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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by ChaosLord29 View Post
    Have things changed since I built a Black Templar Drop Pod Assault force? Or maybe I'm remembering it wrong and I was basing my army off the 2nd Company . . . Oh well, thanks for the tip Kinslayer.
    Hm. Well, Black Templar might be one of the exceptions to the First Company Has Terminators rule. Especially since they edge around the Codex Astartes as it is, already.

    "1000 Space Marines per Chapter? Oh, sure. These guys are just... Power Armoured Scouts. Yeah. Also, the 1000 guys you saw over on the other end of the galaxy, these are the same bunch. D'you wanna argue with my sword about it?"

    - After some research, it seems that it isn't mentioned if BTs use Terminator Armour any differently. It is possible, however, for other companies to borrow the Terminator plate, or to be assigned Terminator Marines for a mission.
    Last edited by Misery Esquire; 2012-09-13 at 12:31 AM.

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kinslayer View Post
    Hm. Well, Black Templar might be one of the exceptions to the First Company Has Terminators rule. Especially since they edge around the Codex Astartes as it is, already.

    "1000 Space Marines per Chapter? Oh, sure. These guys are just... Power Armoured Scouts. Yeah. Also, the 1000 guys you saw over on the other end of the galaxy, these are the same bunch. D'you wanna argue with my sword about it?"

    - After some research, it seems that it isn't mentioned if BTs use Terminator Armour any differently. It is possible, however, for other companies to borrow the Terminator plate, or to be assigned Terminator Marines for a mission.
    God how I would love to see the Emperor's Champion hacking a bloody swathe through a whole platoon of brutes, only to be confronted by a pair of hunters . . . who he proceeds to defeat in close quarters, single handed.
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  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Emperor Ing View Post
    The Imperium has over 10,000 years of experience in fighting every known alien threat....yeah. They're good at it. I mean, we can look at their most basic weapons. The Lasgun. It is a laser rifle that, with a single shot, can punch through armor, decimate modern armors, leave head-sized holes in concrete, and leave targets a particularly bloody and cauterized mess, all in one shot. Doing about the equivalent of a modern-day .50 cal rifle with almost no recoil, and as a medium-long range semi-automatic assault rifle.
    Yeah I've heard this before and I don't buy it.

    I can point you off the top of my to Dark Heresy and (in at least one version) the 40k core rulebook which make a lasgun more to less equivalent to a modern assault rifle. Which also holds more or less with what I remember of them in the Gaunt's Ghosts and Caiphas Cain books. The latter hero of the Imperium at least once, probably more then once actually states a preference for being shot at by las weapons because they tend to cauterize their own wounds so you don't bleed to death.

    The lasgun is the weapon of the Imperial Guard not for its performance but for its reliablity and easy logistics. As your typical guardmen can carry a few power packs and recharge them practically anywhere, thus logistically speaking has unlimited ammo. A true Gift from the Emperor to a universe where it any given shipment as only a moderate chance of arriving within the year of its need, if the request didn't just get loss in the bureaucracy and shows up a century later.

    THAT SAID

    Well if the IG at its broadest best is like a modern force minus integrated air support.... the UNSC is also essentially a modern force. Guns are still the order of the day, quite realistically since the tech has nowhere to go really. Armor is perhaps arguably better for the UNSC but then I remember unarmored NPCs being comparable to marines in Halo 1. At any rate while given nice coats of futurness most UNSC weapons have fairly clear IRL analogues.

    And while the UNSC faced a broadly uphill and slowly degrading war against the Covenant we can also make a fair guess that the Covenant was a much larger power something the Imperium can correct for.

    With this in mind and accounting for the nature of the weapon a lasgun is probably somewhere around a Covenant carbine or plasma rifle in business end performance. Your typical Guardmen is probably more then a match for a Grunt while being more numerous then Elites. From there it gets trickier, while I doubt the Covenant has a match for a Space Marine, they have simply more of all their more higher-end infantry.

    Covenant vehicles though I think leave something be desired. Unless Scarabs are actually pretty common. Nothing on a Titan except by swarming them, but then Titans have are less frequent then Space Marines right?

    Really all a numbers game. In theory the Imperium can win like it always can win, stripping its decaying corpse of flesh (manpower) to fling at a problem until the problem stops. And yet just as often though not as commonly talked about the Imperium bugs out and doesn't mobilize the whole damn galaxy against any particular threat.

    Oh and the space end, but I don't really have much to go on there. I think the Covenant is said to have 'glassed' planets in the past so the weapons should arguably be on the proper tier. Which would make it another numbers game. On the other hand the Covenant is arguably more mobile in the FTL department since they so help me move about the galaxy on a days/weeks scale not months/years scale.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    Lexicanum says a battlefleet is usually between 50 and 75 ships, up or down depending on the relative threat level. So it's only, at worst, a 6-1 margin without local support ships. Though I understand the Battle of Reach did have at least one Supercarrier there, so the largest Covenant ship in play will outclass the largest Imperial ship in play if they each get a full fleet to play with. The average Imperial ship size is far larger than the average Covenant ship size, though, even with a supercarrier dragging the median up - the Lunar cruiser's apparent opposite number is the 1.7km CCS Battlecruiser, and the smallest ship the Imperial Navy deploys are escort-class destroyers at 1.5km.
    Their ships have shields as well. That can repel Necron weapons. Just to keep in mind here.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Yeah I've heard this before and I don't buy it. ~
    I avoid getting caught up in the Power Of The Lasgun debates, mostly because of the various sources being different. I personally believe that it's a better weapon than modern assault rifles, if only because there's no recoil in a Lasgun. (And the infinite Logisitics of Wonderfulness.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Your typical Guardmen is probably more then a match for a Grunt while being more numerous then Elites. From there it gets trickier, while I doubt the Covenant has a match for a Space Marine, they have simply more of all their more higher-end infantry.
    I would argue that the Imperium Ground War has less requirement for Space Marines to fight the High-End Covenant than the UNSC needed the Spartans. Mostly because IG carry a lot of deadly Heavy Weapons with them as a matter of course. A pair of Hunters won't stand up long against support Lascannons, any better than they stand up against the much-rarer Spartan Laser.

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Covenant vehicles though I think leave something be desired. Unless Scarabs are actually pretty common. Nothing on a Titan except by swarming them, but then Titans have are less frequent then Space Marines right?
    Titans are rarer than Space Marines, but the IoM doesn't really need them in this case, as a Baneblade can probably solo Scarabs. An Armoured Company of Leman Russ can take out more than thier weight in Covvie' vechicles, and the Antivechicle weapons that the Guardsmen cart around are good enough to kill everything smaller than the Scarabs.

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Really all a numbers game. In theory the Imperium can win like it always can win, stripping its decaying corpse of flesh (manpower) to fling at a problem until the problem stops. And yet just as often though not as commonly talked about the Imperium bugs out and doesn't mobilize the whole damn galaxy against any particular threat.
    Yeah, it really depends on if you remove one of the Imperium's current foes and replace them with the Versus Race, or just stick yet another enemy into the endless lineup.

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Oh and the space end, but I don't really have much to go on there. I think the Covenant is said to have 'glassed' planets in the past so the weapons should arguably be on the proper tier. Which would make it another numbers game. On the other hand the Covenant is arguably more mobile in the FTL department since they so help me move about the galaxy on a days/weeks scale not months/years scale.
    It takes them a while to glass a planet... Might just have more to do with not having a wide enough AoE, though. Doesn't really matter when they don't have range to engage properly.

    Also, I think they're moving around a piece of the galaxy, not the entire thing. I've never looked into that part of the Halo Universe, to be honest. Will investigate.

    -- Ah, so they are moving around the entire galaxy, at a rate of... 912 Lightyears Travelled Per 24 hours, according to one wiki. Which is... Yeah. 20 times faster than the Imperium's standard estimates allow.
    Last edited by Misery Esquire; 2012-09-13 at 01:28 AM.

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Pretty sure Cain is saying that, if given a wound of similar size or in a vital area, the la's gun is better due to the cauterizing nature of the weapon. It is still a mission kill, but with proper treatment you can survive.


    Covenant FTL is likely superior, as it would seem to be about as fast if I am remembering things correctly, but it lacks daemons eating your face, as well as being much more tactically flexible, being able to go at least into planetary orbits, if not into the atmosphere itself.
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  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Considering the damage a single Spartan can do to the Covenant, I would like to see a mid-to-high level Rogue Trader crew go up against them for a while.

    Edit: Also, in the RPGs while the SP weapons SEEM equivalent to our modern world guns, they're not really as most of them do use caseless ammunition, I think we can assume that things just operate on a different scale.
    Last edited by WitchSlayer; 2012-09-13 at 01:40 AM.

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    I can point you off the top of my to Dark Heresy and (in at least one version) the 40k core rulebook which make a lasgun more to less equivalent to a modern assault rifle. Which also holds more or less with what I remember of them in the Gaunt's Ghosts and Caiphas Cain books. The latter hero of the Imperium at least once, probably more then once actually states a preference for being shot at by las weapons because they tend to cauterize their own wounds so you don't bleed to death.

    The lasgun is the weapon of the Imperial Guard not for its performance but for its reliablity and easy logistics. As your typical guardmen can carry a few power packs and recharge them practically anywhere, thus logistically speaking has unlimited ammo. A true Gift from the Emperor to a universe where it any given shipment as only a moderate chance of arriving within the year of its need, if the request didn't just get loss in the bureaucracy and shows up a century later.

    Well if the IG at its broadest best is like a modern force minus integrated air support.... the UNSC is also essentially a modern force. Guns are still the order of the day, quite realistically since the tech has nowhere to go really. Armor is perhaps arguably better for the UNSC but then I remember unarmored NPCs being comparable to marines in Halo 1. At any rate while given nice coats of futurness most UNSC weapons have fairly clear IRL analogues.

    And while the UNSC faced a broadly uphill and slowly degrading war against the Covenant we can also make a fair guess that the Covenant was a much larger power something the Imperium can correct for.

    With this in mind and accounting for the nature of the weapon a lasgun is probably somewhere around a Covenant carbine or plasma rifle in business end performance. Your typical Guardmen is probably more then a match for a Grunt while being more numerous then Elites. From there it gets trickier, while I doubt the Covenant has a match for a Space Marine, they have simply more of all their more higher-end infantry.
    I'm inclined to agree more your estimation of the standard Lasgun. I think the Beam Carbine is probably the best analogue, with the exception that we know Lasrifles can be fired at full automatic speeds and have a standardized clip size of 30.

    All in all, I'd say it's a little bit of an edge over anything you see in the Halo games and given the numbers of the IG makes them more of a match for anything the Covenant can throw at them in terms of ranged combat.

    Part of this I believe is a function of Warhammer being a mass combat game system and Halo an FPS. You're not going to find anything in Halo that truly approximates what it's like for platoons of men to be trading automatic rifle fire behind cover, because it's an FPS. Grunts are designed to be killed in droves, Jackals are meant to harass players, and the Elites are meant to be the real challenge to be dealt with. The Covenant military structure is laughable in terms of long ranged mass squad based tactics, but perfect for providing a lone supersoldier with an interesting challenge.




    THAT SAID

    Covenant vehicles though I think leave something be desired. Unless Scarabs are actually pretty common. Nothing on a Titan except by swarming them, but then Titans have are less frequent then Space Marines right?
    Herein lies the rub. Covenant vehicular support is laughably underpowered compared to the armored fist which is most Imperial Guard Regiments. I mean the standard covenant vehicles are nothing but light, open topped, skimmers with twin linked plasma rifles (Halo Plasma Rifles, not 40k plasma rifles). They're vulnerable to small arms fire from even standard assault rifles and sub machine guns, so I think it's safe to say that concentrated lasfire could bring them down, and the vast array of Imperial heavy weapons would annihilate any Banshees, Ghosts, Choppers or Prowlers they choose to commit to any sortie.

    Wraiths, Locusts, Specters and the like wouldn't fair much better I'd wager. Given that these two can be fairly easily brought down with grenades or just punching them (if your a Spartan), I doubt their armor is anything comparable to a Landraider or a Leman Russ, which I think puts them firmly in the Medium Vehicle Category of 40k terms and thus still very much soft targets for Krack Missiles, Melta Weapons, and Lascannons.

    As for the Scarab, they're pretty few and far between if Halo 3 and Halo Wars are any indication. A covenant task force really only ever seem to deploy them in pairs, maybe 3 or 4 tops, which is about half as many Titans as you'd find in a standard sized Legion. True, Titans aren't very common, but if the Imperials see vehicles like Scarabs, you can bet they're going to request aid from the Sectors Adeptus Titanicus Legions (yes plural) which means you're likely to see at least a dozen heavy Titans in the largest engagements of any conflict.

    Really all a numbers game. In theory the Imperium can win like it always can win, stripping its decaying corpse of flesh (manpower) to fling at a problem until the problem stops. And yet just as often though not as commonly talked about the Imperium bugs out and doesn't mobilize the whole damn galaxy against any particular threat.
    As for it being a numbers game, I would say the higher end Covenant Infantry really aren't a match for the Adeptus Astartes unless they have overwhelming numbers. I mean, if the Spartans are any indicator, that's exactly how it shakes down. I think it's pretty well indicated that a squad of Spartans is at least worth a squad of elites, and since Elites are deployed in squads composed entirely of Sangheii, it generally works out that the Spartans get to wade through a full platoon of grunts, Jackals and a dozen or so Elites before a concentrated effort is made by the Brutes, Elites, Hunters, etc. to take them down.

    While their armor may be more advanced (especially if they all have shield generators) the Spartan IIs and IIIs are really only the equivalent of Space Marine Scouts, in terms of combat ability, size, strength, genetic enhancements, weaponry, combat experience and all around grit. The biggest advantage the Covenant enjoy over the Spartans is their superior numbers and technology, but the Adeptus Astartes are in a league above and beyond the Spartans. They are the Emperor's Angels, and monsters by any other name. Give them armor which can stand up to their own weapons (Nothing short of a 40k Plasma Rifle will ignore Space Marine Power Armor) and I don't think the Covenant are going to have much that can truly pose a threat to them.

    Oh and the space end, but I don't really have much to go on there. I think the Covenant is said to have 'glassed' planets in the past so the weapons should arguably be on the proper tier. Which would make it another numbers game. On the other hand the Covenant is arguably more mobile in the FTL department since they so help me move about the galaxy on a days/weeks scale not months/years scale.
    The big point in space combat is again scale. Covenant ships are in a different class of tonnage than 40k spacecraft. Combine that with the fact that Covenant ships engagement range is about 10,000 km, and 40k is 45,000km, and you've got the makings of a real massacre.

    Now the FTL bit is interesting though. As I understand it, Covenant (and UNSC) slipspace technology is pretty much the same, except the Covenant are better at it. Essentially, the ship enters a subspace dimension which cuts both travel distance and relative time in order to arrive at a destination. Now, this is more or less exactly how 40k ships travel as well, except when they enter the subspace dimension (that is, The Warp) they must contend with roiling eddies, storms, and horrific eldritch daemons and forces of sheer madness. Now, I like to think that if the Covenant ever invaded the Imperium in the 41st Millenium, they'd have to contend with all the same maladies, and would be woefully ill prepared for them. Vice Versa, if the Imperium were defending in Halo Universe, the simplicity and safety of Warp travel would be a blessed relief.

    Why do I purport this you ask? Simple, because the Warp is Slipspace, and Slipspace is the Warp. It's just that in Halo timeline, humanity and other alien races have not sufficiently developed so as to give rise to the forces of Chaos as they are known in the 41st Millenium. Imagine a single cohesive timeline, in which the events of Halo predate the events of WH40k by 38,000 years. Is it so hard to imagine that Spartans the ancient ancestors of the Adeptus Astartes? That use of Covenant and Forerunner technology is what sparks what the IoM will refer to as the Golden Age of Mankind? The advent of which will cause humanity to blossom and all the woes and vices to grow with it, causing them to manifest as personified deities in their own right?!?

    Sorry, getting a little off track at the end there.
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  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Kinslayer View Post
    I avoid getting caught up in the Power Of The Lasgun debates, mostly because of the various sources being different. I personally believe that it's a better weapon than modern assault rifles, if only because there's no recoil in a Lasgun. (And the infinite Logisitics of Wonderfulness.)
    I once pinned a guy down for a text quote and the best offered was a description of concrete being "boiled" by heavy las fire. However I called and still called hyperbole on that, you fire a normal bullet into concrete and its going to leave marks and so forth. I'm going with the more coherent version, personally.

    I would argue that the Imperium Ground War has less requirement for Space Marines to fight the High-End Covenant than the UNSC needed the Spartans. Mostly because IG carry a lot of deadly Heavy Weapons with them as a matter of course. A pair of Hunters won't stand up long against support Lascannons, any better than they stand up against the much-rarer Spartan Laser.
    Quite possibly and I don't think the Imperium have a choice anyways, there just aren't going to be enough to go around.

    Though on those heavy weapons. Well I the most common are various bolters which are easily the most overrated 40k weapon. Yes its large caliber and it explodes, it doesn't however act like a grenade or rocket so that puts a definite ceiling on its power.

    Lascannon though should punch right through. Eveything else should be too rare, and melta's are short range anyways.

    Both for the IG though are static, the Covenant isn't above a certain tactical acumen so I'd totally see say sending a Hunter or two out to flank the position with Fuel Rod Canons. Or say an Elite with active-camo and sword.

    If this was purely infantry then I'd say for a reasonable parity of force Covenant should win there. (Given well the Reasonable Marine's joke this can even apply to the 1000 or so Spess Mehruns around)

    Titans are rarer than Space Marines, but the IoM doesn't really need them in this case, as a Baneblade can probably solo Scarabs. An Armoured Company of Leman Russ can take out more than thier weight in Covvie' vechicles, and the Antivechicle weapons that the Guardsmen cart around are good enough to kill everything smaller than the Scarabs.
    Baneblades aren't exactly common either, but I think I loosely agree here on the overall assessment. Outside Scarbs you go all the way down to the Wraith which seem more a glorified fireworks van. It can tank rockets sure, but its offense is terrible for that. I can make a Banshee or Ghost dance a fine jig and kill about anything, but I don't presume that to be normal performance either.

    I always figure the Covenant must have sabotaged Scorpion production or something. Or some strong special interest boondoggled the project or something. Or like the Halo 1 pistol game and "reality" just don't match up.

    Either way yeah I do consider Imperium tanks a pretty decent showing (given how rare air support is in 40k) and well, they seem to actually have them in numbers.

    It takes them a while to glass a planet... Might just have more to do with not having a wide enough AoE, though. Doesn't really matter when they don't have range to engage properly.
    There isn't really range in space, just how accurately it get portrayed. Arbitrary silliness can be arbitrary though.

    And taking awhile is actually establishing some parity. Doing it slowly suggests the longer sort of massive orbital strikes taking out a planet at the nuke scale. Which matches with what I've seen of lance battery strikes from Imperium ships when not breaking out the big Exterminatus weapons.

    Quote Originally Posted by WitchSlayer View Post
    Edit: Also, in the RPGs while the SP weapons SEEM equivalent to our modern world guns, they're not really as most of them do use caseless ammunition, I think we can assume that things just operate on a different scale.
    Here's the thing, projectile weapons have essentially nowhere to go as technology. They are trapped by Newton, you can't get more powerful and not make recoil too massive for a human. So anything propelling slugs has certain limits. I'd not be suprised if the AK-47 was in use a couple hundred years from now in much the fashion it is to day: common, rugged, and all the gun you really need.

    Sure one can do things that play around with the formula, but not all that much. Guns seemed to have reached a point of diminishing returns, sure one might be more accurate but even a less accurate rifle is still good enough for the non-sharpshooter. For what you mentioned Caseless ammo assault rifles already exist. If they are somehow cheap/reliable enough in 40k to be stand will be the only meaningful difference in my book.

    The great secret of 40k is that its really isn't super advanced at all. Certainly not enough to justify the distressingly common attitude that everything must be so much epically more powerful and advanced because its the year 40k.

    Yes with specific exceptions, all of which tend towards being irreplaceable relics of a bygone age that were thankfully Raganrok proof. Simply remembered by rote or prayed out of an STC at best. And probably for every plasma rifle you probably have 10 billion citizens that don't enjoy developed world standards of living and have never even seen one.

    Quote Originally Posted by ChaosLord29 View Post
    All in all, I'd say it's a little bit of an edge over anything you see in the Halo games and given the numbers of the IG makes them more of a match for anything the Covenant can throw at them in terms of ranged combat.
    In FPS multiplayer sure, but in open battle I think these differences sorta disappear. At least compared to terrain and tactics.

    As for it being a numbers game, I would say the higher end Covenant Infantry really aren't a match for the Adeptus Astartes unless they have overwhelming numbers.
    I don't want to get too deep into Spartan versus Astartes but they have a similar strategic weakness, there just aren't enough of them. Or we shouldn't really expect more then like a thousand or so spread across the entire campaign.

    And its worth remembering for every feat of badass by a Space Marine there's some ignoble defeat where they did go down. Might require some special tactics but the Covenant does have weapons that should crack power armor.

    The big point in space combat is again scale. Covenant ships are in a different class of tonnage than 40k spacecraft. Combine that with the fact that Covenant ships engagement range is about 10,000 km, and 40k is 45,000km, and you've got the makings of a real massacre.
    Tonnage is irrelevant, it means nothing other then how compressed your tech is.

    And if your ranges are on the money I remain a touch unimpressed unless there's a reason either can't go at longer or shorter ranges. Its space unless something stops it or there's a special reason why not then your weapon range is unlimited. Unless you go all Honor Harrington and point out lightspeed delay its all pretty short range stuff relatively speaking. Between that once you reach orbital bombardment capable I tend to assume some level of parity.

    Also whatever the Imperium's numbers seems the Covenant has serious ship amounts to consider. One of the EU space battles list a human Admiral pulling a pure Star Trek solution and using a bunch of nukes to make a gas giant go nova to destroy 300 Covenant ships... and this is the war where humanity steadily lost with no hope in sight so it didn't make even make a dent.

    Now, this is more or less exactly how 40k ships travel as well, except when they enter the subspace dimension (that is, The Warp) they must contend with roiling eddies, storms, and horrific eldritch daemons and forces of sheer madness. Now, I like to think that if the Covenant ever invaded the Imperium in the 41st Millenium, they'd have to contend with all the same maladies, and would be woefully ill prepared for them. Vice Versa, if the Imperium were defending in Halo Universe, the simplicity and safety of Warp travel would be a blessed relief.
    This is not general practice for these sort of threads.

    Also. The answer is that if they had to enter the Warp without proper tech every Covenant ship would die, or worse -not-, since only particular shields render the Warp as unsafe as it is. That's just plain unfair, beside different realms would demand completely new navigation methodology.

    Also being the psychic reflection of everything the Warp is quite different. Hyperspaces do tend to be pretty distinct ideas on the whole.

    It much simpler to have two unrelated dimensions for different tech. And its broadly assumed in these threads factions can move around about as well as they can natively, often the idea being they suddenly are sharing a single galaxy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Yeah I've heard this before and I don't buy it.
    I don't want to bash 40k (I like it!), but what I generally don't buy is the "10,000 years of fighting experience and cumulative military knowledge, that makes them masters in tactical combat"... when the typical WH40K battle's tactic, recalls a random WWI scenario.
    I know it's cooler, but, to me, it's hard to buy.
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    Yeah, 40K Vanilla Space Marines do not have 10,000 years combat experience. The oldest one of them still in active service, I believe, is Dante, at about 1,100 years. You could, supposedly, make a case for Bjorn the Fell Handed, but he's a Dreadnought who only rarely actually gets to fight, and has spent much of the intervening time asleep.

    You could also make an argument for some Chaos Marines, but time gets funny in the Eye of Terror, so there's no guarantee they've had 10,000 years.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Killer Angel View Post
    I don't want to bash 40k (I like it!), but what I generally don't buy is the "10,000 years of fighting experience and cumulative military knowledge, that makes them masters in tactical combat"... when the typical WH40K battle's tactic, recalls a random WWI scenario.
    I know it's cooler, but, to me, it's hard to buy.
    The mere fact that the Reasonable Marines chapter "exists" kinda gives the lie to any great tactical acumen for the Imperium as a whole and Space Marines in particular.

    And if you need ten thousand years to fight you clearly aren't doing something right.

    Quote Originally Posted by The_Final_Stand View Post
    Yeah, 40K Vanilla Space Marines do not have 10,000 years combat experience. The oldest one of them still in active service, I believe, is Dante, at about 1,100 years. You could, supposedly, make a case for Bjorn the Fell Handed, but he's a Dreadnought who only rarely actually gets to fight, and has spent much of the intervening time asleep.

    You could also make an argument for some Chaos Marines, but time gets funny in the Eye of Terror, so there's no guarantee they've had 10,000 years.
    Well Failbbadon has 10,000 years of failed Black Crusades under his belt but he's not exactly vanilla even for Chaos

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    So. I'm not going to get caught up in the lasgun power debate, but it's roughly the same as a Carbine, maybe a little better, certainly better in having full auto and no ammo requirements.

    Carbine < Lasgun

    So then, if I recall my Halo days correctly, the Carbine is among the better weapons of the Covenant- Even amongst Elites, the majority of them will carry Halo Plasma Rifles, which are pretty crummy weapons, as I recall.

    So basic infantry vs basic infantry, the guardsmen are way, way better armed?

    I can see myself blitzing through Halo 2 even on Legendary if I had a Carbine that fired like an SMG and never needed to reload.

    Vehicle-wise, does the covenant have anything that can really beat Sentinels, the 40k analogue to Ghosts? Sentinels are fast-moving lightly armored bipedal mecha (Similar in design to AT-STs in starwars, but smaller and less prone to falling over) that can equip a wide variety of powerful weapons.

    A wraith's main cannon might be able to destroy one, but a good Sentinel pilot should be able to destroy the wraith and then just walk away from the oncoming wad of energy that moves very slowly in a ridiculous arc. I don't see the covenant being able to argue with what amounts to Ghosts with Spartan Lasers.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Though on those heavy weapons. Well I the most common are various bolters which are easily the most overrated 40k weapon. Yes its large caliber and it explodes, it doesn't however act like a grenade or rocket so that puts a definite ceiling on its power.
    Really, the most common Heavy they cart around would be the Autocannon. Which is enough to shatter all of the Covenant Light-to-Medium, and going by the Warhog Chaingun, enough to break a Wraith from the sides or behind.

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Lascannon though should punch right through. Eveything else should be too rare, and melta's are short range anyways.
    Lascannons are what the IG will really be resting on in this campaign to fight Scarabs. Even if they aren't 100% effective, the Lascannon has a chance at hurting the heaviest 40k plating, and while it might not go through the armour of the Scarab, the Scarab does have... Well, crab legs, that they can cut off.

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Both for the IG though are static, the Covenant isn't above a certain tactical acumen so I'd totally see say sending a Hunter or two out to flank the position with Fuel Rod Canons. Or say an Elite with active-camo and sword.
    They are static, but also behind the front lines of Guardsmen, and as long as it isn't Orks that they're fighting, the IG seem willing to move, setup, fire, and then move again when nessecary. Or just get some guardsmen to sacrifice thier lives and go hose the Hunters down with grenades and flamers until they stop moving. And Elites... Well, thier Camo is Optical Only, which means the Auspex should pick them up. It's not Standard Issue to every Guardsman, but it's not exactly uncommon, either.


    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    I don't want to get too deep into Spartan versus Astartes but they have a similar strategic weakness, there just aren't enough of them. Or we shouldn't really expect more then like a thousand or so spread across the entire campaign.
    Probably less, depending on which Sector the Covenant crash into. On the other hand, they might run face-first into somewhere near the Eye of Terror where there's 3000+ Space Marines hanging out, so eh. 1000 Space Marines is still more Spartans (IIs) than they ever had on the battlefield. (75) And Space Marines come with thier own heavy support, rather than jacking the IG's. Land Raider v. Scarab, I'm thinking the LR wins. (Land Raiders are rare as well, I just wanted to make the comparison in advance)

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    And if your ranges are on the money I remain a touch unimpressed unless there's a reason either can't go at longer or shorter ranges. Its space unless something stops it or there's a special reason why not then your weapon range is unlimited. Unless you go all Honor Harrington and point out lightspeed delay its all pretty short range stuff relatively speaking. Between that once you reach orbital bombardment capable I tend to assume some level of parity.
    The Covenant try to engage at <10,000 km, because that's near the maximum range that they can control thier plasma... torpedoes?... manually.
    40k, the ranges indicate how far out the Imperial Admirals believe thier weapons will be accurate to.

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    Also whatever the Imperium's numbers seems the Covenant has serious ship amounts to consider. One of the EU space battles list a human Admiral pulling a pure Star Trek solution and using a bunch of nukes to make a gas giant go nova to destroy 300 Covenant ships... and this is the war where humanity steadily lost with no hope in sight so it didn't make even make a dent.
    Eh. Either we have to free the Imperium from the other dozen alien/Chaos factions that it's bogged down under, or have the Covenant attacked by them as well. IoM, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, and Chaos all have Attack On Sight activated, Eldar/Dark Eldar are Attack As Planned... Tau are the only talkers, but they're surrounded by Tyranids and Space Marine worlds right now. (Including the penultimate in Xeno-hating, Black Templars)
    Last edited by Misery Esquire; 2012-09-13 at 11:12 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post

    Well Failbbadon has 10,000 years of failed Black Crusades under his belt but he's not exactly vanilla even for Chaos
    Every time this meme comes up, I feel obligated to point out that 'Failbaddon' technically has a 50%+ win record in terms of the objectives he was actually aiming for in each respective crusade. "Utterly Crush The Imperium In the Name Of Chaos" was only the primary goal of the first and maybe second Crusades, the rest it was just treated as a bonus objective.

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Imperium has got this. The guard alone are more then a match for the Covenant as they have insane numbers and weaponry that's a little bit superior to the standard weapons of the Covenant. For anti-tank the krack missiles will be pretty devastating against the Covenant vehicles except for the Scarab which they might be able to whittle down. The Imperial tanks will be devastating as the Covenant has almost no counter to them. Finally the Guard do have air-support in the Valkyries and Vendettas. The Vendettas are devastating tank hunters while the Valkyries are more in between. Both are capable of carrying a squad of specialists to either air drop in or land and manually off-load. They aren't exactly rare either so we would almost certainly show up.

    The space battle is pretty much one-sided as well. Contrary to what Soras claims the size of the ship is a factor as it means that a hit will be less likely to hit something important in a larger ship. The shielding and armor on Imperial ships are very strong and the weapons are more powerful then anything the Covenant has faced before.

    Space Marines are just death for the Covenant. I would put a single Space Marine Sargent on the level of Master Chief who pretty much defeated the Covenant by himself. A single terminator squad could wipe out whatever ship it boarded easily.

    So yeah, unless the Covenant hits only unimportant planets they are utterly doomed.
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Soras Teva Gee View Post
    I once pinned a guy down for a text quote and the best offered was a description of concrete being "boiled" by heavy las fire. However I called and still called hyperbole on that, you fire a normal bullet into concrete and its going to leave marks and so forth. I'm going with the more coherent version, personally.
    So we're agreed then, the Lasgun is basically just a Beam Carbine with an expanded magazine capacity.

    @shadow_archmagi
    Afraid the Lasgun doesn't have unlimited ammo, it's just that the clips can be recharged using batteries, outlets, solar power, or even by throwing them into the heart of a fire. They provide logistically unlimited ammo, not practically unlimited.

    Quite possibly and I don't think the Imperium have a choice anyways, there just aren't going to be enough to go around.

    Though on those heavy weapons. Well I the most common are various bolters which are easily the most overrated 40k weapon. Yes its large caliber and it explodes, it doesn't however act like a grenade or rocket so that puts a definite ceiling on its power.

    Lascannon though should punch right through. Eveything else should be too rare, and melta's are short range anyways.

    Both for the IG though are static, the Covenant isn't above a certain tactical acumen so I'd totally see say sending a Hunter or two out to flank the position with Fuel Rod Canons. Or say an Elite with active-camo and sword.
    To your quips regarding bolters being overrated, they are indeed explosive, but they are also rocket propelled. The blasting cap on the rear of the casing of the 'bolt' ignites a miniature rocket which is what accelerates the explosive round out of the barrel and maintains it's flight through the air. They don't lose force the further they travel, until the rocket is expended, and when they impact with something, it's why they keep going rather than simply expending their kinetic energy. That's why 'bolts' have such raw kinetic force, penetrating power, and let's not forget, they explode once they are inside you

    Heavy and special weapons are not at all uncommon (even Lascannons and Plasma Canons) even amongst the IG (assuming they come from a somewhat 'civilized' subsector). There's a reason when you build an army there's no limit to the number of Lascannons you can field in your army, as opposed to any other heavy weapon. If you want every single heavy weapon carried by every guard support squad or vehicle to be a Lascannon, you can do that (even if it's a little tactically unsound). Suppose you've got a good mix of Las and Auto-cannons, then just about any IG force is going to be well prepared to shred both Covenant Infantry
    and Vehicles in no time flat.

    Baneblades aren't exactly common either, but I think I loosely agree here on the overall assessment. Outside Scarbs you go all the way down to the Wraith which seem more a glorified fireworks van. It can tank rockets sure, but its offense is terrible for that. I can make a Banshee or Ghost dance a fine jig and kill about anything, but I don't presume that to be normal performance either.

    I always figure the Covenant must have sabotaged Scorpion production or something. Or some strong special interest boondoggled the project or something. Or like the Halo 1 pistol game and "reality" just don't match up.

    Either way yeah I do consider Imperium tanks a pretty decent showing (given how rare air support is in 40k) and well, they seem to actually have them in numbers.
    Air support is rare in actual gameplay, but in the books, video games, and other sources it's pretty well documented that any IG or Space Marine force is going to have tactical air support as well (there's even an official minigame released by White Dwarf on conducting air battles). There's rules for flyers for almost every race, it's just that people don't generally use them (rarely legal in tournament play) because they're expensive and the whole point of the game is you are commanding the ground forces.

    Not that the Halo flyers are particuarly impressive either. Banshees remind me more of WWI Biplanes than any sort of impressive aerial combat craft, and Hornets definitely leave something lacking where speed is concerned. They seem like the anologue of 40k Skimmers (which admittedly, only Space Marines have access to), but a couple of Thunderhawk Gunships and Landspeeders should be more than a match for any force of Banshees and Covvie aircraft.


    There isn't really range in space, just how accurately it get portrayed. Arbitrary silliness can be arbitrary though.

    And taking awhile is actually establishing some parity. Doing it slowly suggests the longer sort of massive orbital strikes taking out a planet at the nuke scale. Which matches with what I've seen of lance battery strikes from Imperium ships when not breaking out the big Exterminatus weapons.
    But there is range in spaced based on how well you can create a containment field for your Plasma Projectiles or a confinement beam for your other particle projection based weaponry. Otherwise they'll just disperse into space after a set amount of time.

    Imperial Lance weaponry have overcome that range limitation by sheer size (it takes longer for the lance 'bolt' to disperse given the raw amount of energy), and their broadsides fire like old fashioned cannons so the only range limit is how well they are aimed from the start.

    Covenant ships are used to a smaller engagement range because they are smaller ships. Maybe if they built ships or had the technology to enhance the range of their energy based weapons they would build them bigger.

    Here's the thing, projectile weapons have essentially nowhere to go as technology. They are trapped by Newton, you can't get more powerful and not make recoil too massive for a human. So anything propelling slugs has certain limits. I'd not be suprised if the AK-47 was in use a couple hundred years from now in much the fashion it is to day: common, rugged, and all the gun you really need.

    Sure one can do things that play around with the formula, but not all that much. Guns seemed to have reached a point of diminishing returns, sure one might be more accurate but even a less accurate rifle is still good enough for the non-sharpshooter. For what you mentioned Caseless ammo assault rifles already exist. If they are somehow cheap/reliable enough in 40k to be stand will be the only meaningful difference in my book.

    The great secret of 40k is that its really isn't super advanced at all. Certainly not enough to justify the distressingly common attitude that everything must be so much epically more powerful and advanced because its the year 40k.

    Yes with specific exceptions, all of which tend towards being irreplaceable relics of a bygone age that were thankfully Raganrok proof. Simply remembered by rote or prayed out of an STC at best. And probably for every plasma rifle you probably have 10 billion citizens that don't enjoy developed world standards of living and have never even seen one.
    It's no great secret lol. Hell, the Orks pretty much do use primarily WWII era technology (to great effect, I might add. The only real technological heavyweights are the Tau and the Eldar (and depending on how you look at it, the Necrons), but the point isn't that IoM weaponry is more advanced simply by virtue of it being from the future, it's more advanced because it has to deal with greater threats and allows more in the way of acceptable losses.

    As it's mentioned, Lasguns have a greatly reduced recoil because they are directed energy weapons, and never run out of ammo. 40k does provide rules for slugthrowers in their games and they're basically the same, but with a slightly lessened armor penetrative power. Bolters are the real heavyweight future weapons, and they are primarily wielded by not humans (as you pointed out, human arms and bodies can only withstand so much recoil). If anything, the problem the UNSC is dealing with is that their chemical propellant slug weapons have reached a point of diminishing returns, which is why the Covenant trounce them so readily throughout much of the war.

    The Imperium of Man has been combating threats from empires larger, more technologically advanced, and downright more bloody minded than the Covenant for thousands of years, and in many cases has done more than just hold it's own. I'll agree that 40k isn't terribly more advanced (certainly not what you would imagine given 38,000 years of technological development) but in terms of using what technology they have available to them, they put both the UNSC and the Covenant to shame.

    I don't want to get too deep into Spartan versus Astartes but they have a similar strategic weakness, there just aren't enough of them. Or we shouldn't really expect more then like a thousand or so spread across the entire campaign.

    And its worth remembering for every feat of badass by a Space Marine there's some ignoble defeat where they did go down. Might require some special tactics but the Covenant does have weapons that should crack power armor.
    Astartes are 8ft tall giants with three hearts, two sets of lungs, and a dozen other crazy ass genetic modifications that make them lethal killing machines. They have left humanity behind and are now monsters loyal only to the Emperor. Spartans seem to have crossed into the uncanny valley a bit (and the unbreakable bones are cool) but I don't think it's fair to say they are in the same league as the Astartes.

    On the note of power armor though, let's try and put this into some mechanics. Covenant weaponry more or less burns it's way through standard UNSC body armor, and Spartan Armor offers a degree more protection (without shields that is). I think it's safe to say that Imperial Flak armor isn't much better, but the Spartan Armor looks more like Carapace armor and provides marginally more protection, so I think that's a good analogue. Space Marine Power Armor is a cut above all that. If we're using the Beam Carbine as our Analogue of the Lasgun and assume they have similar armor piercing power, then Power Armor will deflect, absorb or shake off 2 in 3 shot from it (In Warhammer terms a 3+ Armor Save). Assuming it has similar 'punch' and lethality, a Space Marine, by sheer hardy constitution should again be able to shake off 2 in 3 shots (A strength 3 weapon vs toughness 4 Space Marines), so all in all you're looking at overall effectiveness of about 1 in 10. We are talking about Elites here, so lets assume they make pretty good marksman and will be hitting the Astartes 2 in 3 times (Ballistic Skill 4) so that gives us an overall effectiveness of about 7 in 100 shots killing space marines.

    There's a reason that Lasguns are referred to in genre as 'flashlights'.

    Tonnage is irrelevant, it means nothing other then how compressed your tech is.

    And if your ranges are on the money I remain a touch unimpressed unless there's a reason either can't go at longer or shorter ranges. Its space unless something stops it or there's a special reason why not then your weapon range is unlimited. Unless you go all Honor Harrington and point out lightspeed delay its all pretty short range stuff relatively speaking. Between that once you reach orbital bombardment capable I tend to assume some level of parity.

    Also whatever the Imperium's numbers seems the Covenant has serious ship amounts to consider. One of the EU space battles list a human Admiral pulling a pure Star Trek solution and using a bunch of nukes to make a gas giant go nova to destroy 300 Covenant ships... and this is the war where humanity steadily lost with no hope in sight so it didn't make even make a dent.
    I was using Tonnage in the the old fashioned Man-o-War sense (seems appropriate since that's how Imperial ships more or less operate). So it's relevant in that any given Imperial ship boasts 5-10 times the amount of fire power than any Covenant ship of comparable class (not size, since as we established, standard Imperial Ships are as large as the largest Covvie craft).

    As I pointed out above, range limits do apply to directed energy weapons, since they have a tendency to disperse in space without sufficient confinement beams or fields to contain them. The Covenant use Plasma weapons to their range limits are likely based on the range at which their magnetic confinement beams or fields can keep the plasma in a coherent mass capable of causing damage. Their missiles seem to possess a similar limitation based on guidance, but that could only be because that's the engagement range that they are used to. Whatever the science fiction behind it, the point is that Covenant ships, in genre have an effective engagement range of about a quarter of that of Imperial ships.

    For perspective, that's like trying to get decent sized outboard boat into firing range of small caliber pistols against a modern day Cruiser or Destroyer. The weight in firepower matches up pretty well too.

    This is not general practice for these sort of threads.

    Also. The answer is that if they had to enter the Warp without proper tech every Covenant ship would die, or worse -not-, since only particular shields render the Warp as unsafe as it is. That's just plain unfair, beside different realms would demand completely new navigation methodology.

    Also being the psychic reflection of everything the Warp is quite different. Hyperspaces do tend to be pretty distinct ideas on the whole.

    It much simpler to have two unrelated dimensions for different tech. And its broadly assumed in these threads factions can move around about as well as they can natively, often the idea being they suddenly are sharing a single galaxy.
    Yeah I know XD

    It's kind of fun to think about, and as the guy who started the thread I thought I'd indulge a little bit.

    What about psykers though? Are the Covenant in any way prepared for the psychic assault of a Librarian or an Inquisitorial Sanctioned Psyker? Given that they're a brand new and pretty significant xenos threat you can bet their will be a cadre from the Ordo Xenos on the scene with all due haste and that they'll have some psykers with them. Imagine if the Prophets quasi religious control over Covenant forces could be overturned by psykers who display real spiritual power. Might spark the Sangheii to rebel all over again.
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    I think you might be underestimating the covenant a bit there, they'll still die, but I think they could put up a good fight. Sure, the blue elites are idiotic, underequipped and will die in droves to the guard, but that comes with the territory of being religious nuts and rookies. However, I think that the red ones are probably on the level of a marine scout, and the zealots might give a terminator a run for his money. Not to mention that needler and needle rifle fire would be devastating to the marines as they have no energy sheilds. Finally, a brute pack is probably on the level of a bunch of ork nobz (with worse equipment) and the chieftains are beasts, so they would murder the guard. It's easy to forget that the protagonists in the halo games are extraordinary. The Chief is by far the best spartan, and is canonically almost supernaturally lucky, and Noble 6 is a more subtle version of him. The ODSTs in general are good, and those in the game are pretty much the best of the bunch.

    So I think that while the covenant would get demolished in large scale combat it could do pretty well in skirmishes.
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChaosLord29 View Post
    Astartes are 8ft tall giants with three hearts, two sets of lungs, and a dozen other crazy ass genetic modifications that make them lethal killing machines. They have left humanity behind and are now monsters loyal only to the Emperor. Spartans seem to have crossed into the uncanny valley a bit (and the unbreakable bones are cool) but I don't think it's fair to say they are in the same league as the Astartes.
    True.

    Quote Originally Posted by ChaosLord29 View Post
    On the note of power armor though, let's try and put this into some mechanics...
    This is going about it the wrong way ; you're using the Tabletop idea to try and justify the reality of thier armour.

    In the 40k Literature, a Space Marine can stand up in a fusillade of full auto lasfire, get hit by frag grenades, and torched with a flamer, and thier armour will still be in one piece. The only time ordinary rifle-weapons (Ie; machineguns, lasguns, etc) are a threat is when the Astartes are silly enough to take off thier helmet, or there's a hell of a lot of it, and it eventually manages to hit the joints enough to remove a limb. And even then they'll probably keep trying to fight through the handicap.

    Covvie Plasma Rifles, Pistols and Carbines are effectively non-threats, as Space Marines do take cover, and thier armour is good enough so that they can move from cover-to-cover even if hit between. Fuel Rod Guns are the real threat, and if a Covvie somehow manages to get a Needler full of spikes into a joint, as they'll likely skip off anything else. Sort of like firing them at Hunters.

    ...Acutally, yeah. Space Marines are more fully armoured, more manueverable, faster, stronger, overall deadlier Hunters, in effect. Maybe not harder to kill, because Hunters never technically die from the more conventional weapons, but they are harder to incapacitate.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thorgrim29 View Post
    I think you might be underestimating the covenant a bit there, they'll still die, but I think they could put up a good fight. Sure, the blue elites are idiotic, underequipped and will die in droves to the guard, but that comes with the territory of being religious nuts and rookies. However, I think that the red ones are probably on the level of a marine scout, and the zealots might give a terminator a run for his money. Not to mention that needler and needle rifle fire would be devastating to the marines as they have no energy sheilds. Finally, a brute pack is probably on the level of a bunch of ork nobz (with worse equipment) and the chieftains are beasts, so they would murder the guard. It's easy to forget that the protagonists in the halo games are extraordinary. The Chief is by far the best spartan, and is canonically almost supernaturally lucky, and Noble 6 is a more subtle version of him. The ODSTs in general are good, and those in the game are pretty much the best of the bunch.

    So I think that while the covenant would get demolished in large scale combat it could do pretty well in skirmishes.
    Honestly I don't think you give the blue Elites enough credit and you give the Zealots a little too much. Blue Elites are just that, Elite. While they'd fall to concentrated las fire, they generally aren't deployed in squads, but as the leaders of Grunt and Jackal platoons and battalions. It's more or less like having a Space Marine or two with every IG Unit, and the effect would be that they'd help score some kills on the guardsman until their underlings were cut down.

    I'd say Master Chief is more the equivalent of a Space Marine Special Character, though I don't think he's the equal of Marneus Calgar, more like The Emperors Champion or Captain Tycho (from the Blood Angels). That said, pretty much every chapter has a handful of these Master Chief level heroes running around, so I think it's fair to say that once the Adeptus Astartes intervene, the fight is over for the Covenant. If Master Chief is The Demon, just imagine how they might react facing down nearly a 500 or more such figures, better armed and better armored.

    Which dovetails nicely into the point about Needlers. I don't think there's any reason to presume they'd be at all effective against power armored troops. I mean, they're still shrugged off by standard cover, so if the Space Marine is covered head to toe in inches thick plate armor, I think they'll be fine.

    I think your best point though are the Brutes. Any brute pack is going to be at least the equivalent of a rowdy mob of orks and an assortment of nobz, which do pose a threat even to the Astartes in large numbers (and Brutes do seem more numerous than Elites even without the civil war). Still though, under armed and under armored, I can't believe there would be enough of them to truly threaten the Astartes, only challenge them.


    Quote Originally Posted by Kinslayer View Post
    ...Acutally, yeah. Space Marines are more fully armoured, more manueverable, faster, stronger, overall deadlier Hunters, in effect. Maybe not harder to kill, because Hunters never technically die from the more conventional weapons, but they are harder to incapacitate.
    I think that's a pretty fair comparison too, actually. A Hunter standing at full height is 12 feet tall, but hunched and covering themselves as you see in the game they are only 8 feet, the same height as a Space Marine. Admittedly they're bulkier, but just let that sink in in terms of how truly badass the Adeptus Astartes are.

    Literally the only thing comparable to them in size and scale are the most rare and powerful members of the Covenant Military. They dwarf Brutes and Elites and are equipped head to toe in armor not even scratched by conventional Covenant or UNSC weaponry. They're faster, more numerous, and carry automatic weapons capable of downing most Covenant Vehicles under sustained fire.
    Last edited by ChaosLord29; 2012-09-13 at 01:42 PM.
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Just a note on the lasgun thing- The closest thing we have to a definitive source (The back of the 6th edition Rulebook contains an in universe guide on field dressing las wounds), the lasgun is cited as blasting off arms and fully penetrating humans (granted, I suspect this is more probable when dealing with a civilian insurrection than proper flak armor). One note on the fatality of lasgun wounds; Specifically, if the lasgun only glances you, or misses all the vital organs, you've got pretty good odds of survival compared to a bullet because there's no risk of bleeding to death. If it hits a vital organ, the book points out the swelling to said organ is likely to cause death (This being 40k, the book helpfully instructs you to dress the wound as fast as possible for morale purposes, instead of the more labored, thorough process recommended for those with survivable wounds.)

    @ChaosLord: I wouldn't compare an elite directing troops to a space marine doing the same. For one I'm not sure about the combat differences, and secondly, you're underestimating the morale effects fighting alongside marines has for guardsmen- The appearance of marines in a battle, at least for soldiers who haven't worked along side them for an extended period of time, is pretty close to divine intervention- They aren't called the angels of death just because they kill things really well. On Master Chief... I'd say he might be around the level of a company champion, maybe a decorated but not exceptional captain. I'd say more like the effect a commissar has on a squad.
    Last edited by Squark; 2012-09-13 at 01:39 PM.

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Brutes are a pretty good comparison to orks perhaps, yeah. Thing is, whilst they are more numerous than Elites, they're not really more numerous than the Orks and the Imperial Guard are quite capable of taking Orks on.

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Yeah, remember, Orks outnumber guardsmen in most engagements, and they still lose many of those.

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tiki Snakes View Post
    Brutes are a pretty good comparison to orks perhaps, yeah. Thing is, whilst they are more numerous than Elites, they're not really more numerous than the Orks and the Imperial Guard are quite capable of taking Orks on.
    Well, an Ork infestation is a pretty serious threat, and generally requires a concerted effort by more than just planetary defense forces (Other Regiments or Space Marines have to be called in).

    The point remains though, that this is primarily due to their numbers, and Brutes are not nearly so numerous as the greenskins. The other aspect of the Ork threat being that they're so damned hard to exterminate, and if you even leave a small number alive they can repopulate with such speed and plenty as to put to shame even the most prolific of rabbit populations.
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Example of the stress Power Armor can go through is found in The Traitor's Hand, one of the Cain books. In it, a squad of lasguns firing at the armor appears to do little more than chip the paint: one suit is only destroyed when Jurgen uses a meltagun(anti-tank weaponry) on it at essentially point blank range. Another suit is destroyed by multiple antivehicular weapons and tanks all blasting it at once, though this is noted as being overkill.

    Quite possibly a better example is the rush at the end, where five World Eaters go through several defensive lines located inside a water based ship. It's noted that the positions have heavy weapons such as bolters, and are manned by fanatics. Yet, despite these excellent conditions for defense, the World Eaters tear through them with only one casualty, who was only wounded by a Krak grenade (he is killed when Cain stabs his chainsword into the hole created by the grenade).

    Also, Guardsmen tactics aren't exactly a known figure: there is at least one book where the guardsmen are shocked to discover a PDF using what are obviously WW1 tactics(well, the bad kind). And there are others where the human wave approach is used.
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    I still say that even without Lasguns being superior- Even just by virtue of having Carbines as standard equipment for its troops, the IG is hugely ahead.
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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by ChaosLord29 View Post

    To your quips regarding bolters being overrated, they are indeed explosive, but they are also rocket propelled. The blasting cap on the rear of the casing of the 'bolt' ignites a miniature rocket which is what accelerates the explosive round out of the barrel and maintains it's flight through the air. They don't lose force the further they travel, until the rocket is expended, and when they impact with something, it's why they keep going rather than simply expending their kinetic energy. That's why 'bolts' have such raw kinetic force, penetrating power, and let's not forget, they explode once they are inside you
    Yeah, Covenants have Needlers.
    They ignore armor: only shields block them. Without that protection you kaboom.

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tavar View Post
    Example of the stress Power Armor can go through is found in The Traitor's Hand, one of the Cain books. In it, a squad of lasguns firing at the armor appears to do little more than chip the paint: one suit is only destroyed when Jurgen uses a meltagun(anti-tank weaponry) on it at essentially point blank range. Another suit is destroyed by multiple antivehicular weapons and tanks all blasting it at once, though this is noted as being overkill.

    Quite possibly a better example is the rush at the end, where five World Eaters go through several defensive lines located inside a water based ship. It's noted that the positions have heavy weapons such as bolters, and are manned by fanatics. Yet, despite these excellent conditions for defense, the World Eaters tear through them with only one casualty, who was only wounded by a Krak grenade (he is killed when Cain stabs his chainsword into the hole created by the grenade).

    Also, Guardsmen tactics aren't exactly a known figure: there is at least one book where the guardsmen are shocked to discover a PDF using what are obviously WW1 tactics(well, the bad kind). And there are others where the human wave approach is used.
    I agree on both counts. In Storm of Iron and Lord of Night, the lasfire is illustrated to do little more than scratch Power Armor, and even concentrated shotgun fire from a platoon of troops is only effective when it manages to hit a joint. Only artillery fire or the bolters of other Space Marines demonstrate a general effectiveness against either heretic or loyalist Space Marines.

    As for Imperial Guard tactics, it's unfair to assume they are the equivalent of WWI commanders ordering their troops over the top to be mowed down by incoming fire. They are more or less organized like a modern military, with the exception that they have a much greater tolerance and threshold for what are considered 'acceptable losses'. I think the most apt comparison would be the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, who had some of the best soldiers in the war, but were constrained administratively by a totalitarian regime (which also tolerated greater losses in the field).
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
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    • Collateral Damage Man is not an appropriate concept for a super hero.
    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Quote Originally Posted by Starbuck_II View Post
    Yeah, Covenants have Needlers.
    They ignore armor: only shields block them. Without that protection you kaboom.
    IF you get hit by a whole clip at once, otherwise it's pretty safe to ignore, really.

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    Default Re: The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

    Are the properties of the needler ever explained? I always felt like the "If you land six shots it's an instakill, if less it's no damage" thing was always more a gameplay mechanism.
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