YMMV, they're not *that* godly compared to guarsmen and I am pretty sure a tank should reduce the SM to fine like pieces splattered all over the place. Or that a melta/plasma gun should remove most of their anatomy.
Bobthehero wrote: YMMV, they're not *that* godly compared to guarsmen and I am pretty sure a tank should reduce the SM to fine like pieces splattered all over the place. Or that a melta/plasma gun should remove most of their anatomy.
Your interpretation.
As valid as any other.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BrotherHaraldus wrote: People tend to assume that Marines are useless and weak due to their tabletop stats, but that is just one interpretation. In the Standard Bearer article of the WD where C:SM 5th ed was released, (I think it was that WD) that very issue was adressed. It was explained that the rules were not designed for a squad of Space Marines versus a massive horde of orks, even if that might be a fair match-up in the 'real' 40K, because it is a lot less visually exciting than masses of Space Marines fighting masses of Orks.
An important thing to keep in mind before you claim Marines are as useless as you think they are. They are few, but commonly fight in locations that are very important strategically and they apply such truly massive force concentration that they just outclass most other options the Imperium has. And when you gather a good number of them, they can just carve a path through pretty much any resistance. They simply blow other forces out of the water when they are allowed to do when they want to do. On the defense, you can imagine the Marines as a rock in a body of water. Sure, the body of water may be the size of a large lake, but it still won't shatter the rock. On the offense, they are like a scalpel cutting into an unfortunate Dark Eldar victim. Ouchy.
One is just as free to interpret them as obsolete useless propaganda-machines, of course. But that is not 'the one right path'.
Throwing out this again as it seems to be overlooked. Particularly the WD part.
No one has argued that point. They're an elite unit. They excel at rapid strikes at targets that aren't expecting the strike, for removing personnel, materials or infrastructure, and getting out again.
What they really aren't good at is a stand-up fight against a numerically-superior foe with equipment that is effectively equal to a boltgun.
Psienesis wrote: No one has argued that point. They're an elite unit. They excel at rapid strikes at targets that aren't expecting the strike, for removing personnel, materials or infrastructure, and getting out again.
What they really aren't good at is a stand-up fight against a numerically-superior foe with equipment that is effectively equal to a boltgun.
Debatable. Some are good at that. I think the imperial fists are good frontline troops because they get astartes quicker than most chapters, (mostly in due part because how else would they stay alive because in most lore they are the space marine punching bag.)
Bobthehero wrote: YMMV, they're not *that* godly compared to guarsmen and I am pretty sure a tank should reduce the SM to fine like pieces splattered all over the place. Or that a melta/plasma gun should remove most of their anatomy.[/quote
Actually space marine power armour is said to be able to take a glancing blow from a leman russ battle tank shell and terminator armour can simply shrug it off
And as for a melta plasma gun yes they would disintegrate power armour and most of a space marine but the rarity of such weapons is also a problem especially in guardsmen regiments
Psienesis wrote: No one has argued that point. They're an elite unit. They excel at rapid strikes at targets that aren't expecting the strike, for removing personnel, materials or infrastructure, and getting out again.
What they really aren't good at is a stand-up fight against a numerically-superior foe with equipment that is effectively equal to a boltgun.
Debatable. Some are good at that. I think the imperial fists are good frontline troops because they get astartes quicker than most chapters, (mostly in due part because how else would they stay alive because in most lore they are the space marine punching bag.)
We have evidence that Space Marines do not like to hang around for sieges, as this denies them most of their assets (speed, mobility, fear, surprise, etc). While the IF might be the best SM Chapter at siege warfare... that isn't necessarily saying much.
brother marcus wrote: I wounded quite a lot of them almost 2 were dead but yea I still only killed one.
And the rules were pretty spot on for what you read about marines
Yeah, not sure I can accept the implication that ten Marines can against an entire Tau force for an extended period and only lose one guy.
I don't even think that's how they're dpecited "in the fluff" overall, at least not that extreme. I've read plenty of stories where Marines have extremely good endurance and combat ability, but they still take casualties against numerically superior enemies.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: The 'movie marine' stats place each Marine at 100 points, and seem reasonable.
I may not be thinking of the same thing, but weren't those designed for Marines that would appear in Imperial propaganda movies? If that's the case, of course they'd be overstated.
Bobthehero wrote: YMMV, they're not *that* godly compared to guarsmen and I am pretty sure a tank should reduce the SM to fine like pieces splattered all over the place. Or that a melta/plasma gun should remove most of their anatomy.
Astartes have tanked meltaguns. Huron Blackheart says hello. As for tanks, it'll be destroyed before it can ever fire a shot, as even Assault Squads carry AT weaponry capable of popping a Leman Russ. Warhound Titans are completely vulnerable to squads once any shielding is popped, to the point a CSM killed one with a well-placed strike from a power sword.
And no, PA is completely invulnerable to a lasgun. Unless they stood in place and let a thousand guardsmen unload continuously, it's not going to penetrate due to the nature of ceramite being the best heat absorbent for armor in W40K after admantanium. Hellguns and Hotshots stand a chance of penetrating armor besides the heavily armored pauldrons with multiple hits, while plasma will most of the time penetrate, along with meltas. And even then there are Astartes that have survived plasma guns and meltas (which also as they are the Imperial Guard variants, weaker than standard arms for Astartes).
Wyzilla wrote: Astartes have tanked meltaguns. Huron Blackheart says hello.
He lost entire right side of his body, and only survived thanks to the combined efforts of a Lord Apothecary and a Forge Master. I would hardly call that "tanking it". If he wasn't in a position where his fellow Marines could retrieve and rebuild him, he would have been rather dead.
Wyzilla wrote: As for tanks, it'll be destroyed before it can ever fire a shot, as even Assault Squads carry AT weaponry capable of popping a Leman Russ.
Or the tanks will blow the Marines up before they get close enough! Also, I notice that you said that like it was an inevitability, as if tanks vs. Marines was a forgone conclusion.
Wyzilla wrote: Astartes have tanked meltaguns. Huron Blackheart says hello.
He lost entire right side of his body, and only survived thanks to the combined efforts of a Lord Apothecary and a Forge Master. I would hardly call that "tanking it". If he wasn't in a position where his fellow Marines could retrieve and rebuild him, he would have been rather dead.
Wyzilla wrote: As for tanks, it'll be destroyed before it can ever fire a shot, as even Assault Squads carry AT weaponry capable of popping a Leman Russ.
Or the tanks will blow the Marines up before they get close enough! Also, I notice that you said that like it was an inevitability, as if tanks vs. Marines was a forgone conclusion.
Normally average McMook gets full on vaporized by a melta.
And again, we have examples of Astartes versus armor. So long as they have their standard AT weapons such as meltaguns, lascannons, meltabombs, plasma guns/cannons, etc. The only time tanks lower than a Baneblade pose a massive threat is when they either catch a defensive line with its pants down or they've run out of ammo by fighting a whole previous line of armor. The advantage of Guard and Traitor Guard tanks isn't their quality, it's that there's more tanks than the ammo Astartes have for their guns.
Bobthehero wrote: YMMV, they're not *that* godly compared to guarsmen and I am pretty sure a tank should reduce the SM to fine like pieces splattered all over the place. Or that a melta/plasma gun should remove most of their anatomy.
Astartes have tanked meltaguns. Huron Blackheart says hello.
He was in Terminator armor, you know, the one with the force field and still he lost a good chunk of himself.
I am pretty sure a Leman Russ with MM sponsons, Battlecannon and hull Lascannon would be something Marines would be wary of.
Wyzilla wrote: Normally average McMook gets full on vaporized by a melta.
Though lying on the battlefield with half your body gone is hardly an ideal condition either. And Huron himself wasn't really the average Marine either. He's not exactly a valid standard for all Marines.
Wyzilla wrote: And again, we have examples of Astartes versus armor. So long as they have their standard AT weapons such as meltaguns, lascannons, meltabombs, plasma guns/cannons, etc.
That doesn't make it a forgone conclusion. The tanks could take out the Marines armed with the anti-tank weapons, the tanks could simply get luckier hits in, the tanks could be firing from further away than some of those weapons can reliably hit.
Wyzilla wrote: it's that there's more tanks than the ammo Astartes have for their guns.
Wyzilla wrote: Normally average McMook gets full on vaporized by a melta.
Though lying on the battlefield with half your body gone is hardly an ideal condition either. And Huron himself wasn't really the average Marine either.
Wyzilla wrote: And again, we have examples of Astartes versus armor. So long as they have their standard AT weapons such as meltaguns, lascannons, meltabombs, plasma guns/cannons, etc.
That doesn't make it a forgone conclusion. The tanks could take out the Marines armed with the anti-tank weapons, the tanks could simply get luckier hits in, the tanks could be firing from further away than some of those weapons can reliably hit.
Wyzilla wrote: it's that there's more tanks than the ammo Astartes have for their guns.
I think that's going a little far...
Not really. IIRC, most of the IG tanks are built via STCs, hence them being filled with tanks. They might vary in quality, but the production ability remains the same. There was one Company of a Chapter fighting traitor guardsmen that was nearly wiped out due to them being cut off from orbital assets and just ran completely out of ammo and could no longer fight.
Wyzilla wrote: Not really. IIRC, most of the IG tanks are built via STCs, hence them being filled with tanks.
Their tanks are filled with tanks? Did the engineer who made those STCs go by the name of Xzibit, by any chance?
Wyzilla wrote: There was one Company of a Chapter fighting traitor guardsmen that was nearly wiped out due to them being cut off from orbital assets and just ran completely out of ammo and could no longer fight.
Though it may not always go that way. All I'm saying is that tanks vs Marines isn't a forgone conclusion in favour of the Marines. A tank's gun can certainly kill Marines, and the Marines aren't always going to be able to take it down before it gets them frist.
And no, PA is completely invulnerable to a lasgun. Unless they stood in place and let a thousand guardsmen unload continuously, it's not going to penetrate due to the nature of ceramite being the best heat absorbent for armor in W40K after admantanium.
This. It is often underlooked, but the only real reason this is not displayed in the game is that nobody would buy a unit that has a weapon useless against the most common troops choice to encounter. As well as the reasons that I've quoted a few times, and that GW simply wants you to buy more SM.
Buuuut...
In all honesty, it has been very entertaining to have these discussions on Dakkadakka. Our local meta just interpreted the entire fluff as 'In fluff Marines are powerful enough to survive direct artillery hits and tank almost everything. That seems reasonable.', and never really gave too much thought to if anyone else would prefer it another way.
Before I came here, I certainly would not expect to find the opinions I did.
And no, PA is completely invulnerable to a lasgun. Unless they stood in place and let a thousand guardsmen unload continuously, it's not going to penetrate due to the nature of ceramite being the best heat absorbent for armor in W40K after admantanium.
This. It is often underlooked, but the only real reason this is not displayed in the game is that nobody would buy a unit that has a weapon useless against the most common troops choice to encounter. As well as the reasons that I've quoted a few times, and that GW simply wants you to buy more SM.
Buuuut...
In all honesty, it has been very entertaining to have these discussions on Dakkadakka. Our local meta just interpreted the entire fluff as 'In fluff Marines are powerful enough to survive direct artillery hits and tank almost everything. That seems reasonable.', and never really gave too much thought to if anyone else would prefer it another way.
Before I came here, I certainly would not expect to find the opinions I did.
Nothing's as crazy as the high end. High end marines are a 'do not touch' item by nearly anyone, considering Astartes with FTL speeds/reactions is just ridiculous for anyone.
Nope. He's just flat out making gak up, and going directly against the lore.
Even the best master-crafted power armor, the likes of which exists maybe once in a thousand years and is only used by heroes far too legendary for tabletop, is not "invulnerable" to lasgun fire.
And no, PA is completely invulnerable to a lasgun. Unless they stood in place and let a thousand guardsmen unload continuously, it's not going to penetrate due to the nature of ceramite being the best heat absorbent for armor in W40K after admantanium.
This. It is often underlooked, but the only real reason this is not displayed in the game is that nobody would buy a unit that has a weapon useless against the most common troops choice to encounter. As well as the reasons that I've quoted a few times, and that GW simply wants you to buy more SM.
Buuuut...
In all honesty, it has been very entertaining to have these discussions on Dakkadakka. Our local meta just interpreted the entire fluff as 'In fluff Marines are powerful enough to survive direct artillery hits and tank almost everything. That seems reasonable.', and never really gave too much thought to if anyone else would prefer it another way.
Before I came here, I certainly would not expect to find the opinions I did.
Nothing's as crazy as the high end. High end marines are a 'do not touch' item by nearly anyone, considering Astartes with FTL speeds/reactions is just ridiculous for anyone.
Well, we never did go that far. But it is kind of interesting, the insane in-universe power differences one creates by looking at it our way.
Nope. He's just flat out making gak up, and going directly against the lore.
Even the best master-crafted power armor, the likes of which exists maybe once in a thousand years and is only used by heroes far too legendary for tabletop, is not "invulnerable" to lasgun fire.
Power Armour is made out of ceramite, a ceramic material created by heating it to extreme temperatures. This creates a material that not only is extremely good at warding off heat, but that is darn near impossible to melt; you need some serious firepower (Close range meltashot, for example) to do that. The lasgun is a heat-based weapon, firing an energy beam that causes burn wounds- potentially rather severe ones on unarmoured targets- but it is still a heat based weapon.
Plenty of characters wearing power armor have been taken down by lasguns, yes, including Space Marines.
It is not a "hard counter" to lasguns any more than the sloped armor of a T-34 was a "hard counter" to the StuG's 75mm main gun. Sloped armor was excellent protection, but even a frontal shot could still take the tank out, especially after it's already taken hits. And that's only looking at a shot hitting its strongest area-- a good shot to the treads or turret will truly feth up the tank's ability to make war in some way or other, similar to lasguns hitting the joints of power armor or taking out its backpack.
Provide a source of Space Marines shrugging off LRBT rounds and tanking Lasgun shots. Actually, provide more than one source of this as Black Library novels have been known to... exaggerate a little.
Melissia wrote: Plenty of characters wearing power armor have been taken down by lasguns, yes, including Space Marines.
It is not a "hard counter" to lasguns any more than the sloped armor of a T-34 was a "hard counter" to the StuG's 75mm main gun. Sloped armor was excellent protection, but even a frontal shot could still take the tank out, especially after it's already taken hits. And that's only looking at a shot hitting its strongest area-- a good shot to the treads or turret will truly feth up the tank's ability to make war in some way or other, similar to lasguns hitting the joints of power armor or taking out its backpack.
Explain Orks, Astartes, Chaos Astartes, and the big Nids eating lasguns. Repeatedly. In fact, it's typically the full frontal shot that is eaten harmlessly. Even if it punches through the armor, it's still unlikely to even mortally wound the occupant.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: The 'movie marine' stats place each Marine at 100 points, and seem reasonable.
It was never supposed to be representative of "fluff" marines, any more than wargear "stunt doubles" were. They were exactly what GW portrayed them as, Movie Marines, not "Fluff Marines". Most universe fluff backs that up, a plasma gun or Krak Missile will usually kill a marine outright or at least take them out of the fight (barring whatever protagonist is being covered or some other major plot character), just like it does on the table, while it'd only take a single wound off a Movie Marine.
BrotherHaraldus wrote:
And no, PA is completely invulnerable to a lasgun.
Not really, there's multiple examples in the fluff of this not being the case. PA is proof against a few lasgun shots in certain areas (chest, shoulders, legs, etc) but necks, groins, etc are vulnerable and we have fluff examples of marines taking bursts of lasgun fire to their armor and it failing. Even in FFG's RPG's, Power Armor can be penetrated by lasgun fire, and their RPG's take Space Marines to ridiculous levels by FFG's own accord.
This. It is often underlooked, but the only real reason this is not displayed in the game is that nobody would buy a unit that has a weapon useless against the most common troops choice to encounter. As well as the reasons that I've quoted a few times, and that GW simply wants you to buy more SM.
Buuuut...
In all honesty, it has been very entertaining to have these discussions on Dakkadakka. Our local meta just interpreted the entire fluff as 'In fluff Marines are powerful enough to survive direct artillery hits and tank almost everything. That seems reasonable.', and never really gave too much thought to if anyone else would prefer it another way.
Even in the fluff they don't survive direct hits from heavy tank weaponry, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from. I can think of many examples of marines dying to lesser weaponry, like an IW siege engineer in Storm of Iron being killed by a direct mortar impact, and tons of marines die to bolters and knives.
Asherian Command wrote:
Debatable. Some are good at that. I think the imperial fists are good frontline troops because they get astartes quicker than most chapters, (mostly in due part because how else would they stay alive because in most lore they are the space marine punching bag.)
Maybe for a very short stretch of frontage of a kilometer or two (remember, there's only about a thousand of these guys), but without support they'd be easily encircled (and then destroyed at leisure by artillery/crew served weapons/airstrikes/tanks/etc) or, potentially worse, simply bypassed.
Wyzilla wrote:
Explain Orks, Astartes, Chaos Astartes, and the big Nids eating lasguns. Repeatedly. In fact, it's typically the full frontal shot that is eaten harmlessly.
Sometimes they do. Orks have a uniquely incredible biology, but can still be killed in droves by lasgun fire quite easily. Power Armor is highly resistant, so most shots will be absorbed, but is not invulnerable. The only Nids to "eat" lasgun fire relatively harmlessly are the big huge things the size of buses with thick armor plating, living tanks.
Even if it punches through the armor, it's still unlikely to even mortally wound the occupant.
Based on what? Even then, doesn't need to mortally wound them to put them out of a fight. If you put them into shock or unconciousness that works, if you cause major damage to organs they may still be awake and not in immediate danger of dying right there but may not be able to fight, take out a leg you've got a mobility kill that needs to be left behind or escorted back, etc. No different than gunshot wounds on modern battlefields (relatively few kill their targets immediately, or fast enough to be close, on impact, that usually requires a headshot, hitting a major blood vessel and bleeding out, or bursting the heart)
Wyzilla wrote: Explain Orks, Astartes, Chaos Astartes, and the big Nids eating lasguns.
They don't.
Orks get cut down by lasgun fire. They just take more hits than humans do because of innate biological toughness (They also are more likely to recover from said wounds than astartes or humans are), but they still get cut down by it. The Imperial Guard defeats Orks with massed lasgun fire on such a regular basis that most of the time it's not even mentioned-- it's assumed.
Why you mentioned Astartes twice, I have no clue. Maybe you're obsessed with them. But Marines also get killed by lasgun fire, both loyalist traitor. Less often than Orks because of armor (power armor is superior to slabs of raw iron stapled in to the flesh), but they are not impervious to it either.
And really, are you actually trying to claim that a Space Marine is equivalent to a Carnifex? Because I'm going point at you. And while so pointing, I am going to start laughing. Rolling on the floor may result. Laughing will continue, regardless.
MarsNZ wrote: I'm almost certain you mean "the 5.0cm gun of the Panzer MkIII" seeing as 7.5cm Stugs didn't appear till '42, and didn't have much trouble with T-34s.
No, I think I'll stick with the comparison I made.
Melissia wrote: Or rather, it should show to you my opinion on power armor-- it's awesome to have, but it's still better to not get shot in the first place.
I completely agree. I can see no positive factors in being shot, no matter to which degree you and/or your armour resist said attack.
I mean, even if a Guardsman fires a shot at a Baneblade with his Autopistol, it's bad. It might not blow up the tank, but it'll scratch the paint!
Getting shot is always bad, though to different degrees.
Actually, I can think of several situations where it could blow the tank up, or at least a section of it. They're just exceedingly unlikely situations, and in any case the soldier is unlikely to survive any of them.
However, a Space Marine is far, FAR less protected than a Baneblade, so it's really not an analogy that works.
Melissia wrote: Actually, I can think of several situations where it could blow the tank up, or at least a section of it. They're just exceedingly unlikely situations, and in any case the soldier is unlikely to survive any of them.
However, a Space Marine is far, FAR less protected than a Baneblade, so it's really not an analogy that works.
A Space Marine is undoubtedly not as tough as a Baneblade.
However, it was not actually an analogy. Just an example that even if you take a rather bottom level (For 40K) weapon and shoot at something really really tough, it is always bad. Just, sometimes it is not bad to a particularly massive degree.
I'd argue that it would be rather difficult for it to blow the tank up. Maybe hit the driver through the vision slit, or at least crack its armoured glass, assuming it has that (Not 100% on whether Baneblades have armoured glass on the driver's vision slit) but to blow it up you'd need to hit the fuel or the ammunition, both of which are safely stored behind a ludicrous amount of metal plate.
I'd raise an eyebrow if I read about someone blowing up a BB with an autopistol, honestly.
But I digress.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, I can't help but wonder...
The Space Marines or Adeptus Astartes are foremost amongst the defenders of humanity, the greatest of the Emperor of Mankind's warriors.
Clad in ancient Power Armour and wielding the most potent weapons known to Man, the Space Marines are terrifying foes and their devotion to the Emperor and the Imperium of Man is unyielding.
The Space Marines are the Imperium of Man’s supreme warriors. Genetically-enhanced to be the ultimate soldiers of Mankind, they are far stronger and more resilient than ordinary human beings.
He is protected by a suit of Power Armour, shielding him from the fiercest of enemy fire whilst simultaneously strengthening his blows and allowing him to survive the most hostile of environments.
The Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes are the greatest fighting force of the Imperium of Man. Genetically-enhanced to serve Mankind as humanity's ultimate warriors, they are far stronger and more resilient than even the most exceptional unenhanced human beings.
Wyzilla wrote: Explain Orks, Astartes, Chaos Astartes, and the big Nids eating lasguns.
They don't.
Orks get cut down by lasgun fire. They just take more hits than humans do because of innate biological toughness (They also are more likely to recover from said wounds than astartes or humans are), but they still get cut down by it. The Imperial Guard defeats Orks with massed lasgun fire on such a regular basis that most of the time it's not even mentioned-- it's assumed.
Why you mentioned Astartes twice, I have no clue. Maybe you're obsessed with them. But Marines also get killed by lasgun fire, both loyalist traitor. Less often than Orks because of armor (power armor is superior to slabs of raw iron stapled in to the flesh), but they are not impervious to it either.
And really, are you actually trying to claim that a Space Marine is equivalent to a Carnifex? Because I'm going point at you. And while so pointing, I am going to start laughing. Rolling on the floor may result. Laughing will continue, regardless.
MarsNZ wrote: I'm almost certain you mean "the 5.0cm gun of the Panzer MkIII" seeing as 7.5cm Stugs didn't appear till '42, and didn't have much trouble with T-34s.
No, I think I'll stick with the comparison I made.
Again, there's numerous examples of Orks, Nids, Astartes, and Chaos Astartes tanking lasguns flawlessly- even getting shot in their bare faces and simply shaking it off. There isn't 'opinions', there's numerous events in the bulk of BL's work on Space Marines and the Horus Heresy. Any time a lasgun punches clean through PA is more easily handwaved as the artificer taking terrible care of said armor (not to mention those often shot would be Chaos Astartes, who typically are horribly outfitted compared to their loyalist and non-mutated kin).
And Astartes is mentioned twice because Chaos Space Marines are completely different than their loyalist counterparts, as CSM's are heavily mutated and are outfitted with different, typically older gear or poor copies that are jury-rigged together if they lack access to artificers or Hereteks.
Also, depending on the taken calcs for Astartes, they go above and beyond the realm of a Carnifex. Faster-than-light reaction times/speed because the high end of W40K is high.
Also, again it should be noted that handwaving 70% of the Black Library simply because 'you dun like it' is ridiculous and trying to make it something it isn't, especially when as I stated earlier, hand-waving it is MORE complicated than accepting that W40K is as realistic and sensible as Marvel and DC comics, what with nearly every single race being a bunch of reality warpers operating with 'clap your hands if you believe' magic made the toys of four eldritch gods living in a dimension WHERE THERE IS NO BLOODY CAUSALITY.
W40K has and never have a shred of realism to it, nor sanity for that matter. If you, peregrine, and everyone else that takes offense to GW's portrayal of Astartes (especially post 2000 and later) to offense, you should also first take a long look at the factions you seem to hold higher than the Adeptus Astartes, who are in some degrees even more absurd than space marines themselves, what with most of the IG vehicles being designed by an inebriated armchair general with his face firmly wedged in a textbook on world war one with designs that make less sense than that of terminator armor.
As again, to repeat, W40K isn't realistic. It can't lay claim to even the smallest claim of realism. It has the logic of most modern comic-universe such as 616-Earth and any attempt to claim that it is realistic or serious, or try to warp it into realism is bloody hilarious. Nearly every bit of it is broken, stupid, nonsensical, absurd, and completely unreasonable and unrealistic, and this applies to all the factions in near equal amount.
(And the tank sloped armor comparison was fairly nonsensical as well, as energy weapons do not function at all like kinetic physical weapons. A better comparison would be PA ceramite armor being a silicon glove with the lasgun being a directional heat source like an oven-top flame. The glove can survived prolonged exposure and the hand inside it, [i]because that's its job.[/i[)
Also, again it should be noted that handwaving 70% of the Black Library simply because 'you dun like it' is ridiculous and trying to make it something it isn't, especially when as I stated earlier, hand-waving it is MORE complicated than accepting that W40K is as realistic and sensible as Marvel and DC comics, what with nearly every single race being a bunch of reality warpers operating with 'clap your hands if you believe' magic made the toys of four eldritch gods living in a dimension WHERE THERE IS NO BLOODY CAUSALITY.
W40K has and never have a shred of realism to it, nor sanity for that matter. If you, peregrine, and everyone else that takes offense to GW's portrayal of Astartes (especially post 2000 and later) to offense, you should also first take a long look at the factions you seem to hold higher than the Adeptus Astartes, who are in some degrees even more absurd than space marines themselves, what with most of the IG vehicles being designed by an inebriated armchair general with his face firmly wedged in a textbook on world war one with designs that make less sense than that of terminator armor.
As again, to repeat, W40K isn't realistic. It can't lay claim to even the smallest claim of realism. It has the logic of most modern comic-universe such as 616-Earth and any attempt to claim that it is realistic or serious, or try to warp it into realism is bloody hilarious. Nearly every bit of it is broken, stupid, nonsensical, absurd, and completely unreasonable and unrealistic, and this applies to all the factions in near equal amount.
(And the tank sloped armor comparison was fairly nonsensical as well, as energy weapons do not function at all like kinetic physical weapons. A better comparison would be PA ceramite armor being a silicon glove with the lasgun being a directional heat source like an oven-top flame. The glove can survived prolonged exposure and the hand inside it, [i]because that's its job.[/i[)
So what do you do when an Astartes gets killed by a lasgun in the fluff? Just handwave it away?
In Storm of Iron, several Marines are killed by lasgun fire. In The First and Only, an Iron Warrior gets his head shot off by a guardsman with a lasgun.
Unit1126PLL wrote: So what do you do when an Astartes gets killed by a lasgun in the fluff? Just handwave it away?
In Storm of Iron, several Marines are killed by lasgun fire. In The First and Only, an Iron Warrior gets his head shot off by a guardsman with a lasgun.
The SoB are also wary of lasgun fire from Guardsmen they were fighting in Faith and Fire, and their armour provides as much protection as Marine armour. Not necessarily true, as BL authors aren't always consistent on small details like that (or, at times, big details either), but there's certainly examples of lasguns being a threat to power armoured infantry within the wider fluff.
In First Heretic a Word Bearer Chaplain even gets killed when a tribal thrusts a pointy stick through his neck joint. The reply given iirc was something like it would have been funny if it wasnt so terribly sad. When a pointy stick can defeat power armour, I can see no reason why a lasgun couldnt. There is also the fact that the neck joint is called the ''shell-trap'', deflected shots from the chest can blow of the head or most of it through this vunerability. If lasguns couldnt, Cadians would only be known as those glorified speedbumps in the way of Chaos Marines.
Technically a lasgun can not penetrate Power Armour if it could than any unit in the game that wore power armour would not get an armour save against the lasgun. However that dose not mean a Space Marine or any other power armourd infantry unit is impervious to these weapons, large volume of shots will cause a problem one will get lucky and hit somewhere that is not well protected ie the joints or the visors and possibly kill or incapacitate the trooper.
Can a lasgun penetrate Power Armour no it can not. But the person wearing the armour is not 100% covered by said armour so can a lasgun hit one of the very few spots that is not protected yes and cause problems yes. The thing is that power armour is very formitble and can take a lot of punishment allowing the trooper in the armour to take more punishment than a normal trooper but it dose not make them invisible just a lot tougher to kill.
Oh and the whole Tank killing thing I used an assault squad that was very effective at destroying my opponents armoured units jump packs and melta bombs are a wonderful combination.
Unit1126PLL wrote: So what do you do when an Astartes gets killed by a lasgun in the fluff? Just handwave it away?
In Storm of Iron, several Marines are killed by lasgun fire. In The First and Only, an Iron Warrior gets his head shot off by a guardsman with a lasgun.
The SoB are also wary of lasgun fire from Guardsmen they were fighting in Faith and Fire, and their armour provides as much protection as Marine armour. Not necessarily true, as BL authors aren't always consistent on small details like that (or, at times, big details either), but there's certainly examples of lasguns being a threat to power armoured infantry within the wider fluff.
I'd honestly doubt that Sororitas Power Armour provides as much protection, though. Marines are stronger, faster and have superior stamina even than what is proportional to their size, so they can wear more armour without negative effects. Even then, if a Heavy Bolter shell does not pierce a Sororitas' armour (Which is not unlikely) then the sheer impact and concussion of a grotesquely large calibre explosive shell does nasty things to bones and internal organs. We know that Marines are far more resistant to this as well. Resilience is not just armour.
A lasgun can't penetrate the armoured parts of the armour but that's not the point of lasguns or guardsmen the fact is there would be 20+ guardsmen shooting at the same marine and at least one of those shots has to get lucky hitting the marine in joints or even the vision lenses. Sheer weight of fire makes lasguns effective
But the marine who is better trained can probably use cover better, and his power armour has many aim assist available making every shot count which with a Bolter ( that if guardsmen are stood in formation is said to be able to completely decimate the guardsman that is shot and either kill or seriously wound the men either side and the man behind) you will have to factor in panic which is a big thing guard suffer from because there only human
Troike wrote: He lost entire right side of his body, and only survived thanks to the combined efforts of a Lord Apothecary and a Forge Master. I would hardly call that "tanking it". If he wasn't in a position where his fellow Marines could retrieve and rebuild him, he would have been rather dead.
And note that this was a combi-melta (IOW, less powerful than a standard melta gun) shot from a dying marine lying on the ground as Huron walked past, so it probably wasn't even aimed very well. Conclusion: a glancing blow from a scaled-down melta gun against a major character in terminator armor is still enough to inflict injuries that would be fatal without miraculous intervention, and would certainly cripple the victim thoroughly enough that they would be instantly out of the battle.
Also, don't forget that, as a very low-end guess, there are millions of melta guns and similar instant-death weapons for each space marine involved in a planetary-scale war.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: 'In fluff Marines are powerful enough to survive direct artillery hits and tank almost everything.
But that just doesn't make any sense. Even if the armor somehow holds the shock of the impact would be fatal to whoever is inside (and remember, marines are modified humans, not solid lumps of iron). It would be one of those situations where you hose out the remains of the previous occupant and give the armor to the newest recruit. And it also doesn't make sense from a storytelling perspective, if marines can just ignore anything short of a titan then who cares about their stories? There's nothing interesting about invulnerable marines slaughtering everything in their path without facing even the slightest danger. I just can't see any appeal at all in that interpretation.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alpha 1 wrote: Technically a lasgun can not penetrate Power Armour if it could than any unit in the game that wore power armour would not get an armour save against the lasgun.
Err, no, that's not how armor saves work. The armor save represents the chance of stopping the shot, period, including hit location/chance of the armor failing under the impact/etc. Denying armor saves entirely represents weapons that are so powerful relative to the armor that there is no possible chance that the armor will do anything to reduce the damage.
Troike wrote: He lost entire right side of his body, and only survived thanks to the combined efforts of a Lord Apothecary and a Forge Master. I would hardly call that "tanking it". If he wasn't in a position where his fellow Marines could retrieve and rebuild him, he would have been rather dead.
And note that this was a combi-melta (IOW, less powerful than a standard melta gun) shot from a dying marine lying on the ground as Huron walked past, so it probably wasn't even aimed very well. Conclusion: a glancing blow from a scaled-down melta gun against a major character in terminator armor is still enough to inflict injuries that would be fatal without miraculous intervention, and would certainly cripple the victim thoroughly enough that they would be instantly out of the battle.
Also, don't forget that, as a very low-end guess, there are millions of melta guns and similar instant-death weapons for each space marine involved in a planetary-scale war.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: 'In fluff Marines are powerful enough to survive direct artillery hits and tank almost everything.
But that just doesn't make any sense. Even if the armor somehow holds the shock of the impact would be fatal to whoever is inside (and remember, marines are modified humans, not solid lumps of iron). It would be one of those situations where you hose out the remains of the previous occupant and give the armor to the newest recruit. And it also doesn't make sense from a storytelling perspective, if marines can just ignore anything short of a titan then who cares about their stories? There's nothing interesting about invulnerable marines slaughtering everything in their path without facing even the slightest danger. I just can't see any appeal at all in that interpretation.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alpha 1 wrote: Technically a lasgun can not penetrate Power Armour if it could than any unit in the game that wore power armour would not get an armour save against the lasgun.
Err, no, that's not how armor saves work. The armor save represents the chance of stopping the shot, period, including hit location/chance of the armor failing under the impact/etc. Denying armor saves entirely represents weapons that are so powerful relative to the armor that there is no possible chance that the armor will do anything to reduce the damage.
As Wyzilla pointed out earlier, you are grasping for logic in a universe so utterly illogical that even the laws of physics don't apply. (Hello Titans. Hello almost everything in the Ork & Tyranid codex. Hello everything remotely Warp-related.) The only real 'rule' in 40K that trumps everything is the rule of cool, and it is defining for the entire setting.
As for my personal opinion, I felt that since Astartes easily best most lesser foes, it becomes all the more epic when they fight enemies that are their match. (Big angry Nobz, equally big and angry Tyranid Warriors, and so on.)
But hey, if you prefer the DKoKverse, then go ahead.
Going off Dark Heresy (which is much closer to the fluff), Power Armour has an AP of 8 (meaning that they ignore 8 points of damage). Lasgun deal 1d10+3 damage, meaning that lasguns can deal a maximum of 5 damage. Space marine will probably have a toughness bonus of 4, so the lasgun can deal one point of damage. It would take a while, but guardsmen could kill space marines through mass firepower (the lasgun is longer ranged than a bolt gun, and can fire three shots when firing semi-auto and gains +10 BS when firing semi, so it would be hard, but possible).
No, I just prefer the version of 40k where the setting is actually grim and dark, not just a token pretense of grim and dark to make the heroes look even more heroic. I want the version of 40k where the greatest space marine hero dies alone and unmourned after being shot in the back with a lasgun by some anonymous cultist, his sad devotion to his pathetic corpse "god" forgotten by a heartless universe before his blood even finishes spilling out onto the battlefield. I want the version of 40k where insane religious zealots fight stubbornly to the end instead of retreating like sensible people and are slaughtered (leaving the city they were supposed to defend open to being slaughtered as well) because power armor isn't going to protect you against a 10:1 numbers advantage. I want the version of 40k where whole chapters are wiped out by artillery barrages and the nearby IG regiment commits suicide in despair because they realize that their only hope of not becoming Tyranid snacks just died with those marines. Etc.
Invulnerable marines laughing off any attempts to kill them is just a boring generic superhero fantasy.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Ah yes, insults, always great as a justification to dismiss fluff one does not like.
Sorry, but that's the truth. FTL reflexes is just such an unbelievably stupid concept that the only thing you can do is dismiss it as bad writing.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Going off Dark Heresy (which is much closer to the fluff), Power Armour has an AP of 8 (meaning that they ignore 8 points of damage). Lasgun deal 1d10+3 damage, meaning that lasguns can deal a maximum of 5 damage. Space marine will probably have a toughness bonus of 4, so the lasgun can deal one point of damage. It would take a while, but guardsmen could kill space marines through mass firepower (the lasgun is longer ranged than a bolt gun, and can fire three shots when firing semi-auto and gains +10 BS when firing semi, so it would be hard, but possible).
To be honest TB in FFG games is also capable of having a standard guardsman becoming capable of tanking las shots. From what I have seen
Co'tor Shas wrote: Going off Dark Heresy (which is much closer to the fluff), Power Armour has an AP of 8 (meaning that they ignore 8 points of damage). Lasgun deal 1d10+3 damage, meaning that lasguns can deal a maximum of 5 damage. Space marine will probably have a toughness bonus of 4, so the lasgun can deal one point of damage. It would take a while, but guardsmen could kill space marines through mass firepower (the lasgun is longer ranged than a bolt gun, and can fire three shots when firing semi-auto and gains +10 BS when firing semi, so it would be hard, but possible).
To be honest TB in FFG games is also capable of having a standard guardsman becoming capable of tanking las shots. From what I have seen
Guardsmen have a TB of 3 (usualy) and their armour is completely ignored by the MP las cannon )which is weaker than normal lascannon. It does 5d10+10 damage, so unless you are really unlucky, the guardsman is going to die. The tanking part mostly comes from PCs who you have to get a bunch of damage on the crit table to kill. I do see where you are coming from, but FF games are probably more fluff specific than reg 40k (ignoring deathwatch of course, but mostly because you play as a movie marine).
Co'tor Shas wrote: Going off Dark Heresy (which is much closer to the fluff), Power Armour has an AP of 8 (meaning that they ignore 8 points of damage). Lasgun deal 1d10+3 damage, meaning that lasguns can deal a maximum of 5 damage. Space marine will probably have a toughness bonus of 4, so the lasgun can deal one point of damage. It would take a while, but guardsmen could kill space marines through mass firepower (the lasgun is longer ranged than a bolt gun, and can fire three shots when firing semi-auto and gains +10 BS when firing semi, so it would be hard, but possible).
SM Power armor gets 10 on the chest, plus 2 more for the Black Carapace, for a total of 12. They also get Unnatural Toughness, which means that the basic, starting SM is completely immune to a lasweapon's damage unless the person fires it scores a Righteous Fury, which requires that the GM allows enemy combatants to score them (I do... PCs and Loyalists get Righteous Fury.... the antagonists/Traitors get Wrath of the Dark Gods... same effect, your damage rolls of 10s have a chance to explode into multiple handfuls of dice of damage).
Certain character classes can get Unnatural Toughness which doubles their Toughness Bonus (TB) against damage. I have seen a Guardsman character get an effective 18 TB, making him absolutely immune to most standard weapons in the DH books.
Wyzilla wrote: Faster-than-light reaction times/speed because the high end of W40K is high.
That's not the high end, that's the "dear god this author is an idiot" end.
Ah yes, insults, always great as a justification to dismiss fluff one does not like.
Oh, where do I start with this crap? Well, I guess a little discussion about FTL travel is in order. To even approach a fraction of the speed of light requires a great amount of energy. More energy than can be stored in a man sized being no matter what. I won't go into the details but some speculate that it requires infinite amounts of energy to accelerate a particle (In this case, an electric impulse from a neuron) to a speed faster than the speed of light. So, even if our theories about faster than light travel are wrong on this account it would still require obscene amounts of energy to constantly accelerate particles to this speed to maintain "FTL reflexes". More energy than is in a Emperor-class battlecruiser. More energy than is in the galaxy. I've heard such travel may require more energy than is in the galaxy.
So, say you solved the energy problem somehow. Great! But now you run into causality issues. Objects moving faster than the speed of light, according to some scientists, move backwards in time. Since the distance in a man sized object is so small this would mean that the person's mind would get the impulse before the stimuli even occurs. As in, whatever this being is would hold his shield up before the opponent even swung his blade in reaction to him swinging his blade. This would then prompt the opponent to not swing his blade, thus removing the cause of our subject's reaction.
Before you say, "Oh, CustomLime, but 40k doesn't use science! It just throws it away!". No, that's not true. 40k still uses science. That's why Lasgun packs need recharging, that's why things fall down and that's why meltaguns work by exciting particles. What 40k does is use heavy amounts of suspension of disbelief. In this case, what they are asking for is not only impossible but is so impossible that it utterly destroys suspension of disbelief.
Now, as for Space Marines... I suppose their invincibility is up for interpretation but citing black library novels is like using propaganda to argue for the merits of a state. In other words, your sources are flawed since they are biased towards their subject. I could write a short story of Lasguns making power armor look useless and it would be just as valid as Black Library novels. They are meant to be exciting stories and not accurate representations of the 41st millennium. But then... what is the true 41st millennium?
Co'tor Shas wrote: Going off Dark Heresy (which is much closer to the fluff), Power Armour has an AP of 8 (meaning that they ignore 8 points of damage). Lasgun deal 1d10+3 damage, meaning that lasguns can deal a maximum of 5 damage. Space marine will probably have a toughness bonus of 4, so the lasgun can deal one point of damage. It would take a while, but guardsmen could kill space marines through mass firepower (the lasgun is longer ranged than a bolt gun, and can fire three shots when firing semi-auto and gains +10 BS when firing semi, so it would be hard, but possible).
SM Power armor gets 10 on the chest, plus 2 more for the Black Carapace, for a total of 12. They also get Unnatural Toughness, which means that the basic, starting SM is completely immune to a lasweapon's damage unless the person fires it scores a Righteous Fury, which requires that the GM allows enemy combatants to score them (I do... PCs and Loyalists get Righteous Fury.... the antagonists/Traitors get Wrath of the Dark Gods... same effect, your damage rolls of 10s have a chance to explode into multiple handfuls of dice of damage).
Certain character classes can get Unnatural Toughness which doubles their Toughness Bonus (TB) against damage. I have seen a Guardsman character get an effective 18 TB, making him absolutely immune to most standard weapons in the DH books.
Dark heresy NOT deathwatch. Deathwatch is movie marines, and everything is increased in power, pulse weapons do 2d10+2 damge for example, more powerful than regular plasma weapons in DH. Bolt weapons do 2d10+5,despite all evidence showing that pulse weapons are more powerful than bolters. Also tau missile pods (S7) do 2d10+6, whereas plasma rifles (S6) do 2d10+9. Deathwatch is no a good thing to go off of. It was probably the worst book FF has ever done.
Power Armor in DH is not Space Marine Power Armor, it's the "civilian models" that Inquisitors and their retinues get.
There are no Space Marines in DH (not unless you buy the Daemonhunters book, and then you get Grey Knights which make all your DH characters look like scrubs), so the Power Armor comparison falls flat, simply because the DHPA is not intended (and specifically says it is not) Astartes-grade gear.
I otherwise don't disagree with you, DW is pretty bad.... but, then, so was Disciples of the Dark Gods, Radicals Handbook, Daemonhunters, and Blood of Martyrs.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: I'd argue that it would be rather difficult for it to blow the tank up. Maybe hit the driver through the vision slit, or at least crack its armoured glass, assuming it has that (Not 100% on whether Baneblades have armoured glass on the driver's vision slit) but to blow it up you'd need to hit the fuel or the ammunition, both of which are safely stored behind a ludicrous amount of metal plate.
Here's a scenario, however unlikely:
The bullet hits ammunition that has been loaded, by traveling down the barrel. Or it deforms a lascannon barrel just enough to cause the battery to overheat and explode (which would only damage the tank, not destroy it, but I digress). And so on.
Just one. I said they were unlikely situations, but it is theoretically possible. Just not believable.
Melissia wrote: Or rather, it should show to you my opinion on power armor-- it's awesome to have, but it's still better to not get shot in the first place.
I completely agree. I can see no positive factors in being shot, no matter to which degree you and/or your armour resist said attack.
I mean, even if a Guardsman fires a shot at a Baneblade with his Autopistol, it's bad. It might not blow up the tank, but it'll scratch the paint!
Getting shot is always bad, though to different degrees.
... putting a bullet down the cannon barrel of a tank does not cause the round in said cannon to explode. The front of that shell is not the blowy-uppy part.
Even the explosive shells, the part that bullet is going to hit is not the part that blows up (the shell is designed to blow up from the middle, to throw shrapnel outward in a ball.)
... putting a bullet down the cannon barrel of a tank does not cause the round in said cannon to explode. The front of that shell is not the blowy-uppy part.
If you hit the detonator at the tip of the shell, it could detonate it. Needs one hell of a push though.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: I'd honestly doubt that Sororitas Power Armour provides as much protection, though. Marines are stronger, faster and have superior stamina even than what is proportional to their size, so they can wear more armour without negative effects.
From Codex: Witch Hunters:
The Sororitas Power Armor worn by the Battle Sisters of the Orders Militant is based upon the same archaic systems as that worn by the brethren of the Adeptus Astartes. It provides the same degree of armoured protection, yet must forego the more advanced life support systems and strength-enhancing abilities used by the Space Marines, as the Sisters are not implanted with the Black Carapace that allows the Astartes to interface fully with their own armour.
Furthermore, the tabletop game gives them the same armour save. Fluff and crunch agree on this one, the Sororitas power armour is as protective as Marine power armour.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: We know that Marines are far more resistant to this as well. Resilience is not just armour.
And that's the extra point in toughness. But I was talking about armour, not toughness.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: I'd honestly doubt that Sororitas Power Armour provides as much protection, though. Marines are stronger, faster and have superior stamina even than what is proportional to their size, so they can wear more armour without negative effects.
From Codex: Witch Hunters:
The Sororitas Power Armor worn by the Battle Sisters of the Orders Militant is based upon the same archaic systems as that worn by the brethren of the Adeptus Astartes. It provides the same degree of armoured protection, yet must forego the more advanced life support systems and strength-enhancing abilities used by the Space Marines, as the Sisters are not implanted with the Black Carapace that allows the Astartes to interface fully with their own armour.
Furthermore, the tabletop game gives them the same armour save. Fluff and crunch agree on this one, the Sororitas power armour is as protective as Marine power armour.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: We know that Marines are far more resistant to this as well. Resilience is not just armour.
And that's the extra point in toughness. But I was talking about armour, not toughness.
So Guardsmen equal Orks in strength fluffwise too?
Go ahead, keep holding your hands over your ears, close your eyes and say NO NO NO IM NOT LISTENING, if that is what you prefer. But if you'd like, I can dig up the original, official source for each statement.
Calling the 6th edition rulebook 'fanfiction', for example, is rather bold in my eyes.
The IG/Ork thing notwithstanding (because IG aren't schlubs, and the bogstandard Ork Boy isn't an eight-foot monster)...
... the fluff has always stated that Sororitas PA is as equally bullet-proof as SMPA. It doesn't have all the other tech-wizardry that a SM has, and the Sister doesn't have the Black Carapace, so she doesn't wear it like a second skin...
.... but they are equally protective of the person wearing it.
That's not really the point I was making. That's just a tabletop thing. In this case, we have studio fluff saying something (SoB armour is as protective as Marine armour) and being represented on the tabletop. Sounds like a pretty consistent idea to me.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Go ahead, keep holding your hands over your ears, close your eyes and say NO NO NO IM NOT LISTENING, if that is what you prefer. But if you'd like, I can dig up the original, official source for each statement.
No you can't.
I mean here you are talking about how I'm supposedly screaming and closing my eyes and ignoring everything, but you are explicitly ignoring the lore.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Go ahead, keep holding your hands over your ears, close your eyes and say NO NO NO IM NOT LISTENING, if that is what you prefer. But if you'd like, I can dig up the original, official source for each statement.
Calling the 6th edition rulebook 'fanfiction', for example, is rather bold in my eyes.
Just a little tip, the 40K wiki doesn't have the best reputation, for some. I'm sure that a lot of it is accurate enough, but uncited claims and, indeed, outright fanfiction do seep into its articles from time to time. The 40K Lexicanum is generally regarded as more accurate, since it has an emphasis on trying to make sure that all of its information is properly cited in-text, so you can see exactly where a given piece of information came from. Though it's not perfect, but it's pretty accurate as wikis go.
Asherian Command wrote: Interesting, so Power armor unless it is Runic or otherwise noted is made universally the same?
Are you seriously suggesting that, when BOTH the lore and tabletop agree that Sororitas power armor provides equal protection to Astartes armor, that means that every example of power armor is utterly identical?
Oe rather, are you trying to claim that anyone here other than you is arguing that?
Asherian Command wrote: Interesting, so Power armor unless it is Runic or otherwise noted is made universally the same?
Are you seriously suggesting that, when BOTH the lore and tabletop agree that Sororitas power armor provides equal protection to Astartes armor, that means that every example of power armor is utterly identical?
See my post regarding pointing and laughing at Wyzilla earlier.
No. I am asking does this suggest they are created in the same way?
It states that Sororitas Power Armor and Astartes Power Armor are based off of the same general concepts, with the exception that the Astartes power armor has a few more features regarding life support, and superior strength enhancement.
It makes no statement about other kinds of power armor.
Marines are physically, mentally, and spiritually superior to any other Imperial soldier.
Space Marines 5th edition codex
They are mankind's foremost defence against a dark and brooding galaxy [...]
There is thus one Space Marine for each of the million worlds in the Imperium, a small number to be sure, yet sufficient for the task at hand.
That's two of them. Go check the 'Space Marines' section of the fluff parts in the 6th and 5th ed rulebook, as well as the latest codex, and you will see the rest. (If you insist, I can go grab them as well.)
You can only wave it off on 'codex bias' so many times, you know. And the rulebooks & compendium are not codices.
Or is it only fanfiction if it disagrees with you?
I wouldn't know, I'm not the one practicing it here. That would be you, as you explicitly ignore fluff citations that disagree with your positions on Space Marines.
Furthermore, none of those quotes actually support any of your arguments in this thread, especially regarding the invulnerability of power armor and the idea taht marines cannot be killed by lasguns.
I wouldn't know, I'm not the one practicing it here. That would be you, as you explicitly ignore fluff citations that disagree with your positions on Space Marines.
Furthermore, none of those quotes actually support any of your arguments in this thread, especially regarding the invulnerability of power armor and the idea taht marines cannot be killed by lasguns.
Ah I remember when I use to write fan fluff. Until I finally moved onto my own universe. :B
Space Marines are not all powerful. They have weaknesses, just like the Primarchs. Infact they are not super warriors, nor are they true super human. Super human includes evolutional qualities such as increased brain function beyond human comprehension and muscle flexibility/agiliness. Name one time where a space marine solved an advanced equation in a matter of seconds. There are none. Only one brief lore bit from White Dwarf 300 proves that sentiment wrong. Which lists that an average space marine's IQ could be around 300-400. (Which in itself is impossible because that is not how IQ works XD)
Space Marines are tougher, but without their armor it does not mean they can take a tank shell, they are still at risk of dying. They cannot survive in the vacuum of space, they have to go into stasis mode in order to avoid it, but even then they still have a high chance of dying due to the vacuum.
I wouldn't know, I'm not the one practicing it here. That would be you, as you explicitly ignore fluff citations that disagree with your positions on Space Marines.
Furthermore, none of those quotes actually support any of your arguments in this thread, especially regarding the invulnerability of power armor and the idea taht marines cannot be killed by lasguns.
Do not evade the point. I listed sources. You can go check them yourself. I can list more if you want to. Do you still insist that the Compendium is fanfiction? If so, what 40K document is not fanfiction in your eyes?
Again, hypocrisy. Pointing out that I go against an argument based on a single quote from a Codex (Don't you guys usually question single Codex quotes, reasoning it may just be codex bias?) which goes against reason (Space Marine armour is bigger; just look at those shoulderpads, logic certainly says it'd be more protective, though perhaps clunky), despite the fact that you insist that 'reason' is the way to go in an unreasonable universe.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Don't you guys usually question single Codex quotes, reasoning it may just be codex bias?
Not when the codex says something very specific and factual instead of a general platitude. When a codex says an Ork can survive having his head removed if it's put back on its body (or a new body for that matter), that is pretty specific. When a codex says "Sororitas power armor is equivalent in protection to Astartes power armor" this is specific. When a codex states "Ultramarines are based off of Ultramar", that's pretty specific. Saying "ermagerd, spehss muhreenz are so coll!" is not. Saying "Sisters of Battle are shining examples of all that is good about humanity" is not specific, either, for that matter, even though it "proves" that Sisters are better than Space Marines just like your quotes "prove" the same about them.
Do not evade the point. I listed sources. You can go check them yourself. I can list more if you want to. Do you still insist that the Compendium is fanfiction? If so, what 40K document is not fanfiction in your eyes?
Again, hypocrisy. Pointing out that I go against an argument based on a single quote from a Codex (Don't you guys usually question single Codex quotes, reasoning it may just be codex bias?) which goes against reason (Space Marine armour is bigger; just look at those shoulderpads, logic certainly says it'd be more protective, though perhaps clunky), despite the fact that you insist that 'reason' is the way to go in an unreasonable universe.
It's now 2 or 3 Codices that support the statement that SoBPA is as bullet-proof as SMPA. Which is the only argument.
Just because the SM's armor is bigger does not make it more protective... it's bigger because the guy inside it is bigger, and it's packed full of all kinds of gubbins that an SM *might* need in his role as a take-all-comers combatant, who's primary duty, every day, is to go out and kill things for the Imperium, in a very wide variety of environments.
That doesn't mean his armor is any more bullet-proof, it just means it packs more toys. No one is arguing that. What you quoted is... entirely irrelevant to the question as to whether their PA is better than the SOB's PA, or anyone's PA in general.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: (Don't you guys usually question single Codex quotes, reasoning it may just be codex bias?)
I for one tend not to do that, actually.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: which goes against reason (Space Marine armour is bigger; just look at those shoulderpads, logic certainly says it'd be more protective, though perhaps clunky),
Well, the codex quote does note that the SoB armour loses a lot of systems that Marine Armour has. It could be explained as SoB armour being built mostly for protection while Marine armour does more things beyond that.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: despite the fact that you insist that 'reason' is the way to go in an unreasonable universe.
If you're so comfortable with it being an "unreasonable" setting, then why the problem with SoB armour being as protective as Marine armour? If you think it's that illogical, then surely it's only a relatively small suspension of disbelief to make, considering some of the crazier stuff in 40K?
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Don't you guys usually question single Codex quotes, reasoning it may just be codex bias?
Not when the codex says something very specific and factual instead of a general platitude. When a codex says an Ork can survive having his head removed if it's put back on its body (or a new body for that matter) is pretty specific. Saying "ermagerd, spehss muhreenz are so coll!" is not.
What ludicrous claims? That Ceramite plate is impenetrable to lasguns? Do I need to explain why they are? I am not sure if I am going to bother answering to the 'invulnerability of power armour' and 'Marines cannot be killed by lasguns' strawmen. They can, but it is too unlikely for me to bother debating percentages.
That you say 'Nope' does not make your hypocrisy less of a fact.
That Space Marines are the foremost fighting force of the Imperium seems rather specific and factual to me. Also, nice strawman you threw in there.
Bigger targets or not, it still would logically give better protection assuming a shot hit anyway, yes?
Except, news flash, logic does not work in this setting.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: (Don't you guys usually question single Codex quotes, reasoning it may just be codex bias?)
I for one tend not to do that, actually.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: which goes against reason (Space Marine armour is bigger; just look at those shoulderpads, logic certainly says it'd be more protective, though perhaps clunky),
Well, the codex quote does note that the SoB armour loses a lot of systems that Marine Armour has. It could be explained as SoB armour being built mostly for protection while Marine armour does more things beyond that.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: despite the fact that you insist that 'reason' is the way to go in an unreasonable universe.
If you're so comfortable with it being an "unreasonable" setting, then why the problem with SoB armour being as protective as Marine armour?
Any one that is not an astartes cannot fully use the Power Armor's augmentations such as strength and certain things. But the protection is not lost. So ever since they are not used they are removed. Which cuts down on power usage and being less bulky. But nowhere does it say they lose protection because of this.
The entire 40k universe is unreasonable already, so that makes that point moot. (i'm Agreeing with you Troike XD)
BrotherHaraldus wrote: (Don't you guys usually question single Codex quotes, reasoning it may just be codex bias?)
I for one tend not to do that, actually.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: which goes against reason (Space Marine armour is bigger; just look at those shoulderpads, logic certainly says it'd be more protective, though perhaps clunky),
Well, the codex quote does note that the SoB armour loses a lot of systems that Marine Armour has. It could be explained as SoB armour being built mostly for protection while Marine armour does more things beyond that.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: despite the fact that you insist that 'reason' is the way to go in an unreasonable universe.
If you're so comfortable with it being an "unreasonable" setting, then why the problem with SoB armour being as protective as Marine armour? If you think it's that illogical, then surely it's only a relatively small suspension of disbelief to make, considering some of the crazier stuff in 40K?
To be fair, I am not debating so much against you. I am fine with the whole Power Armour thing. But I am not okay with the rampant strawmen and hypocrisy I see when I try to give some quotes that actually have proper sources.
You can keep making that claim until your keyboard breaks, but it doesn't make it true.
So you are saying that your claim that the official documents I've quoted are false is somehow different than my claim that your official documents are false?
Not that I seriously claim your documents are false, of course. It's just as an example.
Marines are physically, mentally, and spiritually superior to any other Imperial soldier.
Space Marines 5th edition codex
They are mankind's foremost defence against a dark and brooding galaxy [...]
There is thus one Space Marine for each of the million worlds in the Imperium, a small number to be sure, yet sufficient for the task at hand.
That's two of them. Go check the 'Space Marines' section of the fluff parts in the 6th and 5th ed rulebook, as well as the latest codex, and you will see the rest. (If you insist, I can go grab them as well.)
You can only wave it off on 'codex bias' so many times, you know. And the rulebooks & compendium are not codices.
Or is it only fanfiction if it disagrees with you?
You know, the official sources you called fanfiction.
At this point, there is little left for the debate you are trying to escape to. But I will have this hypocrisy rooted out.
Or are you taking distance from your previous claims?
If you can't tell the difference between me ignoring Warhammer40k.wikia because it explicitly states that it allows fanfiction and fanon to be included within its pages, and your baseless, blind accusation that I make the same claim about codex: space marines, then frankly it isn't I that should be worried about accusations of hypocrisy.
Or, to be more blunt: "You are making gak up." Don't claim that I am making an assertion I am not making.
Melissia wrote: If you can't tell the difference between me ignoring Warhammer40k.wikia because it explicitly states that it allows fanfiction and fanon to be included within its pages, and your baseless, blind accusation that I make the same claim about codex: space marines, then frankly it isn't I that should be worried about accusations of hypocrisy.
Or, to be more blunt: "You are making gak up." Don't claim that I am making an assertion I am not making.
Yeah Warhammer40k.wikia has certain things that make it completely uncredible such as the fan lore. They need to split that up and make it a seperate site for it to be included in discussion. They also take the FFG lore of deathwatch into account which is interesting, because I do not.
Melissia wrote: If you can't tell the difference between me ignoring Warhammer40k.wikia because it explicitly states that it allows fanfiction and fanon to be included within its pages, and your baseless, blind accusation that I make the same claim about codex: space marines, then frankly it isn't I that should be worried about accusations of hypocrisy.
Or, to be more blunt: "You are making gak up." Don't claim that I am making an assertion I am not making.
Just as a final addition, I linked them to 40k wiki because it is rather hard to link my physical book pages, not because it is not written elsewhere. I stand by my sources.
Asherian Command wrote: They also take the FFG lore of deathwatch into account which is interesting, because I do not.
To be fair, the Lexicanum does that too. I think it's a bit of an inherent thing in wikis, they catalogue all of the information on a subject and just put it all together. It'd probably be better if they had some sort of disclaimer that canon enforcement in 40K is rather lax, so some things don't always line up together nor are accepted by everyone.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Just as a final addition, I linked them to 40k wiki because it is rather hard to link my physical book pages
Just cite them. Say "Codex: Space Marines, p.##". Don't worry, we have copies we can look at.
I have and will always ignore citations of that wikia.
This basically. If I weren't still home for break, I'd demonstrate page numbers for where Marines have indeed been killed by lasguns, mortars, et cetera. Or in the IG codex, strangled to death.
when concerning the survivability of a fluff marine you have to take into account on whether or not the marine has what I like to call "main character superiority". I am currently reading the Horus heresy for the first time and there are dozens of instances where other marines who were not the "Important" characters falling like flies left and right all around the main character. I know everyone dumps on black library, but you cannot just compare the character the story is focusing on at that time as "The" example of all marines, and also take into consideration that certain characters are of course going to survive stuff that a marine probably would not. it would not do for a character like Abaddon to bite it in one of the novels especially if GW is planning on another Black Crusade or something involving another important character. yes Space marines can probably survive a whole hell of a lot beyond what a normal guardsman or Xenos can, but they do fall.
Also, again it should be noted that handwaving 70% of the Black Library simply because 'you dun like it' is ridiculous and trying to make it something it isn't, especially when as I stated earlier, hand-waving it is MORE complicated than accepting that W40K is as realistic and sensible as Marvel and DC comics, what with nearly every single race being a bunch of reality warpers operating with 'clap your hands if you believe' magic made the toys of four eldritch gods living in a dimension WHERE THERE IS NO BLOODY CAUSALITY.
W40K has and never have a shred of realism to it, nor sanity for that matter. If you, peregrine, and everyone else that takes offense to GW's portrayal of Astartes (especially post 2000 and later) to offense, you should also first take a long look at the factions you seem to hold higher than the Adeptus Astartes, who are in some degrees even more absurd than space marines themselves, what with most of the IG vehicles being designed by an inebriated armchair general with his face firmly wedged in a textbook on world war one with designs that make less sense than that of terminator armor.
As again, to repeat, W40K isn't realistic. It can't lay claim to even the smallest claim of realism. It has the logic of most modern comic-universe such as 616-Earth and any attempt to claim that it is realistic or serious, or try to warp it into realism is bloody hilarious. Nearly every bit of it is broken, stupid, nonsensical, absurd, and completely unreasonable and unrealistic, and this applies to all the factions in near equal amount.
(And the tank sloped armor comparison was fairly nonsensical as well, as energy weapons do not function at all like kinetic physical weapons. A better comparison would be PA ceramite armor being a silicon glove with the lasgun being a directional heat source like an oven-top flame. The glove can survived prolonged exposure and the hand inside it, because that's its job.[/i[)
So what do you do when an Astartes gets killed by a lasgun in the fluff? Just handwave it away?
In Storm of Iron, several Marines are killed by lasgun fire. In The First and Only, an Iron Warrior gets his head shot off by a guardsman with a lasgun.
Easily explained by having poor armor, because Astartes PA is variable in quality. Because, guess what kids!
Spoiler:
Things decay. Everything does, from atoms to armor. This is what old heavy armor looks like after simply decades of neglect. W40K takes place over a [i]ten thousand period of years. That alone is dwarfs the lifespan of our civilization the fallen before it, which simply over a period of a thousand years to dust. The typical mook CSM in a guardsmen book that gets hosed down by lasguns- even if not from the Horus Heresy, unless he's been properly outfitted, will be wearing power armor suffering from neglect and simple age. The fact that PA is even INTACT after ANY matter of centuries or millenniums alone is itself impressive.
That and there is this amazing thing called 'inconsistency' and 'variable' yields' that always cap out at a high end.
Because we also have numerous instances where Space Marines eat lasguns for breakfast, get stepped on by titans, slap bolter rounds out of the air, etc. Oh, and even if a lasgun of a bolter manages to penetrate, this isn't an instant kill, not nearly. Space marines have also survived being (and this was one NEOPHYTE)- buried under hundreds of RAGE-induced Khorne mooks, what were effectively Khorne 'zombies' and constantly punched, scraped, cut, kicked and sliced by the mob for hours until neophyte punched his way out of the mob with his bare hands. Then walked away alive not suffering from immense blood-loss- was later eviscerated by a nutjob Astartes with lightning claws, guts spilled on the ground, bleeding out, survived. Then while being carried back to base (still alive) by the hero, had everything below his abdomen bitten off by a daemon.
He, Omar the Scout Marine, was then stitched up (with no apothecary nearby) by a friendly brother and survived this- having been eviscerated by lightning claws and everything under his kidneys bitten off or mauled. He only died when he committed suicide with enough frags to bring down a stone pillar and kill a cluster of nearby furies.
And Melissa, are you simply going to ignore all evidence in a debate, or do I have to physically grab the quotes of enemies eating lasgun fire just to please you?
What ludicrous claims? That Ceramite plate is impenetrable to lasguns? Do I need to explain why they are? I am not sure if I am going to bother answering to the 'invulnerability of power armour' and 'Marines cannot be killed by lasguns' strawmen. They can, but it is too unlikely for me to bother debating percentages.
Except we have numerous examples of marines being killed in very likely scenarios not involving ridiculous one-in-a-million shots by stuff like lasguns. Hell we see SM's killed by knives.
Ultimately, either way, small arms kill relatively few in war, it's crew served and specialist weaponry, air attack, and especially artillery that does most of the killing. Space Marines have been shown to be killed quite easily by such weaponry, such that a Space Marine isn't coming away from an Earthshaker shell landing next to them or lascannon fire any better than a Guardsmen would. Given that such weapons are what does the vast majority of the killing, even if SM's were immune to small arms fire (which they're not), their casualties rates would be such that they'd quickly be depleted in any major pitched engagement.
That Space Marines are the foremost fighting force of the Imperium seems rather specific and factual to me.
Let's look at this. The Milky Way galaxy contains 400 billion stars with an area of 10,000,000,000,000 cubic light years, and in the 40k fluff, around a million notably populated/important Imperial worlds spread across this vast space, and wars going on all the time almost everywhere. Even in the fluff, the overwhelmingly vast majority of wars never see a single Space Marine boot. You're confusing aggrandizing progpaganda passages made for sounding cool with what actually happens. Space Marines would be so rare as to be mythical even for the most terrible of warzones.
Las-rounds whined past or pattered harmlessly off the warriors' armor. Scaevolla felt one brush his temple, but felt no pain. He pumped off another dozen rounds into the fog, each shot followed by a scream, closer this time. At his left, Opus, the bull of the squad, howled a tuneless battle-dirge accompanied by the roar of his autocannon.
Pg 92 of Space Marines, Honor Among Friends.
...whose bayonets stabbed feebly at their power armor. The troopers' attempts at swamping their attackers through sheer weight of numbers were like the ocean lashing in vain at a tidal wall.
Pg 93 of Space Marines, Honor Among Friends.
There were self-contained bunker pods strung out there, each equipped with pintle-mounted lasers.
Burns scored across ceramite and a few unlucky ones caught a charge in the face, blinded by the beams.
The battle-brother with the missile launcher was still with him, sporting an ugly singe mark from a glance on his torso, but otherwise untouched.
Pg 124 of The Flight Of The Eisenstein.
Emphasis mine. Those weren't lasguns, but rather heavier turrets that simply scorched the paint of their armor. The ones hit in the helmet simply were blinded by their auspex being scrambled, not killed or even wounded.Blinded..
Those are just immediate from the top of my head. I can look for more, and damned be any that decide to ignore these.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Wait, so Astartes power armor is awesome, except when it isn't, basically.
If Ceramite is so susceptible to decay despite the best efforts of the owners to repair it, perhaps it's a terrible material.
No, it's fething amazing because a tank with the same care would be a pile of scrap, PA actually manages to still function after ten thousand years of existence. But please, do lecture me on how blood-lusted psychopaths take such dear care of their armor, because CSM's are an assorted bunch of crazy with those being brought down by a simple lasgun likely forgetting that there is other things to war besides killing, such as 'logistics' and 'repair', because simply being a demigod doesn't excuse you from taking care of their gear.
What ludicrous claims? That Ceramite plate is impenetrable to lasguns? Do I need to explain why they are? I am not sure if I am going to bother answering to the 'invulnerability of power armour' and 'Marines cannot be killed by lasguns' strawmen. They can, but it is too unlikely for me to bother debating percentages.
Except we have numerous examples of marines being killed in very likely scenarios not involving ridiculous one-in-a-million shots by stuff like lasguns. Hell we see SM's killed by knives.
Ultimately, either way, small arms kill relatively few in war, it's crew served and specialist weaponry, air attack, and especially artillery that does most of the killing. Space Marines have been shown to be killed quite easily by such weaponry, such that a Space Marine isn't coming away from an Earthshaker shell landing next to them or lascannon fire any better than a Guardsmen would. Given that such weapons are what does the vast majority of the killing, even if SM's were immune to small arms fire (which they're not), their casualties rates would be such that they'd quickly be depleted in any major pitched engagement.
That Space Marines are the foremost fighting force of the Imperium seems rather specific and factual to me.
Let's look at this. The Milky Way galaxy contains 400 billion stars with an area of 10,000,000,000,000 cubic light years, and in the 40k fluff, around a million notably populated/important Imperial worlds spread across this vast space, and wars going on all the time almost everywhere. Even in the fluff, the overwhelmingly vast majority of wars never see a single Space Marine boot. You're confusing aggrandizing progpaganda passages made for sounding cool with what actually happens. Space Marines would be so rare as to be mythical even for the most terrible of warzones.
One in a million shots would come quite often if there is are thousands upon thousands of men on the ground in battle....
Wyzilla wrote: Emphasis mine. Those weren't lasguns, but rather heavier turrets that simply scorched the paint of their armor. The ones hit in the helmet simply were blinded by their auspex being scrambled, not killed or even wounded.Blinded..
Those are just immediate from the top of my head. I can look for more, and damned be any that decide to ignore these.
But those are BL books, and other BL books can and apparently do disagree with them. To quote somebody else earlier in the thread:
Unit1126PLL wrote: In Storm of Iron, several Marines are killed by lasgun fire. In The First and Only, an Iron Warrior gets his head shot off by a guardsman with a lasgun.
So there's other BL books that contradict the BL books that support your position. Which is to be expected, since BL authors aren't too tightly restrained on small details like that.
Wyzilla wrote: But please, do lecture me on how blood-lusted psychopaths take such dear care of their armor
Power armour is long-lived, sure, but Chaos Marines do have access to Warpsmiths, the Dark Mechanicus and slaves to that sort of stuff for them, so they're not without means of maintenance.
Marines are like the Spartans from Halo...they're shock troops and special forces, they operate behind enemy lands and disrupt their organization and morale,
Imperial_Arson wrote: Marines are like the Spartans from Halo...they're shock troops and special forces, they operate behind enemy lands and disrupt their organization and morale,
Yeah, but you know what else disrupts organization and morale? An ICBM launched from another continent. And it's much cheaper than the marines.
Imperial_Arson wrote: Marines are like the Spartans from Halo...they're shock troops and special forces, they operate behind enemy lands and disrupt their organization and morale,
Yeah, but you know what else disrupts organization and morale? An ICBM launched from another continent. And it's much cheaper than the marines.
Lol we aren't even talking about ICBMs, we're talking about Marines, get with the program. plus, in-universe there are explanations as to why the various races do not use tactical WMDs in this manner.
Imperial_Arson wrote: Lol we aren't even talking about ICBMs, we're talking about Marines
Yes, and the point is that virtually everything marines do can be done better by WMDs. In real life you send your elite commandos after the enemy leadership because you need a precision strike that kills them without blowing up the school next door. In 40k you send an ICBM because blowing up the school at the same time as you kill the enemy leaders is an extra bonus and saves you the trouble of massacring all those children the hard way.
plus, in-universe there are explanations as to why the various races do not use tactical WMDs in this manner.
Not really. The major explanation is that GW wants the fluff to be all about superheroes fighting honorable duels with the enemy champion, not industrialized slaughter on a planetary scale. And so the fluff talks a lot about "grimdark", but is reluctant to portray the real horrors of war.
I don't see the relevance, really. Yes, it would make more sense to just bomb a planet or warzone into submission most of the time, but that applies for all of Imperial warfare. Why do Imperial Guard build trenches and have multi-year long trenchwars with rebels (First and Only, Straight Silver)? Why do they waste thousands of men and an entire marine chapter on boarding a a Craftworld to destroy it instead of just destroying it with their fleet?
Because Warhammer 40K. That isn't a criticism that can be allayed specifically to Space Marines, though.
- - - - - - -
Unrelated to that topic, it peeves me that people try to criticize the Black Library without being very knowledgeable about it at all. That scene with the Space Marines being killed by las-weapons in First and Only? Yeah, it was specifically noted multiple times in the story that the las-weapons being used by that particular regiment were considerably stronger than normal lasguns, and also used up much more ammo (they were basically hot-shot lasguns). Which completely fits the fluff of hotshot lasguns going through marine armor (they are AP3, afterall).
Context, children. People whine about the Black Library because "a guy who knew a guy who read the book told me that X happened. CONTRADICTION." Most of the "contradictions" people think they see in the Black Library are just lack of context.
BlaxicanX wrote: I don't see the relevance, really. Yes, it would make more sense to just bomb a planet or warzone into submission most of the time, but that applies for all of Imperial warfare. Why do Imperial Guard build trenches and have multi-year long trenchwars with rebels (First and Only, Straight Silver)?
Because sometimes you want to capture something intact, and it makes sense to spend cheap lives to do it. The problem is that marines are terrible at that kind of mission since they don't have the numbers to survive a planet-scale battle and hold the territory they just dropped into. And you certainly can't afford to throw them away on suicide missions or attrition warfare. So the supposed usefulness of marines is hit and run strikes on vital targets, where the marines drop in, kill everything in the area, and get out before they can be swarmed by a few million angry orks/guardsmen/whatever. And in that case, if you're just going to kill everything and leave you might as well just nuke it from a distance instead of using your unbelievably rare and precious space marines.
Lol. You already made the distinction that you're referring to a "blow up the school and everything around it" scenario. It's too late to fall back on a "because collateral damage!" argument. Considering your post about launching an ICBM was a direct response to someone pointing out the Marine's role in special-ops behind enemy lines gak, bringing up full-scale invasions and holding back the tide isn't relevant either.
Furthermore, even in that specific example I mentioned, there was no concern over collateral damage. They were literally fighting in the middle of a desert.
So we have it established that the Guard routinely engage in pointless fighting where just nuking everything would be more efficient, but they don't because welcome to Warhammer 40K.
BlaxicanX wrote: Lol. You already made the distinction that you're referring to a "blow up the school and everything around it" scenario. It's too late to fall back on a "because collateral damage!" argument. Considering your post about launching an ICBM was a direct response to someone pointing out the Marine's role in special-ops behind enemy lines gak, bringing up full-scale invasions and holding back the tide isn't relevant either.
But you don't use guardsmen for the "blow up the enemy leaders" scenario either. You use an ICBM. I'm talking about two different situations:
1) Single specific target that needs to be killed, the role space marines are supposedly great at and guardsmen suck at. Use an ICBM and kill everything the easy way.
2) Large-scale war where you want to capture and keep a planet, the role space marines suck at and guardsmen are great (if slow) at. Send a few million guardsmen, wait until your have your planet back.
So you have one situation where marines are useless, and one situation where marines are redundant. What exactly is it that they're supposed to do that has any practical value?
So we have it established that the Guard routinely engage in pointless fighting where just nuking everything would be more efficient, but they don't because welcome to Warhammer 40K.
Sure, welcome to 40k, where if the Imperium has a choice between doing something stupid and doing something sensible they'll almost always pick the stupid option. That doesn't mean that those decisions should be viewed as reasonable and pragmatic ones.
Imperial_Arson wrote: Marines are like the Spartans from Halo...they're shock troops and special forces, they operate behind enemy lands and disrupt their organization and morale,
The problem is that half the time the Space Marines are fighting pitched battles on front lines, engaging in tank battles, etc, not doing commando-ey things.
And then what happens when you want to kill the enemy leadership that happen to be inside a fortress oblivious to ICBM's, or are 100 feet underground in a bunker, or just so happen to be in a forgeworld factory that produces something absolutely vital to the defense of the imperium? What would you use then, as you obviously don't want to use marines even though they are the best option in said situation.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: And then what happens when you want to kill the enemy leadership that happen to be inside a fortress oblivious to ICBM's, or are 100 feet underground in a bunker, or just so happen to be in a forgeworld factory that produces something absolutely vital to the defense of the imperium? What would you use then, as you obviously don't want to use marines even though they are the best option in said situation.
Actually the assassinorum operatives are the best option in that situation; they're far less likely to produce collateral damage than astartes.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: And then what happens when you want to kill the enemy leadership that happen to be inside a fortress oblivious to ICBM's, or are 100 feet underground in a bunker, or just so happen to be in a forgeworld factory that produces something absolutely vital to the defense of the imperium? What would you use then, as you obviously don't want to use marines even though they are the best option in said situation.
Well, if the fortress is oblivious to the ICBMs then just shoot them with ICBMs! They'll never see it coming!
In that case, I would send in Stormtroopers, Drop Guardsmen or Space Marines since they are perfect in that situation. Space Marines are great at taking out regular humans in close quarters if that's what needs to be done.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: And then what happens when you want to kill the enemy leadership that happen to be inside a fortress oblivious to ICBM's, or are 100 feet underground in a bunker, or just so happen to be in a forgeworld factory that produces something absolutely vital to the defense of the imperium? What would you use then, as you obviously don't want to use marines even though they are the best option in said situation.
As Melissa said, this is why the Officio Assassinorum exists.
BlaxicanX wrote: Unrelated to that topic, it peeves me that people try to criticize the Black Library without being very knowledgeable about it at all. That scene with the Space Marines being killed by las-weapons in First and Only? Yeah, it was specifically noted multiple times in the story that the las-weapons being used by that particular regiment were considerably stronger than normal lasguns, and also used up much more ammo (they were basically hot-shot lasguns). Which completely fits the fluff of hotshot lasguns going through marine armor (they are AP3, afterall).
Storm of Iron was also cited as an example. Were those hotshots too?
BlaxicanX wrote: Context, children. People whine about the Black Library because "a guy who knew a guy who read the book told me that X happened. CONTRADICTION."
Sure, misinformation can be a problem...
BlaxicanX wrote: Most of the "contradictions" people think they see in the Black Library are just lack of context.
...but contradictions are indeed a thing in BL, they're allowed to deviate a bit. Actual BL authors have said so.
So wait, you won't commit space marines to tackle the situation as they are too valuable a resource but you will commit an assassin that requires a long administration trail to sanction and a resource that are EVEN rarer than marine?
Also, the Officio Assassinorum do like, fail you know? They have a high success rate, but if it's in a relatively suicidal situation then you are just throwing away the operative and well, you can probably replace a whole squad of space marines faster and for cheaper than a single assassin.
If the enemy leadership is a rogue planetary governor going mental with power in a huge fortress with nothing much more than your standard PDF as his army then yeah, fine, send in the assassin, if the enemy happens to be quite a savvy rogue general, or marshall, or warmaster or tau commander or any other combination of dangerous leader combined with dangerous army in close proximity, then who are you going to send in? Stormtroopers won't cut it, and again, there are less of them than marines so it's a waste of resources.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh yeah, and finally, if you think space marines are overhyped in the fluff, how on earth can you justify the assassin operatives fluff?
endlesswaltz123 wrote: And then what happens when you want to kill the enemy leadership that happen to be inside a fortress oblivious to ICBM's, or are 100 feet underground in a bunker, or just so happen to be in a forgeworld factory that produces something absolutely vital to the defense of the imperium? What would you use then, as you obviously don't want to use marines even though they are the best option in said situation.
Well, if the fortress is oblivious to the ICBMs then just shoot them with ICBMs! They'll never see it coming!
In that case, I would send in Stormtroopers, Drop Guardsmen or Space Marines since they are perfect in that situation. Space Marines are great at taking out regular humans in close quarters if that's what needs to be done.
Cities in 40k have void-shields.
And there have been numerous occasions where nukes have been used in fluff/lore/fiction. they're just not used alot because if they were then all the factions would just be using WMDs all the time and very few of them are okay with it.
Eldar use WMDs very little of the time because most of the time they want to recover something, defend a Maiden World or something, etc.
IoM doesn't just nuke everything , they actually want to preserve planets so they can exploit their resources and use them for habitation.
Necrons want to reap life, not completely destroy it.
Chaos, wants to corrupt and kill personally.
Tyranids, same as Necrons.
Tau, want to convert life to the Greater Good, plus they don't want to destroy potential habitats.
Orks just want to have fun.
Dark Eldar want resources and slaves.
As for " well why don't they just nuke everything" . SOMETIMES THEY DO. It's called exterminatus.
Plus they can always use plasma torpedos, which they do use.
If you don't understand the reasons why WMDs aren't used instead of infantry then why are you on here other then for the tabletop game?
Plus, why deviate the topic when you know this is about Marines not WMDs.
40k /= realistic.
thought you would have known this.
Assassins in general aren't rarer than marines, I should note, even if the Officio Assassinorum operatives are. The Assassinorum, however, is far more competent at killing the target without causing collateral damage than Astartes are. Hell, even non-Assassinorum assassins would be.
A well placed IED, dagger, or bullet can do the same thing as calling in three squads of marines if you're just looking to assassinate a leader.
Melissia wrote: Assassins in general aren't rarer than marines, I should note, even if the Officio Assassinorum operatives are. The Assassinorum, however, is far more competent at killing the target without causing collateral damage than Astartes are. Hell, even non-Assassinorum assassins would be.
A well placed IED, dagger, or bullet can do instead of calling in a few squads of marines.
Melissia wrote: Assassins in general aren't rarer than marines, I should note, even if the Officio Assassinorum operatives are.
Well they are rather rare and very OP.
I think you're confusing the general term "assassin" with the specific term "assassinorum operative".
They are not the same.
Hell, the Imperial Guard can provide its own "assassins", albeit of lesser caliber; snipers, infiltration teams (often stormtroopers), camo-cloak wearing scouts, what have you. And it could always hire one of the countless assassins and assassin organizations and death cults if those weren't up to snuff. And if THOSE aren't up to snuff and the target is important enough, they can rely upon the assassinorum to do the job.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hell, Gaunt and Cain both functioned effectively as assassins in this definition of the term: "a murderer of an important person in a surprise attack for political or religious reasons."
Melissia wrote: Assassins in general aren't rarer than marines, I should note, even if the Officio Assassinorum operatives are.
Well they are rather rare and very OP.
I think you're confusing the general term "assassin" with the specific term "assassinorum operative".
They are not the same.
Hell, the Imperial Guard can provide its own "assassins", albeit of lesser caliber; snipers, infiltration teams (often stormtroopers), camo-cloak wearing scouts, what have you. And it could always hire one of the countless assassins and assassin organizations and death cults if those weren't up to snuff. And if THOSE aren't up to snuff and the target is important enough, they can rely upon the assassinorum to do the job.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hell, Gaunt and Cain both functioned effectively as assassins in this definition of the term: "a murderer of an important person in a surprise attack for political or religious reasons."
Well, due to the fact that an 'Imperial Assassin' is a rather... Unique fellow, people tend to assume they mean them when you are talking about assassins in comparison to other imperial forces.
Space Marines have assassins as well, in the general definition. Sniper Scouts. Raven Guard. (A Raven Guard infiltrated a Chaos Leviathan Command Vehicle in The Chapter's Due, I think. Caused some trouble for them.)
Asserting that a huge segment of the lore simply doesn't exist is... bizarre of you.
There have been countless examples of non-Assassinorum assassins, assassin organizations, and et cetera.
Hell, the tabletop has some of them-- death cultists are a great example of non-assassinorum operative assassins.
"Assassin" is general, "Assassinorum Operative" is specific. "Imperial Assassin" just means that they're an assassin in the Imperium's employ, not that they are an operative of the Officio Assassinorum.
Asserting that a huge segment of the lore simply doesn't exist is... bizarre of you.
There have been countless examples of non-Assassinorum assassins, assassin organizations, and et cetera.
Hell, the tabletop has some of them-- death cultists are a great example of non-assassinorum operative assassins.
"Assassin" is general, "Assassinorum Operative" is specific. "Imperial Assassin" just means that they're an assassin in the Imperium's employ, not that they are an operative of the Officio Assassinorum.
Way to miss the point.
I never proclaimed that non-Assassinorum assassins does not exist.
Only that I won't lose sleep over using the term 'Imperial Assassin' to refer to Assassinorum people.
Notice how I refer to these Assassins with an 'A' rather than an 'a'?
If you want to be pedantic, then sure, just check closely whether I say 'Assassin' or 'assassin'.
Because a regular IG sniper is certainly not an Assassin.
I think GW needs to decide what the role of the Space Marines is before they can re-emphasize it. They need to decide whether Warhammer 40K is a game set in a grim, dystopian future where there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter to the mocking laughter of thirsting gods..... or a game where power armored supersoldiers kill thousands of times their own number of enemies, using a gun that only packs 24 rounds and walk away without a scratch.
I think GW needs to decide what the role of the Space Marines is before they can re-emphasize it. They need to decide whether Warhammer 40K is a game set in a grim, dystopian future where there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter to the mocking laughter of thirsting gods..... or a game where power armored supersoldiers kill thousands of times their own number of enemies, using a gun that only packs 24 rounds and walk away without a scratch.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: And then what happens when you want to kill the enemy leadership that happen to be inside a fortress oblivious to ICBM's, or are 100 feet underground in a bunker,
So if this fortress is so well protected that even direct hits from nukes can't touch it how exactly are space marines going to get inside? Knock on the door and ask nicely to have a heroic duel with the enemy commander?
or just so happen to be in a forgeworld factory that produces something absolutely vital to the defense of the imperium?
Nuke it anyway. The enemy probably has a nuke on a dead man's switch just to deny it out of spite if you manage to kill them, and has probably defiled it with chaos corruption/xenos tech-heresy/etc already. You're not getting it back, so you might as well just nuke it and save yourself the trouble.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: And then what happens when you want to kill the enemy leadership that happen to be inside a fortress oblivious to ICBM's, or are 100 feet underground in a bunker,
So if this fortress is so well protected that even direct hits from nukes can't touch it how exactly are space marines going to get inside? Knock on the door and ask nicely to have a heroic duel with the enemy commander?
or just so happen to be in a forgeworld factory that produces something absolutely vital to the defense of the imperium?
Nuke it anyway. The enemy probably has a nuke on a dead man's switch just to deny it out of spite if you manage to kill them, and has probably defiled it with chaos corruption/xenos tech-heresy/etc already. You're not getting it back, so you might as well just nuke it and save yourself the trouble.
You really seem to think there is a high prevalence of atomic weaponry in 40k when there isn't, they don't need it. They have orbital weapons and the Dark Age of Technology advanced way beyond the need for them.
Seriously -.- just because IT WOULD MAKE SENSE IN OUR WORLD, doesn't mean it's going to be in 40k. I dont know how hard that can be.
Imperial_Arson wrote: You really seem to think there is a high prevalence of atomic weaponry in 40k when there isn't, they don't need it. They have orbital weapons and the Dark Age of Technology advanced way beyond the need for them.
Krieg and Colonel Jurten's 'Purging' is actually a rather good indicator of the scale of atomic weaponry available to the Imperium. When Krieg's civil war started, Colonel Jurten of the 83rd Regiment was tasked with holding Krieg against the rebels but knowing that no fleet would arrive in time to assist his beleaguered loyalists, decided that Krieg would not fall to the rebels. With much of the planet in rebel hands, he unleashed a massive atomic strike against the rebels, using atomic weapon stocks hidden beneath Hive Ferrograd, if I recall it correctly. Krieg was utterly devastated over the next few days with it's ecosystem all but annihilated and the survivors forced to live underground, where they continued the fight, rebel against loyalist, for half a millennia. Such was the enormity of Jurten's strike that Krieg's surface is utterly uninhabitable and would never be habitable again.
Oh, of course not. As it currently is in M41, it's a hellhole (and, in fact, the DKOK will be used in my DH campaign, which is also set on a post-nuclear-apocalypse planet...) and will be until everyone in the current era is many millennia dead.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: If the enemy leadership is a rogue planetary governor going mental with power in a huge fortress with nothing much more than your standard PDF as his army then yeah, fine, send in the assassin.
actually you teleport in a squad of Grey Knights and let them deal with it, just like they did in the book "The Emperors Gift"
Imperial_Arson wrote: You really seem to think there is a high prevalence of atomic weaponry in 40k when there isn't, they don't need it. They have orbital weapons and the Dark Age of Technology advanced way beyond the need for them.
Krieg and Colonel Jurten's 'Purging' is actually a rather good indicator of the scale of atomic weaponry available to the Imperium. When Krieg's civil war started, Colonel Jurten of the 83rd Regiment was tasked with holding Krieg against the rebels but knowing that no fleet would arrive in time to assist his beleaguered loyalists, decided that Krieg would not fall to the rebels. With much of the planet in rebel hands, he unleashed a massive atomic strike against the rebels, using atomic weapon stocks hidden beneath Hive Ferrograd, if I recall it correctly. Krieg was utterly devastated over the next few days with it's ecosystem all but annihilated and the survivors forced to live underground, where they continued the fight, rebel against loyalist, for half a millennia. Such was the enormity of Jurten's strike that Krieg's surface is utterly uninhabitable and would never be habitable again.
You don't hear about other instances of this much in 40k lore.
BlaxicanX wrote: I don't see the relevance, really. Yes, it would make more sense to just bomb a planet or warzone into submission most of the time, but that applies for all of Imperial warfare. Why do Imperial Guard build trenches and have multi-year long trenchwars with rebels (First and Only, Straight Silver)? Why do they waste thousands of men and an entire marine chapter on boarding a a Craftworld to destroy it instead of just destroying it with their fleet?
Because Warhammer 40K. That isn't a criticism that can be allayed specifically to Space Marines, though.
- - - - - - -
Unrelated to that topic, it peeves me that people try to criticize the Black Library without being very knowledgeable about it at all. That scene with the Space Marines being killed by las-weapons in First and Only? Yeah, it was specifically noted multiple times in the story that the las-weapons being used by that particular regiment were considerably stronger than normal lasguns, and also used up much more ammo (they were basically hot-shot lasguns). Which completely fits the fluff of hotshot lasguns going through marine armor (they are AP3, afterall).
Context, children. People whine about the Black Library because "a guy who knew a guy who read the book told me that X happened. CONTRADICTION." Most of the "contradictions" people think they see in the Black Library are just lack of context.
There's also some stuff that is immensely contradictory due to the nature of the Black Library with books made for each faction being vastly different in feats compared to the other- even varying greatly in the books for their own factions. Hell, even in a single book feats can completely vary, simply due to being named exponentially increases your ability to eat bolters while the unnamed book besides you goes down like a punk to a bolter. It's just that the high end for Marines goes above and beyond the high end for guardsmen.
EDIT-
Also, ironically CSM's do enjoy using plasma bombs and planted explosives, especially the Iron Warriors.
Double EDIT-
On the subject of Sisters armor, it's the same quality. Just remember that it's also less. Astartes don't only have the advantage of the black carapace, but being simply larger and stronger, and can thus wear more armor, which thanks to the black carapace, doesn't even feel like armor. The legs and pauldrons of Astartes PA especially comes to mind.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: And then what happens when you want to kill the enemy leadership that happen to be inside a fortress oblivious to ICBM's, or are 100 feet underground in a bunker, or just so happen to be in a forgeworld factory that produces something absolutely vital to the defense of the imperium? What would you use then, as you obviously don't want to use marines even though they are the best option in said situation.
Well, if the fortress is oblivious to the ICBMs then just shoot them with ICBMs! They'll never see it coming!
In that case, I would send in Stormtroopers, Drop Guardsmen or Space Marines since they are perfect in that situation. Space Marines are great at taking out regular humans in close quarters if that's what needs to be done.
Cities in 40k have void-shields.
And there have been numerous occasions where nukes have been used in fluff/lore/fiction. they're just not used alot because if they were then all the factions would just be using WMDs all the time and very few of them are okay with it.
Firstly, it was a joke since he said "Oblivious" rather than "Impervious".
Secondly, I don't understand your line of thinking. If they were used all the time then everyone would use them but very few are okay with it? If very few are okay with it then why would they use them? And, more important, no one in 40k gives a damn whether you are okay with the usage of a weapon or not. Conventions of war are pretty much gone in the grim dark future.
Eldar use WMDs very little of the time because most of the time they want to recover something, defend a Maiden World or something, etc.
IoM doesn't just nuke everything , they actually want to preserve planets so they can exploit their resources and use them for habitation.
Necrons want to reap life, not completely destroy it.
Chaos, wants to corrupt and kill personally.
Tyranids, same as Necrons.
Tau, want to convert life to the Greater Good, plus they don't want to destroy potential habitats.
Orks just want to have fun.
Dark Eldar want resources and slaves.
Relevance? We aren't talking about these factions doing what they do. We are talking about the Imperium assaulting a forge world fortress.
As for " well why don't they just nuke everything" . SOMETIMES THEY DO. It's called exterminatus.
Plus they can always use plasma torpedos, which they do use.
I never said that nor did anyone else. But I still don't understand what this has to do with taking a fortress.
If you don't understand the reasons why WMDs aren't used instead of infantry then why are you on here other then for the tabletop game?
Plus, why deviate the topic when you know this is about Marines not WMDs.
40k /= realistic.
thought you would have known this.
Uhhh... okay. Well, I am here because I am a Marine fan who thinks that Space Marines are perceived as being too powerful by some and I am hoping to change their minds through an argument. Plus, I never suggested that we should just nuke everything since there are legitimate reasons for using ground infantry. I even said that you could use Space Marines for this job if the fortress was impervious to Nukes thanks to some missile defense system. Read someone's post before going on a rant. By the way, you are the one who deviated off of the topic, not me.
Also, 40k may not be realistic but that doesn't mean we should throw logic out of the window. There has to be some logic for us to believe what they are saying.
As for the topic... my selection of 40k fluff beats your selection of 40k fluff. I think that's pretty much the argument at this point.
In my personal interpretation, I see them as fething OP. Black Library fluff is inconsistent, tabletop rules are implausible to use as background and codexes etc. are too vague. You can't say that all of it is canon since there are direct contradictions all over the place.
But.
That is not what I am arguing for. I know better than to take something 100% subjective into arguments where sources and stuff is thrown around like grenades.
My personal opinions do not impair my ability to discuss things!
I'm sticking to source-throwing and the original common-sense throwing in discussions here, really.
Wyzilla wrote: On the subject of Sisters armor, it's the same quality. Just remember that it's also less. Astartes don't only have the advantage of the black carapace, but being simply larger and stronger, and can thus wear more armor, which thanks to the black carapace, doesn't even feel like armor. The legs and pauldrons of Astartes PA especially comes to mind.
Still outright stated to be just as protective, though. And provides the same protection on the tabletop. Maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but that's what GW has said.
Some explantions for that could be that the Marine armour has to incorporate more features than the SoB armour, or that Astartes are huge so of course the armour looks bigger.
Wearing more armor doesn't make it any more protective. That's like saying a set of plate is more protective on a taller guy than on someone who is a lot shorter.
Wearing more armor doesn't make it any more protective. That's like saying a set of plate is more protective on a taller guy than on someone who is a lot shorter.
No, as in thicker armor. Which we also know makes armor a bit more effective in W40K, or else Terminator armor would be pointless. Hence the gigantic pauldrons frequently used as cover and the thick leg armor.
Spoiler:
They visibly wear more armor. An Astartes shrunk down to the size of the sister would be wearing more armor than the Sister. This is something pretty easy to see. This means that they have thicker ceramite slabs with plasteel and admantanium under the ceramite coating. Also, saves are gameplay, which is worthless in the actual workings of W40K. A gretchin outside of a WAAGH! will always die from a connecting bolter round, irregardless of what it's save is on the tabletop.
The Space Marine's armor just looks wider rather than thicker. And Pauldrons don't matter much when it comes to protecting you unless you really value your upper arms. It looks to be about the same for the chest for both Sisters and Marines. In fact, Marines are at a disadvantage being so big since they present an easier target.
Weren't you preaching that it's folly to apply reason to the setting, earlier?
Not that I'm saying that I think it is unreasonable, mind you. Besides what I stated before, it's also worth noting that the Sororitas armour was and is bankrolled by the Ecclesiarchy, so of course it can be good.
Troike wrote: Weren't you preaching that it's folly to apply reason to the setting, earlier?
Not that I'm saying that I think it is unreasonable, mind you. Besides what I stated before, it's also worth noting that the Sororitas armour was and is bankrolled by the Ecclesiarchy, so of course it can be good.
Yes, but even in a setting that throws logic outside the window, somebody wearing armor out of magic metal will always have less durability than somebody wearing armor with more magic metal, it's simply how it works in the fluff ignoring named character health buffs. Sisters make up for it by being smaller, because it's actually useful to be significantly shorter than an eight foot tall enemy.
TheCustomLime wrote: I just noticed that the picture you gave, Wyzilla, is photoshopped. I kinda like the edit they did with the sister. Makes her look more professional.
Wasn't it stated in Games Workshop studio material that Sister armor is just as protective as Marine armor?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Wasn't it stated in Games Workshop studio material that Sister armor is just as protective as Marine armor?
In just about any place it talks about the gear the Sisters have, yes.
They visibly wear more armor. An Astartes shrunk down to the size of the sister would be wearing more armor than the Sister. This is something pretty easy to see. This means that they have thicker ceramite slabs with plasteel and admantanium under the ceramite coating. Also, saves are gameplay, which is worthless in the actual workings of W40K. A gretchin outside of a WAAGH! will always die from a connecting bolter round, irregardless of what it's save is on the tabletop.
He's also got feth-off huge targets at the tops of his legs and in the crooks of his elbows, not to mention that anyone with a half-way decent scope is going to be able to put one through his eye at 500 meters. His pauldrons are bigger but badly shaped for ballistic deflection... hers are better-designed for that purpose, curved in the right way to deflect shots upward and away from her. So's her helmet, incidentally.
This means that they have thicker ceramite slabs with plasteel and admantanium under the ceramite coating
Actually, it doesn't. It means the armor contains within it all the things it needs to operate in a vacuum, in a toxic environment, to monitor the Astartes' physical health and administer various drugs and such automatically as needed, recycle his waste into a nutrient paste, and all of the other swiss-army-knife functions that SMPA has that Sisters PA does not.
TheCustomLime wrote: I kinda like the edit they did with the sister. Makes her look more professional.
And also much more like a Marine, since the guy just copy/pasted the Marine armour on top. Not that I would particularly midn if the boobplate went, but an advantage of it is that it does give the Sisters a unique look, and fits in with their over-the-top gothic aesthetic. If it was replaced with something about as distinct and fitting, I wouldn't mind. Maybe something a bit knightly?
TheCustomLime wrote: I kinda like the edit they did with the sister. Makes her look more professional.
And also much more like a Marine, since the guy just copy/pasted the Marine armour on top. Not that I would particularly midn if the boobplate went, but an advantage of it is that it does give the Sisters a unique look, and fits in with their over-the-top gothic aesthetic. If it was replaced with something about as distinct and fitting, I wouldn't mind. Maybe something a bit knightly?
Well, you could always remove the boobplate without removing the unique armour design style.
I mean, the state of SoB is not so bad so that boobplate is particularly important for them to keep.
TheCustomLime wrote: I just noticed that the picture you gave, Wyzilla, is photoshopped. I kinda like the edit they did with the sister. Makes her look more professional.
Wasn't it stated in Games Workshop studio material that Sister armor is just as protective as Marine armor?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Wasn't it stated in Games Workshop studio material that Sister armor is just as protective as Marine armor?
In just about any place it talks about the gear the Sisters have, yes.
They visibly wear more armor. An Astartes shrunk down to the size of the sister would be wearing more armor than the Sister. This is something pretty easy to see. This means that they have thicker ceramite slabs with plasteel and admantanium under the ceramite coating. Also, saves are gameplay, which is worthless in the actual workings of W40K. A gretchin outside of a WAAGH! will always die from a connecting bolter round, irregardless of what it's save is on the tabletop.
He's also got feth-off huge targets at the tops of his legs and in the crooks of his elbows, not to mention that anyone with a half-way decent scope is going to be able to put one through his eye at 500 meters. His pauldrons are bigger but badly shaped for ballistic deflection... hers are better-designed for that purpose, curved in the right way to deflect shots upward and away from her. So's her helmet, incidentally.
This means that they have thicker ceramite slabs with plasteel and admantanium under the ceramite coating
Actually, it doesn't. It means the armor contains within it all the things it needs to operate in a vacuum, in a toxic environment, to monitor the Astartes' physical health and administer various drugs and such automatically as needed, recycle his waste into a nutrient paste, and all of the other swiss-army-knife functions that SMPA has that Sisters PA does not.
The Vacuum bit wouldn't need to take up nearly any of the armor, considering a naked space marine can survive in a vacuum already. Just just store more oxygen, which IIRC the backpack already does. And the pauldrons are more effective than those of the sisters- they raise up when arms are raised, and they frequently save the wearer's life by providing cover for their torso and head. Proper fluff has Space marines frequently firing bolters across their breastplate, maximizing the use of the pauldrons.
(Never understood why people whined about the pauldrons. They're currently at the perfect the size. Certainly better than the old Terminator models.)
Not for long, and not maintain combat effectiveness. The armor will need to have vacuum-seal functions as well as an O2 system, or CO2 scrubbers. His third lung isn't going to last forever.
Imperial_Arson wrote: You don't hear about other instances of this much in 40k lore.
Probably because there aren't many reasons to have it happen in stories & background for 40k? It's integral for the Death Korps because it's a massive part of where they come from, so it's a prominent example. GW are not going to list every time something happens or a particular weapon is used in 40k, but are going to give the most prominent or greatest examples. In the example I gave it showed the use of a massive stockpile of atomic weapons, enough to turn the surface of an entire planet into a barren wasteland - not just a small area, not a continent, the entire world of Krieg, so soaked in radiation that you can not walk it's surface if you're not fully covered by clothing designed for that environment. You have to grasp how much atomic weaponry would be needed to do that to an entire planet (I have trouble comprehending it) and soak it so greatly in radiation that it will take many thousands of years until you could walk upon the planets surface without fear of radiation poisoning.
The point is that if a world such as Krieg had such a massive stockpile underneath a single Hive, how prevalent would atomic/chemical weapons across the entire Imperium? The Imperium, I would say, definitely has access to these sorts of weapons and would use them as and when the situation would suit their deployment.
(As a note; don't forget that many of the stories involving the Guard revolve around showing how super-awesomely-amazingly-brilliantly-fantastically incredible the Astartes are - poor Guard/PDF tend to be the pedestal upon which the Astartes grandly stand. So would GW/BL write in the Guard using WMDs when it would make a 'great' plot-hook for Astartes to go in and do the job instead?)
BrotherHaraldus wrote: I mean, the state of SoB is not so bad so that boobplate is particularly important for them to keep.
As I said, that's not the point I'm making. I'm saying that it provides advantages now (very distinct from Marines, fits an aesthetic), but an alternative that also has those features is possible, and I wouldn't mind switching to it if it was cool looking enough.
Psienesis wrote: I don't want them suddenly becoming Space Marines with bob cuts.
According to a 2011 interview with Jes Goodwin, neither do they. It sounds like, last they mentioned it. want to keep the same sort of general look with them.
Bio-Chem weapons have been used many, many times. They deployed some ancient chemical weapons in the Third Armageddon War, though they had degraded over time and did not have the desired effectiveness.
However, these WMDs, it should be noted, were in the possession of the planetary governor. Not the IG, not the Astartes, not the PDF, not the Inquisition. One guy had the power to deploy WMDs basically whenever he felt like it, and he wasn't even a military official.
I think NBC weapons are far more available in the 40K setting than are mentioned, simply because it's not an exciting story if an Ork army shows up, you drop some weaponized Round-Up on them, and they all die.
Imperial_Arson wrote: You really seem to think there is a high prevalence of atomic weaponry in 40k when there isn't, they don't need it. They have orbital weapons and the Dark Age of Technology advanced way beyond the need for them.
Replace "nuke" with whatever functional equivalent 40k has: a powerful WMD that can be delivered from a safe distance. Whether it's a plasma bomb, orbital lance strike, whatever, the end result is the same as the nuclear ICBM.
Seriously -.- just because IT WOULD MAKE SENSE IN OUR WORLD, doesn't mean it's going to be in 40k. I dont know how hard that can be.
No, it still makes sense in 40k. In fact, it makes more sense in 40k because of the complete absence of moral rules about war and civilian casualties that would get in the way of indiscriminate use of WMDs. You're just forgetting that the Imperium is deliberately portrayed as a bunch of ignorant religious zealots who constantly do stupid things.
Psienesis wrote: Not for long, and not maintain combat effectiveness. The armor will need to have vacuum-seal functions as well as an O2 system, or CO2 scrubbers. His third lung isn't going to last forever.
It's not really the third lung that's impressive. Rather the ability to literally seal themselves with mucus. But yeah, they are going to be taking up oxygen, although I wouldn't see why this would be stored in the bulked up portions of their armor. It would be nice if GW started to remind people that power armor is actually power armor, considering that seems to be a fact woefully forgotten by everything save a few Black Library books. Although it's still better than somehow Stormtrooper armor in Star Wars being powered environmental armor that somehow manages to cram air, A/C, battery packs, sensors, etc, into armor that's less than an inch thick.
The thing I see taking up more space than anything is, well, the armor plates, and secondly, the gears, pistons, motors, engines, and reactor that powers the armor and makes it power armor. Which is also part of how I never understood why people think Space Marines are as thick as their armor. Or how Sister armor works.
Actually, it doesn't use gears and pistons, it uses "electrically motivated muscle-fibre bundles" (or however it is they phrase it). This is the stuff that both moves the armor (when it's out of power, it's nearly impossible to move in), and grants the boosted speed strength and all that. Think of it like a sheath designed exactly as a human muscular system that the armor plates are stacked onto and wired into. That's what makes it move (it is also, iirc, what links to the Black Carapace, allowing the SM to wear the armor as if it were his own skin).
Psienesis wrote: Actually, it doesn't use gears and pistons, it uses "electrically motivated muscle-fibre bundles" (or however it is they phrase it). This is the stuff that both moves the armor (when it's out of power, it's nearly impossible to move in), and grants the boosted speed strength and all that. Think of it like a sheath designed exactly as a human muscular system that the armor plates are stacked onto and wired into. That's what makes it move (it is also, iirc, what links to the Black Carapace, allowing the SM to wear the armor as if it were his own skin).
When was that added into the fluff? Because all I remember is this from what I think was the RT days. And that sounds suspicious with how nanosuits have become a major part of nerd culture.
A long time now. 3rd edition at least. That's how PA is described in both C:WH and C: Daemonhunters for the SOB and the GK, respectively.
Incidentally, that picture is a good example of why a SM's PA is not better-protective than a Sister's. Look at all the crap he has shoved inside those armor plates! They're not solid sheets of ceramite, they're hollow and packed with all sorts of gubbins.
She is dressed in a solid, ceramite corset, because she doesn't get all those toys.
Psienesis wrote: A long time now. 3rd edition at least. That's how PA is described in both C:WH and C: Daemonhunters for the SOB and the GK, respectively.
Incidentally, that picture is a good example of why a SM's PA is not better-protective than a Sister's. Look at all the crap he has shoved inside those armor plates! They're not solid sheets of ceramite, they're hollow and packed with all sorts of gubbins.
She is dressed in a solid, ceramite corset, because she doesn't get all those toys.
Yeah, but how thick? The one reason why I never paid much attention to the sisters is that they're more weird than the Orks and even Marvel logic is strained with Sisters. Most of the armor is alright, it's just that corset that doesn't make any sense, even compared to W40K's normal lack of sense. Either Sisters look like Barbie dolls or they wear paper. It's why I prefer the conversions like the one in the pic I posted- they don't make Orks look sensible.
I'm not sure we're ever given a thickness to a Sister's PA corset, but from the looks of it one-half to one inch is not out of the question.
There's also the fact to remember that the boob-cups are decorative. Her breasts are not actually in that part of the armor, because she, too, is wrapped in the nanosuity thing that makes her armor move. That might be providing an additional eight or nine inches of solid ceramite stacked over her chest.
Wyzilla wrote: Most of the armor is alright, it's just that corset that doesn't make any sense
In my opinion It sort of pokes fun at the 'Nun' fetish. For example, 'Sister Sin';
Spoiler:
Check those nip- armour spikes!
I'd suggest that as they're modeled/drawn wearing a corset, a garment which rather helps to emphasis a woman's curves (when fitted correctly), it makes their appearance distinctly more 'feminine', probably to make them appeal more visually and to make it obvious that they're women. Or rather, 'nuns with guns'. It's a visual rather than a practical thing.
Psienesis wrote: I'm not sure we're ever given a thickness to a Sister's PA corset, but from the looks of it one-half to one inch is not out of the question.
There's also the fact to remember that the boob-cups are decorative. Her breasts are not actually in that part of the armor, because she, too, is wrapped in the nanosuity thing that makes her armor move. That might be providing an additional eight or nine inches of solid ceramite stacked over her chest.
It's still just a waste of space that actually cost the Imperium resources to design, rather than just using Astartes breastplates reduced in size and changed slightly. It's easier to work with what you have rather than build something from scratch.
Still, they're at least better than their HH counterparts. Who wore high heels.
Sparks_Havelock wrote: In my opinion It sort of pokes fun at the 'Nun' fetish. For example, 'Sister Sin';
Spoiler:
Eh, but Sister Sin is from RT, which has effectively been overwritten. I don't think we've seen spiked boobplates since then, even.
Wyzilla wrote: It's still just a waste of space that actually cost the Imperium resources to design
Ah, but it wasn't the Imperium as we know it that designed it. It was designed when the quite mad Goge Vandire was in charge. Really, he could pretty much do whatever he wanted.
And again, the Sisters are bankrolled by the Ecclesiarchy. They can foot the bill.
The Sisterhood, what with its penitent lifestyle and barely-concealed references to Scottish Catholic schools, and the imagery from the same, are definitely a "nun fetish" reference... probably a few other references to the "Victorian vice", too, in the SOB background.
Sparks_Havelock wrote: My point was about the 'Nun' fetish underlined, perhaps, by the name 'Sister Sin'?
I'd say my point still stands. RT was a very different thing, so it may not be the best comparison. Just the name "Sister Sin" sounds like a joke name, and we don't see that sort of thing today. Maybe they started off that way, but I'd say it's been toned down since.
RT was very much the 'comical' era of what was to become 40k, which is why you do get such silly names as 'Sister Sin', but it's where the Sisters of Battle originate from. They have indeed be toned down (well what hasn't - look at the newer Daemonettes of Slaanesh compared to the old models), but that, along with the other elements Psienesis mentions, are where the corset aesthetics for Sisters most likely comes from.
Troike wrote: And again, the Sisters are bankrolled by the Ecclesiarchy. They can foot the bill.
And seeing as the Ecclesiarchy is the richest organization in the Imperium, well, they foot a very large bill.
I'd actually put the Ademch above the Ecclesiarchy. The Ecclesiarchy may hold the money, but the Admech holds all the valuable resources and is fully capable of snubbing the other organizations.
Wyzilla wrote: I'd actually put the Ademch above the Ecclesiarchy. The Ecclesiarchy may hold the money, but the Admech holds all the valuable resources and is fully capable of snubbing the other organizations.
Not really relevant. The point I was making was that the Ecclesiarchy easily had and has the resources to design and requisition Sororitas power armour. Wasn't comparing the Ecclesiarchy to anybody else.
Wyzilla wrote: I'd actually put the Ademch above the Ecclesiarchy. The Ecclesiarchy may hold the money, but the Admech holds all the valuable resources and is fully capable of snubbing the other organizations.
Not really relevant. The point I was making was that the Ecclesiarchy easily had and has the resources to design and requisition Sororitas power armour. Wasn't comparing the Ecclesiarchy to anybody else.
Very much relevant. Astartes are closer to admech than many others are, as proven by the existence of the Techmarines, for example. That the Ecclesiarchy can obtain enough power armour for the Sororitas to use does not say anything more than that.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Very much relevant. Astartes are closer to admech than many others are, as proven by the existence of the Techmarines, for example.
Still not understanding this point. All I said was that the Ecclesiarchy could easily afford designing and making Sororitas power armour, in response to Wyzilla's claim that the making of Sororitas power armour was a "waste". Was not saying the Ecclesiarchy is better or worse than anybody else.
Edit: oh, derp. Just noticed that you two were going off of Melissia's comment about them being the richest, which was a comparison. Which is probably true, still.
In that case, "influence" doesn't particularly matter. Yes the Ecclesiarchy and Mechanicus do have a somewhat strained relationship, but they still work together adequately, and the Mechanicus is fine with providing resources and Tech Priests to the Ecclesiarchy. So it doesn't really matter.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Very much relevant. Astartes are closer to admech than many others are, as proven by the existence of the Techmarines, for example.
The Guard also maintain a very close relationship to the Adeptus Mechanicus. Many TechPriests, of varying rank, work within the armies & regiments of the Imperial Guard, keeping their vehicles and weapons working so that the Guard can fight enemies of the Imperium. When the Guard goes to war, the Adeptus Mechanicus will go with them because it serves the Mechanicus interests in two ways; firstly the Guard are fighting the enemies of humanity but also of great import, who knows what technology the Guard will uncover in their fight against heretics & xenos? Better for the Adeptus Mechanicus to be on hand there and then than have to cross the galaxy/warp to get there, by which time the technology may have been lost/damaged for any number of reasons.
Spoiler:
Please note: I am not saying that the relationship between the Guard & Adeptus Mechanicus is closer than that of the Adeptus Astartes & Adeptus Mechanicus, just that it's another example of a very good working relationship between the Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Well, Marines do get a few of their number to actually be trained by the Admech. The Guard gets emissaries instead. One can wonder which one is a sign of greater trust, but then, Techpriests would perhaps have more issues 'keeping up' with a Marine strikeforce on the battlefield.
Absolutely, when writing that reply I went to my aged 4th Ed. Astartes Codex to double check on the TechMarine entry where it explicitly states that Marines, selected for their capabilities, are sent to be trained on Mars, thanks to ancient pacts between the Astartes & the Adeptus Mechanicus. Just pointing out that there are also close-ties between the Guard & Adeptus Mechanicus - you might write it out as 'emissaries' but the TechPriests sent by the Adeptus Mechanicus are the grease that keeps the Imperial Guard's war machine rolling - a rather close and beneficial relationship.
The AdMech knows that it cannot exist without the Imperium. It also knows that, were it to try to break away from the Imperium, it would cease to exist, because Mars is in the most-heavily defended system in the galaxy... and they might know how the ships work, but the men and women at the helms of those vessels are not beholden to the Mechanicus.
The AdMech produces power armor for the Sisters because they are paid to do so. They otherwise don't really care who or what you are. Such things are frailties of the flesh.
In real life, the United States Marine Corps is a rapid response unit that can deploy forces around the globe at a moment's notice. Often their job is to take and hold an objective independently until a larger force arrives to take care of the crisis permanently. I feel that that is what the Space Marines should be, shock troopers that make planetfall and hold down the fort until the Guard and the Navy can mobilize. One thousand marines conquering a planet just feels out of place. One thousand marines holding specific checkpoints and positions, performing asset denial across a planet makes much more sense. A company of marines spread out across a city holding strategically valuable locations is a lot more reasonable than the crazy stuff we see in Black Library and Fluff pieces.
Please tell me this isn't what you think about yourself. By the way the US Marines are not elite.
Eh, but Sister Sin is from RT, which has effectively been overwritten. I don't think we've seen spiked boobplates since then, even.
Bear in mind that while that image may not be an accurate representation of Sister's armor, the events depicted in it are still canonically valid. The Rainbow Warriors Chapter gets a mention in the latest SM codex, but on the big map page their homeworld (Prism... Ha Ha GW) is listed as "record deleted" which pretty much means "purged for extreme naughtiness".
Not everything from RT has been paved over in the last 20 years...
squidhills wrote: Bear in mind that while that image may not be an accurate representation of Sister's armor, the events depicted in it are still canonically valid. The Rainbow Warriors Chapter gets a mention in the latest SM codex, but on the big map page their homeworld (Prism... Ha Ha GW) is listed as "record deleted" which pretty much means "purged for extreme naughtiness".
Not everything from RT has been paved over in the last 20 years...
Sure, of course plenty of stuff carried over. My thoughts on the picture were more to do with its tone (the silly name and the Sister's appearance) rather than the actual events it depicts. Obviously the Sisters still go around purging rogue Marines.
I think it's best to think of RT as an example of early installment weirdness. It's sort of the same, but only in broad stokes. Lots of details and the overal tone are pretty different.
Sorry I didn't read the whole thing but in fluff I have always had trouble with the numbers game. 1000 Troops just seems so low (especially now you look at the legions).
So yeah they are somewhat OP in fluff mainly due to the stories being told often give them plot Armour.
However I think in the game they are so weak now. Codex after codex of creeping power levels have left SM's feeling rather weak (mostly because they are the benchmark). The best of the best of the best. More like 13pts of meh.
I haven't ever been a huge gamer but I remember way back seeing others play the game and everyone seemed to be scared of Terminators. Now everything can kill them.
I read a book a while back, White Scars in the Democules Gulf campaign (Savage Scars perhaps?) and I liked how they could be cut down by sustained fire (but were hard to actually kill) and yet were still on par with Crisis Suits (as long as it was mid/close range).
They also were shown fighting alongside IG/IN because they needed to. That's the kind of fight they should be in.
The legions were also really small as well. If one is to "give me a hundred astartes, or failing that, a thousand of other troops", as a certain primarch says, it makes one realize that they're even smaller than it seems. The Imperial Guard regularly deploys forces with more firepower and manpower than the Astartes Legions, based off of that statement.
Melissia wrote: The legions were also really small as well. If one is to "give me a hundred astartes, or failing that, a thousand of other troops", as a certain primarch says, it makes one realize that they're even smaller than it seems. The Imperial Guard regularly deploys forces with more firepower and manpower than the Astartes Legions, based off of that statement.
this statement is what always has resonated for me, and what seems to find the best middle ground between the various interpretations of the SM's that we've got, appearing the most realistic.
However, when we take this as being the case, it makes several things rather awkward. It means in a pitched ground battle, an average IG regiment can nearly match an Astartes chapter (an IG regiment usually being 5-10 thousand strong). Now granted, the SM's have their fleets and whatnot, but each chapter maxes out at ~1,000 marines, and they need to fight as infantry, pilots of SM aircraft, they need to crew SM tanks, and command starships, with the rest (including almost all the naval aspect except the captain's chair) being carried out by Thralls.
Even more important, it means the entirety of the Astartes is worth about 10 million guardsmen. There we have a bigger problem. Given that there are billions of IG regiments (plural billions) each with thousands of troops, it makes the military value of the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes very small indeed. If we take that plural billions to mean just 2 billion, and use the Cadian 8th as an average size with 8,000 troops, that gives us a total of 16 Trillion (16,000,000,000,000) IG troops, or sixteen million (16,000,000) guardsmen per Space Marine. This number is about accurate if we assume a mobilization rate about equal to that of current (active military personnel of ground forces comprising 1 in 400/500 people), modern day Earth, which is about the lowest it has ever been in recent memory. If we assume a rate of mobilization more appropriate to a militaristic empire at constant war on multiple fronts, say similar to that of the major nations at war during WW2, that number explodes quite quickly, potentially more than 10x. This is not yet including the Imperial Navy, which would be similarly gargantuan, and where the Astartes are on equal footing at best (not the 1-10 superiority they enjoy on the ground).
When viewed in this light, the Astartes should be largely irrelevant as a galactic military force, even if you assume they're a hundred times more powerful than the quote supposes (meaning you'd need 100,000 other troops to do what a hundred space marines can), they're still too few to be relevant. That's why I really wish they'd written the SM's differently, there's just no way they should be as vital as they're made out to be.
Melissia wrote: The legions were also really small as well. If one is to "give me a hundred astartes, or failing that, a thousand of other troops", as a certain primarch says, it makes one realize that they're even smaller than it seems. The Imperial Guard regularly deploys forces with more firepower and manpower than the Astartes Legions, based off of that statement.
this statement is what always has resonated for me, and what seems to find the best middle ground between the various interpretations of the SM's that we've got, appearing the most realistic.
However, when we take this as being the case, it makes several things rather awkward. It means in a pitched ground battle, an average IG regiment can nearly match an Astartes chapter (an IG regiment usually being 5-10 thousand strong). Now granted, the SM's have their fleets and whatnot, but each chapter maxes out at ~1,000 marines, and they need to fight as infantry, pilots of SM aircraft, they need to crew SM tanks, and command starships, with the rest (including almost all the naval aspect except the captain's chair) being carried out by Thralls.
Even more important, it means the entirety of the Astartes is worth about 10 million guardsmen. There we have a bigger problem. Given that there are billions of IG regiments (plural billions) each with thousands of troops, it makes the military value of the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes very small indeed. If we take that plural billions to mean just 2 billion, and use the Cadian 8th as an average size with 8,000 troops, that gives us a total of 16 Trillion (16,000,000,000,000) IG troops, or sixteen million (16,000,000) guardsmen per Space Marine. This number is about accurate if we assume a mobilization rate about equal to that of current (active military personnel of ground forces comprising 1 in 400/500 people), modern day Earth, which is about the lowest it has ever been in recent memory. If we assume a rate of mobilization more appropriate to a militaristic empire at constant war on multiple fronts, say similar to that of the major nations at war during WW2, that number explodes quite quickly, potentially more than 10x. This is not yet including the Imperial Navy, which would be similarly gargantuan, and where the Astartes are on equal footing at best (not the 1-10 superiority they enjoy on the ground).
When viewed in this light, the Astartes should be largely irrelevant as a galactic military force, even if you assume they're a hundred times more powerful than the quote supposes (meaning you'd need 100,000 other troops to do what a hundred space marines can), they're still too few to be relevant. That's why I really wish they'd written the SM's differently, there's just no way they should be as vital as they're made out to be.
Melissia wrote: Assassins in general aren't rarer than marines, I should note, even if the Officio Assassinorum operatives are. The Assassinorum, however, is far more competent at killing the target without causing collateral damage than Astartes are. Hell, even non-Assassinorum assassins would be.
A well placed IED, dagger, or bullet can do the same thing as calling in three squads of marines if you're just looking to assassinate a leader.
They don't have the whole "Holy Gak!" effect of three squads of marines drop podding in, gunning down the leader, and butchering everyone there.
"Collateral damage" is a term that means nothing to the Imperium.
However, when we take this as being the case, it makes several things rather awkward. It means in a pitched ground battle, an average IG regiment can nearly match an Astartes chapter (an IG regiment usually being 5-10 thousand strong). Now granted, the SM's have their fleets and whatnot, but each chapter maxes out at ~1,000 marines, and they need to fight as infantry, pilots of SM aircraft, they need to crew SM tanks, and command starships, with the rest (including almost all the naval aspect except the captain's chair) being carried out by Thralls.
Well. they are. In a pitched ground battle, the SM have already lost all of their main advantages, that being rapid mobility and first-strike capabilities. They don't have the equipment to stand in a meatgrinder battle against ten thousand soldiers with tanks and long-range artillery.
If it comes down to a battle of trench warfare, SM vs IG... the IG (plot-armor aside) should win this handily, as they have the artillery to simply pound the SM into paste.
When viewed in this light, the Astartes should be largely irrelevant as a galactic military force, even if you assume they're a hundred times more powerful than the quote supposes (meaning you'd need 100,000 other troops to do what a hundred space marines can), they're still too few to be relevant. That's why I really wish they'd written the SM's differently, there's just no way they should be as vital as they're made out to be.
By themselves, they are. What the books don't tell you, though, is that behind every successful SM campaign are ten million Imperial Guardsmen exploiting the beach-heads the SM have gained, surrounding the enemies the SM have cut off from support and comms, pushing forward on miles-wide fronts while the SM "commando teams" take out supplies, artillery, leaders and communications networks.
The SM are a tool the Imperium uses to win wars, they are the anvil to the Imperial Guard's hammer, but they are not the only weapon the Imperium possesses.
Melissia wrote: The legions were also really small as well. If one is to "give me a hundred astartes, or failing that, a thousand of other troops", as a certain primarch says, it makes one realize that they're even smaller than it seems. The Imperial Guard regularly deploys forces with more firepower and manpower than the Astartes Legions, based off of that statement.
this statement is what always has resonated for me, and what seems to find the best middle ground between the various interpretations of the SM's that we've got, appearing the most realistic.
However, when we take this as being the case, it makes several things rather awkward. It means in a pitched ground battle, an average IG regiment can nearly match an Astartes chapter (an IG regiment usually being 5-10 thousand strong). Now granted, the SM's have their fleets and whatnot, but each chapter maxes out at ~1,000 marines, and they need to fight as infantry, pilots of SM aircraft, they need to crew SM tanks, and command starships, with the rest (including almost all the naval aspect except the captain's chair) being carried out by Thralls.
Even more important, it means the entirety of the Astartes is worth about 10 million guardsmen. There we have a bigger problem. Given that there are billions of IG regiments (plural billions) each with thousands of troops, it makes the military value of the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes very small indeed. If we take that plural billions to mean just 2 billion, and use the Cadian 8th as an average size with 8,000 troops, that gives us a total of 16 Trillion (16,000,000,000,000) IG troops, or sixteen million (16,000,000) guardsmen per Space Marine. This number is about accurate if we assume a mobilization rate about equal to that of current (active military personnel of ground forces comprising 1 in 400/500 people), modern day Earth, which is about the lowest it has ever been in recent memory. If we assume a rate of mobilization more appropriate to a militaristic empire at constant war on multiple fronts, say similar to that of the major nations at war during WW2, that number explodes quite quickly, potentially more than 10x. This is not yet including the Imperial Navy, which would be similarly gargantuan, and where the Astartes are on equal footing at best (not the 1-10 superiority they enjoy on the ground).
When viewed in this light, the Astartes should be largely irrelevant as a galactic military force, even if you assume they're a hundred times more powerful than the quote supposes (meaning you'd need 100,000 other troops to do what a hundred space marines can), they're still too few to be relevant. That's why I really wish they'd written the SM's differently, there's just no way they should be as vital as they're made out to be.
The problem is partly due to the creeping story theme of portraying the Space Marines not so much as skilled bio-engineered special forces teams but as demigods or superheroes wading through hordes of the enemy, impervious to anything unless required by plot, and often showing as much strategic or tactical finesse as a brick yet still surviving the consequences of their stupidity.
Take for example, the BFG background of SM fleets being designed for boarding assaults and delivery of Space Marines to planet surfaces, but being inferior to Imperial Navy ships in straight out ship to ship fights to ensure that the Navy could put a curb on renegade Marines. Increasingly there seems a trend by GW towards trying to implicitly retcon this by showing the Imperial Navy to be the space equivalent of the IG and inferior to the Space Marine ships. Try to suggest in some places that Space Marines are not the best in space and in the air as well as on land and in any other field you can think of, and you will get howls of anger or disbelief from some people.
I think the problem is this invincible portrayal, which part of me suspects feeds the power fantasies of at least some players/readers. When for example was the last time Marines were portrayed as suffering or reflecting on being defeated by non-Marines/non-CSM? Or perhaps being caught in a situation where their superhuman strength or martial skill wasn't the ultimate solution to their problem?
I tend to look at the BL stories of the SM being demi-gods as being tales that Imperial citizens tell one another around the hab-fires at night. The story has grown in its telling, and fact has given way to legend and myth.
A story of five Marines making a stand against seventy Orks and losing 1 Battle-Brother in a six-hour battle has become 1 Marine against ten thousand Orks, fighting for 3 days and nights, alone, emerging victorious... because that is how myths work.
Well. they are. In a pitched ground battle, the SM have already lost all of their main advantages, that being rapid mobility and first-strike capabilities. They don't have the equipment to stand in a meatgrinder battle against ten thousand soldiers with tanks and long-range artillery.
If it comes down to a battle of trench warfare, SM vs IG... the IG (plot-armor aside) should win this handily, as they have the artillery to simply pound the SM into paste.
The issue is that much of the time the SM's are fighting exactly this kind of battle, and that there are those that think such a fight would obviously be won by the Space Marines. More to the point, we're talking a single IG regiment here against a chapter of Space Marines, one numbers in the uncounted billions, the other numbers roughly a thousand.
By themselves, they are. What the books don't tell you, though, is that behind every successful SM campaign are ten million Imperial Guardsmen exploiting the beach-heads the SM have gained, surrounding the enemies the SM have cut off from support and comms, pushing forward on miles-wide fronts while the SM "commando teams" take out supplies, artillery, leaders and communications networks.
The SM are a tool the Imperium uses to win wars, they are the anvil to the Imperial Guard's hammer, but they are not the only weapon the Imperium possesses.
The problem here is twofold.
Half the time the SM's are described as waging wars and fighting battles entirely on their own, quashing invasions or retaking planets without any sort of interaction or follow up by other Imperial forces.
The other issue is that, quite frankly, why bother with these autonomous Space Marine chapters that require lots of specialized and unique (relatively) fighting gear and vehicles, that do what they want, fight (or don't fight) where they want, and rule planets or sectors all on their own and have been known to fight each other, fight other Imperial organizations, and turn traitor (at at least the same rate as non-astartes troops), and are only available in the rarest of circumstances (as most wars never see a single Space Marine), when they could just throw more guardsmen at the problem (even if millions more troops die) and never even notice the difference? Obviously the Imperium has ways to compensate for not having SM's since most conflicts never see any Space Marines, so inevitably that leads one to think...
Melissia wrote: Assassins in general aren't rarer than marines, I should note, even if the Officio Assassinorum operatives are. The Assassinorum, however, is far more competent at killing the target without causing collateral damage than Astartes are. Hell, even non-Assassinorum assassins would be.
A well placed IED, dagger, or bullet can do the same thing as calling in three squads of marines if you're just looking to assassinate a leader.
They don't have the whole "Holy Gak!" effect of three squads of marines drop podding in, gunning down the leader, and butchering everyone there.
"Collateral damage" is a term that means nothing to the Imperium.
There are a couple of issues with this. A lot of the Imperium's enemies wouldn't have a "holy gak" reaction, it's just not in their nature. Another issue is that now instead of one guy being sent in to kill one target, possibly either from a suicide blast or a long range sniper shot (and thus either not having to worry about recovery or being far easier to recover), we've got several dozen troops that now need to be evacuated and are likely surrounded by enemies that will have no problems locating and engaging them, and every defense system ramping up to full alert. I mean, think of it this way, purely as a hypothetical, if this happened to the US White House or #10 Downing Street, while the SM's may succeed in killing everyone there, they probably wouldn't make it out of there alive, and their destruction may be of significant propaganda value.
The problem is partly due to the creeping story theme of portraying the Space Marines not so much as skilled bio-engineered special forces teams but as demigods or superheroes wading through hordes of the enemy, impervious to anything unless required by plot, and often showing as much strategic or tactical finesse as a brick yet still surviving the consequences of their stupidity.
Take for example, the BFG background of SM fleets being designed for boarding assaults and delivery of Space Marines to planet surfaces, but being inferior to Imperial Navy ships in straight out ship to ship fights to ensure that the Navy could put a curb on renegade Marines. Increasingly there seems a trend by GW towards trying to implicitly retcon this by showing the Imperial Navy to be the space equivalent of the IG and inferior to the Space Marine ships. Try to suggest in some places that Space Marines are not the best in space and in the air as well as on land and in any other field you can think of, and you will get howls of anger or disbelief from some people.
I think the problem is this invincible portrayal, which part of me suspects feeds the power fantasies of at least some players/readers. When for example was the last time Marines were portrayed as suffering or reflecting on being defeated by non-Marines/non-CSM? Or perhaps being caught in a situation where their superhuman strength or martial skill wasn't the ultimate solution to their problem?
A good point. One can also see this in the visuals aspects of the Space Marines. They're increasingly more "Knightly" and High-tech/GI-Joe-y, and moving further and further from the more "steampunky" and brutal looks of 2E and 3E. Fewer pipes and tubes and spikes and more shields and eagles and laurels.
Psienesis wrote: I tend to look at the BL stories of the SM being demi-gods as being tales that Imperial citizens tell one another around the hab-fires at night. The story has grown in its telling, and fact has given way to legend and myth.
A story of five Marines making a stand against seventy Orks and losing 1 Battle-Brother in a six-hour battle has become 1 Marine against ten thousand Orks, fighting for 3 days and nights, alone, emerging victorious... because that is how myths work.
That's kinda how I usually view it, it makes a lot more sense that way
Melissia wrote: Assassins in general aren't rarer than marines, I should note, even if the Officio Assassinorum operatives are. The Assassinorum, however, is far more competent at killing the target without causing collateral damage than Astartes are. Hell, even non-Assassinorum assassins would be.
A well placed IED, dagger, or bullet can do the same thing as calling in three squads of marines if you're just looking to assassinate a leader.
They don't have the whole "Holy Gak!" effect of three squads of marines drop podding in, gunning down the leader, and butchering everyone there.
"Collateral damage" is a term that means nothing to the Imperium.
There are a couple of issues with this. A lot of the Imperium's enemies wouldn't have a "holy gak" reaction, it's just not in their nature.
Such as?
You've got Chaos Marines who won't have the "holy gak" reaction, you've got Orks(maybe--depending on force composition and other factors), Necrons, and Tyranids.
How common are Chaos Marines on fields where Officio Assassinorum operatives would be deployed?
How about Orks, Necrons, or Tyranids?
Let's also not forget that if Marines are dropping into the middle of a Tyranid swarm, they're going after synapse creatures and planning on it being a suicide mission anyways--and have equipped themselves accordingly.
So out of all the possible forces that you're going to see the Marines fighting, that's four who won't get that huge morale hit. The cultists, traitor guardsmen, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar and possibly Orks are entirely vulnerable to that morale hit though and Tyranids would be highly vulnerable to having the synapse networks cut.
Another issue is that now instead of one guy being sent in to kill one target, possibly either from a suicide blast or a long range sniper shot (and thus either not having to worry about recovery or being far easier to recover), we've got several dozen troops that now need to be evacuated and are likely surrounded by enemies that will have no problems locating and engaging them, and every defense system ramping up to full alert. I mean, think of it this way, purely as a hypothetical, if this happened to the US White House or #10 Downing Street, while the SM's may succeed in killing everyone there, they probably wouldn't make it out of there alive, and their destruction may be of significant propaganda value.
And again, you're making the same mistake that you're trying to accuse the Marine fanboys of.
The Marines are not going to be doing these drops as something purely intended to win them the day. It's the opening salvo for a sustained campaign, or something done at the height of the fighting during the campaign.
To use your example: If the Marines dropped into the White House, they might have ramped every defense system up to full alert with the enemies "having no problems locating and engaging them"--but what does that matter when the Guard and Navy start opening up their own fronts? And where are the Chapter vessels that got the Marines to the warzone during this?
Such as?
You've got Chaos Marines who won't have the "holy gak" reaction, you've got Orks(maybe--depending on force composition and other factors), Necrons, and Tyranids.
How common are Chaos Marines on fields where Officio Assassinorum operatives would be deployed?
How about Orks, Necrons, or Tyranids?
We don't know how often they're deployed against specific targets, that said, we do know that the Imperium sends assassins against CSM targets, the 3.5E book had a big section on a briefing given to take out each of Abaddon's chief lieutenants.
As for who will/won't take the morale hit, that's something that could be argued back and forth practically forever. One could argue hardened aspect warriors wouldn't be frightened at all (there's an obvious enemy to fight, unlike an unseen sniper taking lives at will), etc. Essentially you're looking at humans, tau, and a debatable portion of races that are not the greatest threat to the Imperium.
And again, you're making the same mistake that you're trying to accuse the Marine fanboys of.
The Marines are not going to be doing these drops as something purely intended to win them the day. It's the opening salvo for a sustained campaign, or something done at the height of the fighting during the campaign.
Except, time and again, we're given examples of them doing exactly what you say they're not. Hell, the first HH book opens this way if I'm remembering correctly, Horus and co. teleport to the faux-Emperor's throne room, slays everyone therein, and hooray victory!
The issue is that much of the time the SM's are fighting exactly this kind of battle, and that there are those that think such a fight would obviously be won by the Space Marines. More to the point, we're talking a single IG regiment here against a chapter of Space Marines, one numbers in the uncounted billions, the other numbers roughly a thousand.
A single IG Regiment is not "uncounted billions", it's a few thousand dudes/ettes. The Tanith First-And-Only was an infantry Regiment that had, at its height (the night it left Tanith) 3000 soldiers, just as an example. It was intended to have two other Regiments, bringing the total Tanith tithe to 9000 soldiers.
Half the time the SM's are described as waging wars and fighting battles entirely on their own, quashing invasions or retaking planets without any sort of interaction or follow up by other Imperial forces.
The other issue is that, quite frankly, why bother with these autonomous Space Marine chapters that require lots of specialized and unique (relatively) fighting gear and vehicles, that do what they want, fight (or don't fight) where they want, and rule planets or sectors all on their own and have been known to fight each other, fight other Imperial organizations, and turn traitor (at at least the same rate as non-astartes troops), and are only available in the rarest of circumstances (as most wars never see a single Space Marine), when they could just throw more guardsmen at the problem (even if millions more troops die) and never even notice the difference? Obviously the Imperium has ways to compensate for not having SM's since most conflicts never see any Space Marines, so inevitably that leads one to think...
Described, yes. But, then, see my point about a BL novel being a myth re-told well after the fact.
And the reason the Imperium bothers with them is because the God-Emperor bothered with them, and it is from his edicts that their power is derived. Say what you will about the High Lords of Terra, they operate as a "proxy government" in the name of the Emperor, just as they had in the time of the Great Crusade and the Heresy. There are things (including 10,000+ years of history and precedent) that dictate how they operate.
... and getting rid of all of the Space Marines is not within their remit.
And again, you're making the same mistake that you're trying to accuse the Marine fanboys of.
The Marines are not going to be doing these drops as something purely intended to win them the day. It's the opening salvo for a sustained campaign, or something done at the height of the fighting during the campaign.
Except, time and again, we're given examples of them doing exactly what you say they're not. Hell, the first HH book opens this way if I'm remembering correctly, Horus and co. teleport to the faux-Emperor's throne room, slays everyone therein, and hooray victory!
IIRC, It was stated/shown in another HH book (or possibly that same very one, though I think it was a Space Wolf incident) that what the Space Marines typically considered "victory" actually meant several months or years of mopping up operations by the Imperial Army.
At any rate, a lot of these cases are just a case of bad writing, I think. Unfortunately, there tends to be a lot of that.
And again, you're making the same mistake that you're trying to accuse the Marine fanboys of.
The Marines are not going to be doing these drops as something purely intended to win them the day. It's the opening salvo for a sustained campaign, or something done at the height of the fighting during the campaign.
Except, time and again, we're given examples of them doing exactly what you say they're not. Hell, the first HH book opens this way if I'm remembering correctly, Horus and co. teleport to the faux-Emperor's throne room, slays everyone therein, and hooray victory!
IIRC, It was stated/shown in another HH book (or possibly that same very one, though I think it was a Space Wolf incident) that what the Space Marines typically considered "victory" actually meant several months or years of mopping up operations by the Imperial Army.
At any rate, a lot of these cases are just a case of bad writing, I think. Unfortunately, there tends to be a lot of that.
I don't think the HH is really the nest example considering it was before the codex and it was marine against marine.
Out of curiousity, which books portray marines as too powerful?I've yet to find any, really, and I've read a fair few. I may have missed something though. Is it just a bandwagon like many other 'arguments'?
Such as?
You've got Chaos Marines who won't have the "holy gak" reaction, you've got Orks(maybe--depending on force composition and other factors), Necrons, and Tyranids.
How common are Chaos Marines on fields where Officio Assassinorum operatives would be deployed?
How about Orks, Necrons, or Tyranids?
We don't know how often they're deployed against specific targets, that said, we do know that the Imperium sends assassins against CSM targets, the 3.5E book had a big section on a briefing given to take out each of Abaddon's chief lieutenants.
Yeah, and that was at the outset of the 13th Black Crusade. That's one of those circumstances where things are basically at "Gak Code--Cranked Up To 11".
Not only that though, those were the Imperium's best assassins being sent on what they knew was a one-way mission with no guarantee of success.
As for who will/won't take the morale hit, that's something that could be argued back and forth practically forever. One could argue hardened aspect warriors wouldn't be frightened at all (there's an obvious enemy to fight, unlike an unseen sniper taking lives at will), etc. Essentially you're looking at humans, tau, and a debatable portion of races that are not the greatest threat to the Imperium.
That gets into the whole "what's the greatest threat to the Imperium" thing though. Any faction could theoretically take the cake, dependent upon circumstances.
And again, you're making the same mistake that you're trying to accuse the Marine fanboys of.
The Marines are not going to be doing these drops as something purely intended to win them the day. It's the opening salvo for a sustained campaign, or something done at the height of the fighting during the campaign.
Except, time and again, we're given examples of them doing exactly what you say they're not. Hell, the first HH book opens this way if I'm remembering correctly, Horus and co. teleport to the faux-Emperor's throne room, slays everyone therein, and hooray victory!
Horus and the Justaerin were in Terminator armor, deployed en masse to the faux-Emperor's throne room, with power armored Marines as support.
Comparing the way the Imperium uses Marines now to how the Imperium used Marines during the Great Crusade is ridiculous though. They are two different fighting forces that share similar troops and names, that's all.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Out of curiousity, which books portray marines as too powerful?I've yet to find any, really, and I've read a fair few. I may have missed something though. Is it just a bandwagon like many other 'arguments'?
UM Omnibus does to a great degree... though in one of them an Ultramarine gets beat to death by a rock-wielding mob of cultists.
SW Omnibus does to an incredible degree... in some cases so terribly, laughably so, and not just for SM-fan-wankery. Just some incredibly stupid plot contrivances.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Out of curiousity, which books portray marines as too powerful?I've yet to find any, really, and I've read a fair few. I may have missed something though. Is it just a bandwagon like many other 'arguments'?
UM Omnibus does to a great degree... though in one of them an Ultramarine gets beat to death by a rock-wielding mob of cultists.
SW Omnibus does to an incredible degree... in some cases so terribly, laughably so, and not just for SM-fan-wankery. Just some incredibly stupid plot contrivances.
I've read the UM omnibus but could find nothing of the like. Are you sure? Too much power that is.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Out of curiousity, which books portray marines as too powerful?I've yet to find any, really, and I've read a fair few. I may have missed something though. Is it just a bandwagon like many other 'arguments'?
UM Omnibus does to a great degree... though in one of them an Ultramarine gets beat to death by a rock-wielding mob of cultists.
SW Omnibus does to an incredible degree... in some cases so terribly, laughably so, and not just for SM-fan-wankery. Just some incredibly stupid plot contrivances.
No, it's not just. Avoid things on the Space Wolves in general, especially by Ben Counter. I made the mistake of reading a book on the Space Puppies once and was bombarded by the near spamming of the world 'wolf'.
The issue is that much of the time the SM's are fighting exactly this kind of battle, and that there are those that think such a fight would obviously be won by the Space Marines. More to the point, we're talking a single IG regiment here against a chapter of Space Marines, one numbers in the uncounted billions, the other numbers roughly a thousand.
A single IG Regiment is not "uncounted billions", it's a few thousand dudes/ettes. The Tanith First-And-Only was an infantry Regiment that had, at its height (the night it left Tanith) 3000 soldiers, just as an example. It was intended to have two other Regiments, bringing the total Tanith tithe to 9000 soldiers.
No I get that, I meant that there are uncounted billions of IG regiments and only 1000 chapters. Sorry if there was confusion about that.
Described, yes. But, then, see my point about a BL novel being a myth re-told well after the fact.
right, but even codex books describe stuff like this (at work right now so can't pull a direct source)
And the reason the Imperium bothers with them is because the God-Emperor bothered with them, and it is from his edicts that their power is derived. Say what you will about the High Lords of Terra, they operate as a "proxy government" in the name of the Emperor, just as they had in the time of the Great Crusade and the Heresy. There are things (including 10,000+ years of history and precedent) that dictate how they operate.
The Emperor did a lot of things, the Imperium as it stands now would horrify him, the Ecclesiarchy in particular.
... and getting rid of all of the Space Marines is not within their remit.
Actively getting rid of them yes, beyond their remit. Providing them with new fiefdoms, ordering new Foundings, providing AdMech support, etc is however all within their remit.
TiamatRoar wrote:
IIRC, It was stated/shown in another HH book (or possibly that same very one, though I think it was a Space Wolf incident) that what the Space Marines typically considered "victory" actually meant several months or years of mopping up operations by the Imperial Army.
At any rate, a lot of these cases are just a case of bad writing, I think. Unfortunately, there tends to be a lot of that.
this is true, there is a fair share of that
Co'tor Shas wrote:
I don't think the HH is really the nest example considering it was before the codex and it was marine against marine.
the first few HH books take place before the HH starts, there's no marine on marine combat.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Out of curiousity, which books portray marines as too powerful?I've yet to find any, really, and I've read a fair few. I may have missed something though. Is it just a bandwagon like many other 'arguments'?
`The worst I've come across so far was Brotherhood of the Snake. They send in one marine to deal with a crashed Dark Eldar raiding vessel with dozens of surviving and marauding crew, had a single tac squad kill thousands of Dark Eldar in a single battle, and more.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Out of curiousity, which books portray marines as too powerful?I've yet to find any, really, and I've read a fair few. I may have missed something though. Is it just a bandwagon like many other 'arguments'?
UM Omnibus does to a great degree... though in one of them an Ultramarine gets beat to death by a rock-wielding mob of cultists.
SW Omnibus does to an incredible degree... in some cases so terribly, laughably so, and not just for SM-fan-wankery. Just some incredibly stupid plot contrivances.
The SW omnibus is made up of books that were mostly written at the time when the "silly" of 40k was still at its height.
There's "silly" and then there's "this make no narrative, internally-logical sense".
I can deal with "silly". I cannot deal with a book that has things happen simply because the plot requires them to happen in order to progress. It is like the opposite of a deus ex machina... the story only advances because, against all previously-established (in the book) logic, something happens or something exists, to propel the plot forward.
Ah, ok, cause we apparently switched from a single battle of SM vs IG to all SM vs all IG.
right, but even codex books describe stuff like this (at work right now so can't pull a direct source)
Codices are supposed to be propaganda for their armies... or, again, are tales being told around the hab-fire (or the Administratum watercooler) by people removed from the event by two thousand years of time and a hundred thousand light-years of distance.
The Emperor did a lot of things, the Imperium as it stands now would horrify him, the Ecclesiarchy in particular.
That is not exactly supported in the fluff. There were cults (other than Lorgar's) worshipping him as a god in his lifetime, many of them on Terra itself, already building temples practicing the rites and rituals that would later become the Ecclesiarchy. He didn't seem to care.
What Lorgar did was waste too much time building temples and things, when he, as a Primarch, should have been out there conquering more worlds.
The Emperor as some sort of arch-atheist is... misleading, at best, and at worse something of a ret-con, to make the GC seem more like the Age of Enlightenment and the current era more like a slide back to the Dark Ages.
Providing them with new fiefdoms, ordering new Foundings, providing AdMech support, etc is however all within their remit.
Not exactly. The AdMech operates independently from the HLoT (and are, in fact, an empire within the Imperium).
They also have, in many cases, ancient treaties with the Astartes that pledge material support in exchange for defense, favors, the providing of capture tech-relics and xeno-artifacts, all that kind of thing, that the HLoT are not going to force them to break (it's kind of a thing in the Imperium... as terrible as things may be, they sure do like to honor ancient contracts).
I had forgotten Brotherhood of the Snake... I think I had repressed the memory of it.
is awfully subjective. You could be presented with a source that depicts a single marine captain slaughtering hundreds of orcs, their warboss, multiple squads of Chaos Space Marines, and then defeating a recently ascended demon prince in hand-to-hand combat while in free-fall over a distance of several kilometers, all in a single conflict, and still say; "well, that's not 'too much' power".
is awfully subjective. You could be presented with a source that depicts a single marine captain slaughtering hundreds of orcs, their warboss, multiple squads of Chaos Space Marines, and then defeating a recently ascended demon prince in hand-to-hand combat while in free-fall over a distance of several kilometers, all in a single conflict, and still say; "well, that's not 'too much' power".
Titus always felt like he should have more bling (certainly more than his successor) for his power level, especially as an Ultramarine.
is awfully subjective. You could be presented with a source that depicts a single marine captain slaughtering hundreds of orcs, their warboss, multiple squads of Chaos Space Marines, and then defeating a recently ascended demon prince in hand-to-hand combat while in free-fall over a distance of several kilometers, all in a single conflict, and still say; "well, that's not 'too much' power".
I do not actually think Titus was 'too' powerful. It was a shame that the single player CSM were so mindless, if they had been quick and tactical (Rolling around, charging you, using sustained fire, and so on) they would have been great, IMO. Their resilience mostly seemed believable.
The Daemon Prince was just a QTE. Barely counts as a real fight. Seriously, how do you dodge daemonic plasma cannon sorcery whatever bolts while falling? Marines may break the laws of physics and logic and look good doing it, but then there's that.
The combat against masses of Boyz seemed really plausible, though, like it did when you got into combat with a Renegade Guardsman. Assuming Normal difficulty, of course. I played it all on Hard but did not really notice much of a difference.
I'd prefer the Astartes remains the way they are currently depicted. It fits the settings well -- an hegemonic empire such as the Imperium is never truly united, it consists of various states and autonomous organizations capable of acting independently according to their own interest.
It's merely held together by the overwhelming power of the central state can conjure up to deal with any territorial insurrections/secessions, and the promise of protection that a single state cannot provide for themselves.
Self-interests differ from states to states, and inner-conflicts are common. The empire needs not to act unless it directly affects its survival, and will not act at all if it will not work towards its prosperity.
And thus the Adeptus Ministorum is endures alongside the Priesthoods of Mars, The houses of the navigators live in luxury while other psykers are shunned, barely tolerated, or even outright persecuted. Worlds against worlds within the Imperium itself over dispute of resources, trade routes, or ancient hatreds.
And the Imperium avoid dealing with these elements, knowing that any one of them can throw the Imperium asunder.
And the Adeptus Astartes is one such element. One such chapter can make a small empire within its borders, and several can enslave worlds at will, should they ever become united under a common interest.
This makes the dynamics of the Imperium far more fascinating than a territorial empire, ever in danger of ruination from forces within and without, yet cannot be held together without any of them. This also means that each such power fills an essential role, which no other can fill nor replace. Be it to eliminate uneasy elements within the nobles, or to insert compliance into the common hive-dwellers. The Astartes are the most threatening force a Imperium can muster, and are fear or respected by nearly all forces known to men, even the Astarte themselves. (except for Tyranids I suppose...)
Melissia wrote: It doesn't need Astartes for that. Governors do it well enough, and they're more likable anyway
Ah.. I believe you've misunderstood, I do not mean that a space marine chapter should enforce Imperial rule over a planet, that is the job of the governors; what I meant was that the Imperium will not act against the Space Marine chapters as a whole because they are potentially a major threat to the Imperium if they are forced to. They act well enough as special forces that will constantly try and seek out the enemies of the Imperium, and answer the call of aid whenever they see fit. Might makes right, and the Astartes and the rest of the Imperium know it well.
Besides, The governors cannot intimidate rebels, and they are more likely to become rebels given how many worlds turned tau on Eastern Fringe, and all those Chaos affliated/Daemon Possessed cases too.They also don't normally have the power to conquer/occupy other planets considering the sector/segmentum Adminsitratum will typically react fast to these cases and call for any aid nearby. As a single force, or even a cabal of planetary governors, they remain insignificant to posse a threat, and are commonly held with lower status, subjected to the whim of the Adeptus Terra.
When an invasion occurs, a planetary governor will typically call for aid, and hold out in his/her palace, shielded by the PDF forces. Under such cases the prowess of an Astartes force will be respected, albeit not always appreciated. All of the Imperium know that the addition of a loyalist Astartes force means a higher odds of survival. (Unless it's Grey Knights, in which case you are #*$%ed either way).
lcmiracle wrote: the Imperium will not act against the Space Marine chapters as a whole
Yeah they do. All the time, in fact. Up to and including extermination.
In fact, the Ecclesiarchy once sent three SoB Orders to go fight the Space Wolves in their home system. This was after an act of aggression from the Space Wolves upon some Ecclesiarchy priests. The Ecclesiarchy seemed able to do this without special permission and didn't seem to get punished for doing so.
So yeah, the Imperium isn't at all scared to fight even the strongest Marine chapters, if they feel they need to.
lcmiracle wrote: the Imperium will not act against the Space Marine chapters as a whole
Yeah they do. All the time, in fact. Up to and including extermination.
...to a few chapters. Just like the Inquisitors may execute the Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus in certain cases (Magos Lurd), and even then it takes a really good cause and a strong standing force to enact that kind of judgement on respected sects. The Abyssal Crusade, for example, was realized due mostly to the renown and power of Saint Basillius, having supports from several space marine chapters, and an convenient cause as corruptions are detected within the gene seeds from dozens of Space Marine Chapters, coincide with a huge warp storm.
It's like the persecution of the Knights Templars after the lost of Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, the people lost faith in the Knights, the French King can avoid paying debets to the Order, the Catholic Church needs scapegoat for the failure, and so arrested and tortured was the templars, and executed was their leaders.
[edit: Further points to make]: Saint Basilius was eventually punished by the surviving chapters from the Abyssal Crusade, slain after being revealed as a Chaos Apostle, having been confronted by supposed tainted chapter master of Vorpal Swords, simply because the Triumphant seemingly proved their purity by returning from the Crusade. As far as any by-standers (Inquisition, Adeptus Terra and the Mechanicus, etc.) is concerned, either side can be tainted (or both!), but none did intervene because it's messy business and it wasn't the first time one imperial organization came into conflicts with another.
Now imagine if the High Lords, or the Ecclesiachy was to suddenly stripthe entire Astartes organization of all their privileges in the 42nd Millenium (or demote them, in whatever sense possible), when the Space Marine forces are still significant and supports for them are high. Even if there is a good cause for doing so, none but the most obedient (and ill-fortuned, like the Lamenters) would oblige. Chapters, with the governors who owe favor to them, will openly oppose this order, and will think they are the righteous and their persecutors the traitors. There is no way the Imperium can de-emphazie the role of the Space Marines,
In fact, the Ecclesiarchy once sent three SoB Orders to go fight the Space Wolves in their home system. This was after an act of aggression from the Space Wolves upon some Ecclesiarchy priests. The Ecclesiarchy seemed able to do this without special permission and didn't seem to get punished for doing so.
So yeah, the Imperium isn't at all scared to fight even the strongest Marine chapters, if they feel they need to.
Yes they'd do so as needed, it's a situation where either the Ecclesiarchy acts, or they be seen as weak in front of the rest of the Imperium. Where are the Inquisition in this episode, did they see fit to forcefully intervene? Why did not the High Lords denounce either party, instead wait to see a moment for them to react without respite from the triumphant?
Secondly, the Space Wolves also openly defied the Inquisition in the aftermath of the First War of Armageddon, where was their "punishment" other than a huge loss of forces that caused a huge loss of forces on the opposing side? The Inquisitor back away, knowing full well no one else would support either party, everyone else are just playing the waiting game.
No one make moves openly without worry about other parties, and no one party, can bring down another entirely. Except for the Space Wolves, just 'cause.
And the Ecclisiachy is not the Imperium, it's a part of the Imperium. A significant one, yes, but not the largest, nor the most powerful.
I'd say it's more than a mere few. SoB fluff has implied that fighting rogue Marines is a standard thing for them, which would, perhaps, imply it being more than a few isolated incidents.
lcmiracle wrote: Now imagine if the High Lords, or the Ecclesiachy was to suddenly strip the entire Astartes organization of all their privileges in the 42nd Millenium
That's quite a bit more extreme than just wiping out a single Marine Chapter that is thought to be somehow corrupt.
lcmiracle wrote: And the Ecclisiachy is not the Imperium, it's a part of the Imperium. A significant one, yes, but not the largest, nor the most powerful.
That's not the point I was making. My point was that the rest of the Imperium didn't object to the Ecclesiarchy going to war with a prominent Space Marine Chapter, nor did they at any point order the Ecclesiarchy to stop.
I'd say it's more than a mere few. SoB fluff has implied that fighting rogue Marines is a standard thing for them, which would, perhaps, imply it being more than a few isolated incidents.
Just like the Inquisition can have individual Techpriests, Confessors, High Lords of Terra, or even other Inquisitors "dealt with", given a justifiable cause.
That's not the point I was making. My point was that the rest of the Imperium didn't object to the Ecclesiarchy going to war with a prominent Space Marine Chapter, nor did they at any point order the Ecclesiarchy to stop.
And my point, as in my first post, was that the reasons that the rest of the Imperium do not grasp more control over the Adeptus Astartes, and the Ecclisiachy does not openly go to war with the Space Marines despite the difference in their beliefs (remember how strictly the confessors control cults, use militias and planetary governors to wipe out the undesirables across worlds, persecute heretics and mutants, yet tolerates the existence of non imperial cult following post-human Space Marines), The Space Marines remain a wild card, despite being both powerful and autonomous, simply because they are powerful and autonomous, and a change in the status quo could potentially bring doom to themselves.
Now imagine if the High Lords, or the Ecclesiachy was to suddenly stripthe entire Astartes organization of all their privileges in the 42nd Millenium (or demote them, in whatever sense possible), when the Space Marine forces are still significant and supports for them are high. Even if there is a good cause for doing so, none but the most obedient (and ill-fortuned, like the Lamenters) would oblige. Chapters, with the governors who owe favor to them, will openly oppose this order, and will think they are the righteous and their persecutors the traitors. There is no way the Imperium can de-emphazie the role of the Space Marines,
Have the Inquisition consign their worlds to Exterminatus, then declare them Excommunicatus Traitorus.
... I should also point out that there are several Chapters, which I have already listed, that adhere to the teachings of the Imperial Creed. The Space Marines themselves are not a united force, and there exist Chapters that appear to have the sole job of wiping out other Chapters.
Now imagine if the High Lords, or the Ecclesiachy was to suddenly stripthe entire Astartes organization of all their privileges in the 42nd Millenium (or demote them, in whatever sense possible), when the Space Marine forces are still significant and supports for them are high. Even if there is a good cause for doing so, none but the most obedient (and ill-fortuned, like the Lamenters) would oblige. Chapters, with the governors who owe favor to them, will openly oppose this order, and will think they are the righteous and their persecutors the traitors. There is no way the Imperium can de-emphazie the role of the Space Marines,
To be fair, even if the chapters did have allies, again, the SM's themselves are so few that they could hardly match the martial might mustered against them, and it would be a fool Governor indeed that would side with the faction that's outnumbered several hundred million to one.
To say nothing of the fact of the High Lords consisting of the masters of the IG, AdMech, Inquisition, Ecclesiarchy, etc. those are not enemies I'd want to have for the sake of an ally that cannot guarantee protection.
That's the problem with the SM's as currently written. They're just so few as currently written that they should be easily overrun and survive largely through the same means as Superman, namely plot armor.
lcmiracle wrote: Just like the Inquisition can have individual Techpriests, Confessors, High Lords of Terra, or even other Inquisitors "dealt with", given a justifiable cause.
Something like this actually came up before. I notice you're saying "justifiable cause", as if wiping out a Marine Chapter is a weightly decision that is avoided if possible. But that doesn't fit with how the Imperium has to be extremely vigilant for heresy and stamp it quickly if it's spotted. Obviously I'm not saying that Imperial organisations can go around wiping out Marine Chapters on a whim, but if there's evidence then they'd be free to act upon it.
Also, note how autonomous the Ecclesiarchy was when they attack the Space Wolves. Do you think that, if attacking Marines was such a huge deal, that the Imperium's leadership would allow the Ecclesiarchy to go after the Wolves so openly? Yet one act of aggression (and suspicions of heresy) was apparently cause enough for the Ecclesiarchy to go attack the Wolves, and the High Lords never told them to stop.
Oh, and has the Inquisition ever "dealt with" a High Lord? An example would be interesting to see.
lcmiracle wrote: Exactly why no one seem fit to reduce the Chapters' power, despite many chapters have been known to turn renegades/traitors.
Don't really understand the point you're making. Why would they punish all Marine chapters when they can and do target them individually?
And my point, as in my first post, was that the reasons that the rest of the Imperium do not grasp more control over the Adeptus Astartes, and the Ecclisiachy does not openly go to war with the Space Marines despite the difference in their beliefs (remember how strictly the confessors control cults, use militias and planetary governors to wipe out the undesirables across worlds, persecute heretics and mutants, yet tolerates the existence of non imperial cult following post-human Space Marines), The Space Marines remain a wild card, despite being both powerful and autonomous, simply because they are powerful and autonomous, and a change in the status quo could potentially bring doom to themselves.
lcmiracle wrote: and the Ecclisiachy does not openly go to war with the Space Marines
Yes they do. They sent three SoB Orders to attack the Space Wolves where they live, and the SoB have wiped out entire Chapters. That sounds like open warfare against Marines to me.
Also, as Psienesis said, it's important to note that the Astartes are far from a unified organisation. When an Imperial organisation fights a Chapter (and perhaps any allies it has), they're certainly not doing battle against Space Marines as a whole. An attack on one Space Marine Chapter won't prompt a reprisal from all other Chapters.
No, they tolerate that. The Ecclesiarchy even gives the Marines rosariuses. That, most likely, wouldn't be a catalyst for the Ecclesiarchy to go after some Marines.
*sign* Are you so fond of skipping line? The reverse of the coin would be: if attacking a space marine chapter isn't that big a deal, why didn't the other organizations join the sisters of battle? Because they don't want to anger either faction.
Why did the Imperium wait so long before formally dealing with Huron? Despite all per-existing evidence show that they've neglect their annual tithe, and attacking the Mechanicus? You are saying that the space marine are spread thin, not knowing non-fleet based chapters have their own mortal PDF? Are the successor chapters not more bounded to their predecessor and brother chapters?
The space marines needs not to be re-emphasized, they right where the Imperium wants them to be: stay out of our ways, else I'll have to bust my head to rip you a new one. And even that they've been shown to have failed. Anymore emphasized the Imperium will have to anhilate the nearly the entire space marine chapters
why didn't the other organizations join the sisters of battle? Because they don't want to anger either faction.
Because the Imperium exists under the axiom "Divided we Stand." It takes someone with a lot of sway to bring the disparate factions of the Imperium together into a common cause. This is often an Inquisitor, but it can also be a very high-ranking Imperial Guard Commander who has been handed the reigns of a Crusade, or the Chapter Master of a very famous, First-or-Second Founding Chapter who hasn't pissed off a lot of people.
Also, while the SoB have their allies amongst other SM Chapters, there aren't a large number who are going to jump into a war alongside them, since the SOB are known for doing their own churchy thing, and also for purging signs of heresy and corruption wherever they see it... and what is corrupt is in the eye of the beholder.
u are saying that the space marine are spread thin, not knowing non-fleet based chapters have their own mortal PDF?
Why would they know? There are no reliable means of inter-stellar communications in the Imperium. Hell, interplanetary communications, or even just communications on a single world are not particularly reliable.
Are the successor chapters not more bounded to their predecessor and brother chapters?
Depends on the Chapter in question. Not all of them are like the DA.
Well that makes Ultramarine and the DA, BA the most dangerous SM chapters won't they? And even a lone chapter like SW can feth over two factions, the Imperium would be mad not to think twice before attacking a SM chapter.
You'd think the agents of the Imperium'd learn from the case of the Sons of Malice... never fight SM without first getting other SM forces to join you (GK)
What keeps the SW around is plot-armor. The things the SW accomplished in their little hissy-fits are supported because the books are written by SW fans. Plain and simple.
The bit following the First War of Armageddon, especially, paints the SW in a very terrible light, because it indicates that they are, to a man, incredibly stupid. I mean, not just short-sighted or too proud and stubborn to act differently but actually incredibly, woefully low in intelligence, who are sticking their noses into business that they, apparently, have no comprehension of and, apparently, no understanding of, and end up costing the Imperium like 5 planets because of their idiocy.
For that alone the SW should have been sent on a Penance Crusade. They overstepped the bounds of their authority and remit, and fethed up things they had no knowledge of or experience with, all because they are stupid.
But, they're a popular faction with the fans, so the Space Vikings get to live on.
The later fight with the SoB suggests that the SW might be up to some shenanigans with Warp-magic or daemon-worship on Fenris, but the Wolves wouldn't let the Ecclesiarchy do its job... so, again, Wolves being idiots.
Psienesis wrote: What keeps the SW around is plot-armor. The things the SW accomplished in their little hissy-fits are supported because the books are written by SW fans. Plain and simple.
The bit following the First War of Armageddon, especially, paints the SW in a very terrible light, because it indicates that they are, to a man, incredibly stupid. I mean, not just short-sighted or too proud and stubborn to act differently but actually incredibly, woefully low in intelligence, who are sticking their noses into business that they, apparently, have no comprehension of and, apparently, no understanding of, and end up costing the Imperium like 5 planets because of their idiocy.
For that alone the SW should have been sent on a Penance Crusade. They overstepped the bounds of their authority and remit, and fethed up things they had no knowledge of or experience with, all because they are stupid.
But, they're a popular faction with the fans, so the Space Vikings get to live on.
The later fight with the SoB suggests that the SW might be up to some shenanigans with Warp-magic or daemon-worship on Fenris, but the Wolves wouldn't let the Ecclesiarchy do its job... so, again, Wolves being idiots.
I don't think the Space Puppies are intelligent enough to know how to summon a Daemon. It's probably just dealing with the whole 'No wolves on Fenris' bit.
lcmiracle wrote: the Imperium will not act against the Space Marine chapters as a whole
Yeah they do. All the time, in fact. Up to and including extermination.
...to a few chapters.
Sisters lore started off with them wiping out an Astartes chapter.
That's how they were INTRODUCED.
Your attempt to claim that Marines are untouchable is a laughable assertion. The Inquisition deals with Marines in various ways all the time. The ones taht aren't beneficial to the Imperium are destroyed in various ways. Ordering penitent crusades, ordering them to no longer recruit more initiates for a certain number of years, arranging for supplies to be redirected elsewhere, exterminatus on their home planet, assassination of obstinate leaders, and of course, the classic Excommunicate Traitoris-- to be wiped out entirely, such as the Flame Falcons, Astral Claws, Soul Drinkers, and Relictors.
Also we should note, In general the Imperium is just fine with marine methods and the marines generally act in Imperium interest. Others may want a chapter to focus more on this or that, but at the end of the day most marines are busy fighting...someone.
The Imperium's not real particular. Avoid open war, kill bad guys, and its all family.
lcmiracle wrote: if attacking a space marine chapter isn't that big a deal, why didn't the other organizations join the sisters of battle?
I guess that nobody else really had a dog in that fight.
lcmiracle wrote: Are the successor chapters not more bounded to their predecessor and brother chapters?
Not necessarily. Successors can actually be quite divergent from their parent chapter.
lcmiracle wrote: Anymore emphasized the Imperium will have to anhilate the nearly the entire space marine chapters
Not saying that the Imperium wants to or should get rid of the Space Marines. All I'm saying is that they can and do purge Marine Chapters when they need to.
lcmiracle wrote: You'd think the agents of the Imperium'd learn from the case of the Sons of Malice... never fight SM without first getting other SM forces to join you (GK)
But they can and do kill of Space Marines without the use of other Space Marines. For example, this was written in a WD:
Should doctrinal heresy prove the immediate cause then elite of the Adepta Sororitas may be the only force considered capable of prosecuting a War of Faith against the wayward chapter.
Similarly, the AS codex says this (emphasis mine):
Heretics take many forms. Most are lost humans, whose weak minds have been corrupted by the manifold temptations of a dark and sinister galaxy. None are immune – planetary governors, Imperial Guard commanders and even whole Space Marine Chapters have been declared heretic, and been exterminated as such by the Adepta Sororitas.
So yeah, doesn't have to be just Marines that fight Marines.
Valhallan Ice Warriors are specialists at fighting Orks, but they likely suffer terrible terrible losses while doing so anyway. (Just look at Chenkov) That SoB are somewhat commonly the ones to intervene when a chapter decides the Imperium is no fun any more does not necessarily indicate that they are particularly effective at doing it, only that that is their assignment. I mean, if you were a Canoness burning to the brim with zeal, you would not exactly refuse a mission given to you by the Ecclesiarchy, now would you? Even if said mission might not be... Ideal. Of course, the mission may be successful, but the cost of that victory is suspiciously absent from the text...
BrotherHaraldus wrote: That SoB are somewhat commonly the ones to intervene when a chapter decides the Imperium is no fun any more does not necessarily indicate that they are particularly effective at doing it,
To quote that WD article again:
Should doctrinal heresy prove the immediate cause then elite of the Adepta Sororitas may be the only force considered capable of prosecuting a War of Faith against the wayward chapter.
Note the use of "may be the only force considered capable". Also, the codex quote notes that they've wiped out entire Marine Chapters. Sounds to me like they're pretty effective!
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Even if said mission might not be... Ideal. Of course, the mission may be successful, but the cost of that victory is suspiciously absent from the text...
Fluff suggests that they don't just fight the Marines directly. From Citadel Journal #49:
Facing an entire Chapter of Space Marines is not a conflict many Imperial leaders would embark upon with any confidence, but where there is no alternative the Ordo may order a mission sent against the command structures of the renegade Chapter in order to disable the entire organisation from the top down. The only force outside of the Adeptus Astartes themselves with any hope of successfully assaulting a renegade Chapter Master and his attendant brethren may be an elite Strike Force of the Adepta Sororitas, led by an experienced and battle-hardened Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus. These Strike Forces are composed of the very best the Adepta Sororitas can field, and are equipped to an even higher standard than is usual within the Orders Militant.
So it seems that the preferred SoB tactic is to strike at the Chapter's leadership to cripple it before mopping up the rest. Also note that the quote says "The only force outside of the Adeptus Astartes themselves with any hope of successfully assaulting a renegade Chapter Master and his attendant brethren may be an elite Strike Force of the Adepta Sororitas". Seems like GW fluff has quite consistently said that the SoB are quite capable of taking out Marine Chapters.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Valhallan Ice Warriors are specialists at fighting Orks, but they likely suffer terrible terrible losses while doing so anyway. (Just look at Chenkov) That SoB are somewhat commonly the ones to intervene when a chapter decides the Imperium is no fun any more does not necessarily indicate that they are particularly effective at doing it, only that that is their assignment. I mean, if you were a Canoness burning to the brim with zeal, you would not exactly refuse a mission given to you by the Ecclesiarchy, now would you? Even if said mission might not be... Ideal. Of course, the mission may be successful, but the cost of that victory is suspiciously absent from the text...
One should not assume too much, either way.
Does it matter how many the Sisters lose?
They send 500 Sisters, kill 1000 Marines (the entire Chapter), and lose 300 of their number.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Valhallan Ice Warriors are specialists at fighting Orks, but they likely suffer terrible terrible losses while doing so anyway. (Just look at Chenkov) That SoB are somewhat commonly the ones to intervene when a chapter decides the Imperium is no fun any more does not necessarily indicate that they are particularly effective at doing it, only that that is their assignment. I mean, if you were a Canoness burning to the brim with zeal, you would not exactly refuse a mission given to you by the Ecclesiarchy, now would you? Even if said mission might not be... Ideal. Of course, the mission may be successful, but the cost of that victory is suspiciously absent from the text...
One should not assume too much, either way.
Does it matter how many the Sisters lose?
They send 500 Sisters, kill 1000 Marines (the entire Chapter), and lose 300 of their number.
Net win: Sisters.
...Or they send 5000 Sisters, lose 4000, net win: Sisters, given how much resources the Astartes eat.
Either is possible.
But I won't get this into another pointless versus debate.
lcmiracle wrote: the Imperium will not act against the Space Marine chapters as a whole
Yeah they do. All the time, in fact. Up to and including extermination.
...to a few chapters.
Sisters lore started off with them wiping out an Astartes chapter.
That's how they were INTRODUCED.
Your attempt to claim that Marines are untouchable is a laughable assertion. The Inquisition deals with Marines in various ways all the time. The ones taht aren't beneficial to the Imperium are destroyed in various ways. Ordering penitent crusades, ordering them to no longer recruit more initiates for a certain number of years, arranging for supplies to be redirected elsewhere, exterminatus on their home planet, assassination of obstinate leaders, and of course, the classic Excommunicate Traitoris-- to be wiped out entirely, such as the Flame Falcons, Astral Claws, Soul Drinkers, and Relictors.
... so you've simply ignore my use of plural Space Marine Chapters? If the Imperium is going to assert any form of contorl over the Adeptus Astartes as a whole, would they do that? The only SM chapter hinted to have been destroyed by the Soroitas was the Rainbow Warriors, I can sort of give you that one though I remain unconvinced due to the ambiguity of whether this was done solely by the hands of the Sororitas. Also the cause the Rainbow Warriors' excommunication is still... uncertain.
But, being the (supposely) the only viable option against a renegade chapter in a war of faith, somehow they amongst the supposed most notable deeds was being relieved by the Grey Knights and being slain by the Grey Knights. You can blame his spiritual liege on that one, but the sisters were never expect to win a notable fight on their own.
And the excommunication alone cannot quell the traitors, just as any excommunicated traitors, the traitor chapters are being hunted by forces of the Inquisition, or any loyalist Imperial forces. Defeat comes later then their exile.
Do remember that, until recently, the Sisters of Battle were a Chamber Militant of the Inquisition, so it was expected that the Sisters would be supported by the other resources of the Ordo Hereticus... including the vessels to get them from Points A to B.
That has recently changed with the updates to the Codex, but, as is the way with GW, not every aspect of the faction established over the last 30 years was updated in the new book to form a cohesive whole, and many things are just copy-pasta'd from old books into new, despite not quite lining up with new information (or omissions).
Their Codices, for 20 years now, have consistently stated that the SoB are the Imperium's go-to for wiping out Rogue Chapters. They specifically mentioned busting in through a window (via Drop Pod) into the Chapter Master's crib with an Inquisitor and cutting the head off the snake.
Since this is described as a "typical mission option", it implies that it's a tried-and-true method.
Psienesis wrote: Do remember that, until recently, the Sisters of Battle were a Chamber Militant of the Inquisition, so it was expected that the Sisters would be supported by the other resources of the Ordo Hereticus... including the vessels to get them from Points A to B.
That has recently changed with the updates to the Codex, but, as is the way with GW, not every aspect of the faction established over the last 30 years was updated in the new book to form a cohesive whole, and many things are just copy-pasta'd from old books into new, despite not quite lining up with new information (or omissions).
Their Codices, for 20 years now, have consistently stated that the SoB are the Imperium's go-to for wiping out Rogue Chapters. They specifically mentioned busting in through a window (via Drop Pod) into the Chapter Master's crib with an Inquisitor and cutting the head off the snake.
Since this is described as a "typical mission option", it implies that it's a tried-and-true method.
Well... that changes things, that's certainly quite an entrance. On the other hand, I'd expected this to be the jobs of the Officio Assassinorum...
Psienesis wrote: Do remember that, until recently, the Sisters of Battle were a Chamber Militant of the Inquisition, so it was expected that the Sisters would be supported by the other resources of the Ordo Hereticus... including the vessels to get them from Points A to B.
That has recently changed with the updates to the Codex, but, as is the way with GW, not every aspect of the faction established over the last 30 years was updated in the new book to form a cohesive whole, and many things are just copy-pasta'd from old books into new, despite not quite lining up with new information (or omissions).
Their Codices, for 20 years now, have consistently stated that the SoB are the Imperium's go-to for wiping out Rogue Chapters. They specifically mentioned busting in through a window (via Drop Pod) into the Chapter Master's crib with an Inquisitor and cutting the head off the snake.
Since this is described as a "typical mission option", it implies that it's a tried-and-true method.
Well... that changes things, that's certainly quite an entrance. On the other hand, I'd expected this to be the jobs of the Officio Assassinorum...
How the hell does a single assassin take down a whole chapter? They already have problems against single space marines.
It's not a single Assassin, it's a battle-squad of Sisters Superior with some of the best weapons the Imperium can produce, backed by a man or woman who's authority is second only to the God-Emperor, Himself.
Psienesis wrote: It's not a single Assassin, it's a battle-squad of Sisters Superior with some of the best weapons the Imperium can produce, backed by a man or woman who's authority is second only to the God-Emperor, Himself.
Alright, can you give a quote (source and page)? I'd like to see if I can get my hands on the source and look it up myself. If it's the new codex I can buy one just to check this out.
I actually had access to the 2nd Edition Sister of Battle Codex and can't recall reading such information.
lcmiracle wrote: ... so you've simply ignore my use of plural Space Marine Chapters? If the Imperium is going to assert any form of contorl over the Adeptus Astartes as a whole, would they do that?
It's not so much about control... It's more about being allowed to take Marines down if they turn against the Imperium somehow. Space Marines can remain virtually independant entities as well as the Imperium being allowed to quickly deal with them as needed. That's just a necessity given how much trouble traitor Marines tend to be.
lcmiracle wrote: The only SM chapter hinted to have been destroyed by the Soroitas was the Rainbow Warriors
Not at all. See the codex quote I posted. The Sisters have destroyed multiple Chapters. And in the other two quotes, we see that they're regarded as some of the most capable at it. Why would they be regarded like that if they hadn't done it often or were crap at it?
lcmiracle wrote: due to the ambiguity of whether this was done solely by the hands of the Sororitas.
I wouldn't say so. The quotes that deem them capable at it mention the Sisters alone.
lcmiracle wrote: somehow they amongst the supposed most notable deeds was being relieved by the Grey Knights and being slain by the Grey Knights.
Not actually a notable deed (since nobody outside of the GK knew about it), just a controversial piece of fluff that caused a lot of backlash in the 40K community.
lcmiracle wrote: but the sisters were never expect to win a notable fight on their own.
You don't seem to have a very high opinion of the Sisters...They have, in fact, won plenty of notable battles by themselves. To name a few: The San Leor Massacre (Sisters beat a Red Corsairs invasion), The Defense of Dimmimar (Sisters see off an Eldar invasion), The Battle of the Penitent (Sisters defeat an Ork horde). All of those were roughly as "notable" as the Bloodtide, and the Sisters did well. And again, we know that they've successfully wiped out Marine Chapters. They're plenty good at this "war" business.
Wyzilla wrote: How the hell does a single assassin take down a whole chapter? They already have problems against single space marines.
They likely couldn't. Though not such an example, this shows that assassins vs. Marines can indeed be a pretty close fight.
You don't seem to have a very high opinion of the Sisters...They have, in fact, won plenty of notable battles by themselves. To name a few: The San Leor Massacre (Sisters beat a Red Corsairs invasion), The Defense of Dimmimar (Sisters see off an Eldar invasion), The Battle of the Penitent (Sisters defeat an Ork horde). All of those were roughly as "notable" as the Bloodtide, and the Sisters did well. And again, we know that they've successfully wiped out Marine Chapters. They're plenty good at this "war" business.
I have about as high a regard for the Sororitas as I have for the IG regiments, i.e. the Catachans MXIV's triumphant over Orks on Kato, the assassination of an Sam-Hann Autarch by a single Catachan Devil squad over Mortant VII (funnily enough it's all about the Catachans), the Attilian's victory over the Necrons on Loxar IV, the Cadian defense of Fortress Carcasson, the crushing of Lord Brule's chaos warband in the combined arms of Cadian 8th (creed!) and Terrax Guard... (all from the 5th IG codex)
But the simple fact that the sisters of battle, the orders militants are simply a middle ground between the multi-cultured, lowly Guardsmen, and the uber-ripped Space Marines. And they are not a good one at either. Unlike almost all other Imperium factions, the sisters are all one-faced, promethium-obessed zealots. They are uninteresting as a faction and even more uninteresting as characters. The same reason why I dislike the Grey Knights and most of the recent depictions of Codex Astartes (Cpt. Titus was at least somewhat of an interesting character, for a smurf.).
These factions have no motives, no differences in beliefs, and obeys like gouls to their masters -- no one else in the Imperium does that, not the Inquisitors, not the Adeptus Terra, not the techpriests, not the Minotaurs/Lamentors/Soul Drinkers/Space Wolves/Any Imperial Guard officers ever. That bit of them drop-podding into a Chapter Master chamber was interesting, it's the most interesting thing I've ever heard of the sisters ever doing. They showed signs of being human, being smart, being strong, and decisive. And what else do they do? Getting woven into a ball of flesh, and willingly sacrifice themselves to save one sister -- for the Emperor. If anyone is ever gonna make the Sisters interesting, they need to become more corruptible, not purer.
Wyzilla wrote: How the hell does a single assassin take down a whole chapter? They already have problems against single space marines.
They likely couldn't. Though not such an example, this shows that assassins vs. Marines can indeed be a pretty close fight.
There is also the rumour/circumstantial evidence that the loss of the Crimson Fists fortress-monastery might have been partly due to the involvement of the Officio Assassinorum. If thats true it might have possibly been the work of a single Vanus Temple operative. Then there are the Celestial Lions largely wiped out by 'friendly-fire' from snipers, being sent into the situation with that exact goal. Its not impossible that a lone or several assassins might take out almost whole Chapters.
lcmiracle wrote: These factions have no motives, no differences in beliefs, and obeys like gouls to their masters -- no one else in the Imperium does that, not the Inquisitors, not the Adeptus Terra, not the techpriests, not the Minotaurs/Lamentors/Soul Drinkers/Space Wolves/Any Imperial Guard officers ever. That bit of them drop-podding into a Chapter Master chamber was interesting, it's the most interesting thing I've ever heard of the sisters ever doing. They showed signs of being human, being smart, being strong, and decisive. And what else do they do? Getting woven into a ball of flesh, and willingly sacrifice themselves to save one sister -- for the Emperor. If anyone is ever gonna make the Sisters interesting, they need to become more corruptible, not purer.
There motive is one of the strongest in the setting. They are the ones that always remain pure and mostly righteous. If more of the Imperial factions were like them we would not be standing knee-deep in the grimdark, with traitors and heretics being one of the most common foes of the Imperium.
Regarding some of the factions mentioned not obeying as 'gouls to their masters', I think the local Commissariat would like a word with some of these individuals.
lcmiracle wrote: But the simple fact that the sisters of battle, the orders militants are simply a middle ground between the multi-cultured, lowly Guardsmen, and the uber-ripped Space Marines.
Hmmm... A middle ground in that they're humans using the same equipment as Marines, maybe. But we also see them fighting Marines and winning, and the GW website even once described them as equal to Space Marines (their Acts of Faith presumaly being what closed the gap).
lcmiracle wrote: Unlike almost all other Imperium factions, the sisters are all one-faced, promethium-obessed zealots.
One-faced? Not quite:
Spoiler:
Several different variations on the theme, there. Also note that the Sisters are extreme religious zealots, of course they're going to be a bit less varied than the IG or SM, who can hail from a wide variety of cultures and backgrounds. Meanwhile, Sisters are all indoctrinated within the same culture and background.
Besides, some of us like promethium-obsessed zealots.
lcmiracle wrote: They are uninteresting as a faction and even more uninteresting as characters.
That's entirely subjective. Plenty of people like their characterisation, just as many like the Orks being single-minded barbarians or the Tyrnaids being a relentless hivemind.
They have one overriding motive above all else, which can be regarded as pretty cool.
lcmiracle wrote: That bit of them drop-podding into a Chapter Master chamber was interesting, it's the most interesting thing I've ever heard of the sisters ever doing.
Understandable. SoB fluff tends to be more obscure than the fluff of other armies, so their cool moments are a bit harder to come by.
Here, this is some pretty cool SoB fluff:
Spoiler:
lcmiracle wrote: Getting woven into a ball of flesh, and willingly sacrifice themselves to save one sister -- for the Emperor.
Those were Dialogus Sisters, by the way. Not Battle Sisters.
lcmiracle wrote: If anyone is ever gonna make the Sisters interesting, they need to become more corruptible, not purer.
Then you may as well re-write them entirely. Their whole point is their immense faith, and how they are singularly skilled at applying said faith. If your suggestion is to subvert that, then they wouldn't really be Sisters anymore.
lcmiracle wrote: These factions have no motives, no differences in beliefs, and obeys like gouls to their masters -- no one else in the Imperium does that, not the Inquisitors, not the Adeptus Terra, not the techpriests, not the Minotaurs/Lamentors/Soul Drinkers/Space Wolves/Any Imperial Guard officers ever. That bit of them drop-podding into a Chapter Master chamber was interesting, it's the most interesting thing I've ever heard of the sisters ever doing. They showed signs of being human, being smart, being strong, and decisive. And what else do they do? Getting woven into a ball of flesh, and willingly sacrifice themselves to save one sister -- for the Emperor. If anyone is ever gonna make the Sisters interesting, they need to become more corruptible, not purer.
There motive is one of the strongest in the setting. They are the ones that always remain pure and mostly righteous. If more of the Imperial factions were like them we would not be standing knee-dee in the grimdark, with traitors and heretics being one of the most common foes of the Imperium.
Regarding some of the factions mentioned not obeying as 'gouls to their masters', I think the local Commissariat would like a word with some of these individuals.
Say that to Cain, and to Gaunt, and try to teach their real lesson to those Commissars stupid enough to force their authorities on the Catachans. No, no individual is free of flaw or self-interest. Those who thinks they are, will eventually be worn down by the test of time, should they survive long enough, to cast down their puritan views, consciously or otherwise, to even achieve any success in their lives.
Their faith is the undoing of the Sororitas.
Regardless, my original point, in answering to the whole topic of this thread was that: The Space Marines, however spread or few in number, as of the 42nd Millenium, still poses a great threat to local Imperial forces/rebels/xenos/any undesirables, etc. , and therefore remains both a useful tool and a potential threat. Due also to the high resource it costs to quell a wide-spread Astartes discontent/conflict, the Imperium as a whole is content to maintain the status quo in which the Astartes are autonomous, privileged, unbounded by common laws of local arbites, any other duties thereof other than to maintain their allegiance to the Emperor, to deny taints of Chaos, and (try) to protect their recruiting worlds, submit the gene-seed tithe. Anymore honors must be earned (i.e. new homeworlds) and their equipments maintained/provided by themselves or otherwise requisite as proper.
The Imperium would not grant more power, nor to increase the number of chapters drastically, and see fit to maintain the separation of chapters to weaken their bonds.
In the 42nd millenium, they are needed and are respected for the privileged donkey-caves that they are, and it will not change until can be replaced.
lcmiracle wrote: These factions have no motives, no differences in beliefs, and obeys like gouls to their masters -- no one else in the Imperium does that, not the Inquisitors, not the Adeptus Terra, not the techpriests, not the Minotaurs/Lamentors/Soul Drinkers/Space Wolves/Any Imperial Guard officers ever. That bit of them drop-podding into a Chapter Master chamber was interesting, it's the most interesting thing I've ever heard of the sisters ever doing. They showed signs of being human, being smart, being strong, and decisive. And what else do they do? Getting woven into a ball of flesh, and willingly sacrifice themselves to save one sister -- for the Emperor. If anyone is ever gonna make the Sisters interesting, they need to become more corruptible, not purer.
There motive is one of the strongest in the setting. They are the ones that always remain pure and mostly righteous. If more of the Imperial factions were like them we would not be standing knee-dee in the grimdark, with traitors and heretics being one of the most common foes of the Imperium.
Regarding some of the factions mentioned not obeying as 'gouls to their masters', I think the local Commissariat would like a word with some of these individuals.
Say that to Cain, and to Gaunt, and try to teach their real lesson to those Commissars stupid enough to force their authorities on the Catachans. No, no individual is free of flaw or self-interest. Those who thinks they are, will eventually be worn down by the test of time, should they survive long enough, to cast down their puritan views, consciously or otherwise, to even achieve any success in their lives.
Their faith is the undoing of the Sororitas.
Say that to Chenkov, results dont lie. The Imperium is lenient towards command as long as it is used effectively, Cain and Gaunt still obey the greater structure of the Guard. The moment they step out of line they outlive their use. We have the Terrax Guard on one end and the Catachans on the other regarding Commissars, but they both get the required result. The standard Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer list almost every punishment regarding failure to comply with the rules as death. Most Soritas do what they do out of conviction where the majority of the Guard does it out of harsh discipline and fear.
The test of times thing might sound nice untill one considers the amount of Soritas and Grey Knights have turned traitor compared to Guard Regiments and the Adaptus Astartes. One day one might crack, but the odds so far are heavily in their favour even though a single one might occasionally fall some day.
But the simple fact that the sisters of battle, the orders militants are simply a middle ground between the multi-cultured, lowly Guardsmen, and the uber-ripped Space Marines. And they are not a good one at either. Unlike almost all other Imperium factions, the sisters are all one-faced, promethium-obessed zealots. They are uninteresting as a faction and even more uninteresting as characters. The same reason why I dislike the Grey Knights and most of the recent depictions of Codex Astartes (Cpt. Titus was at least somewhat of an interesting character, for a smurf.).
Hey, it could be worse. Say, DKoK. Sisters at least have personalities, even if they are kinda monochrome and predictable.
lcmiracle wrote: No, no individual is free of flaw or self-interest.
The Sisters, while not flawless, are certainly free of self-interest. Their days are dedicated to prayer and training, and their response to failure is to become outcasts from their Order and go into battle without armour or ranged weapons. They're also very keen on martyrdom.
lcmiracle wrote: Those who thinks they are, will eventually be worn down by the test of time, should they survive long enough, to cast down their puritan views, consciously or otherwise, to even achieve any success in their lives.
Demonstrably untrue. The Sisters have never cast aside their puritan nature and they remain a very successful and strong fighting force.
Hardly! It is, in fact, what gives them their edge in 40K. Not only does it give them complete dedication to their cause, but it also lets them perform "seemingly miraculous" feats in battle, such as pushing past a grievous wound or shooting better than they're normally capable of. Really, this is like saying that vast numbers of troops are the undoing of the Imperial Guard, or that superhuman enhancements are the undoing of the Astartes.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Many seem to hate Astartes because they are so massively powerful.
It seems the Sisters' supposedly unbreakable resolve makes them appear Sue-ish.
Well, sue-ishness is quite subjective in this case, isn't it? Just right there, you've outlined how one could view your favoured army, the Marines, as "sues" (or at least overly powerful). Certainly, you've seen such viewpoints on here for yourself (just to clarify, I don't dislike the Marines, I've only ever disagreed with others on exactly how powerful Astartes are).
Also, I'd argue that the great faith of the Sisters does have some important drawbacks, and isn't an "I win" button. For example, their origin story has their faith, for a time, being used to utterly manipulate them into serving a crazed tyrant. Also, we see in the Bloodtide that even some Sisters can be affected by chaos. And they don't win all of their battles either, there's an instance of the Orks getting a major victory over the Sisters on Armaggedon, for example. And it's not like said faith is without an explanation, the Sisters are strongly shaped into it from very early in their lives. Similarly, the Marines have extensive bodily modification and excellent equipment to justify their prowess.
But anyway, in general terms, I'd say that all armies need "an edge" of some kind in 40K. Marines get their enhancements, Sisters get their faith, Necrons get their top-tier tech, ect. Every faction needs something that sets them apart, after all.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: If they really are so selfless, fearless, faithful etc., they only seem rather shallow to me.
One could equally level such a sentiment against the Marines, couldn't they?
That's just how they've been "forged", to reach the heights of faith and use it in battle. Similarly, the Marines have been forged to go far beyond the strength and skill of ordinary men. These things don't have to make them "shallow" and it certainly doesn't make them invincible, it's just a cool aspect of them.
Well, fair enough if he thinks it holds them back. Fearlessness has its advantages but recklessness and zeal can lead to pointless losses where a more efficient victory had been possible. Still, it's not a bad thing for your soldiers to have generally. (Though, notably, on the tabletop Sororitas are very much able to run from the battle and keep running even in situations where it is not really necessary, get swept, etc.)
And I don't think you are unreasonable at all, just so you know. I think you make good points. But there are so many contradictions and things here. A lot of it is interpretation-based. The issue is when preferences turn into vendettas against certain factions. I mean, I get that some dislike one of the several ways Marines are portrayed- the 'demigod' aspect- but it almost has seemed to reach the point where some say 'B-but X kills tons of Marines real quick and effective =)))))' as if just to protest against the status quo, what with Marines being given the most fluff, has most players, is even described on p151 of the latest WD as the 'core of the 40K universe'. (Wow, that was a long sentence...) Not to offend anyone, of course. I agree that other factions could get a bit more attention. But it's the way it is. In fact, if Sisters got an update (And I mean a real update, like the Necrons or DE got, not an online only crapdex) I would play them. Honestly. It's only the old models, very expensive models, order-only stuff, bad codex and general outdatedness that keeps forcing me away from them.
Besides, I'd prefer it if Sisters had been a 'middle ground' army, much more powerful than a Guardsman but still a fair distance below an Astartes. For example, once I was bored and decided to write up the statline and equipment of a SoB squad if they had been present in the Dawn of War II game.
I'll include the (official) stats of a Guardsman and a Tactical Marine as well, to compare:
Guardsman: Cost: 260 requisition for 6 Guardsmen, 100 HP/model, Armour: Infantry (Normal damage taken) Melee skill: 50 Melee: 2 DPS Ranged: 4.12 DPS Abilities: None
Battle Sister: Cost: 350 requisition for 4 Battle Sisters, 200 HP/model, Armour: Heavy Infantry (-40% ranged damage taken) Melee skill: 50 Melee: 6 DPS Ranged: 9.45 DPS Abilities: Shield of Faith (Temporarily reduces damage taken by 20%)
Space Marine: Cost: 450 requisition for 3 Space Marines, 330 HP/model, Armour: Heavy Infantry (-40% ranged damage taken) Melee skill: 60 Melee: 19 DPS Ranged: 14.58 DPS Abilities: Melee Resistance Aura (Passive) (Reduces melee damage taken by 40%) Kraken Bolts (Temporarily increases damage against Heavy and Super-Heavy infantry by 20%)
It seemed balanced to those I've talked to about it. (Appeal to authority, yay)
BrotherHaraldus wrote: If they really are so selfless, fearless, faithful etc., they only seem rather shallow to me.
One could equally level such a sentiment against the Marines, couldn't they?
That's just how they've been "forged", to reach the heights of faith and use it in battle. Similarly, the Marines have been forged to go far beyond the strength and skill of ordinary men. These things don't have to make them "shallow" and it certainly doesn't make them invincible, it's just a cool aspect of them.
Well, Marines can be corrupted, they are not trained better than everyone else to magically become incorruptible. (I still think that seems fishy, but that's just me.) They can and do fail- as several zealously point out- and not only fail battlefield-wise, but in other ways as well.
It seems the Sisters' supposedly unbreakable resolve makes them appear Sue-ish.
If you interpreted this as me pointing fingers, it was not my intention. It was me making my own guess of why they might appear so, not a statement that -I- think they are. I thought 'seems' and 'makes them appear' sufficed to make that clear, but apologies if I confused you.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Well, fair enough if he thinks it holds them back. Fearlessness has its advantages but recklessness and zeal can lead to pointless losses where a more efficient victory had been possible.
Though, in fairness, this is line with a major theme of the SoB. They're big on martyrdom.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: The issue is when preferences turn into vendettas against certain factions. I mean, I get that some dislike one of the several ways Marines are portrayed- the 'demigod' aspect- but it almost has seemed to reach the point where some say 'B-but X kills tons of Marines real quick and effective =)))))' as if just to protest against the status quo
I wouldn't call it a vendetta exactly... Not in every case, anyway. I think it's just that Marines come up often. They get a whole lot of fluff attention and have a lot of fans, so more discsussion and differing interpretations centre on them. For example, a person who was farily neutral on Space Marines might seem like they have a grudge of some kind against Marines just because of their opinions in the numerous "Marine power level" discussions.
And I don't think that examples of Marines being bested is necessarily done to try and demean the Marines, just to try and show that they may not always be as powerful as some believe.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: But it's the way it is. In fact, if Sisters got an update (And I mean a real update, like the Necrons or DE got, not an online only crapdex) I would play them. Honestly. It's only the old models, very expensive models, order-only stuff, bad codex and general outdatedness that keeps forcing me away from them.
Yep, a lot of people in the same boat.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Besides, I'd prefer it if Sisters had been a 'middle ground' army, much more powerful than a Guardsman but still a fair distance below an Astartes. For example, once I was bored and decided to write up the statline and equipment of a SoB squad if they had been present in the Dawn of War II game.
I'll include the (official) stats of a Guardsman and a Tactical Marine as well, to compare:
Guardsman: Cost: 260 requisition for 6 Guardsmen, 100 HP/model, Armour: Infantry (Normal damage taken) Melee skill: 50 Melee: 2 DPS Ranged: 4.12 DPS Abilities: None
Battle Sister: Cost: 350 requisition for 4 Battle Sisters, 200 HP/model, Armour: Heavy Infantry (-40% ranged damage taken) Melee skill: 50 Melee: 6 DPS Ranged: 9.45 DPS Abilities: Shield of Faith (Temporarily reduces damage taken by 20%)
Space Marine: Cost: 450 requisition for 3 Space Marines, 330 HP/model, Armour: Heavy Infantry (-40% ranged damage taken) Melee skill: 60 Melee: 19 DPS Ranged: 14.58 DPS Abilities: Melee Resistance Aura (Passive) (Reduces melee damage taken by 40%) Kraken Bolts (Temporarily increases damage against Heavy and Super-Heavy infantry by 20%)
It seemed balanced to those I've talked to about it. (Appeal to authority, yay)
I can see what you're getting at. In one sense, there's a linear progression: IG: humans with standard equipment. SoB: humans with elite equipment. SM: super-humans with elite equipment.
Though I find it a bit limiting to look at it only like this. The guard have their mastery of tanks and hordes, and the Sisters have their Acts of Faith and Shield of Faith. Yeah, there's essentially a power scale, but it doesn't wholly define those armies either.
Yeah, it is of course a simplification, but I like the progression there. It is kind of like the boy-nob-warboss progression the Orks have, except that Sisters are not physically larger than Guardsmen!
Of course, the difference between SoB and Guardsmen does not have to equal the difference between SoB and Marines, and vice versa, but I just feel I 'like' that.
But hey, we all probably look at the factions in different ways.
All psykers are explicitly more vulnerable to daemonic influence than all non-psykers.
You really need to cite this, as the last time I checked, psykers in the chaos ranks are still quite rare, and most human psykers don't even get the chance to disprove or prove the theory.
Now, if you mean that psykers are a risk in the terms of tearing open warp holes by accident for daemons to enter the material world, then yes I agree..
GK are mind-wiped to remove them of prior emotional ties that could create vulnerabilities to chaos. Regular non-psyker imperial citizens don't get that. The Bloodtide incident shows they could still be magically corrupted, and a changeling story in the daemons codex shows that, as far as daemons know, corrupting them of their own free will is theoretically possible (only theoretically. It hasn't actually happened yet). Their resistance to chaos, as far as we can deduce, comes from the mind-wiping, conditioning, will power, noble spirit (not from being a grey knight, but from the fact that candidates for the grey knights are presumably selected from people that have shown they are good people. I think?), and incredibly strict training afterwards.
Well, there could be some supernatural explanation I forgot or am unaware of, but last I heard the mind-wiping thing was done to remove emotional vulnerabilities to chaos.
I know this is a bit off tangent, but I gotta wonder how big AS/SoB would be if they went on a true update. I know for certain I'd grab the book, two squads of sister, a hq, a piano of doom, and some others . Just interesting as I see people like brotherharaldus mention they would but besides that you kinda can count the number of Sister players on these forums that actually have an army of them
Anyways, wait didn't Melissia already acknowledge that GK are an exception? And if you critique her for her terming might I add that GK have a unit that is the purer than pure
They are still Psykers, so it would contradict Melissia's statement about all Psykers being more vulnerable than all non-Psykers.
No Grey Knights have fallen yet, and I assume that (Amount of normal humans who have fallen since the founding of the GK / amount of humans who have lived since the founding of the GK) is a higher number than 0.
StarTrotter wrote: I know this is a bit off tangent, but I gotta wonder how big AS/SoB would be if they went on a true update. I know for certain I'd grab the book, two squads of sister, a hq, a piano of doom, and some others . Just interesting as I see people like brotherharaldus mention they would but besides that you kinda can count the number of Sister players on these forums that actually have an army of them
Anyways, wait didn't Melissia already acknowledge that GK are an exception? And if you critique her for her terming might I add that GK have a unit that is the purer than pure
When you say "true update", are you talking about something along the lines of the DE update of yore, that introduced a whole new line of models as well as a Codex?
Because that ship has sailed, at least until 7th Ed.
StarTrotter wrote: I know this is a bit off tangent, but I gotta wonder how big AS/SoB would be if they went on a true update. I know for certain I'd grab the book, two squads of sister, a hq, a piano of doom, and some others . Just interesting as I see people like brotherharaldus mention they would but besides that you kinda can count the number of Sister players on these forums that actually have an army of them
Anyways, wait didn't Melissia already acknowledge that GK are an exception? And if you critique her for her terming might I add that GK have a unit that is the purer than pure
'Because they are mary sue' is not really a valid exception to me. One can surely find better reasons than that? I can go check the Codex, I am fairly certain it says something about it there.
Well, no, the GK really are a Mary Sue faction. They are not only immune to corruption, but they have units that are even *more* immune than their regular immunity.
I liked the GK better when they were a black-magic wielding elite squad of Knights-Templar that, while ostensibly "remaining pure", did so through the vilest of sorceries and the blackest of magics.
Now it's all, like, willpower or something. Oh, and fear. Fear that they will be the first of the Chapter to Fall. This, of course, will never happen.
Psienesis wrote: Well, no, the GK really are a Mary Sue faction. They are not only immune to corruption, but they have units that are even *more* immune than their regular immunity.
I liked the GK better when they were a black-magic wielding elite squad of Knights-Templar that, while ostensibly "remaining pure", did so through the vilest of sorceries and the blackest of magics.
Now it's all, like, willpower or something. Oh, and fear. Fear that they will be the first of the Chapter to Fall. This, of course, will never happen.
Grey Knights are mary sue, Idd.
Which faction isn't, lol?
They are OP, sure, but they are not so Sue-ish in proportion to the other factions as to warrant special complaning, at least that was my impression from the codex.
The factions that aren't Mary Sue are the ones that are often shown (or expected to be) dying in droves in the course of their missions. This would be, mainly, Eldar, IG, SoB, Dark Eldar, and Tyranid.
While they might succeed at their mission, whatever it was, they often suffer horrendous casualties and end up with a Pyrrhic Victory anyway.
Psienesis wrote: The factions that aren't Mary Sue are the ones that are often shown (or expected to be) dying in droves in the course of their missions. This would be, mainly, Eldar, IG, SoB, Dark Eldar, and Tyranid.
While they might succeed at their mission, whatever it was, they often suffer horrendous casualties and end up with a Pyrrhic Victory anyway.
They are just contradictional. D/Eldar are on one hand shown as having among the most skilled, swift and experienced warriors of all races, and yet they get rekk'd by Guardsmen. IG have catachans (Marbo? Harker? Straken?) as well as various other things. SoB shrug off having half their torso vaporised by a Multimelta because, faith. Tyranids are depicted as being so many so any losses won't matter... Except if they fight Ultras, lol.
That is why none of the factions I mentioned are Mary Sue. The Space Marines are largely depicted sending 5 guys to a planet of 500 million and killing all of them. With bolters and chainswords. Suffering no casualties.
Psienesis wrote: They are not only immune to corruption, but they have units that are even *more* immune than their regular immunity.
Not exactly... You just have to read between the lines a little. Note how the Bloodtide GK are described as "needing" their blood magic to protect them from the Bloodtide.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: SoB shrug off having half their torso vaporised by a Multimelta because, faith.
Not quite. The latest codex just says that it's them shrugging off a severe wound. Not being vaporised or decapitated or anything like that, just wounded.
Psienesis wrote: That is why none of the factions I mentioned are Mary Sue. The Space Marines are largely depicted sending 5 guys to a planet of 500 million and killing all of them. With bolters and chainswords. Suffering no casualties.
BORING!
Don't people talk about an Iron Warrior getting oneshotted by a lasgun in an IW novel and things like that all the time as to try and disprove their supposed godlikeness?
Not quite. The latest codex just says that it's them shrugging off a severe wound. Not being vaporised or decapitated or anything like that, just wounded.
Right. Just me flogging game mechanics, I suppose. That 6++ can have a Repentia shrug off a direct hit from an Emperor Titan Plasma Annihilator, after all. Even if it is firing a charged shot.
StarTrotter wrote: I know this is a bit off tangent, but I gotta wonder how big AS/SoB would be if they went on a true update. I know for certain I'd grab the book, two squads of sister, a hq, a piano of doom, and some others . Just interesting as I see people like brotherharaldus mention they would but besides that you kinda can count the number of Sister players on these forums that actually have an army of them
Anyways, wait didn't Melissia already acknowledge that GK are an exception? And if you critique her for her terming might I add that GK have a unit that is the purer than pure
When you say "true update", are you talking about something along the lines of the DE update of yore, that introduced a whole new line of models as well as a Codex?
Because that ship has sailed, at least until 7th Ed.
Well, that would convince me to bear with the prices of Sisters. I could live with 70 dollar troops if at the very least they had a rulebook that wasn't just kind of thrown out there as a little bone . Honestly I am more interested in plastic Sisters. As soon as they release those (be that some distant future of 6th, or more probably 7th edition) I will succumb. Darn you dakkadakka AS players like I needed one more army.
Psienesis wrote: Well, no, the GK really are a Mary Sue faction. They are not only immune to corruption, but they have units that are even *more* immune than their regular immunity.
I liked the GK better when they were a black-magic wielding elite squad of Knights-Templar that, while ostensibly "remaining pure", did so through the vilest of sorceries and the blackest of magics.
Now it's all, like, willpower or something. Oh, and fear. Fear that they will be the first of the Chapter to Fall. This, of course, will never happen.
Grey Knights are mary sue, Idd.
Which faction isn't, lol?
They are OP, sure, but they are not so Sue-ish in proportion to the other factions as to warrant special complaning, at least that was my impression from the codex.
I'll agree with you on that. I really liked old GK. Now I just can't think of anything besides Draigo and then suddenly the world becomes all hazy and foggy and then I open my eyes and I am surrounded by the blood of assassins :U.
Really though, GK are sue-ish. Yes, every regiment has their moment. IG books will often have guardsman that can slaughter marines y the dozen even when the guardsman have low tech and are low on number. This happens for all races even the nids have some silly points where it's like... oh come on! That being said, certain factions are more prone to hogging light and being... distorted. Heck, there's some section in the chaos daemon codex, if memory serves me, where a single marine survives and then promptly starts turning the tide (I have a hunch that is there to be a hint at the chaos god positive emotions that have kind of been flanderized out for the most part). Look at a game like SPACE MARINE. I love that game, but if I were to read that as some fluff in a book, I think I would wan't to come in and personally slay Titus and run him through several more times. SM, for whatever reason, have these stupid high levels of dissonance from above humans but by a little to a single SM (usually 5 though) going in and then winning it all by themself with not a single loss incurred. Humerously, whilst CSM are also prone to some Mary Sue aspects, they tend to not have as many of these traits.... usually because SM are killing them off in the dozens as well xD.
I'd be surprised to be honest. As much as I like AS, Nids have had a codex you can buy at the shop and their units advertised. Nids have also showed up in many games (probably the most remembered is space hulk). Revenge of the Sisters part 1
lcmiracle wrote: the Imperium will not act against the Space Marine chapters as a whole
Yeah they do. All the time, in fact. Up to and including extermination.
...to a few chapters.
Sisters lore started off with them wiping out an Astartes chapter.
That's how they were INTRODUCED.
Your attempt to claim that Marines are untouchable is a laughable assertion. The Inquisition deals with Marines in various ways all the time. The ones taht aren't beneficial to the Imperium are destroyed in various ways. Ordering penitent crusades, ordering them to no longer recruit more initiates for a certain number of years, arranging for supplies to be redirected elsewhere, exterminatus on their home planet, assassination of obstinate leaders, and of course, the classic Excommunicate Traitoris-- to be wiped out entirely, such as the Flame Falcons, Astral Claws, Soul Drinkers, and Relictors.
My favorite actually has got to go to the Inquisitor's assassination of a SM chapter during a war. I can't remember the name, I think Celestial Lions was the name. The dudes were outraged at the actions of the Inquisition denouncing them. Well here comes Armageddon. Medics got sniped and the rest then sent on suicidal missions.
On a side note, yes, Sisters probably usually don't win battles all on their own but neither do SM. Along with that, keep in mind that SM are going to have VASTLY more fluff than SoB meaning that you are drawing from hundreds of books, games, etc whilst the AS pool is far more limited in comparison.
Psykers are more valued by daemons than any other kind of creature, because their minds can be used as doorways with which to enter the Material World.
Their minds and souls are like beacons in the Warp, drawing daemons to them, and the energies of Chaos leak from their minds in the form of psychic phenomena-- even moreso when they use their power, providing what in tabletop are referred to as perils of the warp.
This is the reason why the Imperium hates psykers and does not trust them, even sanctionites whom have protections and training against this kind of corruption. Even Grey Knights must be constantly vigilant and have absurd amounts of protection (such as having wards surgically installed on the inside of their skulls), with complex, dangerous rituals to maintain their purity.
Psykers are more valued by daemons than any other kind of creature, because their minds can be used as doorways with which to enter the Material World.
Their minds and souls are like beacons in the Warp, drawing daemons to them, and the energies of Chaos leak from their minds in the form of psychic phenomena-- even moreso when they use their power, providing what in tabletop are referred to as perils of the warp.
This is the reason why the Imperium hates psykers and does not trust them, even sanctionites whom have protections and training against this kind of corruption. Even Grey Knights must be constantly vigilant and have absurd amounts of protection (such as having wards surgically installed on the inside of their skulls), with complex, dangerous rituals to maintain their purity. [needs citation]
Fix'd.
For the sake of the argument, I checked the WD from the GK release month. It was rather enlightening. To quote Mat Ward:
WD #376 page 22 wrote:Not only is their geneseed something unique in respect to other Space Marines but every one of their number is a psyker. There is an interesting dichotomy here; the incorruptible guardians that protect against the Warp all have within them the capacity to become gateways for the very entities they are sworn to destroy. After all, it has been said many times, that an untrained and unsanctioned psyker can bring whole star systems to their knees, as Daemons flock to them like moths to a candle, using them as an opening into our realm. But that is just one of the many ironies of the 41st Millennium and why it's such an interesting place. A weak-minded psyker is a danger to the Imperium. The Grey Knights, however, are not weak of will, in fact theirs is the mightiest since the Emperor himself, who, let's not forget, was a psyker. A Grey Knight has never fallen or been swayed by Chaos. They are sorcerers all - and I use that term quite deliberately - but ones who use their powers for the defence of Mankind.
Dare you resist the holy word of Mat Ward, our spiritual liege?
(Inb4 'That doesn't count because Mat Ward can't write fluff', lols)
power armor suffering from neglect and simple age. The fact that 
Shoot me.
