Quote from: Elliot Wilen;377357The original space marines are the mobile infantry of Starship Troopers. Now, they lack the religious fanaticism but they are crypto-fascist (in the book) or OTT-ironic fascist (in the original Verhoeven movie--can't say about the anime or any other incarnations). Either way, fairly plausible, if challenging to modern democratic ideals.

About Space Hulk: GW did a third edition, released last year, I think as a limited edition. You can still find copies if you're willing to pay. (Probably everybody knows this, but I'll mention it anyway. In fact SH was recently my first introduction to the 40K universe. Quite fun, but I'm never going to buy it--too pricey, I'm not into painting minis, and the set takes up too much space.)

You want to back up a little earlier to Smith's Lensman saga, actually, for space marines.  Starting with Galactic Patrol the titular character often had a unit of marines that, if rendered into visual form, would look a lot like 40K marines under his command or close at hand.  These guys were big on melee combat due to being used on boarding actions and assault actions (and having strong force field defenses).

40K is a very silly setting... chock full of dark humor. GW has been trying to pave over a lot of the silliness and just make it 'grim' but I've got no interested in that.
I've always played the space marines as a clone army of genetically modified humans... indoctrinated during their time in the jug to be religious fanatics.
Some few of them, destined for command, are allowed more free will.

That's why it always strikes me as wonky when people go on about wanting to play them in games of DH/RT. To my mind it would be like playing a lobotomized nun.

I really like 40K's setting... but only when it's allowed to stick to its 2000AD roots.
Lately I play Orks though... 'cause of their Big Daddy Roth hot-rod zaniness.

Quote from: winkingbishop;377364It also lives on the XBox 360.  I visited a buddy of mine a couple of weekends ago and he's like: Wanna play some Blood Bowl?  I said Hell yeah and he holds up the video game.  The mode we played is true to the tabletop game:

http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

Yeah.  The Xbox version is a horrible interpretation of the game.  They really botched it's release and now Cyanide has entirely dropped support for it.   On the surface it works pretty well, but get in a tournament or two and watch your players start shedding skills, not even skill ups but basic skills that they would have come with gone.  Best of all Cyanide can duplicate the problem and have refused to currently patch it.  All their development is moved to the new Legendary (PC Only) version of the game.  Which is also incompatible with the current generations.

I do play Blood Bowl on the DS, which isn't great but I let it slide because it's on the DS and it's more reliable then the xbox version.  The current PC version is pretty well done.  It's missing most of the bugs.  But there are still issues with some skills not working properly or not working properly in certain situations.

It's also unfortunate that the solo player AI is beyond bad.  I mean elf teams that run the cage instead of even trying for a passing play bad.

The PC multi-player though is pretty good, well assuming you don't face an opponent who would rather disconnect then take a loss or player death.  Sigh...

Nope the boardgame is still by far the best experience.

Quote from: kryyst;377374Nope the boardgame is still by far the best experience.

Well, shit.  Sounds like it.  Like I said, we just played round-to-round versus matches and it sure seemed an honest translation.  I don't know shit about tournament modes.

Sorry to shit all over the thread.  Space Marines don't suck - for a miniatures game.

Quote from: winkingbishop;377364It also lives on the XBox 360.  I visited a buddy of mine a couple of weekends ago and he's like: Wanna play some Blood Bowl?  I said Hell yeah and he holds up the video game.  The mode we played is true to the tabletop game:

http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

it actually got released for the 360?

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;377367You want to back up a little earlier to Smith's Lensman saga, actually, for space marines.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

Quote from: Premier;377268That's because the entire WH40k setting is, in fact, meant to be an absurd, insane, ridiculous, sarcastic parody.

Too bad this goes completely over the head of most fans.

I'd assumed it was obviously meant to be like that, in addition to combining the idea of a new "dark ages" in the future.

A lot of the 40k setting it at least loosely based on the dark ages, the rule of the Catholic church during them and so on.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;377280Are the Tau what we would consider good? Or just a more media friendly version of the Borg.

They were in their first edition. Later they were described as quietly exterminating any intelligent species they encountered who were small enough for them to conquer and who refused to join the "greater good", making them fit into the whole 40k universe mentality better.

Quote from: Cylonophile;377395They were in their first edition. Later they were described as quietly exterminating any intelligent species they encountered who were small enough for them to conquer and who refused to join the "greater good", making them fit into the whole 40k universe mentality better.

Ah.  I'd last taken a serious look at the Tau years and years ago.  Guess they were too goody goody for the WH4K universe after all.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;377403Ah.  I'd last taken a serious look at the Tau years and years ago.  Guess they were too goody goody for the WH4K universe after all.

 In a word, yep.

++ Be strong in your ignorance. ++

The Eldar always seemed like the 'good' guys to me... arrogant and self-absorbed but they're goal seems to be staying alive... vs. dominating the galaxy.

'course... they did start that whole 'eye of terror' thing... so... nevermind.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;377267I'm not being entirely serious.

But I'm curious as to how to create a Space Marine type organisation that can function outside the absurdity of the zealous dark millenium.

Anyone who wants a different take on some of the same themes as WH40K, should check out Christopher Moeller's Iron Empires comics. Volume 1 (aptly named Faith Conquers) has a theocratic space empire threatened by alien invaders (albeit of a far more insidious sort) and defended by brutal space marines in big powered armor suits, only making some sense.

There's already a RPG version. In fact, Burning Empires (the SF version of Burning Wheel) uses Iron Empires as its default setting, and they've even put out a system-agnostic setting book (Bloodstained Stars). I recommend the comic itself, though, as it's well-written and the art is very good.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;377378it actually got released for the 360?

It did but it's not worth it.  Horribly broken.  Taken all the actual bugs out of the equation there's just tons of stuff missing and bad choices in general.

Case in point Online games don't count against anything.  You get no exp from online games at all other then the satisfaction of I dunno watching your opponent disconnect if you beat him up for a couple points early in the game.

GAH gotta stop talking about it.  The frustration with it was horrible.  Luckily I traded it in and only lost $10 on it.

The blatant one-sidedness and elitism presented in this thread is genuinely pathetic.