Exactly, I've played the table top for years and when I play IG vs marines of any sort I only tend to have about 3 to 4 units on foot (and those will include command units with power fists and force field generators). The rest are Ogryns for close combat, Chimera units for claiming objectives, Leman Russ demolishers and Earthshakers and over 20 Lascannons in secure points adding Sentinals with multimeltas for taking down terminators.
I don't think so mate. They're explosives, but they're no RPGs. Why yes, but we were talking about a frontal shot that would literally throw the Guardsmen from his knees. Now imagine what a boltround to the chest may to do you. If I may give you a hint: It's not pretty. Keeping this in mind, if we'd add Guardsmen to the game they would have to survive a few boltrounds to the groin - not because their flak jackets are so great or because the TT gives them one number or another, but because otherwise we'd have to forcefully limit the number of spehs mehrens and CSM, and this would lead to such intense whining that a new Chaos God would be born. Again. Ogryns imho would be a very nice solution to the IG melee problem. You can have power armour, be a burly Ork or an agile Eldar, but a pissed off Ogryn still is an enemy to be reckoned with.
Same, I have two guard armies myself. Problem is translating an army that is really all about armor into something that is heavily focusing on melee combat and infantry combat it becomes a problem.
Sorry, I guess you missed my edit: If that were true, they would not bother having grenades. They would just shoot the ground. I highly doubt bolter fire explodes with enough force for the concussive blast to damage someone who wasn't even hit. If that were true, each shot would take out 2-5 of almost anything.
Actually it does, there are a few mentions of it happening one being Horus Heresy No Know Fear during the start of the Word Bearers ambushes.
It has to be pretty close, at least from what I've read of it. It will pulp the organs of normal humans if they're really close to the impact but it will probably at least stagger anyone moderately close.
Yes, a direct hit from a bolt round would do a lot of damage to a guardsman. Which is why I am saying that the armour is likely designed to deflect the shots, rather than try to absorb all the impacts. I may be wrong of course, and they may have come up with entirely different justification. As well, I would like to point out that by all this logic, Eldar and Orks should also both be killed by a single bolter round, no matter what. You guys keep talking about how fragile guardsmen are, and yet nobody is saying Tau or Eldar shouldn't be included, and they have the same average armour/toughness.
Ya, in the literature it gets kind of weird with the details of a bolter round. But that could be because Space marines are more prone to fight tougher things then normal humans.
It's not really weaponized plot armor, it's mentioned in passing that some of the humans had their organs pulped from the force of the bolter impacts. It's mentioned a few times in the Word Bearers Omnibus and I think some of the Space Marine Battle Novels and one of the Horus Heresy books (I'll get back to you on that).
