I would imagine the Space Marine in PTU in a potential character in DW, after 10,000XP

Returning to the Space Marine who put in an appearance in Dark Heresy, I seem to recall he lacked Dodge. Amusing though this was, our group felt it an unlikely skill for a Space Marine not to have picked up. I would expect DW characters to be significantly different from that particular one, though I expect, fundamentally, there will be similarities.

My theory is that Deathwatch characters are going to be on par with Ascension and RT characters.

Sammail said:

its my understanding that deathwatch characters are going to be more powerful. but I could be wrong. it may have been a dream, hope not :)

My take is if the darn marines left their helmets on, they'd probably never die... But since they have their helmets off to show their pearly whites while gunning down orcs, a well placed bullet is all it takes to put them down.

It's like guys riding motorcycles without helmets or other protective gear. Just plain silly stuff.

Polaria said:

That makes terribly little sense though. Marines get brought into the Deathwatch because they show a particular talent, affinity for killing Xenos, or are very experienced - and typically its a combination of all three.

There's room for growth but if you make it too much about leveling and XP its going to feel even more like a dungeon crawl.

I want my Astartes as portrayed in the Imperial Armour books by Forge World - super soldiers, not super heroes.

Examples: a company of Marines do what thousands of Imperial Guard could not (IA7), and pay a heavy price; but when the odds are too stacked against them they loose and die just like anyone else (IA3).  

DW

LeBlanc13 said:

To be honest that's always driven me crazy.  When I model Marines they ALL have helmets.  I get why Space Wolves do it, but it doesn't make sense with other Chapters.

BrotherAtrox said:

 I would guess fluff marine, without a doubt.

The RPG would be more about "living in the Imperium of the 41st millennum" so it would try to capture the epic feel of the Astartes rather than run a simulation with play balance.  Even if you look at the sample marine in Dark Heresy, he was really tough.  If you compare him to many aliens in the suppliments, then you can see that ork firepower would just ping off his power armour and an Eldar would only cause damage on a lucky headshot.  The Emperor took over the entire Imperium with only a few legions of marines so they need to be extremely powerful. 

The flipside is that Space Marines are RARE.  A million sounds like alot but spread out through the entire Galaxy they are extremely spread thin.  Each one needs to count to make it worthwhile.  A planet can usually be assaulted with only a company of Marines.  However, they cannot really take casualties so any loss is a blow to them.  Deathwatch are even rarer still, with a thousand plus spread over the whole Galaxy they may as well not exist (Douglas Adams had an equation saying that a finite number of people divided by infinite space is zero).

Most of the fluff has hundreds of Marines fighting millions of Orks or billions of tyrannids.  I am hoping that they have thought about it and have a system of epic feats which would allow the players to think "yes, with sacrifice we CAN stop this Waaagh"

peterstepon said:

A few legions...yeah...

But remember, the pre-heresy, back then they weren't broken down into chapters (per se) and there was no Codex Astartes.  So the legions consisted of thousands of marines, with no set number other than how many viable canidates could be found.

And honestly, I think that they will aim for some of the more consistent marine fiction from the novels and short stories.  Codex fluff rarely specifies numbers, and codex fiction, while being cool, is written to make the army in it sound just super uber awesome, so, yeah, its a bit biased.  My guess would be something along the lines of what Graham McNeill, Ben Couter and William King has written, where marines are good, damn good, but not gods of war.   

BrotherAtrox said:

I just have one answer: Its a game, not a novel. You can write a novel about god-like character that succeeds in everything. Running a game with 4 to 8 minigods is something a *lot* harder. 

Take a long, hard look at Rogue Trader (the Game) and compare it with Rogue Trader (the Fluff)

I am convinced the difference is same as when you compare Deathwatch (the Game) and Deathwatch (the Fluff)

Polaria said:

The better Space Marine novels are hardly about them "succeeding at everything". 

The idea that it would be hard to run a game with appropriately powerful Marines seems rather silly to me.  There's no shortage of extremely deadly stuff to throw at them in the 40k universe, and when it comes to non-combat situations it would be very easy to challenge them.

Atheosis said:

Genestealers. Chaos Marines. Lots of Orks. Etc.

It's really strange how people can have such low opinions of what a Space Marine is capable of (mostly due to their TT performance) but also feel like they're somehow too powerful to translate into an RPG.

 One thing to keep in mind with TT vs. fluff is that in the TT game a "dead" model doesn't necessarily mean the model died, he/she is just out of action, just like when a squad fails morale is lost.  Certainly some of the casualties from heavy weapons fire may be taking out astartes but most likely they are injured.  I still miss the old days when medic characters could revive casualties, though the book keeping on who had what injury slowed the game down it was still fun.  Obviously some balance has to be struck with other armies for the TT game, but it doesn't mean that "dead" means really dead.  I'm sure the Deathwatch characters will make starting characters in both DH and RT look pretty weak physically but they will probably lack much of the resource/influence of say a RT or Ascension character.  Either way, I'm excited to see what the game has in store.  I'm keeping my expectations low, I figure if it's a good supplement to RT and/or DH then I'll be happy.  I do hope I'll be pleasantly surprised though and then have a third game to vie for my roleplaying time.

I hate to burst bubbles, but I wouldn't get any hopes up that everything about being a Space Marine will be uber.  Most weapons and equipment will more likely be the same as you've known then in DH and RT.  A Bolter is still going to be a Bolter in Deathwatch.  And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Powered Armor still has the same characteristics.  There will probably be new equipment (such as Assault Marine jetpacks and armor and the mighty Terminator Armor). 

However, I think the improvements will be seen in the characters themselves.  I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you started with a character with much higher Strength and Toughness, making characters equal to Ascension level.  Space Marines are more resistant to toxins, more resistant to fear and psyker influence, more resistant to Fatigue, and I believe they can go further with less food, but I may have read that wrong.  There may be new Psyker powers for Librarians, Chaplains, and other personalities. 

What I'm personally hoping for is Vehicles.  I want to see the Land Speeder, the Rhino, the Predator Tank, the Land Raider, the Whirlwind, and most importantly, the Dreadnought.  I would be tickled pink if they allow PCs to be Dreadnoughts.