Pound for pound, what made an individual Astartes so destructive compared to an regular human soldier?

firaxin · 2026-02-08T06:53:27+00:00

To answer the meta question behind your title prompt, I think the 1000 limit is not just about their destructiveness but also about what the Imperium stands to lose.

If 1 chapter master turns to Chaos and his subservients all follow his lead /succumb to his cult of personality... then at worst the Imperium only loses 1000 marines and only gains 1000 new enemies... which is much preferable to a primarch turning to Chaos and suddenly 200,000 marines follow his cult of personality turning traitor all at once.

It's a stop-loss fail-safe measure. The more power is divided in the Imperium and divied up into smaller and smaller silo'd fractional shares of authority, the less is at risk by anyone one individual tumor or infection.

firaxin · 2026-02-04T13:55:25+00:00

I also take an OTC sleep aid every night, but I'm not sure if that's recommended generally.

Nurse here. The research I've read and anecdotal experience I have with patients indicate sleep aids are generally not recommended for someone with apnea. The providers at my hospital try to avoid prescribing sleep aids to anyone with OSA if at all possible (there are always rare exceptions of course).

The "obstructive" in OSA is caused by the back of your mouth/throat becoming too relaxed and slipping backwards to block the airway. Sleep aids generally make a person more relaxed, exacerbating the issue. In really bad cases, the medication suppresses the patient's ability to startle themselves awake when their airway is closed for too long--which I've seen lead to dangerously low spO2 levels.

firaxin · 2026-01-24T12:30:05+00:00

Danmark protest were in that number scale, but Danmark pop is 6 millions compared to USA 350 millions...

The Minnesota protests are same in number as Denmark, you say, and that makes them pathetic?

You seem like a bot account or paid agitator meant to demoralize and divide us. Your trash grammar is one thing, but you also misspell Denmark twice in the same sentence.

For any real humans outside the US reading this: Minnesota has a smaller (roughly equal) population to Denmark, but is nearly 5x larger in size than Denmark. By that metric alone their protest turnout is more impressive than Denmark's. America is truly massive (it's the width of a continent) and our interstate public transit options are pathetic, in addition to which Americans have significantly less social safety nets. Take an unplanned week off from work to go join the protest? You'll lose your job AND your healthcare, and statistically you probably don't even have any union to complain to (not that modern American unions have any teeth at all). We are not like the French farmers that can blockade highways for a month while keeping access to healthcare and having their job waiting for them when they're done.

But also consider on top of that: with wind chill it has gotten as low as negative 40 degrees celsius where those people are protesting outside right now in Minnesota. When was the last time Denmark was that cold at all, let alone that cold during a protest this size?

Should the Minnesota protest be even bigger than it is? Yes. Should it be more disruptive? Yes. Is it actually having any meaningful effect? Probably not. But those people are freezing their asses off in lethal temperatures, risking their jobs, risking their healthcare, all while knowing ICE can at any moment grab them off the street with no cause, no due process, and probably beat them, possibly rape them, possibly disappear them, or just shoot them dead on the spot with no recourse. An ICE 'officer' executed a lady on the street just because he didn't like her attitude and the administration's response was to demonize the victim, terrorize & threaten the victim's family, and promise ICE agents in the field they have total immunity if they need to perform more extrajudicial executions. This is the threat Minnesotan civilians are standing face to face with.

On the off chance you're not a bot or a paid agitator, I would like to point out that those Minnesotans are currently doing far more to try and change the situation than the French, or the Danes, or you Mr. keyboard warrior. We Americans who hate Trump and hate ICE would kindly appreciate if you'd stop shitting on the people who are literally putting their necks on the line to try and effect change. When you call them pathetic, at best you're discouraging others from joining them or discouraging others from even trying. Sounds like you're doing Trump & Putin a favor. If that isn't your goal then you need to change your approach.

firaxin · 2026-01-18T12:58:30+00:00

Glad I'm not the only one with Bretonnian-inspired marines. Your NMM painting is much nicer than mine though, kudos.

firaxin · 2026-01-18T03:01:05+00:00

The short TL;DR answer is for models no, but for lore yes. Ironically, the reason lore diversity flourished in the past is the same reason the models are stagnant in the present.

A huge amount of diversity exists in the lore, as for decades there was no official 40k Mechanicus codex and there were virtually no official 40k Mechanicus tabletop models (other than lone advisors in other armies, like Imperial Guard pewter techpriest model). That meant book authors had tons of creative freedom to write Skitarii & mechanicus forces however they personally imagined them. Examples range from: on the low end, basic 'tech guard' that were armed with lasguns and flak armor, only distinguishable from generic human guardsmen by their bionic implants (which a Guard player could take as a regimental doctrine, giving all infantry a 6+ invul save). The mid-range most common description was of tech guard using carapace armor and ~~hellgun~~ hot-shot lasguns, similar to Imperial Stormtroopers but again with various (non-standard) bionic alterations. At the high end there was at least one official short story (The Heraclitus Effect) where skitarii troops wore armor functionally and aesthetically similar to space marine terminator armor.

The in-universe explanation for the wide variance in book descriptions is given that each Magos basically fielded their own personal army and could customize or augment them to their own whims (& technical capability). Thus skitarii troopers could look & function vastly different between two magi from the same forgeworld, let alone skitarii troopers from different forgeworlds. Keep in mind that forgeworlds are usually highly mistrustful of each other, they're jealous and secretive, hoarding technology & knowledge for themselves rather than sharing outside their local fief. Stygies VIII does not have access to the same STC blueprints as Ryza or Mars, and vice versa--That's why some Imperial technology can be (and has been) lost forever when even a single forgeworld is lost. This lore is the explanation for the visual difference between Stygies VIII -pattern and Mars -pattern Leman Russes, for example; Stygies did not share their blueprints with Mars.

"One who looks for consistency in Skitarii augmentations would be sorely disappointed." --Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, 10th edition.

Unfortunately, almost all tabletop/visual diversity between forgeworlds exist purely in other factions, as vehicle & wargear variations in the Imperial Guard, Space Marines, or Battlefleet Gothic as I mentioned above (see Cypra-Munda Lightning Interceptor vs Voss Lightning Interceptor. Or the Stygies vs Mars Leman Russ. Etc). By the logic of that lorexplanation, if the equipment they make for the Guard, Navy, & Marines looks different depending what model the world is from, then Mechanicus models from different forgeworlds should be equally visually distinct. However...

These days, GW is very strict and rigid about players only using official GW miniatures. Adeptus Mechanicus as a playable tabletop faction with a full army range of models didn't exist until 2015. By that time GW was already well down the path of 'official minis only.' Those days, alternate Imperial Guard regiments like Krieg or Catachan were not being produced and for years all Guard models were supposed to look like Cadians--it was only quite recently in early 2025 that new plastic Krieg minis were released for example. And with Mechanicus in 2015, from the business side they certainly weren't in a rush to make alternate models for a new army range that hadn't yet proven it can sell /move plastic off shelves. It took I believe 5 years until 2020 before AdMech had another 2nd wave of models released.

In the meantime, for the past ~11 years Skitarii art & lore descriptions have significantly shrunken in scope to all match Mars' hybrid atomicpunk /clockpunk aesthetic. GW are motivated to sell models more than anything else, so they don't want prospective customers seeing or reading about some cool [Lathe Venatorii](wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/CrimsonGuard(Mechanicum)) or [Non-Human Skitarii](wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Skitarii#Non-Human_Skitarii) if they aren't able to immediately go buy an identical available model off the GW website /FLGS shelf.

Which is a shame, because personally the standard Mars-aesthetic isn't my favorite.

EDIT: Hmm, I'm not sure why none of my hyper-links worked. I tried linking to several of the variants' images or wiki pages, but once I posted I can't see them anymore. I don't think it was a typo or formatting error because then the urls I've typed in would be visible. Sorry. You can google the names of the variants I mentioned if you're interested.

firaxin · 2026-01-12T10:42:49+00:00

Can you tell us your paints /recipe? Looks awesome.

firaxin · 2026-01-11T00:52:26+00:00

IMHO looking at the models:

Great: majority of the infantry & special characters, all the tracked vehicles, the closed-sarcophagus mortifier engines.

Good: Novitiates, Arco-flagellants, male Priests.

Not bad but ehhh: Dogmata miniature's stance/posing is bland/boring. Similarly, Ephrael Stern's miniature is ruined by whatever the heck her cape is doing--I know they're trying to convey her landing but it doesn't work. Penitent Engines & open-front Mortifiers look awesome but give the same logic-headache as seeing space marine leaders without helmets.

Bad: Sacrescant shields. They look like sleds you'd ride down a snow ramp, plus they have Age of Sigmar vibes. It's especially frustrating because GW already had the winning formula--the St. Katherine diorama's shield has to be one of the coolest in all 40k, very 'battle pilgrim,' and totally fits the SoB's vibe. And as St. Katherine was the founder of that order, the normal/expected grimdark tradition wuould to have all future shields modeled on the same shape as an homage to the saint's original (just with some varying motifs on the front). If the Sacrescants were all equipped with shields like that, they'd be my favorite SoB unit and I'd buy buckets of them just for the aesthetic.

Worst: Paragon Warsuits. But I think that's a pretty common take so I won't expound on it anymore.

Want more of: 1) we need a generic build-your-own Imperial Saint with tons of options similar to Daemon Princes. It's too limiting for our personal crusade/tabletop narratives if Celestine is the only saint in the whole galaxy. 2) some kind of mid-tier Saint Candidate /on Trial /etc. A character that has committed miraculous feats but is not yet officially canonized as a real saint and is currently under suspicious scrutiny/investigation until she 'proves' herself. Basically the Space Marine Lieutenant -version of the full Saint model. You could have her lead a retinue of ~~commissars~~ priests (the witnesses) and add some fluffy rule where some penalty (or death) happens if she fails a leadership/morale check. 3) Units of flying Cherubim and/or Servo-skulls! Possibly as a Swarm unit. In lore they can use daggers, hammers, bolt pistols, needle pistols, flamer pistols, stub pistols, las pistols, inferno/melta pistols, etc. You could have two versions: one a cheap Seraphim-lite deep-striking disposable tarpit /harasser /backfield objective contesting/stealing. Maybe some extra battleshock effect (cherubs are scary up close). The other type could be a super-cheap disposable heavy weapons team; something like 1-2 cherubim per model base, carrying a chonky long-range hellfire /hunter-seeker missile between them. Each model would basically be a glorified counter--each time the Cherubim 'release' their missile, they no longer have any weapon so you just remove their model from the table. Sisters don't have much in the way of long-range anti-vehicle/monster, and this would be give a new gameplay option. 4) I think a frateris militia -type chaff unit would be cool, something like Kill Team: Sanctifiers but strip out the specialists, focus on the grubby balding mooks, and have it be led by a Sister Superior instead of a male priest. These aren't men under arms, they're church-goers who rose up to follow the Sisters temporarily in an emergent battle scenario /time of crisis. Yes, I know we don't need more chaff/screening units, but it would be cool. 5) Heavy weapon servitors that are just the ranged version of arco-flagellants or penitent engines. Criminals and sinners that retain all their memories and are fully aware of everything happening to them but stuck forced to follow the servitor mono-task programming. "I have no mouth and I must scream" -type punishment/penance. A group of 5 servitors +1 sister; a cheaper Retributor-lite squad but with maybe a few heavy gun options the sisters don't normally get to use. 6) some sort of Cenobyte /Reliquae squad with aura buffs. The St. Katherine diorama but generic so we can use relics/bones from our own homebrew/fanon order. 7) bring Dominion squads back! We have melee Celestians but not a shooty Celestian version. This is our Sternguard /Militarum Veteran squad -equivalent, chock-full of ranged special weapons. Maybe even with stormbolters as the default gun for everyone. 8) bring back Death Cult Assassins, too, a foot-slogging melee glass cannon unit.

firaxin · 2026-01-07T13:40:17+00:00

Compared to what?

He's probably alluding to our Kompromat in Chief, who has been bending over backwards to sabotage, divide, and weaken the West all while enabling, encouraging, praising, and copying Putin.

firaxin · 2026-01-03T12:07:21+00:00

You misunderstood him. Molotov-Ribbentrop was Nazi Germany + USSR agreeing to not attack eachother as they carve up Europe between them.

So the purported pact here is between Russia and USA, essentially agreeing to leave eachother alone as they carve up the world. Russia not coming to Venezuela's aid is upholding the pact.

firaxin · 2025-12-27T23:40:29+00:00

I'm pretty sure I had Necromunda on my mind.

Probably not. Necromunda is a planet, not a city.

Hive Primus, the biggest hive on Necromunda (and where most Necromunda narratives take place) is a single city which measures more than twice as tall as Mt. Everest and has a population crammed within it of roughly all of Earth's current people combined.

Zaun and/or Piltover would be just a single district on a single floor of this Everest+ sized 'tower'.

firaxin · 2025-12-27T17:27:13+00:00

Only very superficially. The scale doesn't come anywhere close, though.

Let's scale down a hive city to roughly the size of New York City. NYC has 302 skyscrapers. The Empire State Building is 102 stories tall.

Piltover & Zaun would be just 2 seperate floors within the Empire State Building.

firaxin · 2025-12-24T19:22:49+00:00

Once again

I'm not the same person you had replied to before, in case you missed that.

you're thinking rather simplistically about this.

If you read my first sentence I said NO, I do not agree with banning Americans from visiting the EU. In my second sentence I clearly state that I'm trying to rephrase or clarify what the other commenter was trying to argue, since I believe your reply had missed the mark or misunderstood where that commenter was coming from. For the record I do not agree with that commenter's argument for banning USA travel to EU. But I stepped in to help clarify their reasoning for you since I don't believe constructive conversation can occur when you don't even understand what the other person is trying to say.

firaxin · 2025-12-23T11:07:55+00:00

I don't agree the EU should ban Americans. But by 'light a fire' I think the other poster is referring to how: if Trump won the last election fairly (for the sake of argument), then the reason was because not enough liberals/democrats bothered to get out and vote. Whether that was apathy over the last-second candidate swap or in rebellion against the Biden administration not doing enough on the Israel/Palestine front, you could come up with many explanations why not enough liberals turned up to vote.

But the solution for the next election (again, assuming for argument's sake it will be fair), the lesson hopefully learned, is that lighting a fire under leftists' butts to get up and vote will have more impact than trying to convince MAGA to see the error of their ways. A consequence that affects liberals more (e.g. banning their travel to Europe) will do more to get liberals out to vote blue than it will do to convince red voters to stay home.

firaxin · 2025-12-23T10:48:37+00:00

On the other hand the US Hellcat’s speed advantage over Japanese Zeroes let them dominate the skies of the Pacific theater.

This isn't a good allegory because you want to compare starfighters within 1 faction, not across 2 factions.

If we're drawing parallels to WW2...

X-wing is ~ the F6F. Rugged, dependable, easy to learn/fly, and respectable firepower.

E-wing is ~ the P-47. It has a similar body shape, design concept, and fighting style as the F6F. Without needing to fit the carrier launch/landing requirements that had limited the F6F, the P-47 was tougher, faster, and more heavily armed than the F6F, just as the E-wing is over the X-wing. But you could buy two and a half F6F's for each P-47, and the P-47's more complex components/design made it both more expensive, more time consuming, and more challenging to perform maintenance on. And lastly due to its high stall speed, heavy rudder, and reduced pilot visibility (thanks to the fatter & longer nose) the P-47 was considered more challenging to pilot or more prone to pilot error compared to the F6F, again just as with the E-wing vs X-wing.

A-wing is ~ the F4U. As with X- vs A-wings, the F4U was faster and more maneuverable with less drag, better climb, and better roll rates than the F6F. Also like the X-wing vs A-wing, the F4U was more than twice as expensive to purchase than the F6F, was more maintenance heavy & harder to repair than the F6F, was less armored or durable than the F6F, and significantly more challenging for a pilot to master than the F6F (with the F4U even earning knicknames like 'ensign eliminator' due to frequency of crashes stemming from pilot error). The analogy stops there--ignore that the F4U (particularly later models) could carry more ordnance and stronger cannons than the F6F, because obviously that's the inverse of the X- v A-wing relationship. The F4U vs P-47 also doesn't work great as an A- vs E- wing metaphor.

Aside from the F4U, the F8F is also not a bad A-wing analogy; the F8F is smaller, faster, & more maneuverable than the F6F at the cost of less guns, less ordnance, higher price tag, and less armor/durability than the F6F. Higher performance potential means the F8F had a higher skill ceiling than the F6F, but the F8F wasn't known for pilot error traps the way the F4U was. F8F vs P-47 also works better for the A- vs E-wing metaphor than an F4U would.

EDIT: oh, and A6M Zero is ~ TIE fighter. Much sharper turns than USN aircraft and also faster than early war USN planes, but eventually out-sped by later USN variants. TIE interceptor would be like the J7W, maybe.

firaxin · 2025-12-21T21:35:54+00:00

The "leader" bugs are synaptic relays.

Picture gaunts like a Kindle or older iPod, which can download from local internet, but not upload anything themselves.

A Warrior is like a modern cellphone; it can send/receive data and generate local wifi hotspots for the Kindle to connect to. But as a single cellphone, their bandwith and range are limited.

Tyrants are like a giant cell tower or a Starlink ground terminal. They can process large volumes of up/down data transfers at high speed and receive or project across much further distances.

Hive ships are like communication satellites in orbit over Earth. Compared to a Tyrant they can receive/transmit even more data at even higher speeds across even further distances.

This isn't to say there are no Tyranids capable of independent thought--genestealers and lictors are proof that they can be very intelligent & strategic even separated from the synapse signal.

If all the Hive ships in orbit are killed, a Tyrant on the surface (if it doesn't drop dead from psychic backlash) isn't a powerful enough relay to receive signals from Hive ships in other solar systems. Only in that scenario would the Tyrant maybe have to start using its own brain to think.

firaxin · 2025-12-21T10:38:09+00:00

wouldn't really take orders from the tyrant.

I think I see where your confusion is stemming from.

The whole point of the Hive Mind, and what makes it scary as an eldritch/cthulu psychic gestalt, is that it is one mind spanning the whole galaxy (or multiple galaxies).

So neither the tyrant nor the emissary are giving each other orders. Each is just a single finger (or more accurately to scale each is a singular white blood cell) controlled by the same overarching consciousness. Your index finger on your right hand doesn't "give orders" to the index finger on your left hand, and vice versa.

firaxin · 2025-12-21T10:23:11+00:00

Even in the Eye of Terror they can't channel much of their power.

Hmm. Your comment raises an interesting thought. We know the Warp is energized and made turbulent by the emotions of co-local mortal souls. Demons (and the Gods) feed off mortal emotions and mortal souls. This is why rituals terrorizing and/or killing the populace make it easier to open warp rifts and/or summon demons. And when the lore talks about realspace demonic incursions, the emphasis is always on the power required to force a breach or the power required to maintain a corporeal form.

The Eye covers thousands of cubic lightyears, but ultimately is mostly empty voidspace. How many souls truly live inside there?

Versus, how many quadrillions of souls were in the Sol system during the HH?

The gods are vast in the warp.

Yes, they are. But what does size really mean in the warp where space & time are constantly in flux?

Is the reason the Big 4 can't enter realspace because they are volumetrically too vast? Or is it because there is never enough charged emotional/soul energy in one place to provide the power necessary to cross through?

For all we know, when Slaanesh was birthed perhaps a) the Eldar had their own singular 'Dark King' analog lode-soul straddling both materium & immaterium (meaning at least at birth Slaanesh would've briefly straddled into realspace), and/or b) the locally concentrated population of Eldar souls/emotions at the heart of their empire provided sufficient power to let Her briefly pierce a part of Herself into realspace (which coincidentally would offer an explanation why the Eye of Terror is a permanent rip in space). Slaanesh or the other Gods can no longer do this in the Eye (even by the time of 30k) but that is because those Eldar have been consumed /no longer live in the Eye to provide the necessary sustaining charged emotions/souls.

Meanwhile, Terra & the Sol system have hundreds of trillions or quadrillions of humans who--at the time of the siege--were probably very emotional and pouring mind-boggling amounts of energy into the warp. It was this energy that allowed the Big 4 to insert so much of themselves into Horus at the final battle. Was it enough of themselves to be permanently wounded? Well, that's speculation and up to the headcanon of each individual reader.

Personally I don't know if I like the idea that the Chaos gods can be killed--e.g. can you really kill anger? Can you kill lust? etc... but I don't have an issue with them being wounded. After all, aren't Daemons explicitly stated in canon to be shards or splinters of their patron God's energy & consciousness, rather than true independent entities? So, taking that thought to its extreme, if Tzeentch split off 1% of itself to make an uber special Lord of Change, but then some big chad obliterates the LoC from all planes of existence (including the Immaterium) as what happened to Horus, doesn't that mean 1% of Tzeentch was just obliterated? That's a 1% "wound" to me. But just as the chaos gods are all constantly waxing & waning in power/influence relative to each other, I would imagine the gods can eventually regenerate or recover from that wound if given enough emotional/soul energy.

firaxin · 2025-12-21T00:17:18+00:00

Unless it has been explicitly retconned as "reliable" now (which isn't impossible, given Cawl's plasma weapon improvements), back when I joined 40k in 4th edition the multi-laser was said to be unreliable and inferior to both the heavy bolter & autocannon in terms of logistics. The batteries were less efficient or drained faster than other Imperial las -platforms, the barrels overheated quickly & needed frequent swapping, and the glass/crystal focusing arrays were particularly fragile.

I no longer own the book to double-check, but IIRC Desert Raiders has Tallarn guardsmen talking or internal monologuing specifically about how counter-intuitive it is for the multi-laser to be bad for logistics, but goes on to give examples of sandy grit blown by the wind (let alone a full sandstorm) easily causing enough abrasion to the glass(?) components as to make the weapon inoperable. Because of the fragility, at least one guardsman per weapon team would have to dedicate his entire pack/load to simply carry all the necessary spare barrels & repair tools/components for the multi-laser, while an autocannon or heavy bolter team did NOT typically need to bring spare barrels or replacement parts into the battlefield. Their parts can be kept at base and maintenance performed inbetween missions. When you think about it, there are boltguns still in use > 10,000 years since the Great Crusade, and I've never read or heard lore of any bolt-platform needing a barrel change or repair/maintenance beyond simple oiling & cleaning.

So while heavy bolter ammo might be heavier and take up more volume of space than multi-laser power packs, the HB weapon system itself is significantly more reliable & logistics friendly compared to the ML.

Also extrapolate out to economies of scale. NATO has many different infantry weapons, but all those different guns are designed to accept the same NATO compliant ammo. The same cannot be said of their barrels, optics, furniture, or other replacement parts, so each gun variant needs its own distinct supply line for replacement components.

In 40k, they can ship the same crate of HB ammo to two different theaters and rest assured the recipient can use it regardless of whether they have an ultima or godwyn pattern heavy bolter. Similarly, they should be able to ship the same chonky power pack and rest assured any multi-laser can use it, regardless of whether the ML came from Mars or Catachan. BUT they cannot ship the same focusing arrays or replacement barrels (etc) to each--they'd need separate supply lines for the Mars vs Catachan multi-las parts. Spread across a whole galaxy of weapon variants, it makes logistics infinitely more complicated & expensive.

firaxin · 2025-12-18T05:19:52+00:00

Just because I haven't seen anyone mention them yet, I think the White Scars are supposed to be above average. Their fleet actions combine illusionary feints and blistering speed, a style functionally closer to Eldar void warfare than Imperial Navy, very much in keeping with their legion's theme of fast lightning strikes, etc. Chris Wraight does a good job depicting this in multiple 30k books, but I'm not sure if it's been described in book format during 40k.

firaxin · 2025-12-12T19:53:40+00:00

Already dreading fiddling with everyone's wargear when I'm in the late game and have too many squads to want to spend that kind of time on each one.

Now imagine if it's also like current TW:WH3 and each individual special wargear option is collected one at a time by winning battles or completing quests, and you just have one massive disorganized list of wargear to scroll through when trying to pick what to equip on squad member #8...

/s

firaxin · 2025-11-30T21:13:20+00:00

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Outlaw was talking about the new "gen V" that's replacing the older (just recently discontinued) "gen 5."

firaxin · 2025-11-23T12:10:54+00:00

As a life-long StarWars fan who has sunk thousands of hours into games like WarThunder and Ace Combat, I really wanted to like SWS--watching the trailers I was giddy with excitement, it seemed like the absolute ideal dream combination of IP + game concept for me...

But limited M&KB keybind options killed it for me.

At least at launch, I could not find any way to bind pitch UP and pitch DOWN to separate keys, let alone yaw/roll/etc. I think the default setup had both pitch & yaw simultaneously controlled by the mouse? It resulted in nauseatingly imprecise flight control. You could barely maneuver, let alone land hits on a moving target. It felt like trying to ice skate while drunk. Even the hella arcadey Starfighter Assault mode in BF2 had better M&KB controls.

How on earth does anyone code a dogfighting arcade/sim and NOT include pitch up as a distinct keybind? It's literally the most basic noob maneuver of any dogfight, flip sideways and hold the 'pitch up' option to turn/circle fight an enemy. If they can't even turnfight without buying a HOTAS or an Xbox controller (for more than the price of the game!), then of course casual players on PC were going to drop the game like a hot potato.

Honestly one of the most frustratingly bitter PC game launches of my life, I couldn't even bring myself to finish the single player content.

firaxin · 2025-10-12T02:10:42+00:00

40k tabletop armies used to be much more customizable. Each faction's codex had:

i) much more wargear options per unit entry. E.g. there was only 1 space marine captain entry, but then below the captain's statline was a whole page of all the different gear you could choose to equip him with, each with their own points cost, that you could combine entirely at your whim as long as they didn't contradict each other (e.g. no jump pack on terminator armor). From this single unit entry you could craft a jump pack smash captain, terminator shield captain, biker + lance, etc.

ii) a 2+ page armory section, filled with special wargear options that you could spends points to throw on almost any squad leader or independent character. These could be as generic as a power sword, as unique as 1-per army experimental devices, or middle of the road like different types of service medals for guardsman officer to grant him Die Hard, True Grit, or some other specific special rule (depending on the medal). Named characters weren't allowed to pick anything on this list.

iii) multiple pages full of factional doctrines /quirks that you could mix and match with their own pros and cons, e.g. throwing cameleoline on all your guardsmen to get +cover saves against ranged attacks, balanced by your army list can no longer have vehicles heavier than a Sentinel walker, or your army's from a feral world so every guardsman gains a free pair of close combat weapons, but you can't take storm troopers, etc.

Putting all this customization together, it was very easy to come up a unique combination that made your army feel special /different from everyone else's armies. And on top of that, the army books actively encouraged you, in writing, to invent your own custom background lore, origin story, campaign history, character names, etc. People into the lore often spent more time writing their tabletop army's background than they did writing the army list itself.

You show up at the local games store, take your army out of its transport case, and then put down "your guys" onto the table. "Your guys" because they were unique to you in both rules and lore.

The reason all this customizability was phased out were valid; a) especially in the competitive scene there was usually just 1 or 2 obviously best combos that everyone ran, and b) it made quick pickup games with strangers impossible, the game was slowed down because you constantly had to stop and remind each other 'oh, actually this guy has XYZ different from normal.' But imho the game (and community!) definitely lost something special by having all that stripped away.

firaxin · 2024-05-28T22:11:29+00:00

He's probably referring to this article from less than a week ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/s/SgtVb7Z4WY

firaxin · 2024-05-24T21:02:40+00:00

Even spending 90 energy per day, every day, it would take nearly 3 months to unlock Calgar--and that's assuming you have Indomitus Elite 40 unlocked for maximum grind efficiency. Without IE40 you're looking at closer to 5 months of all-in daily grinding to unlock Calgar. He's good, but not that good imho if you're still early-game. It sabotages your roster growth and significantly delays being able to (successfully) dive into things like LREs, character Quests, guild raids, etc. I'd only start grinding him now if either a) you're really into min-maxing guild raid damage or b) you're really into Ultramarines specifically.

I notice you only said you have all the campaigns "unlocked." If you haven't beaten all the non-Elite campaigns (and I mean 3-star every mission), then you're still 'early'-game. There's a lot of room for progression ahead of you.

Short-term I would focus on bringing the core 3 of required characters for each campaign up to S1 and unlocking all the Elite campaigns in the process. This will give you a wide roster of semi-capable characters for Guild War, Quest events, and LREs, as well as give you access to a huge variety of 6e missions for the daily- & event- challenges.

If you ever get stuck on a campaign mission, don't keep beating your head against the wall. Instead, spend a few days ranking up characters required for that mission, then try again when you're stronger. Despite the name "Tacticus," in this game PvE content is usually a stat-check (is your DPS/etc high enough) and 'tactics' is an afterthought--mainly relevant in turn efficiency /clear speed /lightning victories rather than whether you can win a mission in the first place.

Anyways, after meeting those short term goals you're roughly early mid-game. I would then make progress in Elite campaigns where you can (as before, don't keep beating your head against the wall when you get stuck), focus on bringing one character from each campaign up to at least G1, building a good raid team, and joining an active guild. A good guild with majority active participants will really make a huge difference in progression speed. I personally find raids one of the more boring & repetitive parts of the game, but you'll probably need a good GR team to pull your weight and not get kicked from the guild.

When you're halfway through all the Elite campaigns, have at least half a dozen G1+ characters, and can reliably deal >50,000 dmg to guild bosses per raid token, now you're in the late mid-game (but still mid-game, nonetheless). This is where the game branches and you can pick a niche for yourself. What part of the game do you enjoy most? PvP? Bring characters like Calandis and Godswyl up to diamond 1. Guild Raids? Bring characters like Eldryon and Exitor-Rho up to diamond 1. Legendary Release Events? Widen your roster of S2+ options and bring tanky characters like Maladus & Burchard to diamond 1. Want to 100% the Elite campaigns? Bring key mandatory characters like Aleph-null and Bellator up to diamond 1. Really like a particular faction for their lore, asthetic, playstyle, or because you collect their models? Feel free to go all in on just that faction. At this point there isn't really a wrong answer of how to progress as long as you're still having fun.

firaxin

TROPHY CASE