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Apprentice
 
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I'm currently running a campaign with PCs as space marines. So far they can dispose of 30+ Orks in around a minute (6 rounds).
What do you think? Are SM too powerful as characters? Is it okay to use them in cerain scenarios?
As far as my players told me it's been a kick ass game and I even manage to write up a simple career path for Ordo Malleus Space Marines. I'll send it to anyone who can be bothered to read and come back with criticisms.
Anyway, back to the point, what do you think about involving Space Marines in the game? Yes? No? Why?
Art.
Maelstrom: William L. Blake
RL: Art.
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Champion
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| It changes the game dynamics significantly. It goes from being a investigative game to something else entirely I'd imagine. How are you creating the marines? Giving out tons of XP to starting characters and access to the really powerful skills and talents from the beginning of the career path? For that matter, how are you building the orks? The DH game I'm currently playing in has us up against a genestealer cult... we have yet to meet any purestrains, for obvious reasons. (worth noting that the Inquisitor's Handbook, with the Battle Sister career path, is out this week)
-- -- -- Eos: Manius Shard, Shard tank commander FnH: Officious Guard no.1
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Apprentice
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I was running my game long before the DH came out so now I have trouble converting it all - SMs are stupidly powerful. I used the WFRP rules then and created them from scratch (pre-made characters save a lot of hassle!)
The concept then was: go there, blow the crap out of that. But then it became more involving and personal.
The Orks are the basic WFRP Orks with guns and the characters are based loosely on the wargame and loosely on WFRP.
Maelstrom: William L. Blake
RL: Art.
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Champion
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| I'm inclined to think that WFRP orcs are probably a fair bit weedier than DH Space Orks should be. If you think that Orky Shootas should be on a par with boltguns and Big Choppas with power weapons, they should be a bit more formidable. They should be weaker than Space Marines, but not massively so. That said, it depends on what type of game you're trying to play. A campaign at the level of say, Ben Counter's Soul Drinker maybe should have the primary coloured space nazis blowing through hordes of greenskins in seconds. The ultimate question is, are you and your players happy with the way things are?
-- -- -- Eos: Manius Shard, Shard tank commander FnH: Officious Guard no.1
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Champion
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If you want to run that kind of game and the players like it then no worries, but it would limit gameplay to quite combat and mission orientated encounters. Anything involving stealth is right out i'd have thought.
As to the power of PC's - thats all down to what they're up against. You should always aim to pit them against something that they can beat, but not easily.
I'd kind of imagine it would be like running a roleplay game based on a SWAT team. Complex political manuovering and detailed investigation happen in the backstory and you just deal with the go in and shoot stuff. Wouldn't be to my tastes, but as long as you and your players enjoy it then nothing to worry about.
Mind you, you can always have said space marine's superiors being incompetent or corrupt
------
PD - Machupa Kivull - Sandy coloured great-coated Gnoll
Shards/Ascendancy - Crew
FOIP is short for 'torture me for more info'
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Heroic Knight
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TBH it depends vastly on whether your using the fluff of marines and the novels etc. to base your marines or the mainstream tabletop game.
If its the former then I think that 30 Orks is entirely appropriate as these are grunts and below the threshold for being capable of killing the emperors finest unless they are very lucky. We're not talking background marine red shirts we're talking the PC's and I'm assuming the Orks are doing the straight WAAAH charge over open ground and the Marines are pumping rounds and grenades into them and finishing off the few survivors.
I think to close the gap a little though I'd suggest using the Black Orc stats instead of the regular orcs but leave the skills and talents of the regular grunts (as Space Orks still are not on par with the Black Orks)
In regards to Choppa's I disagree entirely that they are like Power weapons. They are exactly the same as their WHFB equivalents IMO, a giant unwieldy meat cleaver. If you wanting to show the Nobz that have some extra bonus' to their Choppa's just create something like "Clever Gubbins" and apply the Chainsword rules or something.
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Champion
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Orks used to be widely equipped with chainswords anyway; but I'm fairly sure that in at least one version of the 40k rules, Big Choppas had similar rules to power fists (always strike last, ignore armour saves). In DH terms, give them the Unbalanced quality and Penetration 6, but perhaps not the Power Field.
-- -- -- Eos: Manius Shard, Shard tank commander FnH: Officious Guard no.1
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Heroic Knight
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theshoveller (4/10/2008)
Orks used to be widely equipped with chainswords anyway; but I'm fairly sure that in at least one version of the 40k rules, Big Choppas had similar rules to power fists (always strike last, ignore armour saves). In DH terms, give them the Unbalanced quality and Penetration 6, but perhaps not the Power Field.
Right now a big choppa is two handed, +2 strength. Last ed it was two handed, strike last, +2 S, and reduce armour saves to 4+ at best. Compare with powerfist in both versions: one handed, strike last, doubles S, ignores armour completely. So the big choppa was like a weaker powerfist then.
Azazel, how hard orks should be as against marines is entirely down to how you want the game to feel - 40K "canon" is far too nebulous to pin down. If you want it to be kill-team versus horde then you've got it right already. If you want it to resemble the main 40K game then you need to tweak. Using 3rd and 4th ed stats, a naked space marine vs a naked ork in hand to hand is an exactly even fight. The ork has a better chance of killing the marine, but the marine strikes first. When you load on the equipment the marine wins due to his 3+ save. Both of them are engineered killing machines, but the marines have better gear.
Of course, going by the current ork fluff, orks just keep getting bigger the more they fight. You can get orks the size of daemon princes if the war lasts long enough. This is reflected in the 40K stats - marine heroes have better gear than ork bosses, but the orks are stronger, tougher, and have more attacks. They also can't shoot for toffee.
Of course, a more productive way to look at it is that since:
my players told me it's been a kick ass game
then you have it right.
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Eos: Diego Gatito, Shard tank. Still alive!
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Champion
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Smileyface (4/10/2008)
theshoveller (4/10/2008)
Orks used to be widely equipped with chainswords anyway; but I'm fairly sure that in at least one version of the 40k rules, Big Choppas had similar rules to power fists (always strike last, ignore armour saves). In DH terms, give them the Unbalanced quality and Penetration 6, but perhaps not the Power Field.Right now a big choppa is two handed, +2 strength. Last ed it was two handed, strike last, +2 S, and reduce armour saves to 4+ at best. Compare with powerfist in both versions: one handed, strike last, doubles S, ignores armour completely. So the big choppa was like a weaker powerfist then. Ah, I misremembered then. Fair enough. Split the difference then - Unbalanced, Pen 4 and doesn't have the Primitive quality. About on a par with the mono weapon.
-- -- -- Eos: Manius Shard, Shard tank commander FnH: Officious Guard no.1
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