very rarely CSMs. Also some Bloodpact-aligned Xenos mercenaries?

# ? Aug 23, 2018 22:41

Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

They fight Orks at one point.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 23:09

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

Orv posted:

Reading more HH stuff, I could use a slight clarification. Astartes are eight meters on average, right? Primarchs are Big Astarters and the Emperor is a Big Primarch.

Do they ever get more specific than virtuous honorifics on the latter two? There's that really good old art of Horus killing the Emperor where the scale is crazy but it's hard to tell exactly how crazy it is. Is the Emperor like forty feet of motherfucker?

Space Marine is Big Human (generally 7' - 8'or so, maybe 9' in armor)

Primarch is Big Space Marine, by the same proportion that Space Marine is Big Human (around 10', maybe 11' in armor)

Emperor pretends to be Big Primarch (like 12') but is probably actually 5'9''

Alpharius/Omegon were small enough to pass as real big space marines (so maybe 8.5') whereas your Vulkans, Angrons, Ferruses and soforth were big enough that you couldn't mistake them for anything else.

I'm not sure how the new BigMarines fit into things - maybe they're about Alpharius sized on average''?

tl;dr, Primarchs need special furniture

# ? Aug 23, 2018 23:28

Groetgaffel: Oct 30, 2011; Groetgaffel smacked the living shit out of himself doing 297 points of damage.

PupsOfWar posted:

Space Marine is Big Human (generally 7' - 8'or so, maybe 9' in armor)

Primarch is Big Space Marine, by the same proportion that Space Marine is Big Human (around 10', maybe 11' in armor)

Emperor pretends to be Big Primarch (like 12') but is probably actually 5'9''

Alpharius/Omegon were small enough to pass as real big space marines (so maybe 8.5') whereas your Vulkans, Angrons, Ferruses and soforth were big enough that you couldn't mistake them for anything else.

I'm not sure how the new BigMarines fit into things - maybe they're about Alpharius sized on average''?

tl;dr, Primarchs need special furniture

To add to this, in between primarchs and space marines you have custodes, around nine feet probably.
Also, space marines have some pretty wonky proportions, most notably much wider shoulders and a wider and deeper ribcage than a human scaled up would have.
While the models for primaris space marines have far less wonky proportions than the old marines, that's not represented in the fluff, as it was the old marines that were wonkier than the fluff made them out to be. Primaris are maybe a foot taller.

Primarchs on the other hand have the same proportions as a baseline human, just larger.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 23:52

Vadoc: Dec 31, 2007; Guess who made waffles...

The Primaris marines are about 1 to 2' taller than the older marines but still smaller than the Primarchs.

Edit: Found this someone posted elsewhere.

On average, A human is around 1.8 meters tall, about 5 foot 10 inches.
On Average, an Astartes is around 2.286 meters tall, 7 foot 6 inches.
On Average, a Primaris Marine is around 2.5 meters tall, around 8 foot 2 inches.
On Average, a Custodes is around 2.6 meters tall, about 8� 6�.

# ? Aug 23, 2018 23:59

Orv: May 4, 2011

Cool.

Primaris what now.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 00:18

Groetgaffel: Oct 30, 2011; Groetgaffel smacked the living shit out of himself doing 297 points of damage.

New and improved space marines.
Created by archmagos Cawl who on order from Guilliman some time after the Heresy.
Cawl spent 10,000 years tinkering with space marine gene seed and made some improvements.

The actual reason for them is so that GW could sell better looking space marines.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 00:22

Biplane: Jul 18, 2005

The Emperor is actually Ben Shapiro and the great crusade was his attempt to enter the history books as taller than 5�2

# ? Aug 24, 2018 00:25

Orv: May 4, 2011

Groetgaffel posted:

New and improved space marines.
Created by archmagos Cawl who on order from Guilliman some time after the Heresy.
Cawl spent 10,000 years tinkering with space marine gene seed and made some improvements.

The actual reason for them is so that GW could sell better looking space marines.

Well as long as there's a reason behind it.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 00:30

Guy Goodbody: Aug 31, 2016; by Nyc_Tattoo

I can't find Black Library's twitter

# ? Aug 24, 2018 00:33

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Groetgaffel posted:

New and improved space marines.
Created by archmagos Cawl who on order from Guilliman some time after the Heresy.
Cawl spent 10,000 years tinkering with space marine gene seed and made some improvements.

The actual reason for them is so that GW could sell better looking space marines.

Yeah, they wanted to true-scale them but didn't want to tell grogs that their mans were now obsolete for the first time since the 80's.

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:03

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 21:15

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

tertiarily, this also lets them slip that good good Copyright Friendly nomenclature into everything

gently caress you, tactical squad, you're Intercessors now

# ? Aug 24, 2018 01:11

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