The comparison between a Storm Trooper and a moder day spec ops is actually quite accurate. However, though modern day spec ops are trained in knife fighting and tend to have some notions of martial arts, their main form of attack consists of assault rifles, SMGs and pistols. Any spec ops will use melee combat only as a last resort or for silent elimination, and then only when supressed weapons are unavailable. I shouldn't need to point this out, but people being silently eliminated don't put up much of a fight. If they do it's not silent anymore. Regardless, though trained in melee techniques, they are not by any stretch masters of them. A competent duelist or a martial arts master will clean the floor with them in melee.

Also, I disagree that Storm Troopers should get Defense over Toughness. The Toughness aptitude represents superior physical fitness (which they have) while Defense represents training dedicated to, well, defense and Storm Troopers are not garrison units. They go in, kill everyone and get extracted so the regular footsloggers can do the unthankful task of actually holding the objective. That's why they get Offense. The Defense talents mentioned would also be obtained by giving the Storm Trooper Willpower, which I think more appropriate for reasons I've already mentioned.

Thaddux said:

Heavy gets good amount of strength, also there's nothing preventing you from using Heavy Bolter as improvised weapon. Weapon Specialist are veterans of the IG, they have WS to be your jack of all. The grunts are far more likely to engage in melee, and weapon specialist are just your grunts that survived a battle or two. He's put in his 15 hours, and then some. 

Manyfist said:

I'm not arguing that you can't use a heavy weapon as an improvised weapon, in fact, I encourage it.  But why would that mean that the heavy has an aptitude for melee fighting, or would be employed by the Guard to do that?  By that reasoning, you're saying that the stormtrooper should have the WS aptitude because he can batter somebody senseless with the butt of his hot-shot lasgun.

Back on the subject of defense, giving the stormtrooper that aptitude actually provides the benefits of both toughness and willpower, without including all of the useless chaff, such as the psyker talents.  Most of the toughness talents (and the toughness characteristic) pair up with defense anyway, so you're still only getting one aptitude towards those.  You could give the stormtrooper willpower, which gives them one aptitude on the fear-resistance talents, and one aptitude in the psyker talents, or defense, which does the same thing, but without the psyker stuff, and putting the maximum discount on dodge and hard target.

Defense gives the benefits of both toughness and willpower, but because it would replace both, still only gives one discount to the same talents.

And looking at it now, the stormtrooper doesn't really need strength, I mainly included that for cheap athletics because I figured they'd be doing a lot of abseiling.

So my (revised) main points in this thread summed up:

-Stormtrooper toughness aptitude should be replaced with defense.

-WepSpec and heavy are not melee specialists, even if the stormtrooper isn't either.

-Ogryns having an aptitude for ballistic skill is just plain wrong.

-Psykers having the strength aptitude is… just… whaaaa?

Thaddux said:

You're ovelooking an important aspect of the Willpower aptitude: it cheapens Willpower, which is the soldier's spiritual fortitude and quite important in the underwear-ruining universe of the 41st millenium. Additionally, as I already noted in an earlier post, the Storm Trooper already has more secondary aptitudes than any other class, which are arguably more desirable at char-gen because they cannot be acquired by any other means. Adding a fourth would be too much. But as I also mentioned, I would only grant them Willpower as an addition in order to get them and other classes in line with those classes that have 7 aptitudes. I would't change any of their current aptitudes. 

Braddoc said:

The thing is, they do.

Offense Aptitude gives them a medium cost to buy both Weapon Skill and Strength. Between Finesse and Offense, there isn't a single offensive melee Talent they can't buy at a medium cost. Also, cheap Agi and medium Toughness.

Weapon Specialists also get medium cost to buy WS, but get Strength at the highest possible cost. They get cheap Agi, but expensive Toughness.

Assuming identical starting characteristics, spend several thousand exp on making both of them into melee combatants, and the Storm Trooper will come out better at both dealing and taking damage.

It's late now, maybe tomorrow I'll post a more accurate calculation, but the point is: ST is already a very good melee fighter. Keeping WS aptitude would make him a dedicated melee fighter and a decent shooter, surely it's meant to be the other way around for the guy whose main feature is being equipped with a kickass gun.

Firstly, there's a simple thing to recognize: As long as they have the same number of XP all PCs are supposed to be on even footing. There is no "elite" when it comes to actual traits. On average, the stormtrooper corps would certainly be better than the regular guardsmen (see their profiles in the wargame). However, we're neither playing average guardsmen nor average stormtroopers. We play guys that are on one level with each other, likely meaning the stormtrooper is relatively inexperienced for his kind. Thus, there's no "he's an elite soldier, he should be better than the other PCs".

Secondly, please provide examples where stormtroopers are explicitly used for behind-enemy-lines stuff. If I had to pick a single specialization for a commando, I'd say it's the weapon specialist, because that spec is just extremely broad in what it can describe. Stormtroopers are IMO heavy infantry, not special forces. In modern day armies, the term is AFAIK unused, but with 40k infantry being so extremely diverse in what they can take and deal out in punishment, I'd say it's warranted.

Cifer said:

In the TT Storm Troopers can, among other things, infiltrate and outflank. That is why, in my opinion, they were given both Fieldcraft and Stealth. Imperial Grenadiers are the heavy infantry, but Storm Troopers are commando units: small, extremely well equipped and subtle, capable of hitting where it hurts the most with surgical precision. Weapon Specialists can indeed be commandoes, and quite competent ones at that, but then again, they can be almost anything that involves killing people.

But yeah, I also assumed that the Stormtrooper would be a guy fresh out of the Schola and the Comissar a junior officer.

Cifer said:

Storm Troopers are highly-trained shock troops forming the elite force that is a Storm Trooper regiment. They are trained to carry out special operations such as deep strike assaults, reconnaissance, and infiltration beyond enemy lines.

The Lexicanum sources this passage with the Codex: Imperial Guard (5th Edition). Since I don't play the tabletop I can't verify that part but maybe someone else could do so.

Musclewizard said:

Just from my head, during Taros Campaign they were major part of kill-team send to eliminate Tau Ethereal (Imperial Armour IV), in flashbacks in  novel Imperial Glory they are peforming anti-insurgency ops against much more numerous rebelling Guard regiments and finaly in Redemption Corps, novel ABOUT Stormtroopers, they are doing nothing else.

 I agree about the Storm Trooper being inexperienced because of his equal footing to other players. We've been looking at the class as a Grenadier in training, you know, racking up his hours. This is also why I don't need him to wear the iconic carapace armor but that's neither here nor there.

As far as "what a Storm Trooper is" debate, here's a snippet from the 5th Edition Codex regarding Storm Trooper fluff:

"Storm Troopers are highly-trained shock troops forming the elite force that is a Storm Trooper regiment. They are trained to carry out special operations such as deep strike assaults, reconnaissance, and infiltration beyond enemy lines. Storm Troopers are the very best soldiers the Imperial Guard has to offer, being trained to the peak of human perfection, their combat skills are unmatched within the ranks of the Imperial Guard."

So does this mean jack-of-all-trades with decent close combat abilities to match their superior rifle training? Well it doesn't say that directly but the one thing that's clear is that these guys are trained to be "self-sufficient" and fight on their own detatched from everyone else. That might not demand the need for close combat skills but it also implies that Troopers could, in fact, be decent brawlers if the need came up. Just throwing this out there.

WittyDroog said:

Fieldcraft, Agility and Finesse give them either cheap or discounted access to anything a self-sufficient soldier might require, and Storm Troopers are currently decent brawlers. It's just that they're no longer awesome brawlers.

 And that would be sufficient in my book, giving players the option of having some close combat perks to compliment the rest of their combat qualities.

After checking the book, I believe I found out why the Storm Trooper is the dedicated sneaky-assassin career AND 'only' beings with a light carapace of good quality.

Why the assassin type? He Starts with stealth.

"So? The Ratling as well!" Just that the Ratling got to pick either Stealth or awareness. The Storm Trooper beings with stealth, no pick, they just do.

Now, refer to the armour section in the Armoury chapter, page 140 for those too lazy to check it out.

AP (Armour Points): How many Armour Points the armour
provides for the locations covered. Any armour that provides 7
or more APs inficts a –30 penalty on the wearer’s Stealth Tests.

Good quality Storm Trooper Carapace equals to AP7 (all) for the first attack, meaning as well that the Storm Trooper will be at -30 for all stealth tests.

And that is why he now starts with a good quality light carapace.  So he'll have AP6 everywhere, all the while being able to fonction as the sneaky close range assassin type.  You know, the contrary of the Ratling.  And miles behind enemy lines, contrary to the Weapon specialist who does all of his melee on the front line when his position is overrun by the enemy.

AP (Armour Points): How many Armour Points the armour
provides for the locations covered. Any armour that provides 7
or more APs inficts a –30 penalty on the wearer’s Stealth Tests.

Good quality Storm Trooper Carapace equals to AP7 (all) for the first attack, meaning as well that the Storm Trooper will be at -30 for all stealth tests.

Firstly, it's generally been held that only the regular AP of the armour count for the penalty, not AP through quality - especially since Best Quality armours even reduces the weight.
And secondly, almost everyone who advocates Storm Trooper Carapace rather than Light Carapace also says that it should be Normal Quality, thus essentially not changing anything beyond the AP 6 counting for every hit rather than for the first of the round.

 I agree, the basic AP stat in the book is guiding for the Stealth Penalty….so the penalties are Light Power Armour and up…generaly speaking