Space Marine OBAT Pt III (S40K) - Resilience and Fearlessness

There must be hundreds of books about the adventures of Space Marines, so their lore is rich and deep, especially when it comes to the manner of their creation.  Those books include all sorts of fabricated quotes from speeches and sermons, like this particularly famous one, in The Horus Heresy (Book One) - Betrayal:

They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear.

-  The Emperor of Mankind

Stirring, martial stuff, no?  Well, I enjoy military sci-fi and have read many such books (I'm currently occupied with Book Four of the Horus Heresy series as it happens) and the resilience and fearlessness of Space Marines are touched upon every couple of pages - particularly useful traits when writing heroic saga!

Space Marine recruits are not only instructed and taught in 'normal' ways, but they are also subjected to organ implantation surgeries and psycho-conditioning a process that takes years to conclude.   The resulting Space Marine is more than just a human being with extraordinary powers. 

Resilience

Yeah, that has got to hurt.

This process releases the latent powers that lie within all human minds and are, if anything, more extraordinary than even the physical powers endowed by the gene-seed implants.  For example, Space Marines can control their senses and nervous system to a remarkable degree, and as a consequence can endure injuries and the associated pain that otherwise would kill a normal man.

Skirmish Sangin uses two devices to simulate a soldier's resilience: hit points and a related, cumulative wound status.  A soldier can take a notional 12-points of damage without being outright killed.  As a soldiers are hurt, they become increasingly ineffectual and may even lose consciousness before being KIA.

So firstly Hit Points.  Normal humans have 13 in Skirmish Sangin and an Assault Rifle causes between 2-20 points of damage.   The mean Assault Rifle damage would Critically Wound an unarmoured human, leaving them incapacitated and 80% likely to lose consciousness.

Question: would an unarmoured Marine be similarly incapacitated if shot by an Assault Rifle?  I think that despite the extra lungs, heart etc, yeah, there is a real chance that an unarmoured Space Marine would die should an Assault Rifle be fired into them.   Thinking it through, maybe the easiest way forward is to increase a Marine's Hit Points by +3 Points and shifting the Wound Table's bands by the same amount.  It would look like this:

Human Damage	Wound	Space Marine Damage
1-3	Light Combat skills drop by 20%, -20% Morale	1-6
4-6	Medium Combat skills halved, 60% likely to remain conscious, and -40% Morale	6-9
7-9	Serious Combat skills drop to 10%, 40% likely to remain conscious, and -60% Morale	10-12
10-12	Critical Incapacitated and 20% likely to remain conscious	13-15
13+	Dead	16+

Importantly, injuries still (1) Cause morale tests for ally witnesses within 12" and knock the injured party prone - that might be used a bit figuratively when applied to Space Marines, reflecting the loss of Actions rather than literally being knocked off their feet.

That flow-on effect can be devastating to lower morale forces, but 

Fearlessness

Morale is an important mechanic in Skirmish Sangin.  During the course of the game, as a Unit is fired upon (regardless if they're actually hit or not) or witnesses their allies being injured, they acquire morale markers.  Upon a Unit being activated, if they have one or more morale markers, they're required to make a Morale test and failing the same can result in the Unit "Dropping Prone" (hitting the deck and forfeit their Actions), being "Pinned Down" (as per the previous and forcing a further Morale Test upon their next Activation or even surrendering) or "Retiring" (fleeing towards cover  + forcing a future Morale Test and even more likely to surrender).  There's a little more to the mechanics than that, with plenty of modifiers on the Morale Test accounting for nearby allies, cover, being fired upon by heavier weapons etc.

Given the game tends to the simulation-side of the gaming spectrum, the failed morale mechanics feel appropriate e.g., an Elite guy might crack and run without taking a single wound.  Unfortunately, that could make for a rather quick and boring game. I suppose that's one mechanic that isn't really working for me: Morale Markers influence the likelihood of a Morale failure (e.g., more shots directed at a Unit = more likely their Morale will fail), however, they have no bearing on the result of a Morale failure.  I wonder if there's merit in some sort of relationship between Markers and Morale Failure results e.g., upon a Morale Failure, more Morale Markers equate to more likelihood of relatively adverse outcomes?  I'll leave that for another day.

So some simple ideas for accommodating for Space Marines in this space:

1. Ignore 'fired upon' Morale Markers.  Marines just don't care if they're shot at, so being fired upon doesn't result in a Morale Marker.
2. Morale Markers are applied upon penetrating hits.  Shots that hit and don't penetrate, do not result in a Morale Marker

As to the Morale Rating/Factor of a Space Marine relative to a 'mortal' soldier, clearly, Marines would be more stoic, dependable and resolute.  Elite soldier's basic Morale is 90%, with NCO being +10% and +20% for Officers - so they max out at (90%+20%) 110%.  That sounds like a reasonable starting point.  The Experience Packages (e.g., Medic, Sniper) can buff morale further, so an NCO Space Marine's Morale might be (110%+10%) 120%.   That would seem like an easily implemented starting point.

So Space Marine Morale basic Morale is set at 110% and can buffed by the usual application of experience packages.