And Space Marines aren't supposed to be uber-superior to the xenos factions they're fighting, anyways. An Aspect Warrior vs. A Space Marine should be a fairly even match.
And that's precisely why Space Marines are unbelievable even within the parameter of the 40K univers. A Space Marine is pretty much rivaled by an Aspect Warrior. They are about as good as Nobz. They are about as good as Necron Immortals. They are a bit worse then Tyranid Warriors. They are a bit worse then Crisis Battlesuits. They are a bit worse then Incubi. They are about as good as Ogryns. They are slightly better then Scions and Sisters of Battle. There are probably well over a billion Necron Immortals in the galaxy. I don't even think I need to guess the number Tyranid Warriors in galaxy. It might be closer to the trillions. At such a scale, relatively middle range and immensely rare Space Marines would be ridiculously useless. A hundred Space Marine will make a drop pod assault on a Necron Lord surrounded by Lychguard easily a match to the very best Space Marines and thousands of Immortals are doom to failure from the start. Can they be useful? Yes, just like having a single plasma gun in an entire army can be useful, but it's probably not going to turn the tide of any battle let alone any war.
As for the moral effect, considering the most basic fighter in 40K is a fanatic and that a significant portion of the Imperium enemies are downright fearless, it's not very useful. If you want to scare rioting citizen and revolting slaves, it's marvelous. Kill three and the army will disband. If you want to kill walking, regenerating machine armed with disintegration gun, it's rather pointless.
You have to remember that its never ever a 1 v 1 situation, though. The strengths of a Space Marine are multiplied by his brothers, and working in tandem, they become a force much great than the sum of its parts. The tactics and strategies of the forces, the power of their weapons, and their fearlessness, amplifiy their simple physical traits. You mention them as equivalent to different units, but equivalent is not equal. As you say, Crisis Suits, head-on, are better. But Crisis Suits have smaller unit sizes, less logistical support, and far less experience in the field than even a noob-Marine due to Tau Lifespans. They also have different tactics entirely. Tyranid Warriors are much more numerous but have much lighter defenses and a different battlefield role, serving more as Lieutenants or a "Squad of Sergeants" than anything else. Genestealers would have been a fairer comparison as they share a battlefield role. Orks have a completely different command structure focused around a single powerful leader than falls apart with the death of this leader, where Space Marines have a steady chain of command in case a Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant or other officer is killed.
You must also remember than Space Marines were made 10k years ago. They were made to fight mostly Orks and other minor Xenos races, and occassionally the Eldar. Necrons weren't a thing in 30K, neither were Nids, and Tau still had gills and partially formed legs at that point. They were made to fight different foes, and are still used because, as you say, almost ever force in the galaxy has legions of troops that regular humans can't stand against. You can't rely on Ogryns to do everything, nor have the same strategies and tactics, nor can regular humans in Power Armour, like Battle Sisters, be expected to hit the same lofty goals as Space Marines.
Space Marines are superior to anything the Imperium can throw, either one on one, or in force. No one else in the Imperium can go toe-to-toe with the other elites of the galaxy.
First off, Custodes. Imperial Knights.
Second off, why don't Warriors have tactics, when guided by the hyper-intelligent hive mind?
Aspect Warriors are guided by the foresight of Farseers, they could easily have a strategic and tactical leg-up on Marines.
Necron Warriors I'll give you being dumber than Marines, but not Immortals, and DEFINITELY not Lychguard or Praetorians.
Nothing you say is really exclusive to Marines-they don't have a monopoly on brains, and in fact, given some of the fluff, can be pretty dang stupid.
If the rules in no way reflect the fluff, then what is the point of the fluff? I'm being practical here. The fluff is stupid AND irrelevant. And marines don't matter in either scenario. Numbers or mechanics. Take your pick.
And Space Marines aren't supposed to be uber-superior to the xenos factions they're fighting, anyways. An Aspect Warrior vs. A Space Marine should be a fairly even match.
And that's precisely why Space Marines are unbelievable even within the parameter of the 40K univers. A Space Marine is pretty much rivaled by an Aspect Warrior. They are about as good as Nobz. They are about as good as Necron Immortals. They are a bit worse then Tyranid Warriors. They are a bit worse then Crisis Battlesuits. They are a bit worse then Incubi. They are about as good as Ogryns. They are slightly better then Scions and Sisters of Battle. There are probably well over a billion Necron Immortals in the galaxy. I don't even think I need to guess the number Tyranid Warriors in galaxy. It might be closer to the trillions. At such a scale, relatively middle range and immensely rare Space Marines would be ridiculously useless. A hundred Space Marine will make a drop pod assault on a Necron Lord surrounded by Lychguard easily a match to the very best Space Marines and thousands of Immortals are doom to failure from the start. Can they be useful? Yes, just like having a single plasma gun in an entire army can be useful, but it's probably not going to turn the tide of any battle let alone any war.
As for the moral effect, considering the most basic fighter in 40K is a fanatic and that a significant portion of the Imperium enemies are downright fearless, it's not very useful. If you want to scare rioting citizen and revolting slaves, it's marvelous. Kill three and the army will disband. If you want to kill walking, regenerating machine armed with disintegration gun, it's rather pointless.
You have to remember that its never ever a 1 v 1 situation, though. The strengths of a Space Marine are multiplied by his brothers, and working in tandem, they become a force much great than the sum of its parts. The tactics and strategies of the forces, the power of their weapons, and their fearlessness, amplifiy their simple physical traits. You mention them as equivalent to different units, but equivalent is not equal. As you say, Crisis Suits, head-on, are better. But Crisis Suits have smaller unit sizes, less logistical support, and far less experience in the field than even a noob-Marine due to Tau Lifespans. They also have different tactics entirely. Tyranid Warriors are much more numerous but have much lighter defenses and a different battlefield role, serving more as Lieutenants or a "Squad of Sergeants" than anything else. Genestealers would have been a fairer comparison as they share a battlefield role. Orks have a completely different command structure focused around a single powerful leader than falls apart with the death of this leader, where Space Marines have a steady chain of command in case a Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant or other officer is killed.
You must also remember than Space Marines were made 10k years ago. They were made to fight mostly Orks and other minor Xenos races, and occassionally the Eldar. Necrons weren't a thing in 30K, neither were Nids, and Tau still had gills and partially formed legs at that point. They were made to fight different foes, and are still used because, as you say, almost ever force in the galaxy has legions of troops that regular humans can't stand against. You can't rely on Ogryns to do everything, nor have the same strategies and tactics, nor can regular humans in Power Armour, like Battle Sisters, be expected to hit the same lofty goals as Space Marines.
Space Marines are superior to anything the Imperium can throw, either one on one, or in force. No one else in the Imperium can go toe-to-toe with the other elites of the galaxy.
First off, Custodes. Imperial Knights.
Second off, why don't Warriors have tactics, when guided by the hyper-intelligent hive mind?
Aspect Warriors are guided by the foresight of Farseers, they could easily have a strategic and tactical leg-up on Marines.
Necron Warriors I'll give you being dumber than Marines, but not Immortals, and DEFINITELY not Lychguard or Praetorians.
Nothing you say is really exclusive to Marines-they don't have a monopoly on brains, and in fact, given some of the fluff, can be pretty dang stupid.
Well if everyone else thinks having some elite warriors is a good idea, then maybe marines are a good idea too? They're elite soldiers who specialize in shock and awe, orbital insertion, and boarding actions. And were they not constrained by the codex, they'd be some of the most adaptable troops in the universe, since they spend several decades learning every possible task in the chapter. before being assigned to just carry a bolt gun.
Martel732 wrote:The disjoint is too large. Marines are in fact slower than guardsmen in the game, which makes the speed argunent impossible to buy. GW could have given marines 8" move or guardsmen 4" if they wanted this to be true. Marines are no faster than humans.
Only raven guard are modeled with to hit penalties and those don't function within double tap plasma range. Marines are no harder to hit than anything else. If they were, they'd be modeled like alaitoc.
Relic units have rarity requirements. Plasma does not. It is impossible to accept rarity of plasma when every scion squad has 40% plasma and when forge worlds exist. You can say its rare, but the reality is that its quite common.
Rules =/= fluff, and you know it.
At least, I hope you do.
Martel732 wrote:If the rules in no way reflect the fluff, then what is the point of the fluff? I'm being practical here. The fluff is stupid AND irrelevant. And marines don't matter in either scenario. Numbers or mechanics. Take your pick.
The fluff established the background of the game. The game doesn't NEED fluff, but it's good to have, in the same respect you can have 40k's fluff stand alone quite fine, but it's nice to have a dumbed down approximation, in the form of the game, to recreate it.
Look at Star Wars. That's got fluff (the entire Star Wars canon), and games (X-Wing, Legion, etc etc). There's still a disconnect between the two, and if you tried saying that things in the SW fluff were impossible or should be based off of the tabletop miniature game, then you'd quite rightly be laughed out of any kind of lore discussion.
The rules don't reflect the fluff *accurately*, but it has a point - to establish the fictional universe in which we have these battles. Ultimately, if you only care about the game itself (the moving of models to achieve objectives to win the game), then the fluff is irrelevant, but then, it always was and always will be - because you only care about the game, and you could just as well play the game with cardboard cutouts, coke cans as terrain, and no paint at all, if that's what you like.
And Space Marines aren't supposed to be uber-superior to the xenos factions they're fighting, anyways. An Aspect Warrior vs. A Space Marine should be a fairly even match.
And that's precisely why Space Marines are unbelievable even within the parameter of the 40K univers. A Space Marine is pretty much rivaled by an Aspect Warrior. They are about as good as Nobz. They are about as good as Necron Immortals. They are a bit worse then Tyranid Warriors. They are a bit worse then Crisis Battlesuits. They are a bit worse then Incubi. They are about as good as Ogryns. They are slightly better then Scions and Sisters of Battle. There are probably well over a billion Necron Immortals in the galaxy. I don't even think I need to guess the number Tyranid Warriors in galaxy. It might be closer to the trillions. At such a scale, relatively middle range and immensely rare Space Marines would be ridiculously useless. A hundred Space Marine will make a drop pod assault on a Necron Lord surrounded by Lychguard easily a match to the very best Space Marines and thousands of Immortals are doom to failure from the start. Can they be useful? Yes, just like having a single plasma gun in an entire army can be useful, but it's probably not going to turn the tide of any battle let alone any war.
As for the moral effect, considering the most basic fighter in 40K is a fanatic and that a significant portion of the Imperium enemies are downright fearless, it's not very useful. If you want to scare rioting citizen and revolting slaves, it's marvelous. Kill three and the army will disband. If you want to kill walking, regenerating machine armed with disintegration gun, it's rather pointless.
You have to remember that its never ever a 1 v 1 situation, though. The strengths of a Space Marine are multiplied by his brothers, and working in tandem, they become a force much great than the sum of its parts. The tactics and strategies of the forces, the power of their weapons, and their fearlessness, amplifiy their simple physical traits. You mention them as equivalent to different units, but equivalent is not equal. As you say, Crisis Suits, head-on, are better. But Crisis Suits have smaller unit sizes, less logistical support, and far less experience in the field than even a noob-Marine due to Tau Lifespans. They also have different tactics entirely. Tyranid Warriors are much more numerous but have much lighter defenses and a different battlefield role, serving more as Lieutenants or a "Squad of Sergeants" than anything else. Genestealers would have been a fairer comparison as they share a battlefield role. Orks have a completely different command structure focused around a single powerful leader than falls apart with the death of this leader, where Space Marines have a steady chain of command in case a Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant or other officer is killed.
You must also remember than Space Marines were made 10k years ago. They were made to fight mostly Orks and other minor Xenos races, and occassionally the Eldar. Necrons weren't a thing in 30K, neither were Nids, and Tau still had gills and partially formed legs at that point. They were made to fight different foes, and are still used because, as you say, almost ever force in the galaxy has legions of troops that regular humans can't stand against. You can't rely on Ogryns to do everything, nor have the same strategies and tactics, nor can regular humans in Power Armour, like Battle Sisters, be expected to hit the same lofty goals as Space Marines.
Space Marines are superior to anything the Imperium can throw, either one on one, or in force. No one else in the Imperium can go toe-to-toe with the other elites of the galaxy.
First off, Custodes. Imperial Knights.
Second off, why don't Warriors have tactics, when guided by the hyper-intelligent hive mind?
Aspect Warriors are guided by the foresight of Farseers, they could easily have a strategic and tactical leg-up on Marines.
Necron Warriors I'll give you being dumber than Marines, but not Immortals, and DEFINITELY not Lychguard or Praetorians.
Nothing you say is really exclusive to Marines-they don't have a monopoly on brains, and in fact, given some of the fluff, can be pretty dang stupid.
Well if everyone else thinks having some elite warriors is a good idea, then maybe marines are a good idea too? They're elite soldiers who specialize in shock and awe, orbital insertion, and boarding actions. And were they not constrained by the codex, they'd be some of the most adaptable troops in the universe, since they spend several decades learning every possible task in the chapter. before being assigned to just carry a bolt gun.
Other factions have elite troops like real world armies: better training and equipment for the best candidates, in sufficient numbers to be relevant.
Space marines are the equivalent of the entire US military having one special forces guy who only works one day a month and only if he agrees with the mission. Even if he's the greatest soldier ever it's still just one guy, and he is not going to decide a war between millions of soldiers.
Peregrine wrote: Other factions have elite troops like real world armies: better training and equipment for the best candidates, in sufficient numbers to be relevant.
Space marines are the equivalent of the entire US military having one special forces guy who only works one day a month and only if he agrees with the mission. Even if he's the greatest soldier ever it's still just one guy, and he is not going to decide a war between millions of soldiers.
I think you're right with the whole "one special forces guy", but I don't think I agree with the rest of the analogy. The rest of the analogy should be "one special forces guy who can stay operational for weeks, can redeploy on a moment's notice, is trained to use the entire arsenal and vehicle pool, and can shrug off and recover from nearly any injury". He still won't win a war single handedly, but he'll swing the tide of nearly any battle he's around at. He can't be in every battle, sure, but the ones he can be present for, he'll swing them right around in your favour, and then be ready to jump right into the next battle to do exactly the same, over and over again.
The only problem is, if your other guys can't keep up, or hold off the enemy without your special forces guy, then you're still going to lose.
Peregrine wrote: Other factions have elite troops like real world armies: better training and equipment for the best candidates, in sufficient numbers to be relevant.
Space marines are the equivalent of the entire US military having one special forces guy who only works one day a month and only if he agrees with the mission. Even if he's the greatest soldier ever it's still just one guy, and he is not going to decide a war between millions of soldiers.
I think you're right with the whole "one special forces guy", but I don't think I agree with the rest of the analogy.
The rest of the analogy should be "one special forces guy who can stay operational for weeks, can redeploy on a moment's notice, is trained to use the entire arsenal and vehicle pool, and can shrug off and recover from nearly any injury". He still won't win a war single handedly, but he'll swing the tide of nearly any battle he's around at. He can't be in every battle, sure, but the ones he can be present for, he'll swing them right around in your favour, and then be ready to jump right into the next battle to do exactly the same, over and over again.
Stay operational for weeks, check.
Redeploy at a moments notice, kinda check. They still need ships to move from place to place, and Scions are pretty much just as ready to redeploy.
Trained to use the entire arsenal and vehicle pool, check.
Shrug off and recover from nearly injury, nope. Hit him with a pistol, he's fine. A rifle? Hurt, but certainly not out. A missile designed to kill a tank? He's crippled for a month at best, dead at worst.
That's the thing-plasma might be rare. Meltas, not as rare. Missiles are pretty damn common. Anything that can kill a tank or a big Nid gribbly can kill a Marine with ease, or at the very least take them out of action for a considerable period of time.
And Space Marines aren't supposed to be uber-superior to the xenos factions they're fighting, anyways. An Aspect Warrior vs. A Space Marine should be a fairly even match.
And that's precisely why Space Marines are unbelievable even within the parameter of the 40K univers. A Space Marine is pretty much rivaled by an Aspect Warrior. They are about as good as Nobz. They are about as good as Necron Immortals. They are a bit worse then Tyranid Warriors. They are a bit worse then Crisis Battlesuits. They are a bit worse then Incubi. They are about as good as Ogryns. They are slightly better then Scions and Sisters of Battle. There are probably well over a billion Necron Immortals in the galaxy. I don't even think I need to guess the number Tyranid Warriors in galaxy. It might be closer to the trillions. At such a scale, relatively middle range and immensely rare Space Marines would be ridiculously useless. A hundred Space Marine will make a drop pod assault on a Necron Lord surrounded by Lychguard easily a match to the very best Space Marines and thousands of Immortals are doom to failure from the start. Can they be useful? Yes, just like having a single plasma gun in an entire army can be useful, but it's probably not going to turn the tide of any battle let alone any war.
As for the moral effect, considering the most basic fighter in 40K is a fanatic and that a significant portion of the Imperium enemies are downright fearless, it's not very useful. If you want to scare rioting citizen and revolting slaves, it's marvelous. Kill three and the army will disband. If you want to kill walking, regenerating machine armed with disintegration gun, it's rather pointless.
You have to remember that its never ever a 1 v 1 situation, though. The strengths of a Space Marine are multiplied by his brothers, and working in tandem, they become a force much great than the sum of its parts. The tactics and strategies of the forces, the power of their weapons, and their fearlessness, amplifiy their simple physical traits. You mention them as equivalent to different units, but equivalent is not equal. As you say, Crisis Suits, head-on, are better. But Crisis Suits have smaller unit sizes, less logistical support, and far less experience in the field than even a noob-Marine due to Tau Lifespans. They also have different tactics entirely. Tyranid Warriors are much more numerous but have much lighter defenses and a different battlefield role, serving more as Lieutenants or a "Squad of Sergeants" than anything else. Genestealers would have been a fairer comparison as they share a battlefield role. Orks have a completely different command structure focused around a single powerful leader than falls apart with the death of this leader, where Space Marines have a steady chain of command in case a Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant or other officer is killed.
You must also remember than Space Marines were made 10k years ago. They were made to fight mostly Orks and other minor Xenos races, and occassionally the Eldar. Necrons weren't a thing in 30K, neither were Nids, and Tau still had gills and partially formed legs at that point. They were made to fight different foes, and are still used because, as you say, almost ever force in the galaxy has legions of troops that regular humans can't stand against. You can't rely on Ogryns to do everything, nor have the same strategies and tactics, nor can regular humans in Power Armour, like Battle Sisters, be expected to hit the same lofty goals as Space Marines.
Space Marines are superior to anything the Imperium can throw, either one on one, or in force. No one else in the Imperium can go toe-to-toe with the other elites of the galaxy.
First off, Custodes. Imperial Knights.
Second off, why don't Warriors have tactics, when guided by the hyper-intelligent hive mind?
Aspect Warriors are guided by the foresight of Farseers, they could easily have a strategic and tactical leg-up on Marines.
Necron Warriors I'll give you being dumber than Marines, but not Immortals, and DEFINITELY not Lychguard or Praetorians.
Nothing you say is really exclusive to Marines-they don't have a monopoly on brains, and in fact, given some of the fluff, can be pretty dang stupid.
Well if everyone else thinks having some elite warriors is a good idea, then maybe marines are a good idea too? They're elite soldiers who specialize in shock and awe, orbital insertion, and boarding actions. And were they not constrained by the codex, they'd be some of the most adaptable troops in the universe, since they spend several decades learning every possible task in the chapter. before being assigned to just carry a bolt gun.
Other factions have elite troops like real world armies: better training and equipment for the best candidates, in sufficient numbers to be relevant.
Space marines are the equivalent of the entire US military having one special forces guy who only works one day a month and only if he agrees with the mission. Even if he's the greatest soldier ever it's still just one guy, and he is not going to decide a war between millions of soldiers.
Deadshot wrote: You have to remember that its never ever a 1 v 1 situation, though. The strengths of a Space Marine are multiplied by his brothers, and working in tandem, they become a force much great than the sum of its parts. The tactics and strategies of the forces, the power of their weapons, and their fearlessness, amplifiy their simple physical traits. You mention them as equivalent to different units, but equivalent is not equal. As you say, Crisis Suits, head-on, are better. But Crisis Suits have smaller unit sizes, less logistical support, and far less experience in the field than even a noob-Marine due to Tau Lifespans. They also have different tactics entirely. Tyranid Warriors are much more numerous but have much lighter defenses and a different battlefield role, serving more as Lieutenants or a "Squad of Sergeants" than anything else. Genestealers would have been a fairer comparison as they share a battlefield role. Orks have a completely different command structure focused around a single powerful leader than falls apart with the death of this leader, where Space Marines have a steady chain of command in case a Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant or other officer is killed.
This is true of pretty much any group of people no matter their origin. Space Marines aren't even described as tactical or strategical geniuses. They are often prone to insanity and rigid dogmatism. The Ultramarines are famous and are widely considered the examplar Chapter precisely because they have good tactics. They neither are one trick poneys and neither are they maniacs. As for a deep chain of command, Tau, Tyranids and Eldar easily have one and Necron aren't bad either. Only Orks are described as vulnerable to a thin one.
You must also remember than Space Marines were made 10k years ago. They were made to fight mostly Orks and other minor Xenos races, and occassionally the Eldar. Necrons weren't a thing in 30K, neither were Nids, and Tau still had gills and partially formed legs at that point. They were made to fight different foes, and are still used because, as you say, almost ever force in the galaxy has legions of troops that regular humans can't stand against. You can't rely on Ogryns to do everything, nor have the same strategies and tactics, nor can regular humans in Power Armour, like Battle Sisters, be expected to hit the same lofty goals as Space Marines.
Indeed, hence why in my headcanon, Space Marines are a relic from a bygone age too few to change much and who have obtained a legend status. Their only real pressing impact comes from their symbolic, the army of serfs that surrounds them and their ships. They are completely helpless, alone, before the might of the Imperium new enemies and the rising forces of old foes. Space Marines were created in 30K as a mass produce vast legion of super-soldier, back then they made sense. Now, they are in ridiculously small number, frequently with genetic flaws that have risen due to the passage of time, shadow of their former glory. Even within the fluff, Space Marines are described as a relic to then be presented as savior of the Imperium a paragraph bellow or a book over.
Peregrine wrote: Other factions have elite troops like real world armies: better training and equipment for the best candidates, in sufficient numbers to be relevant.
Space marines are the equivalent of the entire US military having one special forces guy who only works one day a month and only if he agrees with the mission. Even if he's the greatest soldier ever it's still just one guy, and he is not going to decide a war between millions of soldiers.
I think you're right with the whole "one special forces guy", but I don't think I agree with the rest of the analogy.
The rest of the analogy should be "one special forces guy who can stay operational for weeks, can redeploy on a moment's notice, is trained to use the entire arsenal and vehicle pool, and can shrug off and recover from nearly any injury". He still won't win a war single handedly, but he'll swing the tide of nearly any battle he's around at. He can't be in every battle, sure, but the ones he can be present for, he'll swing them right around in your favour, and then be ready to jump right into the next battle to do exactly the same, over and over again.
Stay operational for weeks, check.
Redeploy at a moments notice, kinda check. They still need ships to move from place to place, and Scions are pretty much just as ready to redeploy.
Trained to use the entire arsenal and vehicle pool, check.
Shrug off and recover from nearly injury, nope. Hit him with a pistol, he's fine. A rifle? Hurt, but certainly not out. A missile designed to kill a tank? He's crippled for a month at best, dead at worst.
That's the thing-plasma might be rare. Meltas, not as rare. Missiles are pretty damn common. Anything that can kill a tank or a big Nid gribbly can kill a Marine with ease, or at the very least take them out of action for a considerable period of time.
the redeploy at a moments notice is, comparitively speaking a check, the guard needs time to mobilize, to assmble the regiment, to get a ship willing and able to transport them (this can take a bit due to the beucracies involved) space marines are valuable to skip past the red tape and just fething deploy.
^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Historically, in 2nd Ed armies had a"Strategy rating" which helped determine which army went first. I think both Eldar and Space marines had the higest faction rating. This was intended to represent how certain forces could take initiative and mobilize better than others.
Insectum7 wrote: ^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Historically, in 2nd Ed armies had a"Strategy rating" which helped determine which army went first. I think both Eldar and Space marines had the higest faction rating. This was intended to represent how certain forces could take initiative and mobilize better than others.
Eldar and marines had 4, dark angels had 5 with Azrael, it was in 3rd too but was almost never used, funnily enough it is a system I would have used instead of command points, each army has a strat rating then on top of that you add formation bonus, these points can only be used by the army that generated them except for the ones generated by special characters.
Insectum7 wrote: ^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Technically, strike fast and redeploy is also the specialty of the Scions. Their APT are fast and well armed and can negotiate any terrain, they can even magnetise their threads to climb vertical surfaces. Their other vehicle is a well armed flyer and their most common method of deployment is dropping from the sky. Logistically, it's a bt more complicated for them to move around since they need navy assets while the Space Marines have their own, but, unlike Space Marines who maintain fortresses and garrisons, Scions are always on the move which means the requesting of navy assets to move them around isn't all that necessary.
To your list of xenos, I would add the Evil Sun and Speed Freak Orks in general as well as Tau, but really, pretty much all factions can deploy specialised and fast moving elite armies. The Imperium isn't unique in that and probably not even the best at it.
Insectum7 wrote: ^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Historically, in 2nd Ed armies had a"Strategy rating" which helped determine which army went first. I think both Eldar and Space marines had the higest faction rating. This was intended to represent how certain forces could take initiative and mobilize better than others.
Eldar and marines had 4, dark angels had 5 with Azrael, it was in 3rd too but was almost never used, funnily enough it is a system I would have used instead of command points, each army has a strat rating then on top of that you add formation bonus, these points can only be used by the army that generated them except for the ones generated by special characters.
would be a good way to balance small elite armies. no one would question if custodes and marines had the highest "stragety rating" because it'd play into how the army should play.
Insectum7 wrote: ^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Historically, in 2nd Ed armies had a"Strategy rating" which helped determine which army went first. I think both Eldar and Space marines had the higest faction rating. This was intended to represent how certain forces could take initiative and mobilize better than others.
Eldar and marines had 4, dark angels had 5 with Azrael, it was in 3rd too but was almost never used, funnily enough it is a system I would have used instead of command points, each army has a strat rating then on top of that you add formation bonus, these points can only be used by the army that generated them except for the ones generated by special characters.
Actually, looking at it again the breakdown is thus:
Space Marines 5
Eldar 4
Orks, Chaos 3
Imperial Guard, Squats 2
Tyranids 1
Some special characters like Azrael and Calgar could push it to 6. I think Orks had either a character or rule that pushed them to 6 through sheer aggression.
Insectum7 wrote: ^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Technically, strike fast and redeploy is also the specialty of the Scions. Their APT are fast and well armed and can negotiate any terrain, they can even magnetise their threads to climb vertical surfaces. Their other vehicle is a well armed flyer and their most common method of deployment is dropping from the sky. Logistically, it's a bt more complicated for them to move around since they need navy assets while the Space Marines have their own, but, unlike Space Marines who maintain fortresses and garrisons, Scions are always on the move which means the requesting of navy assets to move them around isn't all that necessary.
To your list of xenos, I would add the Evil Sun and Speed Freak Orks in general as well as Tau, but really, pretty much all factions can deploy specialised and fast moving elite armies. The Imperium isn't unique in that and probably not even the best at it.
Though Scions might be fast, they may not be quite-as-fast. For example, flyers and grav-shutes may not be as fast as Drop Pods and teleportation, and IG commanders might not have the strategic or tactical mastery of a Space Marine commander. There's plenty of room for different "levels-of-fast".
Insectum7 wrote: ^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Technically, strike fast and redeploy is also the specialty of the Scions. Their APT are fast and well armed and can negotiate any terrain, they can even magnetise their threads to climb vertical surfaces. Their other vehicle is a well armed flyer and their most common method of deployment is dropping from the sky. Logistically, it's a bt more complicated for them to move around since they need navy assets while the Space Marines have their own, but, unlike Space Marines who maintain fortresses and garrisons, Scions are always on the move which means the requesting of navy assets to move them around isn't all that necessary.
To your list of xenos, I would add the Evil Sun and Speed Freak Orks in general as well as Tau, but really, pretty much all factions can deploy specialised and fast moving elite armies. The Imperium isn't unique in that and probably not even the best at it.
Yeah, scions are just about as close to space marine as regular humans can get (short of sisters of battle shenanigans). But Scions both in game and in story seem to have rather low survival rate, which is different from marinesl. They're mostly portrayed as brainwashed and disposable commandos. Space Marines are expected to operate under normal circumstances for a century at least. I'd be amazed to see a scion with five years of service based on their lore.
Their survival time should also be tied to the dangerousness of the tasks they get chosen for. A group of deathwatch may actually survive their trip into a tyranid hive ship. An army of guard, no matter how large would likely be nommed in short order. The over the top skill and survivability does have it's place in the lore. Especially considering AI is outlawed and the tech is so degraded that drones are not exceptionally practical.
I say that to compare our real world development of military tech. Give us a few years and we are unlikley to see humans striding the battlefield, instead seeing custom built robots and remote controlled drones for the task I doubt we'll ever put the resources into making a genetically engineered human covered in thick powerarmor. As terrifying as that would be for some situations
Insectum7 wrote: ^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Historically, in 2nd Ed armies had a"Strategy rating" which helped determine which army went first. I think both Eldar and Space marines had the higest faction rating. This was intended to represent how certain forces could take initiative and mobilize better than others.
Eldar and marines had 4, dark angels had 5 with Azrael, it was in 3rd too but was almost never used, funnily enough it is a system I would have used instead of command points, each army has a strat rating then on top of that you add formation bonus, these points can only be used by the army that generated them except for the ones generated by special characters.
Actually, looking at it again the breakdown is thus:
Space Marines 5
Eldar 4
Orks, Chaos 3
Imperial Guard, Squats 2
Tyranids 1
Some special characters like Azrael and Calgar could push it to 6. I think Orks had either a character or rule that pushed them to 6 through sheer aggression.
Insectum7 wrote: ^ absolutely. The strike-fast-and-redeploy is the Space Marine specialty. Them and Eldar, really. The other factions can do it but aren't as focussed on it logistically and doctrinally.
Technically, strike fast and redeploy is also the specialty of the Scions. Their APT are fast and well armed and can negotiate any terrain, they can even magnetise their threads to climb vertical surfaces. Their other vehicle is a well armed flyer and their most common method of deployment is dropping from the sky. Logistically, it's a bt more complicated for them to move around since they need navy assets while the Space Marines have their own, but, unlike Space Marines who maintain fortresses and garrisons, Scions are always on the move which means the requesting of navy assets to move them around isn't all that necessary.
To your list of xenos, I would add the Evil Sun and Speed Freak Orks in general as well as Tau, but really, pretty much all factions can deploy specialised and fast moving elite armies. The Imperium isn't unique in that and probably not even the best at it.
Though Scions might be fast, they may not be quite-as-fast. For example, flyers and grav-shutes may not be as fast as Drop Pods and teleportation, and IG commanders might not have the strategic or tactical mastery of a Space Marine commander. There's plenty of room for different "levels-of-fast".
I get the feeling orks were D3 +3 or just a D6 for some reason
cody.d. wrote: Their survival time should also be tied to the dangerousness of the tasks they get chosen for. A group of deathwatch may actually survive their trip into a tyranid hive ship. An army of guard, no matter how large would likely be nommed in short order. The over the top skill and survivability does have it's place in the lore. Especially considering AI is outlawed and the tech is so degraded that drones are not exceptionally practical.
I say that to compare our real world development of military tech. Give us a few years and we are unlikley to see humans striding the battlefield, instead seeing custom built robots and remote controlled drones for the task I doubt we'll ever put the resources into making a genetically engineered human covered in thick powerarmor. As terrifying as that would be for some situations
How many Marines would it take to handle a Hive Ship?
Because that thing has easily 1,000 Warriors, each one of them more than a match for most Marines in close combat, such as that you'd see in the cramped confines of a Hive Ship.
cody.d. wrote: Their survival time should also be tied to the dangerousness of the tasks they get chosen for. A group of deathwatch may actually survive their trip into a tyranid hive ship. An army of guard, no matter how large would likely be nommed in short order. The over the top skill and survivability does have it's place in the lore. Especially considering AI is outlawed and the tech is so degraded that drones are not exceptionally practical.
I say that to compare our real world development of military tech. Give us a few years and we are unlikley to see humans striding the battlefield, instead seeing custom built robots and remote controlled drones for the task I doubt we'll ever put the resources into making a genetically engineered human covered in thick powerarmor. As terrifying as that would be for some situations
How many Marines would it take to handle a Hive Ship?
Because that thing has easily 1,000 Warriors, each one of them more than a match for most Marines in close combat, such as that you'd see in the cramped confines of a Hive Ship.
between 5 and 20 if its in transit, more if not, we have a couple of stories of marines boarding a hive ship and it is totally in their favour due to the confined areas they work in, the nid numbers mean nothing and the marines ability to take on 1/2 opponents at a time helps a lot, basically nearly any scenario in space that involves space marines is heavily skewed in their favour, even on hive ships.
Formosa wrote: between 5 and 20 if its in transit, more if not, we have a couple of stories of marines boarding a hive ship and it is totally in their favour due to the confined areas they work in, the nid numbers mean nothing and the marines ability to take on 1/2 opponents at a time helps a lot, basically nearly any scenario in space that involves space marines is heavily skewed in their favour, even on hive ships.
if you suspend disbelief long enough to not realise a couple of Carnifex is going to kill them all as they are about as tough as tanks and you don't have the advantage of range to shoot them down with cannons. I single one could massacre very easily about 20 Marines or more in close quarter combat. Tyranid are specialist of close combat, they love it when things get down to short distance. It's the same thing for Orks. A couple of Meganobz and say farewell to your Space Marine Strike force since in close combat nobz are more fearsome then Space Marines and tactics devolves quickly to just a punching match since there is no space to manoeuvre and no cover. If you fight Tau, force once their Breacher teams will be in their element and each of their gun is about as powerful as plasma gun at very short range. Again, Space Marines will hate that surprise. Necron usually uses Canoptek Wraith to protect their ships and installations, machines made of living metal who can shift between dimensions, pass through obstacles and disintegrate you. Space Marines have an easy job during boarding against Imperial Guards and Eldars who count on artillery and mass numbers or mobility and subterfuge respectively to win their battle. I know there are stories where Space Marines board hive ships, but they require a thick level of plot-armor for the Space Marine and the Tyranids to be massively stupid.
cody.d. wrote: Their survival time should also be tied to the dangerousness of the tasks they get chosen for. A group of deathwatch may actually survive their trip into a tyranid hive ship. An army of guard, no matter how large would likely be nommed in short order. The over the top skill and survivability does have it's place in the lore. Especially considering AI is outlawed and the tech is so degraded that drones are not exceptionally practical.
I say that to compare our real world development of military tech. Give us a few years and we are unlikley to see humans striding the battlefield, instead seeing custom built robots and remote controlled drones for the task I doubt we'll ever put the resources into making a genetically engineered human covered in thick powerarmor. As terrifying as that would be for some situations
How many Marines would it take to handle a Hive Ship?
Because that thing has easily 1,000 Warriors, each one of them more than a match for most Marines in close combat, such as that you'd see in the cramped confines of a Hive Ship.
between 5 and 20 if its in transit, more if not, we have a couple of stories of marines boarding a hive ship and it is totally in their favour due to the confined areas they work in, the nid numbers mean nothing and the marines ability to take on 1/2 opponents at a time helps a lot, basically nearly any scenario in space that involves space marines is heavily skewed in their favour, even on hive ships.
nid numbers matter when you run out of ammo after the first hundred or so then get mauled to death by genestealers/warriors who are fully capable of piercing through terminator armor with their claws. Marine stories tend to break my suspension of disbelief because of things like that. (seriously how much ammo does a marine have? 20-40 bolts maybe?)The concept of groups of super-soldiers independently helping where they can is perfectly fine, but the actual stories don't really work. Marines just suffer from poor writing and world building, imo.
Upon saying that, if a tunnel/vein is wide enough for 2 marines to squeeze through I doubt a Carnifex would be able to do much. Additionally I'm not sure how many fexes would be on the ship at any given time. But yes, a marine would struggle if he tried to headbutt those organisms larger than themselves, but then again, a deathwatch team with a couple of fraglaunchers in a tight passage way sounds like a quick way to build up a silly level of kills does it not?
Again this comes down to what current day marines are best at, going in to complete a specific mission, having the correct tools for the job, for the issues they expect to face. Need to get into a bunker or wipe out a few large value targets? Take a few meltabombs. Need to blow the head off some warboss who's stirring up a waagh? Send in some scouts with sniper rifles. An incoming tide of traitors with some sorcerer about to bring in demons? Send in a few assault marines to try and goomba him.
Yes these are all things a guard army could do. If they have the equipment and intel, if the enemy is staying perfectly still for long enough. The guard need better conditions to perform their task, and when they lose in the fluff it's usually because how much of a clumsy and imprecise force they are, how easy it is to dick with the common soldier.
In the terrifying universe that 40K is having what amounts to a love session between captain america and ironman does have it's place.
a small kill team sent onto a hive ship would proably be delivering a payload and likely would be expecting it to be a one way mission. it's really a job only Marines COULD do
BrianDavion wrote: a small kill team sent onto a hive ship would proably be delivering a payload and likely would be expecting it to be a one way mission. it's really a job only Marines COULD do
The issue I take with that is the assumption that a small kill team should be able to fight it's way into a hive ship. A hive ship of any importance will have millions of bugs waiting to kill you. How much ammo did they bring? Could the passage ways get blocked by the firefights? How deep are they going? Couldn't the ship also try to kill the marines or at least stop them? At a certain point, expecting 5 marines to make any progress into a hive ship is just ridiculous, and the fact that the stories show it to be possible just ruins my suspension of disbelief.
GW didn't have to write marines that way. I'd be more than happy to acknowledge that a single marine is worth say 10-20 guardsmen (100 would be pushing it imo), but the lore seems to indicate that a single marine could take on a whole regiment by itself, which is just stupid and unnecessary.
BrianDavion wrote: a small kill team sent onto a hive ship would proably be delivering a payload and likely would be expecting it to be a one way mission. it's really a job only Marines COULD do
The issue I take with that is the assumption that a small kill team should be able to fight it's way into a hive ship. A hive ship of any importance will have millions of bugs waiting to kill you. How much ammo did they bring? Could the passage ways get blocked by the firefights? How deep are they going? Couldn't the ship also try to kill the marines or at least stop them? At a certain point, expecting 5 marines to make any progress into a hive ship is just ridiculous, and the fact that the stories show it to be possible just ruins my suspension of disbelief.
GW didn't have to write marines that way. I'd be more than happy to acknowledge that a single marine is worth say 10-20 guardsmen (100 would be pushing it imo), but the lore seems to indicate that a single marine could take on a whole regiment by itself, which is just stupid and unnecessary.
I have to pre fix this with #notall
So the only times we have seen marines board hive ships they have been dormant or not expecting the assault, each time the hive ship has had NO warrior organisms awake or on board, the ship has to produce the nids and that takes time and if its already dropped its payload on the planet or the organisms are in stasis due to being in transit it takes time to wake them up.
Basically boarding a hive ship is pretty much the same as boarding a borg ship, you have a random amount of time before the ship and its occupants react to you and start to counter attack, problem is with marines you really really dont want to give them that time.
as for the larger tyranid organisms, they wont have been birthed yet (carifex etc.) or be in stasis (hive tyrant) so its usually only gaunts and warriors and similar types of creatures available, even genestealers wont be around as they are vanguard organisms not hold ground defensive ones, larger creatures are created as and when needed and this also takes time.
I have not read the most recent tyranid codex so if any of this has changed let me know.
If I recall usually they do these sort of raids to get "pure" or unmutated genetic matter to create hellfire or anti nid rounds. At least that's what I vaugley remember from the Ventris omnibus.
Yep. The older lore had marines boarding tyranid ships for information and to attack vital organs to knock out the ship. And all of those missions were attempted while the ship was still relatively dormant. These missions were still very hazardous.
If you want to play that sort of mission, find a copy of Space Crusade or Tyranid Attack. 30ish marines vs. A slowly waking hive ship. Very cool game.
A thing I find funny about the 1 super soldier turning a tide of wars quite back to back. Not being able to be in every engagement but is pretty much capable of carrying tha one's he is in. Halo video game. Master chief might as well just be a high ranked space marine for he acts out exactly what their plan is. And as a previous poster stated, many xenos have a clear central weakpoint (war boss for one). While IG has their own commandos, they do pale in comparison to the space marines.
It seems to me that there is not only an issue with the basic premise of space marines, but also an issue with the portrayal of space marines across the lore (especially between different authors).
This is my headcanon:
-Their armor is as thick as a light tank (of 40k) and would be the equivalent to Abrams armor today.
-Due to the aforementioned armor and the fact that their bodies are enhanced to be resistant to injury, it is extremely difficult to actually kill a marine.
-They can run upwards of 40mph (roughly 65 km/h for non-americans) at full sprint.
-They are strong enough to rip the turrets off of light vehicles with their (armored) hands, and they could probably deadlift the front of a main battle tank.
-They have reflexes that are roughly 10 times faster than a normal humans due to genetic enhancements, and they have upgrades to their nerve fibers and muscles so that they can respond not only far faster than a normal human to a stimulus, but also with more precision.
-A single marine is roughly equivalent to an entire platoon (~50 men) of well-trained imperial guardsmen just by himself, and that takes into account a platoon being armed with crew-served heavy weapons.
It is easy to me to see why they would be so devastating and why they are such a big deal where they actually fight when you consider the above as true. To all the people saying that there are not enough of them to actually make a difference... there is one marine for every planet in the Imperium (roughly). The vast majority of the Imperium is actually peaceful and not under attack, and space marines don't sit around twiddling their thumbs, they go to the places with the fighting. Consider that only 1% of the worlds of the Imperium are under siege at any given time. That means that there would be 100 marines for every active planetary warzone. Then also consider that most warzones do not even see a marine presence because they are not serious enough to warrant it and the numbers get even better. A few hundred marines isn't going to conquer a planet by itself, nor can they hold a planet (even a small one) for obvious reasons. But a few hundred marines CAN change the course of a planetary conflict, and if you don't see how that is possible when you consider the list above as true, well I don't know what to tell you.
As I said before, my biggest gripe about marines is the fact they take guardsmen levels of casualties almost every time they are portrayed fighting in the lore. Which I think makes them seem weaker to a lot of readers then they are actually meant to be.
that honestly sounds about right. another thing to consider, well the table top allows guardsmen to have a shot of taking space marines down with a lasgun (basicly 50 50 chance to pen the armor) chances are in universe Lasguns and other such small arms are just utterly useless against marines. meanwhile heavy weapons are bulky, a lascanon, just for example, needs to be set up and crewed by guardsmen. magine trying to aim a weapon that big and bulky at a man sized object, weaving and dodging at the speed of a car. (65 KPH is about the size of a car moving down a major city street) meanwhile their bullets when they hit your guys, and they're better shots then you are! are blowing massive holes in the chest cavity of the buddy beside you.
BrianDavion wrote: ...meanwhile their bullets when they hit your guys, and they're better shots then you are! are blowing massive holes in the chest cavity of the buddy beside you.
Exactly, forgot to mention that even the worst marine shooters are significantly more accurate than the average imperial guard sniper. Along with the fact that marine bolters are one-hitter-quitters when hitting anything less than a tyranid warrior.
BrianDavion wrote: ...meanwhile their bullets when they hit your guys, and they're better shots then you are! are blowing massive holes in the chest cavity of the buddy beside you.
Exactly, forgot to mention that even the worst marine shooters are significantly more accurate than the average imperial guard sniper. Along with the fact that marine bolters are one-hitter-quitters when hitting anything less than a tyranid warrior.
heck, realisticly the minute a squad of guardsmen comes under fire from bolt guns you'd think they'd break. it;d be a horrific way to go.
Read through bits of this thread, not the whole thing. feel like I only have one thing to contribute to it. There's a scene in the eldar novel path of the seer where the Imperium invades a craftworld. After succesfully holding the bridge from Imperial forces boarding torpedoes of space marines arrive and absolutely wreck the eldar defenders. After this the imperial forces establishes a beachhead and uses the bridge to unload more troops and coordinate their attacks. Later in the same novel there's a battle scene on a huge plain where space marines are killed in great numbers by titanic weaponry. I feel like this quite clearly illustrates the value of the space marines. You can save multittude of resources by having them break a position so the imperial guard (/AM) can establish a forward command. On large scale engagements though their value is not represented. Hence the smaller the engagement the more valuable the space marine becomes.
BrianDavion wrote: heck, realisticly the minute a squad of guardsmen comes under fire from bolt guns you'd think they'd break. it;d be a horrific way to go.
Eh, for all the ways you can die in 40k a boltgun shot to the head/torso is actually not a bad way to go.
cody.d. wrote: If I recall usually they do these sort of raids to get "pure" or unmutated genetic matter to create hellfire or anti nid rounds. At least that's what I vaugley remember from the Ventris omnibus.
I think in the Ventris novel they had to get unmutated dna to make a virus that would affect all the Tyranids on the planet.
BrianDavion wrote: heck, realisticly the minute a squad of guardsmen comes under fire from bolt guns you'd think they'd break. it;d be a horrific way to go.
Eh, for all the ways you can die in 40k a boltgun shot to the head/torso is actually not a bad way to go.
I think the issue is less for the dead and more for the people now wearing them.
w1zard wrote: -They can run upwards of 40mph (roughly 65 km/h for non-americans) at full sprint.
Funny enough I finished the night lords omnibus last night and they actually cite a figure, Talos clocked himself at 84 to 87 kph at a dead sprint.
-A single marine is roughly equivalent to an entire platoon (~50 men) of well-trained imperial guardsmen just by himself, and that takes into account a platoon being armed with crew-served heavy weapons.
That said, this always kills me. They don't have to be worth that to be worth while. They just have to be able to effectively close the distance between themselves and the enemy and then take advantage of the fact most other races in the universe aren't huge on hand to hand combat. They're beat sticks who specialize in getting into the enemy's face faster than the enemy accounts for, there's no cover save against chainswords after all. They're the distilled barbarian that the emperor used to pummel the rest of the galaxy into submission. But that took legions of them.
The comparison is even difficult because a marine functions best in the kind of environment that 50 men wouldn't function in. Trying to find one eight foot tall walking tank on an entire planet who just so happens to be spending his time blowing your gak up is actually quite difficult. Particularly when he's likely to face guards in ones and twos who he can easily get on top of and squish if they don't see him coming(things we don't even have rules for on the table top). The kind of things one veteran marine can pull off with sufficient knowledge of the enemy definitely throws the supposed power curve, but that would never scale up properly when the large units are far more easy to detect.
It's not that 10 marines can fight 1000 guardsmen all at once ( or whatever). It's that from a strategic standpoint, 10 marines can achieve a misssion that it would otherwise take 1000 guardsmen to do.
Like, 10 marines land in a pod and storm a command center in minutes. Compared to 1000 guardsmen laying siege to the complex over a number of hours. Both missions are successful, but one mission took a tiny, elite force, vs. a more cumbersome deployment of many, many troops.
Insectum7 wrote: It's not that 10 marines can fight 1000 guardsmen all at once ( or whatever). It's that from a strategic standpoint, 10 marines can achieve a misssion that it would otherwise take 1000 guardsmen to do.
Like, 10 marines land in a pod and storm a command center in minutes. Compared to 1000 guardsmen laying siege to the complex over a number of hours. Both missions are successful, but one mission took a tiny, elite force, vs. a more cumbersome deployment of many, many troops.
That's how I see it.
But there's the numbers issue. If it takes 10 Marines to accomplish what 1,000 Guardsmen can do, that's a 1:100 ratio. Sounds good, until you realize that Guard outnumber Marines by WAY MORE than that.
Insectum7 wrote: It's not that 10 marines can fight 1000 guardsmen all at once ( or whatever). It's that from a strategic standpoint, 10 marines can achieve a misssion that it would otherwise take 1000 guardsmen to do.
Like, 10 marines land in a pod and storm a command center in minutes. Compared to 1000 guardsmen laying siege to the complex over a number of hours. Both missions are successful, but one mission took a tiny, elite force, vs. a more cumbersome deployment of many, many troops.
That's how I see it.
But there's the numbers issue. If it takes 10 Marines to accomplish what 1,000 Guardsmen can do, that's a 1:100 ratio. Sounds good, until you realize that Guard outnumber Marines by WAY MORE than that.
It's still not a linear comparison in terms of value, however. If marines can do the job faster, and with fewer casualties, and return to battle-readiness as a unit quicker, then the ratio becomes greater.
For example, if the 10 marines take the post with two casualties, and those casualties can be battle ready again in a few days, then the cost in manpower is low compared to a siege using guardsmen that costs several hundred guardsmen lives or wounded troops that wont be back in service for months, if at all. So the marines can turn around and then accomplish another similar mission quickly with no replacements, but the guardsmen have to dig into their pool of reserves.
Those may not be the numbers but I hope it illustrates the point. One of the major benefits of marines not on the tabletop is their capacity to recover from injury as well as fight for days without rest. So not only can a few of them achieve an objective that it would take many more regular soldiers to accomplish, but they can quickly turn around and do the same thing again and again for days on end.
YeOldSaltPotato wrote: Just to pound this out, in 40k "I don't like super soldiers" is so far from possibly giving a single gak about this universe
Guard vs Orks or Guard vs Tyranids are to many people more iconic than anything involving Marines.
Acting like someone who prefers those matchups "doesn't give a gak" about 40k is, frankly, just plain trolling on your part. I'd argue that someone like that cares more about the setting than you do, if you only care about marines.
Another point I don't get with Space Marines is geneseed reproduction. Technically each Space Marines has two progenoid glands that can be harvested, each one containing enough genetic material to create two new Space Marines. Here's my problem with this. First, what if the Marine dies before the progenoid glands reach maturity. It takes five years for one to become haverstable and 10 for the second. That means no dead Scout can be harvested. Each time a Scout dies, it's simply lost geneseed and Scout are less heavily armored, thus easier to kill, do one of the most dangerous job on the battlefield and are the least experimented Space Marine. Attrition rates amongst Scout must be higher than in most other function.
What if the body is seriously damaged. Killing a Space Marine isn't easy and the weapons that can kill one easily usually reduce a Space Marine body to ash or very small chunks, they are more akin to light cannons then rifles afterall. Furthermore, those glands are situated in the chest and in the neck respectively, two places that the enemy is going to target to kill a Space Marine; the neck because it's a weak point of their armor and the chest because that's where vital organs are (and it's a big target). So even if they get killed by small arm fire like a hot-shot lasgun, there are good chances the one or both glands will have been damaged or destroyed. The lower back or the calf would have been better ideas in my opinion.
Finally, even if you are lucky enough to have a dead Space Marine with intact progenoid glands to harvest, there is only one Space Marine in a hundred who has the equipment and the skills to harvest it. if he get's killed early on, you are in trouble. How about one per squad? That would be smarter. There is also the problem of geneseed compatibility. It's said that many aspirant die due to genetic incompatibility thus resulting in more lost geneseed. If you compound all those potential losses, a maximum reproduction rate of 2 per Space Marine is very small. Even if you accept the fact that Chapters can produce new Space Marine in a few years time, from what genetic material are they building them?
Insectum7 wrote: It's not that 10 marines can fight 1000 guardsmen all at once ( or whatever). It's that from a strategic standpoint, 10 marines can achieve a misssion that it would otherwise take 1000 guardsmen to do.
I said 500 guardsmen, but this right here exactly. But for what it is worth, I do think a single marine going up against 50 guardsmen (with accompanying heavy weapons) has about a 50/50 chance of going either way.
JNAProductions wrote: But there's the numbers issue. If it takes 10 Marines to accomplish what 1,000 Guardsmen can do, that's a 1:100 ratio. Sounds good, until you realize that Guard outnumber Marines by WAY MORE than that.
If you remove the imperial guard there is no way that the marines can do all of the fighting in the Imperium, but that is fine, they aren't designed or intended to do that. In the same way the U.S. military isn't just a bunch of navy SEALS for a reason, nor would the U.S military ever shift itself to try to do that.
epronovost wrote: Another point I don't get with Space Marines is geneseed reproduction. Technically each Space Marines has two progenoid glands that can be harvested, each one containing enough genetic material to create two new Space Marines. Here's my problem with this. First, what if the Marine dies before the progenoid glands reach maturity. It takes five years for one to become haverstable and 10 for the second. That means no dead Scout can be harvested. Each time a Scout dies, it's simply lost geneseed and Scout are less heavily armored, thus easier to kill, do one of the most dangerous job on the battlefield and are the least experimented Space Marine. Attrition rates amongst Scout must be higher than in most other function.
What if the body is seriously damaged. Killing a Space Marine isn't easy and the weapons that can kill one easily usually reduce a Space Marine body to ash or very small chunks, they are more akin to light cannons then rifles afterall. Furthermore, those glands are situated in the chest and in the neck respectively, two places that the enemy is going to target to kill a Space Marine; the neck because it's a weak point of their armor and the chest because that's where vital organs are (and it's a big target). So even if they get killed by small arm fire like a hot-shot lasgun, there are good chances the one or both glands will have been damaged or destroyed. The lower back or the calf would have been better ideas in my opinion.
Finally, even if you are lucky enough to have a dead Space Marine with intact progenoid glands to harvest, there is only one Space Marine in a hundred who has the equipment and the skills to harvest it. if he get's killed early on, you are in trouble. How about one per squad? That would be smarter. There is also the problem of geneseed compatibility. It's said that many aspirant die due to genetic incompatibility thus resulting in more lost geneseed. If you compound all those potential losses, a maximum reproduction rate of 2 per Space Marine is very small. Even if you accept the fact that Chapters can produce new Space Marine in a few years time, from what genetic material are they building them?
One of the numerous issues behind why the portrayal of marine casualties is utterly nonsense.
Insectum7 wrote: It's not that 10 marines can fight 1000 guardsmen all at once ( or whatever). It's that from a strategic standpoint, 10 marines can achieve a misssion that it would otherwise take 1000 guardsmen to do.
I said 500 guardsmen, but this right here exactly.
JNAProductions wrote: But there's the numbers issue. If it takes 10 Marines to accomplish what 1,000 Guardsmen can do, that's a 1:100 ratio. Sounds good, until you realize that Guard outnumber Marines by WAY MORE than that.
If you remove the imperial guard there is no way that the marines can do all of the fighting in the Imperium, but that is fine, they aren't designed or intended to do that. In the same way the U.S. military isn't just a bunch of navy seals for a reason.
To harken back to some examples, there are 2,450 Navy SEALS, according to Google.
Also according to Google, there's about 1.3 million, or 1,300,000 US military personnel.
That's a small number, about .2% of US military people are SEALS.
There are trillions of Guardsmen, meaning that for Marines to have even one-tenth the proportion SEALS have to the US they'd need 400,000,000+ Marines.
Insectum7 wrote: It's not that 10 marines can fight 1000 guardsmen all at once ( or whatever). It's that from a strategic standpoint, 10 marines can achieve a misssion that it would otherwise take 1000 guardsmen to do.
I said 500 guardsmen, but this right here exactly.
JNAProductions wrote: But there's the numbers issue. If it takes 10 Marines to accomplish what 1,000 Guardsmen can do, that's a 1:100 ratio. Sounds good, until you realize that Guard outnumber Marines by WAY MORE than that.
If you remove the imperial guard there is no way that the marines can do all of the fighting in the Imperium, but that is fine, they aren't designed or intended to do that. In the same way the U.S. military isn't just a bunch of navy seals for a reason.
To harken back to some examples, there are 2,450 Navy SEALS, according to Google.
Also according to Google, there's about 1.3 million, or 1,300,000 US military personnel.
That's a small number, about .2% of US military people are SEALS.
There are trillions of Guardsmen, meaning that for Marines to have even one-tenth the proportion SEALS have to the US they'd need 400,000,000+ Marines.
And the SEALS are also not the only special forces, so that number of Space Marines will be even higher.
A Town Called Malus wrote: And the SEALS are also not the only special forces, so that number of Space Marines will be even higher.
Do you have a general number of US Special Forces?
But yeah. Bearing in mind that the 400,000,000 number is for there to be one Marine for every 5,000 Guardsmen, and a low estimate (2 Trillion) on the number of Guardsmen.
Given the canon number of one million, that's one Marine for every 2 Million Guard.
Seals primary job is recon. Space marines can do recon but their specialty is massing power in 1 area and striking critical damage to an enemy. They are more akin to f-22s with tactical nuclear weapons than seals.
There are trillions of Guardsmen, meaning that for Marines to have even one-tenth the proportion SEALS have to the US they'd need 400,000,000+ Marines.
A: Why do they have to be the same ratio?
B: Seals don't have their own Air Force, Navy and Tanks?
Insectum7 wrote: It's not that 10 marines can fight 1000 guardsmen all at once ( or whatever). It's that from a strategic standpoint, 10 marines can achieve a misssion that it would otherwise take 1000 guardsmen to do.
I said 500 guardsmen, but this right here exactly. But for what it is worth, I do think a single marine going up against 50 guardsmen (with accompanying heavy weapons) has about a 50/50 chance of going either way.
Yeah. . . I don't like to subscribe to that idea. Maybe in very dense terrain over a long period of time or part of a starship boarding operation. Conflicts are so dependent on context I think statements like that are inherently non-useful. In any more open environment 500 Guard ought to just pulverize the Marine.
Xenomancers wrote: Seals primary job is recon. Space marines can do recon but their specialty is massing power in 1 area and striking critical damage to an enemy. They are more akin to f-22s with tactical nuclear weapons than seals.
Agree. Space Marine Scouts are basically super human Seals. Everything not a Scout is a post-human hammer.
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JNAProductions wrote: They don't have to have the same ratio. In fact, the 400,000,000 number is one-tenth the ratio of Marines:Guardsmen as US Military:Navy SEALS.
But they DO have to be some reasonable number. One million is just plain too small to have any reasonable galactic impact with their power.
Insectum7 wrote: Conflicts are so dependent on context I think statements like that are inherently non-useful. In any more open environment 500 Guard ought to just pulverize the Marine.
50 guardsman per 1 marine, not 500.
The first thing that would happen would be the marine unloading his bolter full-auto and every bolt scoring a kill. So 20-30 guardsmen are pretty much instantly dead. That and lasguns are about as effective against power armor as an AK is against tank armor (in my headcanon). Does that sound too ridiculous to you? Not to me... A space marine is literally orders of magnitude faster and more accurate with a weapon than a regular human could ever hope to be.
JNAProductions wrote: But they DO have to be some reasonable number. One million is just plain too small to have any reasonable galactic impact with their power.
Why? A single imperial guard general in the right spot in the right battle could turn a planetary conflict and thus has an effect on the galactic stage. Why is it so hard to imagine 100 space marines doing the same for a battle? They cannot be everywhere, they cannot even be most places, but at the places where they do show up they have an enormous impact. I just don't understand why you are drawing a magical line somewhere between "scarce special forces" and "irrelevant military force" that seems to be completely arbitrary.
They don't need to be the same ratio as navy SEALS to regular U.S military personnel to still be effective.
Assassins are even fewer in number than space marines and yet still have a massive impact on the landscape of galactic power.
w1zard wrote: Assassins are even fewer in number than space marines and yet still have a massive impact on the landscape of galactic power.
The existence of Imperial Assassins makes the Space Marine even more pointless in my opinion. If their main quality is their capacity to launch drop pod assault on enemy command center that aren't protected by a protected by a efficient anti-air defense, then assassins can do the same job, more efficiently without taxing as much assets and can actually reach and eliminate target protected by defenses that would prevent Space Marine from doing so (or that would make it very costly). Plus, there is a variety of assassins, all perfectly adapted for a specific scenario.
BrianDavion wrote: a small kill team sent onto a hive ship would proably be delivering a payload and likely would be expecting it to be a one way mission. it's really a job only Marines COULD do
The issue I take with that is the assumption that a small kill team should be able to fight it's way into a hive ship. A hive ship of any importance will have millions of bugs waiting to kill you. How much ammo did they bring? Could the passage ways get blocked by the firefights? How deep are they going? Couldn't the ship also try to kill the marines or at least stop them? At a certain point, expecting 5 marines to make any progress into a hive ship is just ridiculous, and the fact that the stories show it to be possible just ruins my suspension of disbelief.
GW didn't have to write marines that way. I'd be more than happy to acknowledge that a single marine is worth say 10-20 guardsmen (100 would be pushing it imo), but the lore seems to indicate that a single marine could take on a whole regiment by itself, which is just stupid and unnecessary.
Hive ships don't have their entire army awake and ready to fight, or else they'd have to feed them all the time. From what we know of the nids, most of the bugs are either made short order when planetary invasion is intended, or in hibernation during travel. And fictionwise, there are several examples of this exact technique working. There's still a lot we don't know about Tyranids. But the lore is quite clear that small kill teams have been able to effectively insert into tyranid ships, and do critical damage.
The old Warrior King story.
The Warrior King leads from the front and is like an elemental force.
Just seeing him ploughing into the enemy gives hope to allies and makes them fight all the harder to win his notice and become part of his legend.
It is worth pointing out the opposite effect on morale when he dies though.
epronovost wrote: The existence of Imperial Assassins makes the Space Marine even more pointless in my opinion. If their main quality is their capacity to launch drop pod assault on enemy command center that aren't protected by a protected by a efficient anti-air defense, then assassins can do the same job, more efficiently without taxing as much assets and can actually reach and eliminate target protected by defenses that would prevent Space Marine from doing so (or that would make it very costly). Plus, there is a variety of assassins, all perfectly adapted for a specific scenario.
Again, we run into the issue of why does it have to be one or the other? Does the existence of the army rangers invalidate the navy SEAL's existence? What about delta force? What about green berets? All of these groups have overlapping areas of proficiency, and yet we don't just say "hey SEALS are pointless because we already have delta force" etc.
For most conflicts, the guard are sufficient. For the missions that guard are not sufficient, the storm troopers are called in. For the missions that storm troopers are not sufficient the space marines are called in. For the missions the space marines are not sufficient for an assassin or multiple assassins are called in. All of these groups have somewhat different and yet overlapping areas of expertise, and all of them serve a purpose.
Dakka Wolf wrote: The old Warrior King story.
The Warrior King leads from the front and is like an elemental force.
Just seeing him ploughing into the enemy gives hope to allies and makes them fight all the harder to win his notice and become part of his legend.
It is worth pointing out the opposite effect on morale when he dies though.
which is why the IoM likely rarely reports on their losses
Again, we run into the issue of why does it have to be one or the other? Does the existence of the army rangers invalidate the navy SEAL's existence? What about delta force? What about green berets? All of these groups have overlapping areas of proficiency, and yet we don't just say "hey SEALS are pointless because we already have delta force" etc.
Navy SEALS, Rangers and various other elite forces within the US army all have different roles and specialisations. Rangers can't do what SEALS are best at for the simple reason they aren't trained as divers for example. The Space Marines have no real unique field of expertise that no other military institution in the Imperium can display. If they were the only one to use the tactic of dropping into the mist of enemy line from the sky to destroy a key asset, it would make some sense, but they aren't. Plus, their ridiculously low numbers would mean that whatever specialty they could have, the Imperium would be in serious trouble since Space Marines are too rare to be used on all major battlefield in high enough numbers. Space Marine Chapters don't even all have the same specialty.
Dakka Wolf wrote: The old Warrior King story.
The Warrior King leads from the front and is like an elemental force.
Just seeing him ploughing into the enemy gives hope to allies and makes them fight all the harder to win his notice and become part of his legend.
It is worth pointing out the opposite effect on morale when he dies though.
which is why the IoM likely rarely reports on their losses
You sure that’s not just because they don't care?
In reality it's more like 500,000,000 guardsmen per 1 marine because GW has no sense of scale.
The first thing that would happen would be the marine unloading his bolter full-auto and every bolt scoring a kill.
Except that's not what we see in the fluff. Marines are accurate, they don't have cheat codes enabled and headshot a perfectly chosen target with every shot even in full auto.
(in my headcanon)
Well, at least you're honest enough to admit that you're not talking about the 40k universe. But why are you in this thread?
epronovost wrote: Navy SEALS, Rangers and various other elite forces within the US army all have different roles and specialisations.
But all are special forces that are capable of asymmetric warfare. In the same way that Stormtroopers, Marines, and Assassins are all special forces troops that primarily operate by rapid deployment by orbital insertion and then wrecking hell on anything in their way. They are all just different flavors of it.
Peregrine wrote: Well, at least you're honest enough to admit that you're not talking about the 40k universe...
It is the only real way it makes sense... and there are a small minority of stories in the 40k lore that do portray marines in a way more along the lines of my headcanon. I do agree that the most of the lore surrounding marines is horribly written, but the small number of total marines is FAR from the biggest issue. Again, look at the example of the assassins who have far fewer numbers than marines and yet still have a pronounced effect on the state of the galaxy.
w1zard wrote: It is the only real way it makes sense... and there are a small minority of authors who do portray marines that way.
There's a better way for it to make sense: space marines are legendary heroes and their deeds are wildly exaggerated just like any other legendary hero. We should treat statements about a squad of marines conquering a planet like we treat statements about Jesus feeding a crowd with a couple loaves of bread, or of Zeus turning himself into a swan and coming down to every woman in Greece. They're neat stories, but they're obvious fiction and anyone outside the religion knows it. The average Imperial citizen believes that a space marine is capable of gunning down a squad of heretics with cheat code level perfection while laughing off any return fire, the average Tau commander knows a space marine is essentially a crisis suit that can't fly and tells the pathfinder squad to hit it with the laser pointers and call in a seeker missile strike.
Alternatively, you can treat space marines as having roughly their tabletop performance and just add a few orders of magnitude to the number of space marines in the Imperium.
Insectum7 wrote: Conflicts are so dependent on context I think statements like that are inherently non-useful. In any more open environment 500 Guard ought to just pulverize the Marine.
50 guardsman per 1 marine, not 500.
The first thing that would happen would be the marine unloading his bolter full-auto and every bolt scoring a kill. So 20-30 guardsmen are pretty much instantly dead. That and lasguns are about as effective against power armor as an AK is against tank armor (in my headcanon). Does that sound too ridiculous to you? Not to me... A space marine is literally orders of magnitude faster and more accurate with a weapon than a regular human could ever hope to be.
Yeah. . .I just can't.
I do think they have sweet targeting systems/visors that allow them great accuracy in otherwise harsh conditions. But every bolt a headshot "instantly"? That's too immersion breaking for me, and goes hard against every rule set the game has produced. Space Marines fire and fail to inflict a casualty all the time.
Why not? Aren't marines supposed to be many times better than a normal humans? There are un-augmented humans IRL in the modern day that can hit 30 targets in 30 seconds at about 200ft on a shooting range, why wouldn't a marine (a genetically enhanced killing machine with abilities many times greater than a normal human) be able to do that in 5-10 seconds?
I absolutely love this miniseries on youtube that actually portarys the marines close to how I think they should be. Imagine every shot that the marines make is a kill, and that they only rarely miss. This gives you some idea of how terrifying having to fight even a single marine would be.
Insectum7 wrote: I do think they have sweet targeting systems/visors that allow them great accuracy in otherwise harsh conditions. But every bolt a headshot "instantly"? That's too immersion breaking for me, and goes hard against every rule set the game has produced. Space Marines fire and fail to inflict a casualty all the time.
You cannot use tabletop rules to make a statement about lore. The tabletop game is completely separate from the lore has to be in order to be balanced.
Martel732 wrote: Then what's the point of the lore? Power fantasy wish fulfillment?
Why are tabletop marines uncompatible with the lore in their own army codex? Forget the terrible novels for a second.
Why would i want to read fiction that doesnt describe my week in week out experiences on the tabletop?
Its enjoyable.
Right so you want lore that matches the tabletop? So you're fine with me getting a rule saying that before we deploy I roll a dice and on a 2+ I win or me getting to outright control your models? That would match the lore much better. Sounds awful but there you go.
Martel732 wrote: Then what's the point of the lore? Power fantasy wish fulfillment?
Why are tabletop marines uncompatible with the lore in their own army codex? Forget the terrible novels for a second.
Why would i want to read fiction that doesnt describe my week in week out experiences on the tabletop?
Its enjoyable.
Right so you want lore that matches the tabletop? So you're fine with me getting a rule saying that before we deploy I roll a dice and on a 2+ I win or me getting to outright control your models? That would match the lore much better. Sounds awful but there you go.
Or instead of matching the game to space marine fanboy fluff we could match the fluff to the current tabletop game, where marines are strong but not gods.
Martel732 wrote: Then what's the point of the lore? Power fantasy wish fulfillment?
Why are tabletop marines uncompatible with the lore in their own army codex? Forget the terrible novels for a second.
Why would i want to read fiction that doesnt describe my week in week out experiences on the tabletop?
Its enjoyable.
Right so you want lore that matches the tabletop? So you're fine with me getting a rule saying that before we deploy I roll a dice and on a 2+ I win or me getting to outright control your models? That would match the lore much better. Sounds awful but there you go.
Or instead of matching the game to space marine fanboy fluff we could match the fluff to the current tabletop game, where marines are strong but not gods.
To be fair, in the current tabletop, Marines aren't very strong, competitively speaking.
It would be nice to see them buffed to be better, and the top dogs nerfed to be a more middle ground, though.
Jeeze! And people were giving me grief for questioning an Ork Warboss firing two sluggas while equipped with a PK and yet here y'all are... Arguing about cheese marines...
the lore is pretty clear on the matter, when someone asks a lore question about marines, it is answered and people start using the table top to say the lore is wrong, there's a word for that./ Stupid.
Grey Knights are the IoMs best weapon agaisnt deamons. that is the lore, just because their table top rules are horriable and don't reflect that this ediution doesn't magicly change the lore
I guess my point is that the lore is very small comfort. I can't get rerolls from lore, or bonus strength, or anything.The lore may state that gk are good vs demons, but talk is cheap. If they suck vs demons in practice, the lore is of no help.
Maybe it comes down to time invested in each aspect. If i spend more time playing, the lore is wrong. If i spend more time reading, the game is wrong.
Quoting lore feels akin to sports fans crowing about 50 year old championships.
Martel732 wrote: I guess my point is that the lore is very small comfort. I can't get rerolls from lore, or bonus strength, or anything.The lore may state that gk are good vs demons, but talk is cheap. If they suck vs demons in practice, the lore is of no help.
Maybe it comes down to time invested in each aspect.
Quoting lore feels akin to sports fans crowing about 50 year old championships.
Mayber you should take a look at the section of the forums you're on mate. the fact is Lore is lore is lore. plenty of people like the lore even without ever playing the game. remember some of the HH novels where on the NYT bestseller list. I sincerly doubt everyone of those people who bought those novels played 40k. Warhammer is more then just a table top minis game. and has been for some time.
Why not? Aren't marines supposed to be many times better than a normal humans? There are un-augmented humans IRL in the modern day that can hit 30 targets in 30 seconds at about 200ft on a shooting range, why wouldn't a marine (a genetically enhanced killing machine with abilities many times greater than a normal human) be able to do that in 5-10 seconds?
I absolutely love this miniseries on youtube that actually portarys the marines close to how I think they should be. Imagine every shot that the marines make is a kill, and that they only rarely miss. This gives you some idea of how terrifying having to fight even a single marine would be.
Yeah I've seen that animation, and it's pretty cool. However here's your depiction "The first thing that would happen would be the marine unloading his bolter full-auto and every bolt scoring a kill. So 20-30 guardsmen are pretty much instantly dead.". Your depiction and what the animation depicts are two very different things. In the animation the marines aren't firing full auto, they're working as a squad, using cover and using their auto-senses to see through smoke. The animation depicts them as accurate, coordinated, fast and efficient. What you seem to be suggesting is some invulnerable Rambo marine shrugging off incoming fire (your "AK vs tank armor) and blazing away with every shot a kill.
A marksman (standing still in the open and shooting at unmoving targets) might even get 30 hits in 30 seconds, but full auto rifles fire off a full clip in a fraction of that time. Having a marine kill 20-30 men "instantly" is just stupid. A marine being up against 50 guardsmen in a straight shootout should be spending his first actions on finding cover and minimizing the number of guardsmen who can track him at any given time, then taking them piecemeal. The way marines deal with larger numbers is that a squad of five marines efficiently kills five GEQ types quickly and brutally. Then they engage the next five and kill them. Then the next five. Then the next. And the next. And so on. That's what the animated boarding action is. Marines bring huge force concentration to each small firefight, win it easily, and proceed to the next small firefight. And they don't tire, so as long as they can keep being supplied with ammunition (or use enemy guns) they just keep at it and destroy many times their number.
Insectum7 wrote: I do think they have sweet targeting systems/visors that allow them great accuracy in otherwise harsh conditions. But every bolt a headshot "instantly"? That's too immersion breaking for me, and goes hard against every rule set the game has produced. Space Marines fire and fail to inflict a casualty all the time.
You cannot use tabletop rules to make a statement about lore. The tabletop game is completely separate from the lore has to be in order to be balanced.
The lore doesn't directly correlate to the tabletop, but they should certainly inform each other. They can't be too different.
Also, the scenarios in the lore rarely appear to match a tabletop game anyways, and the context of a battle is incredibly important to how that battle plays out. In the game itself we often have a pitched battle between half a company of marines against an armored section of IG over relatively open ground, and in the lore as well as the game I'd expect that to be a strategic catastrophe for the marines. The marines just shouldn't be in that position in the first place, imo.
But if you ran a game with a more narrative mission, I'd say you could still wind up with the types of stories we can read about in the lore, while not changing unit-to-unit statistics. And it's also important to remember that dice are involved, and when the author of a story wants a character to roll straight 6's, he can just make that happen. The stories told are often the stories that aren't "rolling average".
Martel732 wrote: I guess my point is that the lore is very small comfort. I can't get rerolls from lore, or bonus strength, or anything.The lore may state that gk are good vs demons, but talk is cheap. If they suck vs demons in practice, the lore is of no help.
Maybe it comes down to time invested in each aspect.
Quoting lore feels akin to sports fans crowing about 50 year old championships.
Mayber you should take a look at the section of the forums you're on mate. the fact is Lore is lore is lore. plenty of people like the lore even without ever playing the game. remember some of the HH novels where on the NYT bestseller list. I sincerly doubt everyone of those people who bought those novels played 40k. Warhammer is more then just a table top minis game. and has been for some time.
Your so right, if this was in the general section then yep, rules can be used in the discussion but this is a LORE discussion about the marines LORE, if he wants to lament about how awful the marines are compared to the fluff then its a general topic and not a 40k background one.
I think the difference is very relevant, because it directly involves the background. In fact, a primary reason I hate the lore is the divergence from GW's math on the tabletop. That and the bad D list authors.
But by all means, go back to your wish fulfillment bolter porn.
the fact is table top rules have some flaws for the point of playing the game, let's look at Marines for a moment on the table top.
nopw we know Marines wear a hyper advanced form of armor, that is, roughly as protective as tank armor. let's then look at how this works in table top.
that armor has a 50/50 chance of stopping various attacks, which sounds fair you can go "well maybe it hits a weak spot etc" but you gotta realize, this includes bs like a chaos cultists WITH A WRENCH. understandf that, in the table top, super advanced power armor is only 50% effective against a man with a wrench.
we can proably agree this is a little silly and just won't work in a novel. which is part of the issue with marines in table top vs novels, in table top their armor is only 50% effective (or less) vs ANYTHING, thus Marines can be dropped by a handfull of lasguns shots, whereas logicly theyd be much harder for guardsmen to take down.
in short the reason there is a disconnect is because the durability rules work fine in table top, but they're bs when you try to apply logic to it
BrianDavion wrote: the fact is table top rules have some flaws for the point of playing the game, let's look at Marines for a moment on the table top.
nopw we know Marines wear a hyper advanced form of armor, that is, roughly as protective as tank armor. let's then look at how this works in table top.
that armor has a 50/50 chance of stopping various attacks, which sounds fair you can go "well maybe it hits a weak spot etc" but you gotta realize, this includes bs like a chaos cultists WITH A WRENCH. understandf that, in the table top, super advanced power armor is only 50% effective against a man with a wrench.
we can proably agree this is a little silly and just won't work in a novel. which is part of the issue with marines in table top vs novels, in table top their armor is only 50% effective (or less) vs ANYTHING, thus Marines can be dropped by a handfull of lasguns shots, whereas logicly theyd be much harder for guardsmen to take down.
in short the reason there is a disconnect is because the durability rules work fine in table top, but they're bs when you try to apply logic to it
Well, don't take stats literally, for one. Stats serve to give an aggregate total effectiveness. Does a bolt really only have a 66% chance of wounding a Guardsman? That doesn't hold up. The thing that matters on the tabletop is the answer to the question: "If a Space Marine shoots at a Guardsman, how likely is that to produce a casualty that takes the Guardsman out of the battle." That's the result of every stat that goes into that result. Hit, wound and armor. Stats themselves are "loose", the thing that matters is the ultimate relationship between the units. The result is that a GEQ with a wrench has a 5% chance of inflicting a meaningful casualty during close quarters battle. A Space Marine has a 29% chance of killing a Guardsman in CC. To me the thing that's off isn't the GEQ's 5%, but the Marines 30ish%. In the past that was actually reasonable because the Marines would often sweep them in the morale phase anyways, but nowadays not so much.
Insectum7 wrote: Your depiction and what the animation depicts are two very different things. In the animation the marines aren't firing full auto, they're working as a squad, using cover and using their auto-senses to see through smoke. The animation depicts them as accurate, coordinated, fast and efficient. What you seem to be suggesting is some invulnerable Rambo marine shrugging off incoming fire (your "AK vs tank armor) and blazing away with every shot a kill. A marksman (standing still in the open and shooting at unmoving targets) might even get 30 hits in 30 seconds, but full auto rifles fire off a full clip in a fraction of that time. Having a marine kill 20-30 men "instantly" is just stupid.
Fine, maybe "full auto" was a bit of an exaggeration, but a marine downing 30 targets in like 8 seconds with a 30 round mag with single fire is close enough to full auto that you are just splitting hairs at that point and arguing semantics.
Insectum7 wrote: A marine being up against 50 guardsmen in a straight shootout should be spending his first actions on finding cover and minimizing the number of guardsmen who can track him at any given time, then taking them piecemeal.
No, a marine doesn't seek cover unless he feels endangered in some way, and lasguns shouldn't really do that to marine armor. Watch that miniseries, you see that marines take hits constantly and nothing seems to ever penetrate their armor. Even an autocannon shot was stopped. The marines in that miniseries only ever took cover once, and that was against a multilaser in the last episode. I agree this is often not how marines are depicted in the lore, but this is how marines SHOULD BE.
Insectum7 wrote: The way marines deal with larger numbers is that a squad of five marines efficiently kills five GEQ types quickly and brutally. Then they engage the next five and kill them. Then the next five. Then the next. And the next. And so on. That's what the animated boarding action is. Marines bring huge force concentration to each small firefight, win it easily, and proceed to the next small firefight. And they don't tire, so as long as they can keep being supplied with ammunition (or use enemy guns) they just keep at it and destroy many times their number.
If you seriously believe this then you don't really read the lore because there are plenty of instances of marines being outnumbered 10 or 20 to 1 in the lore and still winning, and the lore does a poor job IMO of depicted how powerful an average space marine is.
Peregrine wrote: Alternatively the tabletop rules are roughly correct and most of the fluff is marine fanboy masturbation.
If that is true, then marines are barely better than an average guardsman and you are correct, would be pretty much laughable on the galactic stage. But, I don't think this is the case.
Bobthehero wrote: There's also cases where Marines are losing 5-6 to 1 odds against Ork boys. That includes a main character and his retinue.
Again, marines have a wide range of depictions across many novels and many authors... I am one of the people who has a headcanon of marines being on the stronger end of how they are usually depicted, again the "Astartes" miniseries on youtube is about dead-on for me. Anything else just doesn't make fething sense to me and pretty much breaks my suspension of disbelief.
Nothing does the old suspension of disbelief trick like getting reamed out by some rebels with improvised weapons (GSC) or space pirates with magical guns (Drukhari). Marines don't even stack up to Nobz well in 8th. Wasn't Orks someone they were "designed" to fight? Well, they can't.
Insectum7 wrote: Your depiction and what the animation depicts are two very different things. In the animation the marines aren't firing full auto, they're working as a squad, using cover and using their auto-senses to see through smoke. The animation depicts them as accurate, coordinated, fast and efficient. What you seem to be suggesting is some invulnerable Rambo marine shrugging off incoming fire (your "AK vs tank armor) and blazing away with every shot a kill. A marksman (standing still in the open and shooting at unmoving targets) might even get 30 hits in 30 seconds, but full auto rifles fire off a full clip in a fraction of that time. Having a marine kill 20-30 men "instantly" is just stupid.
Fine, maybe "full auto" was a bit of an exaggeration, but a marine downing 30 targets in like 8 seconds with a 30 round mag with single fire is close enough to full auto that you are just splitting hairs at that point and arguing semantics.
You can call it splitting hairs, full auto or not. 30 dead guard with a 30 round clip in 8 seconds regardless is the very definition of bolter porn and I can't take it seriously. That's nearly 4 kills a second. I mean if you could fire into a crowded corridor with explosive bolts, sure. . . But in a firefight against proffessional soldiers with any reasonable positioning? No thank you.
Insectum7 wrote: A marine being up against 50 guardsmen in a straight shootout should be spending his first actions on finding cover and minimizing the number of guardsmen who can track him at any given time, then taking them piecemeal.
No, a marine doesn't seek cover unless he feels endangered in some way, and lasguns shouldn't really do that to marine armor. Watch that miniseries, you see that marines take hits constantly and nothing seems to ever penetrate their armor. Even an autocannon shot was stopped. The marines in that miniseries only eveof ther took cover once, and that was against a multilaser in the last episode. I agree this is often not how marines are depicted in the lore, but this is how marines SHOULD BE.
Take note that in game, it takes an average of 20 "shots" (and each shot may represent several bursts of fire) to kill a marine. Game = lore for me in this case. Lasfire can patter off marine armor perfectly acceptably.
And a smart soldier should seek cover, unless advancement is otherwise advantageous.
Insectum7 wrote: The way marines deal with larger numbers is that a squad of five marines efficiently kills five GEQ types quickly and brutally. Then they engage the next five and kill them. Then the next five. Then the next. And the next. And so on. That's what the animated boarding action is. Marines bring huge force concentration to each small firefight, win it easily, and proceed to the next small firefight. And they don't tire, so as long as they can keep being supplied with ammunition (or use enemy guns) they just keep at it and destroy many times their number.
If you seriously believe this then you don't really read the lore because there are plenty of instances of marines being outnumbered 10 or 20 to 1 in the lore and still winning, and the lore does a poor job IMO of depicted how powerful an average space marine is.
The issue isn't the numbers, the issue is how it's accomplished. Are the marines achieving victory through smart aggressive tactics? Or are they simply standing in the middle of a field and gunning hundreds down with impunity?
One of those scenarios is closer to how the stats compare in game. The other demands T6 marines with 2+ saves and Rapid Fire 15 weapons, etc.
Insectum7 wrote: You can call it splitting hairs, full auto or not. 30 dead guard with a 30 round clip in 8 seconds regardless is the very definition of bolter porn and I can't take it seriously. That's nearly 4 kills a second. I mean if you could fire into a crowded corridor with explosive bolts, sure. . . But in a firefight against proffessional soldiers with any reasonable positioning? No thank you.
Then you are conceding the point that marines are a laughably ineffective fighting force and agreeing with what everyone else is saying. In order for marines to be "worth their weight" they NEED to be several times better than an un-augmented human, otherwise their presence in the setting doesn't make sense. As long as they are just "slightly upgraded humans" in power armor instead of walking death machines with the armor of a tank people will continue to not take them seriously, evidenced by this thread.
Insectum7 wrote: Take note that in game, it takes an average of 20 "shots" (and each shot may represent several bursts of fire) to kill a marine. Game = lore for me in this case. Lasfire can patter off marine armor perfectly acceptably. And a smart soldier should seek cover, unless advancement is otherwise advantageous.
Insectum7 wrote: One of those scenarios is closer to how the stats compare in game. The other demands T6 marines with 2+ saves and Rapid Fire 15 weapons, etc.
For the last time, THE GAME HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LORE. The game is an abstraction that exists so that we can move 40k miniatures around and roll dice and has no bearing on the actual abilities or power of what those miniatures represent in the background material.
Insectum7 wrote: The issue isn't the numbers, the issue is how it's accomplished. Are the marines achieving victory through smart aggressive tactics? Or are they simply standing in the middle of a field and gunning hundreds down with impunity?
Why can't it be both when it comes to fighting guardsmen equivalents?
I thought marines were meant to be tactical geniuses but now they're meant to just stand in the open and tank heavy weapons fire with their face?
It doesn't matter how good your armour is, the best way to not die is to minimise your exposure to enemy fire, which is accomplished by taking cover. This is true for tanks today, it'll be true for space marines in the future.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I thought marines were meant to be tactical geniuses but now they're meant to just stand in the open and tank heavy weapons fire with their face?
It doesn't matter how good your armour is, the best way to not die is to minimise your exposure to enemy fire, which is accomplished by taking cover. This is true for tanks today, it'll be true for space marines in the future.
True to a point, but a tank isn't going to waste time taking cover from assault rifle fire when in a target rich environment.
As others have pointed out the Imperiun has a million worlds. Only a fraction is at war at any given time. In many of those wars Imperial Guard is enough(Or not and feth them because the imperium is a bureocratic mess).
So that makes having 200-500 marines of different chapters in big conflicts perfectely possible, even more in bigger ones.
The only problem comes with Space Marines droping like flyes in some pieces of fluff.
But really if you want to understand how marines change wars just play the Halo Games. Specially one : Halo Reach. In that one youll find the best depiction of a squad of supersoldiers doing their best without being invulnerable.
Also, in Halo universe, Spartans have also that propaganda factor, thats why they never die, they are always reported as MIA
w1zard wrote: True to a point, but a tank isn't going to waste time taking cover from assault rifle fire when in a target rich environment.
Yes it is. It's hard to tell at a glance if one of those targets in said target rich environments has a meltagun or plasmagun or grenade launcher capable of melting your tank's face off. Tanks actually DO take cover, and effective use of cover is one of the key hallmarks of a well trained tank crew. If they don't have a meltagun they could still have a krak grenade to cause some form of critical damage like a broken tread or jammed turret mechanism, turning your tank in to a sitting duck.
And that's just taking humans in to account, before you take absurdly powerful xenos like Orks in to play, where the last thing you want is to be swarmed by them and have them literally tear your tank apart.
A Town Called Malus wrote: I thought marines were meant to be tactical geniuses but now they're meant to just stand in the open and tank heavy weapons fire with their face?
It doesn't matter how good your armour is, the best way to not die is to minimise your exposure to enemy fire, which is accomplished by taking cover. This is true for tanks today, it'll be true for space marines in the future.
True to a point, but a tank isn't going to waste time taking cover from assault rifle fire when in a target rich environment.
A target rich environment might have 50 assault rifles, weilded by 50 professional soldiers who might have any number of yet unidentified weapons on them because its hard to inventory 50 targets at once. Any one of them might have a Krak grenade, or meltagun, and that can end your little rambo affair nice and quick. So get your head down, engage a bit more methodically and suss it out.
And you're not a tank, you can actually take cover. Your armor does have weak points. Though a single lucky bullet may not kill you, it may decrease the efficiency of your body or your equipment. It's your duty to stay in good fighting condition because you're going to need to deploy and redeploy 20 times during this short campaign. So keep your wits and dont stand in front of 50 guardsmen unnecessarily. Any one of those several hundred shots could brain you through the eyepiece and then how invulnerable are you going to look, hero?
I expect the most experienced, disciplined and well trained soldiers in the Imperium not to act like idiots.
I'm sure they can be effective as a way to concentrate force but the 40k setting would seem to work against Marines in terms of their ability to make a huge difference on the war.
It seems like there are so many ways Marines could die before ever seeing combat. If their ships are destroyed in a space battle, if their drop pods or landing craft are shot down as they attempt to land, if they're targeted by artillery or heavy guns on arrival etc., if they're hit by snipers, missiles, plasma, or even just a lucky shot during a battle.
Not saying Marines can't make a significant contribution to individual battles, but in a galaxy-wide conflict where factions regularly suffer losses numbering in the millions, it's inevitably going to be a matter of logistics and statistics rather than individual prowess. And Marines seem like one of the worst races when it comes to absorbing losses.
Now in theory many Marine casualties could be recovered and saved. The problem is that this is reliant on the Marines being ultimately victorious in that conflict. If they're pushed back, then any Marine casualties (even if they're still alive) will instead be devoured by Tyranids, atomised by Necrons, taken back to Commorragh by DE etc.
I guess im too much of a historicals gamer. They might as well change all the names for the tabletop game.
It also doesnt help that the more gw plays it straight, the dumber they look.
Well the use of foresight is a pretty key part of Eldar lore so getting rid of it just to explain its absence on the tabletop is pretty dumb.
It doesn't help that you hate every aspect of the game but still play it.
Uhh… Stratagems like...Forwarding? Stratagems that let you redeploy. Lightning fast reactions...Eldar are pretty well represented. They have pretty much always played the way they should. Aspect warriors currently are pretty bad but in the past they have been pretty good through the editions. It is the same problem though. GW doesn't understand that these units arent actually elite on the table but they make you pay elite prices. As far as the lore goes. There is no question that a marine is an elite warrior no matter what fluff you read. In the game a marine has been garbage in every edition I've played.
I guess im too much of a historicals gamer. They might as well change all the names for the tabletop game.
It also doesnt help that the more gw plays it straight, the dumber they look.
Well the use of foresight is a pretty key part of Eldar lore so getting rid of it just to explain its absence on the tabletop is pretty dumb.
It doesn't help that you hate every aspect of the game but still play it.
Uhh… Stratagems like...Forwarding? Stratagems that let you redeploy. Lightning fast reactions...Eldar are pretty well represented. They have pretty much always played the way they should. Aspect warriors currently are pretty bad but in the past they have been pretty good through the editions. It is the same problem though. GW doesn't understand that these units are actually elite on the table but they make you pay elite prices. As far as the lore goes. There is no question that a marine is an elite warrior no matter what fluff you read. In the game a marine has been garbage in every edition I've played.
Right so if a Farseer wants to use their foresight they frequently go "oh wait I can't I have to use an imaginary point. Oh dear." You've missed my point which is all factions have elements of their lore that go unrepresented to balance the game a bit. Tyranids aren't an unending horde, Demons don't turn the enemy mad by existing, Guard can't just stand still and fire hundreds of artillery at the enemy and so on.
I guess im too much of a historicals gamer. They might as well change all the names for the tabletop game.
It also doesnt help that the more gw plays it straight, the dumber they look.
Well the use of foresight is a pretty key part of Eldar lore so getting rid of it just to explain its absence on the tabletop is pretty dumb.
It doesn't help that you hate every aspect of the game but still play it.
Uhh… Stratagems like...Forwarding? Stratagems that let you redeploy. Lightning fast reactions...Eldar are pretty well represented. They have pretty much always played the way they should. Aspect warriors currently are pretty bad but in the past they have been pretty good through the editions. It is the same problem though. GW doesn't understand that these units are actually elite on the table but they make you pay elite prices. As far as the lore goes. There is no question that a marine is an elite warrior no matter what fluff you read. In the game a marine has been garbage in every edition I've played.
Right so if a Farseer wants to use their foresight they frequently go "oh wait I can't I have to use an imaginary point. Oh dear." You've missed my point which is all factions have elements of their lore that go unrepresented to balance the game a bit. Tyranids aren't an unending horde, Demons don't turn the enemy mad by existing, Guard can't just stand still and fire hundreds of artillery at the enemy and so on.
Your point is well taken - I just don't think it's a good point. Reasonable attempts to give armies fluffy in game rules are pretty commonplace. Furthermore people like fluff rules. The rules for a space marine have never been fluffy. A space marine should be a lot more than a t4 vetren in power armor (mainly because those stats are largely irrelevant in a game where AP-3/4 could be on literally every gun your opponent has). Each one is basically captain America with a .65 rapid fire grenade launcher. They should be like 35 points and have good well rounded stats. That would be fluffy.
I guess im too much of a historicals gamer. They might as well change all the names for the tabletop game.
It also doesnt help that the more gw plays it straight, the dumber they look.
Well the use of foresight is a pretty key part of Eldar lore so getting rid of it just to explain its absence on the tabletop is pretty dumb.
It doesn't help that you hate every aspect of the game but still play it.
Uhh… Stratagems like...Forwarding? Stratagems that let you redeploy. Lightning fast reactions...Eldar are pretty well represented. They have pretty much always played the way they should. Aspect warriors currently are pretty bad but in the past they have been pretty good through the editions. It is the same problem though. GW doesn't understand that these units are actually elite on the table but they make you pay elite prices. As far as the lore goes. There is no question that a marine is an elite warrior no matter what fluff you read. In the game a marine has been garbage in every edition I've played.
Right so if a Farseer wants to use their foresight they frequently go "oh wait I can't I have to use an imaginary point. Oh dear." You've missed my point which is all factions have elements of their lore that go unrepresented to balance the game a bit. Tyranids aren't an unending horde, Demons don't turn the enemy mad by existing, Guard can't just stand still and fire hundreds of artillery at the enemy and so on.
Your point is well taken - I just don't think it's a good point. Reasonable attempts to give armies fluffy in game rules are pretty commonplace. Furthermore people like fluff rules. The rules for a space marine have never been fluffy. A space marine should be a lot more than a t4 vetren in power armor (mainly because those stats are largely irrelevant in a game where AP-3/4 could be on literally every gun your opponent has). Each one is basically captain America with a .65 rapid fire grenade launcher. They should be like 35 points and have good well rounded stats. That would be fluffy.
If they're Captain America then they do a pretty good job of being overhyped amiright?
I see what you're saying but where do you put Space Marines? Then where do you put things like Aspect Warriors which are equal to Space Marines? I think the problem with Marines is more because of bad weapon balancing than bad marine stats.
Insectum7 wrote: And you're not a tank, you can actually take cover. Your armor does have weak points. Though a single lucky bullet may not kill you, it may decrease the efficiency of your body or your equipment. It's your duty to stay in good fighting condition because you're going to need to deploy and redeploy 20 times during this short campaign. So keep your wits and dont stand in front of 50 guardsmen unnecessarily. Any one of those several hundred shots could brain you through the eyepiece and then how invulnerable are you going to look, hero?
I expect the most experienced, disciplined and well trained soldiers in the Imperium not to act like idiots.
Aye, that's a very good point. The marine isn't there to look impressive for one single engagement, then sign propaganda posters on the victory tour - he's using that hyper-super-duper marine physiology to fight 20 important engagements with only transit time in between. He'll barely have time to eat, drink, resupply and do quick maintenance on his gear as it is. He doesn't have time to heal if it's more than a scratch, he doesn't have time to repair any real damage to his power armor and there's no reserve marine to take his place. His duty is to stay alive and in shape to fight and that means tanking shots with his faceplate is stupid when he could let, say, a wall or a big rock suck up the rokkits instead.
RttF Syndrome (Rokkit to the Face Syndrome) is to be avoided if possible. If you don't try it means you're risking the Emperor's resources (your wargear and you!) for no good reason and as we all know that's heresy...
vipoid wrote: I'm sure they can be effective as a way to concentrate force but the 40k setting would seem to work against Marines in terms of their ability to make a huge difference on the war.
It seems like there are so many ways Marines could die before ever seeing combat. If their ships are destroyed in a space battle, if their drop pods or landing craft are shot down as they attempt to land, if they're targeted by artillery or heavy guns on arrival etc., if they're hit by snipers, missiles, plasma, or even just a lucky shot during a battle.
Not saying Marines can't make a significant contribution to individual battles, but in a galaxy-wide conflict where factions regularly suffer losses numbering in the millions, it's inevitably going to be a matter of logistics and statistics rather than individual prowess. And Marines seem like one of the worst races when it comes to absorbing losses.
Now in theory many Marine casualties could be recovered and saved. The problem is that this is reliant on the Marines being ultimately victorious in that conflict. If they're pushed back, then any Marine casualties (even if they're still alive) will instead be devoured by Tyranids, atomised by Necrons, taken back to Commorragh by DE etc.
Unfortunately I can't give too thorough of a response now but I think you could reason their strategic importance in the following way.
Marines are able strike faster and harder than any other Imperial force. In particular they excell at taking very important/war-winning objectives, like starships, command bunkers, planetary defence grids, etc, and they're good at doing it very quickly. It could be that any other Imperial force would sustain heavy casualties taking those objectives, and for whatever reason be both less likely to succeed, and possibly much slower. Any extra time given to the defenders is more time to prepare, and more time to prepare means greater risk of failure and even more casualties spent for each objective, until the situation might snowball into weeks or months (or years) of war, plus whatever collateral damage is involved. The speed of the marines might ultimately be the thing that gives them their true value, as a 3 day marine-led conflict with 20 marine casualties might be the least costly option in a theatre of war which, if you can't secure those objectives immediately, might cost millions of lives and trillions of "Imperial bucks".
And even though this is sorta assuming the Imperium is merely quelling the rebellion of it's own world, it's the sort of thing that happens a lot (and Marines seem suspiciously well prepared for). The potential millions of Guard lives that might be spent on such a rebellion would still be a useful thing not to lose, since inevitably they'll be spent fighting Orks instead (or whatever).
So I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that because they can end some common conflicts very fast, a marine life could be worth (insert very large number here) guardsmen lives in a gross strategic sense.
And they're really good at taking starships apparently (I think they even got some bonus in Battlefleet Gothic, iirc.) which is immensely valuable anyways.
I suppose I should ask, do people find them more lore accurate in killteam than in general 40k?
They're about the only thing with a 3+ save, plasma is far rarer, and their general toughness is given a chance to shine. Aside from still being stuck in fair fights which they'd otherwise avoid they're pretty solid in the beat stick category when not faced with massive AP.
w1zard wrote: True to a point, but a tank isn't going to waste time taking cover from assault rifle fire when in a target rich environment.
Yes it is. It's hard to tell at a glance if one of those targets in said target rich environments has a meltagun or plasmagun or grenade launcher capable of melting your tank's face off. Tanks actually DO take cover, and effective use of cover is one of the key hallmarks of a well trained tank crew. If they don't have a meltagun they could still have a krak grenade to cause some form of critical damage like a broken tread or jammed turret mechanism, turning your tank in to a sitting duck.
But a tank won't actually waste time trying to take cover until it knows that kind of weapon is present. What is the point otherwise?
Most of the time, "taking cover" in tank battles involves going "hull down" in a prepared position before the battle, or utilizing a ridge-line effectively. However, the sole reason that tanks were invented was to be able to cross open ground in the face of prepared infantry positions in order to break those positions. I think you are fundamentally misrepresenting the purpose of tanks on the modern battlefield.
Similarly a space marine isn't going to give a gak about a bunch of infantry wielding lasguns. In the Astartes miniseries you see they just stand there and focus entirely on killing them. The one time that the astartes were threatened by a krak missile he just used his superior reflexes and sidestepped it. Now if they had a lascannon, cover might be a better option for the marines, but there is no use in wasting time taking cover from weapons that CANNOT HURT YOU.
Insectum7 wrote: Your armor does have weak points. Though a single lucky bullet may not kill you, it may decrease the efficiency of your body or your equipment. It's your duty to stay in good fighting condition because you're going to need to deploy and redeploy 20 times during this short campaign. So keep your wits and dont stand in front of 50 guardsmen unnecessarily. Any one of those several hundred shots could brain you through the eyepiece and then how invulnerable are you going to look, hero?
I expect the most experienced, disciplined and well trained soldiers in the Imperium not to act like idiots.
Your job as a marine is to kill the enemy as fast as possible and achieve whatever your objective is. As long as the enemy are firing weapons that have little to no chance of hurting you or your equipment it makes no sense to delay killing them in order to prevent your armor from getting scuffed.
They never drop like Guardsmen, they're just not stupid OP, like in that miniseries. Dodging missiles like that is just... urgh, maybe that works for Eldars, but for Marines its just so wrong.
Bobthehero wrote: They never drop like Guardsmen, they're just not stupid OP, like in that miniseries. Dodging missiles like that is just... urgh, maybe that works for Eldar, but for Marines its just so wrong.
I felt like it was borderline. It was a pretty long ranged shot you could see coming. But a more Marine thing would have been just tanking the shot on the shoulder pad IMO.
Bobthehero wrote: They never drop like Guardsmen, they're just not stupid OP, like in that miniseries. Dodging missiles like that is just... urgh, maybe that works for Eldars, but for Marines its just so wrong.
When half of a marine squad doesn't make it back from a mission it means they are dropping like guardsmen.
They are not stupid OP in that miniseries, that is HOW THEY SHOULD BE.
A krak missile would kill a marine in the tabletop game but why would I make the assumption that it would in the lore? Maybe just wound him and mess up his armor? Once again, the variability of the strength of the average marine is all over the place in the published lore, why am I wrong when I take marines to be on the stronger side in my personal headcanon?
pm713 wrote: I think if a krak missile hits a Marine then it should wound them enough to take them out. So if they aren't dead they're missing at least one limb.
That's what happens the vast majority of the time in the fluff when a marine gets hit by a missile, lost arm and heavy damage but alive and sometimes still able to kill.
I was reading the solar war book today and a sons of Horus marine gets carved up by a power sword repeatedly, shot multiple times by a bolt weapon and survives to kill his opponents, earlier in the book a rotor cannon shreds another marine in his squad, marines can take an ungodly amount of punishment and live, key word is can, that does not mean always, some marines just take a bad hit.
Some of the people here seem to take those fringe cases and apply it across the board, so going by that logic any marine can be killed by a spear... Because it happened one time.
regarding marines taking cover,I imagine they'll take cover when they need to, but at the same time there is a physcahlogical element to marines as well that they're aware of and likely will be trained to take advantage of. watching your weaponry be utterly ineffective is TERRIFYING so against a unit thats clearly equipped only with Lasguns a Marine might break cover and rush em, heck one of the HH novels describes a scene in a compliance where marines are ordered to switch to melee weapons "because it would be a waste of resources to use mass reactives"
I guess im too much of a historicals gamer. They might as well change all the names for the tabletop game.
It also doesnt help that the more gw plays it straight, the dumber they look.
Well the use of foresight is a pretty key part of Eldar lore so getting rid of it just to explain its absence on the tabletop is pretty dumb.
It doesn't help that you hate every aspect of the game but still play it.
Uhh… Stratagems like...Forwarding? Stratagems that let you redeploy. Lightning fast reactions...Eldar are pretty well represented. They have pretty much always played the way they should. Aspect warriors currently are pretty bad but in the past they have been pretty good through the editions. It is the same problem though. GW doesn't understand that these units are actually elite on the table but they make you pay elite prices. As far as the lore goes. There is no question that a marine is an elite warrior no matter what fluff you read. In the game a marine has been garbage in every edition I've played.
Right so if a Farseer wants to use their foresight they frequently go "oh wait I can't I have to use an imaginary point. Oh dear." You've missed my point which is all factions have elements of their lore that go unrepresented to balance the game a bit. Tyranids aren't an unending horde, Demons don't turn the enemy mad by existing, Guard can't just stand still and fire hundreds of artillery at the enemy and so on.
Your point is well taken - I just don't think it's a good point. Reasonable attempts to give armies fluffy in game rules are pretty commonplace. Furthermore people like fluff rules. The rules for a space marine have never been fluffy. A space marine should be a lot more than a t4 vetren in power armor (mainly because those stats are largely irrelevant in a game where AP-3/4 could be on literally every gun your opponent has). Each one is basically captain America with a .65 rapid fire grenade launcher. They should be like 35 points and have good well rounded stats. That would be fluffy.
If they're Captain America then they do a pretty good job of being overhyped amiright?
I see what you're saying but where do you put Space Marines? Then where do you put things like Aspect Warriors which are equal to Space Marines? I think the problem with Marines is more because of bad weapon balancing than bad marine stats.
Aspect warriors aren't very well represented ether.
Lets start in the most obivous places. Speed. A marine can run twice as fast as a human - yet in this game they have the exact same speed. For aspect warriors they should be even faster than that but probably not by much. Imagine if marines all moved like 10 inches and all had grenade launchers (or something similar). Not suggesting they remain at their point cost but just that they should have better cababilities. These are things that make marines worth something. These are the reason that marines actually matter to the imperium.
Bobthehero wrote: They never drop like Guardsmen, they're just not stupid OP, like in that miniseries. Dodging missiles like that is just... urgh, maybe that works for Eldars, but for Marines its just so wrong.
When half of a marine squad doesn't make it back from a mission it means they are dropping like guardsmen.
They are not stupid OP in that miniseries, that is HOW THEY SHOULD BE
With the way you describe and according to my personnal headcanon, they are stupid OP in that serie, big turn off.
Insectum7 wrote: Your armor does have weak points. Though a single lucky bullet may not kill you, it may decrease the efficiency of your body or your equipment. It's your duty to stay in good fighting condition because you're going to need to deploy and redeploy 20 times during this short campaign. So keep your wits and dont stand in front of 50 guardsmen unnecessarily. Any one of those several hundred shots could brain you through the eyepiece and then how invulnerable are you going to look, hero?
I expect the most experienced, disciplined and well trained soldiers in the Imperium not to act like idiots.
Your job as a marine is to kill the enemy as fast as possible and achieve whatever your objective is. As long as the enemy are firing weapons that have little to no chance of hurting you or your equipment it makes no sense to delay killing them in order to prevent your armor from getting scuffed.
That is sometimes your job. Sometimes your job is to delay an enemy action or take on a force many times your size who has an unknown complement of weapons. In which case strolling unaided forward into 50 opposing infantry is dumb.
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BrianDavion wrote: regarding marines taking cover,I imagine they'll take cover when they need to, but at the same time there is a physcahlogical element to marines as well that they're aware of and likely will be trained to take advantage of. watching your weaponry be utterly ineffective is TERRIFYING so against a unit thats clearly equipped only with Lasguns a Marine might break cover and rush em, heck one of the HH novels describes a scene in a compliance where marines are ordered to switch to melee weapons "because it would be a waste of resources to use mass reactives"
I agree with all that. I just want to point out that the cover scenario began in response to a single marine vs. 50 guardsmen in the open. But sure, in some circumstances get out the chainswords because you're going to be in a long battle and conserving ammo might be a good thing. I'm trying to draw the line between smart marines and over-the-top ridiculous marines (i.e. 30 rounds for 30 kills in a matter of seconds, and marines shouldn't take cover because they are literally invulnerable.)
Bobthehero wrote: They never drop like Guardsmen, they're just not stupid OP, like in that miniseries. Dodging missiles like that is just... urgh, maybe that works for Eldars, but for Marines its just so wrong.
When half of a marine squad doesn't make it back from a mission it means they are dropping like guardsmen.
They are not stupid OP in that miniseries, that is HOW THEY SHOULD BE
With the way you describe and according to my personnal headcanon, they are stupid OP in that serie, big turn off.
If I recall correctly, they're not even stupid OP in that animation, they're methodically advancing through mostly confined spaces and narrow corridors, engaging only a few disorganized opponents at a time. They advance into lasfire but never for long or against too many, and they take cover from heavy weapons.
Xenomancers wrote: Lets start in the most obivous places. Speed. A marine can run twice as fast as a human - yet in this game they have the exact same speed. For aspect warriors they should be even faster than that but probably not by much. Imagine if marines all moved like 10 inches and all had grenade launchers (or something similar). Not suggesting they remain at their point cost but just that they should have better cababilities. These are things that make marines worth something. These are the reason that marines actually matter to the imperium.
And imagine if all Eldar moved 20" and got to take two turns for every non-Eldar turn, fire warriors had STR 10 basic guns, orks couldn't lose unless the ork player believed that the game was lost, etc. Every faction has its claim to being unstoppable badasses, not just space marines. And you can't make every faction "like the fluff" without making everyone equal again but with more stat inflation.
w1zard wrote: But a tank won't actually waste time trying to take cover until it knows that kind of weapon is present. What is the point otherwise?
Tanks have a purpose, yes, but in the modern world with precise artillery, CAS missions and man-portable AT weapons it's not just to bravely roll forward over open ground and draw fire so you can "count their arrows". It is always better to be undetected until you strike, or at least not spotted if the enemy can hear you. Having to rely on your active defenses or gods forbid armor is the least attractive option since your tank is expensive and having it taken out - even "only" as a mobility kill - costs money and puts the crew and recovery teams at risk. And the modern MBTs have infantry support, air support (hopefully), lighter vehicles in support. If the MBT is the first element taking fire you've either messed something up OR planned to do so since your intelligence says they can't hurt you (much).
Vehicles, much less soldiers (even ones with power armor) shouldn't scout by walking up and seeing what they're getting shot with!
A space marine strike force might not have any support at all. Even one man down is a disaster, and if you don't wish to leave him behind another man must help him move. Sure, seeing a super soldier boldly wade in and suck up a hundred shots might be scary but it risks that expensive soldier all the same. Is it not just as scary or even worse to lose contact with one squad after the other in quick succession? A marine isn't gunning down 30 guys in a second but a squad will easily take out a lesser squad in one brutal attack.
slave.entity wrote: Guardsmen with orders run twice as fast as space marines
Right, because that is a full on sprint. Likewise many units can move up to 18" a turn with move+charge. And that still involves taking some time to shoot, throw grenades, coordinate with friendlies, etc.
Power Armor is tough. But it's not tougher than a tank.
And a single krak missile doesn't have 100% chance of killing a tank in one shot either. Your point?
A single Krak missile can reliably destroy a battle tank in a single shot. A power armor is a lighter then even a light tank armor like that of a Rhino, a Taurox or a Chimera. Krak missiles are designed to destroy those quickly and reliably. They can even take down rather well heavier tanks like Leman Russ or Predators if they hit them in a weaker spot and those tanks are tougher then terminator armor. That's the point of krak missile. A Marine can survive a krak missile just like an unarmored human can survive a bolter shot. They might just lose an arm or a leg. They might just be grazed and suffer minimal damage or see the missle bounce of their armor thanks to a very lucky angle. Let's not forget that Space Marine toughness isn't new or even unrivaled and most armies (if not all armies) have developped weapons specifically to take out this kind of threat.
Bobthehero wrote: With the way you describe and according to my personnal headcanon, they are stupid OP in that serie, big turn off.
Would you rather have them be slightly-better-than-human guardsmen wearing slightly-better-than-carapace armor?
Insectum7 wrote: Source for lasguns having a 0% chance of hurting a marine in armor. A source other than your own personal headcannon or fan animation, please.
As I said, the lore portrays the durability of space marines wildly. Some lore has the space marines getting downed by a few lasguns shots in the wrong place. Other lore has them basically immune to las-fire. Which one is right?
IMO it HAS to be the latter. The very idea of space marines makes no sense if marines are just slightly tougher stormtroopers because they would be utterly useless in the situations they are supposedly supposed to be fighting in.
An AK can technically take out a tank if the bullet somehow gets into the ventilation and then bounces around inside the body killing the crew but the odds would be pretty astronomical. You don't see tank crews panicking and running for cover when under small arms fire, the same way you shouldn't see marines panicking and scrambling for cover when under lasgun fire.
Insectum7 wrote: That is sometimes your job. Sometimes your job is to delay an enemy action or take on a force many times your size who has an unknown complement of weapons. In which case strolling unaided forward into 50 opposing infantry is dumb.
It absolutely is not if you knew you had a 99% chance of victory if you just strolled forward and gunned them down and a 1% chance of getting moderately wounded in the process. Taking cover and trading potshots in that kind of situation is an absolute waste of time.
Insectum7 wrote: I'm trying to draw the line between smart marines and over-the-top ridiculous marines (i.e. 30 rounds for 30 kills in a matter of seconds, and marines shouldn't take cover because they are literally invulnerable.)
I'm not trying to say marines never take cover, I am saying that against a force of 50 guardsmen armed with small arms, they don't NEED TO. They are literally walking tanks. A force of 50 guardsmen armed with mixed small arms and heavy weapons would have a better chance (and in this situation a marine would probably take cover against the heavier ordinance) but I would still give it a 50/50 chance that the marine still emerges victorious.
Insectum7 wrote: If I recall correctly, they're not even stupid OP in that animation, they're methodically advancing through mostly confined spaces and narrow corridors, engaging only a few disorganized opponents at a time. They advance into lasfire but never for long or against too many, and they take cover from heavy weapons.
W1zard seems to be conflating it drastically.
LOL you need to watch it again if that is what you think. The entire breaching scene in episode 2 was them walking into a shooting gallery with dozens of guardsmen on gantries and they just shrug off the fire and blast all of the guardsmen away. The only time a marine takes cover is when a single marine takes cover from a multilaser for a few seconds in episode 3, and that to prepare his plasma pistol to take out the emplaced position. The defenders aren't even disorganized, the entire point of that miniseries is to show that the defenders are competent and fighting how they should be fighting and they are STILL losing.
epronovost wrote: A single Krak missile can reliably destroy a battle tank in a single shot...
If it hits the magazine or something but that is not guaranteed. It has an even greater chance of just messing up a track or even bouncing off harmlessly. Likewise, it is incorrect to assume a marine getting hit by a krak missile is instantly a death 100% of the time.
slave.entity wrote: That makes sense. I guess space marines just don't know how to sprint then?
I don't think anyone in the entire 40k universe knows how to sprint.
Hency why models that use their turn doing nothing but running (Move + Advance) somehow cover significantly less distance than models which first slow down to shoot and then stop entirely to fight (Move + Charge + Pile In + Consolidate).
slave.entity wrote: That makes sense. I guess space marines just don't know how to sprint then?
I don't think anyone in the entire 40k universe knows how to sprint.
Hency why models that use their turn doing nothing but running (Move + Advance) somehow cover significantly less distance than models which first slow down to shoot and then stop entirely to fight (Move + Charge + Pile In + Consolidate).
Or need to be screamed at to propperly perform a sprint by a disgruntled Commanding officer, which probably is facepalming 24/7
Bobthehero wrote: They never drop like Guardsmen, they're just not stupid OP, like in that miniseries. Dodging missiles like that is just... urgh, maybe that works for Eldars, but for Marines its just so wrong.
When half of a marine squad doesn't make it back from a mission it means they are dropping like guardsmen.
They are not stupid OP in that miniseries, that is HOW THEY SHOULD BE
With the way you describe and according to my personnal headcanon, they are stupid OP in that serie, big turn off.
I'd give it a watch before making your mind up on the overall thing, it's not that long.
Insectum7 wrote: Source for lasguns having a 0% chance of hurting a marine in armor. A source other than your own personal headcannon or fan animation, please.
As I said, the lore portrays the durability of space marines wildly. Some lore has the space marines getting downed by a few lasguns shots in the wrong place. Other lore has them basically immune to las-fire. Which one is right?
IMO it HAS to be the latter. The very idea of space marines makes no sense if marines are just slightly tougher stormtroopers because they would be utterly useless in the situations they are supposedly supposed to be fighting in.
Oh, ok. So you actually know that this is all your headcannon and just not consistent with the lore. Got it.
You say it only makes sense if they're invulnerable. I say it only makes sense if they're smart and used correctly. I prefer my version. Not only because it paints a more sophisticated picture of marines, but because it's more consistent with what we know.
Insectum7 wrote: That is sometimes your job. Sometimes your job is to delay an enemy action or take on a force many times your size who has an unknown complement of weapons. In which case strolling unaided forward into 50 opposing infantry is dumb.
It absolutely is not if you knew you had a 99% chance of victory if you just strolled forward and gunned them down and a 1% chance of getting moderately wounded in the process. Taking cover and trading potshots in that kind of situation is an absolute waste of time.
While your reasoning is correct, you're operating on pure headcannon, as we know marines are not immune to lasfire.
Insectum7 wrote: I'm trying to draw the line between smart marines and over-the-top ridiculous marines (i.e. 30 rounds for 30 kills in a matter of seconds, and marines shouldn't take cover because they are literally invulnerable.)
I'm not trying to say marines never take cover, I am saying that against a force of 50 guardsmen armed with small arms, they don't NEED TO. They are literally walking tanks. A force of 50 guardsmen armed with mixed small arms and heavy weapons would have a better chance (and in this situation a marine would probably take cover against the heavier ordinance) but I would still give it a 50/50 chance that the marine still emerges victorious.
Headcannon, headcannon, headcannon. And if you're looking at only a 50/50 chance of emerging victorious, then it's likely not a smart move for the Emperor's finest.
Insectum7 wrote: If I recall correctly, they're not even stupid OP in that animation, they're methodically advancing through mostly confined spaces and narrow corridors, engaging only a few disorganized opponents at a time. They advance into lasfire but never for long or against too many, and they take cover from heavy weapons.
W1zard seems to be conflating it drastically.
LOL you need to watch it again if that is what you think. The entire breaching scene in episode 2 was them walking into a shooting gallery with dozens of guardsmen on gantries and they just shrug off the fire and blast all of the guardsmen away. The only time a marine takes cover is when a single marine takes cover from a multilaser for a few seconds in episode 3, and that to prepare his plasma pistol to take out the emplaced position. The defenders aren't even disorganized, the entire point of that miniseries is to show that the defenders are competent and fighting how they should be fighting and they are STILL losing.
If by "dozens" you mean 17. Sure. There's a little moment pior to when the shooting begins where you see what the marines see, and it's a very countable number of heat signatures in the dark. So im this "epic" conflict you have what appears to be a combat squad of marines gunning down a loosely organized 17 cultists/renegades in the dark where the marines have the advantage of auto-senses.
So, marines vs. Cultists in the dark at roughly 3 to 1 odds. That's a far cry from 1 marine vs. 50 in broad daylight.
Your headcannon is the epitome of the meme "SSHPEESH MAHREEEENNS!!!"
Bobthehero wrote: With the way you describe and according to my personnal headcanon, they are stupid OP in that serie, big turn off.
Would you rather have them be slightly-better-than-human guardsmen wearing slightly-better-than-carapace armor?
Power armor as it currently stands has a 33% chance of saving vs an anti-tank missile. That's pretty good.
which is the same chance it has of defending vs a lasgun more or less. which highlights why we should take the entire table top system with a grain of salt
w1zard wrote: The defenders aren't even disorganized, the entire point of that miniseries is to show that the defenders are competent and fighting how they should be fighting and they are STILL losing.
And that's why it's space marine fanboy masturbation. Thankfully this idea that even a competent enemy doing everything right still loses to space marines is your headcanon, not anything produced by GW.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, it's worth remembering that when GW had the opportunity to give us a canon movie example, created under their direct control, of space marine combat what we got was single bolter shots punching straight through power armor and killing marines. Hell, the space marines even consider a frag grenade a relevant attack. Lasguns would presumably be less effective than bolters, but krak missiles/melta guns/grenade launchers/etc would be even more effective. And, as we see in the movie, charging straight into fire across open terrain would be suicide.
w1zard wrote: The defenders aren't even disorganized, the entire point of that miniseries is to show that the defenders are competent and fighting how they should be fighting and they are STILL losing.
And that's why it's space marine fanboy masturbation. Thankfully this idea that even a competent enemy doing everything right still loses to space marines is your headcanon, not anything produced by GW.
keep in mind in the real setting the space marines aren't going to be nice and limit the force they send at you on an arbitrary points level. they're going to look at what intell says is present at their target zone and bring eneugh firepower to crush said force. I suspect most marine operations would be fought under what would be seen as a BV advanage
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, it's worth remembering that when GW had the opportunity to give us a canon movie example, created under their direct control, of space marine combat what we got was
single bolter shots punching straight through power armor and killing marines.
Hell, the space marines even consider a frag grenade a relevant attack. Lasguns would presumably be less effective than bolters, but krak missiles/melta guns/grenade launchers/etc would be even more effective. And, as we see in the movie, charging straight into fire across open terrain would be suicide.
Bobthehero wrote: With the way you describe and according to my personnal headcanon, they are stupid OP in that serie, big turn off.
Would you rather have them be slightly-better-than-human guardsmen wearing slightly-better-than-carapace armor?
Power armor as it currently stands has a 33% chance of saving vs an anti-tank missile. That's pretty good.
which is the same chance it has of defending vs a lasgun more or less. which highlights why we should take the entire table top system with a grain of salt
Math?
66% chance of saving, vs 33%. Coupled with a 33% chance of wounding, as opposed to 83%.
Bobthehero wrote: With the way you describe and according to my personnal headcanon, they are stupid OP in that serie, big turn off.
Would you rather have them be slightly-better-than-human guardsmen wearing slightly-better-than-carapace armor?
Power armor as it currently stands has a 33% chance of saving vs an anti-tank missile. That's pretty good.
which is the same chance it has of defending vs a lasgun more or less. which highlights why we should take the entire table top system with a grain of salt
Math?
66% chance of saving, vs 33%. Coupled with a 33% chance of wounding, as opposed to 83%.
Insectum7 wrote: And when did space marines start running twice as fast as regular humans anyways?
And even if they did, that doesn't necessarily translate to tabletop performance as a "move" is a measured advance with controlled weapons fire.
So a human should have equal messured advance compared to a space marine who literally has computers and specially adapted organs making their job a lot easier? Not to mention about 5 times as much muscle and a powered suit helping them move?
Plus I am not sure why you dispute this. Faster and stronger is not really a debate. They have the excact same movement statstic in game and always have - it's a travesty.
Xenomancers wrote: Lets start in the most obivous places. Speed. A marine can run twice as fast as a human - yet in this game they have the exact same speed. For aspect warriors they should be even faster than that but probably not by much. Imagine if marines all moved like 10 inches and all had grenade launchers (or something similar). Not suggesting they remain at their point cost but just that they should have better cababilities. These are things that make marines worth something. These are the reason that marines actually matter to the imperium.
And imagine if all Eldar moved 20" and got to take two turns for every non-Eldar turn, fire warriors had STR 10 basic guns, orks couldn't lose unless the ork player believed that the game was lost, etc. Every faction has its claim to being unstoppable badasses, not just space marines. And you can't make every faction "like the fluff" without making everyone equal again but with more stat inflation.
Aye stat inflation is a problem. You can't honestly hold to an argument that a human should have equal speed to a space marine....
If it hits the magazine or something but that is not guaranteed. It has an even greater chance of just messing up a track or even bouncing off harmlessly.
Nothing is guaranteed in war, but it can reliably do it. The weapon wouldn't exist if it wasn't reliably capable of doing its primary function. If you shoot a krak missile and aimed correctly, you should destroy a tank. A reasonnably well trained
Likewise, it is incorrect to assume a marine getting hit by a krak missile is instantly a death 100% of the time.
Indeed it doesn't mean death a 100% of the time, but a direct hit in the torso or near the torso will always kill him. His only chance of surviving is if he got hit in the arms or legs and is lucky enough to just lose that limb that or if he was hit by a dud. A bolt round can kill a Space Marine in power armor if it hits a weak spot or if the space marine get's pummeled by enough shots. An ammunition and order of magnitude stronger will do it very easily.
The only thing that would make Space Marine logically consistent within the univers of 40K would be if htey were an order of magnitude stronger than anything else in the galaxy which they were never described as such OR if they were basically a hundred time more numerous and fighting in much larger forces.
I personnaly decided to solve this little problem by relying on Chapter Serfs. Each Space Marine Chapter has basically about 100 to 300 Serf highly trained Serfs for combat duty, equipped with elite guard equipment, special weapons and armored support drawned from their Chapter arsenal. Their job is mostly to man the ships of the Astartes, their fortress and provide ground support to the Space Marine themselves who will operate as the spearhead for the Serfs. Since the Serfs are very good soldiers, most being rejected for Space Marines transformation due to genetic incompatibility, but still being trained to high standards, they can prove to be very efficient. This means each Chapter is basically about a 1000 Space Marines plus 200 000 Serfs and armor support. That's a fairly large army that can reasonnably quell a rebellion before it spreads, fight off raids and be a reasonnably efficient first intervention force while the Imperial Guard is gathering.
w1zard wrote: The defenders aren't even disorganized, the entire point of that miniseries is to show that the defenders are competent and fighting how they should be fighting and they are STILL losing.
And that's why it's space marine fanboy masturbation. Thankfully this idea that even a competent enemy doing everything right still loses to space marines is your headcanon, not anything produced by GW.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, it's worth remembering that when GW had the opportunity to give us a canon movie example, created under their direct control, of space marine combat what we got was single bolter shots punching straight through power armor and killing marines. Hell, the space marines even consider a frag grenade a relevant attack. Lasguns would presumably be less effective than bolters, but krak missiles/melta guns/grenade launchers/etc would be even more effective. And, as we see in the movie, charging straight into fire across open terrain would be suicide.
You might notice that .75 round flying with a rocket motor is causing a lot of damage. It's no surprise really because it is a .75 armor penetrating round - basically a 20mm. A bolter is a friggen artillery piece. Represented in this game as the same strength of a catachan….joke. BTW this is a pretty terrible movie.
Bobthehero wrote: Okay, I'll give to AAA, but oin 40k and modern terms, a 20mm will do very little against a tank, likely less than a lasgun on a Marine
Nah - lasguns are basically modern Assault rifles in terms of damage. Their main advantage is they have much lighter ammunition and would be VERY accurate compared to a projectile weapon. 20mm would be devastating against a light vehical (humvie/transport vehical) and mostly infective against a medium vehical like a rhino or chimera. You put enough 20mm into armor though its gonna break through somewhere. Not suggesting that marines should be mowing down vehicles with bolters. Something like a guardsmen though should be 1 shot 1 kill 0 save though. Something like a marine will take big damage from it but a lot of shot will bounce off if it hits shoulder pad or an angled piece of armor like the sides of the leg or knee pad.
Bobthehero wrote: Okay, I'll give to AAA, but oin 40k and modern terms, a 20mm will do very little against a tank, likely less than a lasgun on a Marine
Nah - lasguns are basically modern Assault rifles in terms of damage. Their main advantage is they have much lighter ammunition and would be VERY accurate compared to a projectile weapon. 20mm would be devastating against a light vehical (humvie/transport vehical) and mostly infective against a medium vehical like a rhino or chimera. You put enough 20mm into armor though its gonna break through somewhere. Not suggesting that marines should be mowing down vehicles with bolters. Something like a guardsmen though should be 1 shot 1 kill 0 save though. Something like a marine will take big damage from it but a lot of shot will bounce off if it hits shoulder pad or an angled piece of armor like the sides of the leg or knee pad.
I have seen a 5.56 round disable a foxhound.... totally random, should not have been possible and I am no engineer but lo and behold it happened and I was shown it, one of the most random things I have ever seen.
Bobthehero wrote: Okay, I'll give to AAA, but oin 40k and modern terms, a 20mm will do very little against a tank, likely less than a lasgun on a Marine
Nah - lasguns are basically modern Assault rifles in terms of damage. Their main advantage is they have much lighter ammunition and would be VERY accurate compared to a projectile weapon. 20mm would be devastating against a light vehical (humvie/transport vehical) and mostly infective against a medium vehical like a rhino or chimera. You put enough 20mm into armor though its gonna break through somewhere. Not suggesting that marines should be mowing down vehicles with bolters. Something like a guardsmen though should be 1 shot 1 kill 0 save though. Something like a marine will take big damage from it but a lot of shot will bounce off if it hits shoulder pad or an angled piece of armor like the sides of the leg or knee pad.
I have seen a 5.56 round disable a foxhound.... totally random, should not have been possible and I am no engineer but lo and behold it happened and I was shown it, one of the most random things I have ever seen.
assuming somehow a round found it's way into the engine block?
Bobthehero wrote: Erm, I am not sure what artillery piece you're talking about, but you're wrong.
20mm cannons are artillery...That is what I am talking about. They are typically anti air weapons or anti tank rifles. Every marine has one.
No, every marine has a low-velocity 20mm grenade launcher. That is NOT the same as a 20mm cannon, which is represented in 40k by the autocannon stat line. Caliber is not the only relevant attribute for a weapon.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Xenomancers wrote: Aye stat inflation is a problem. You can't honestly hold to an argument that a human should have equal speed to a space marine....
I absolutely can. Sure, fluff-wise the marine is faster but so are Eldar. And in fact Eldar are even faster than space marines, so they need more of a buff. And Tyranids are pretty fast too. And we can't have mere running infantry being faster than jet pack Tau crisis suits, so give them a buff. And now vehicles are looking kind of slow, so we'd better buff their speed. Congratulations, now everyone but normal IG infantry is faster and positioning matters even less. And the space marine fanboys will still complain that they aren't superior enough because all of these other factions are on their level.
No, the only acceptable solution is to avoid stat inflation and just accept that space marines and regular humans are close enough in speed that the difference isn't worth representing in the tabletop rules.
Bobthehero wrote: Okay, I'll give to AAA, but oin 40k and modern terms, a 20mm will do very little against a tank, likely less than a lasgun on a Marine
Nah - lasguns are basically modern Assault rifles in terms of damage. Their main advantage is they have much lighter ammunition and would be VERY accurate compared to a projectile weapon. 20mm would be devastating against a light vehical (humvie/transport vehical) and mostly infective against a medium vehical like a rhino or chimera. You put enough 20mm into armor though its gonna break through somewhere. Not suggesting that marines should be mowing down vehicles with bolters. Something like a guardsmen though should be 1 shot 1 kill 0 save though. Something like a marine will take big damage from it but a lot of shot will bounce off if it hits shoulder pad or an angled piece of armor like the sides of the leg or knee pad.
I have seen a 5.56 round disable a foxhound.... totally random, should not have been possible and I am no engineer but lo and behold it happened and I was shown it, one of the most random things I have ever seen.
assuming somehow a round found it's way into the engine block?
it somehow went under the foxhound and up into the engine I think possibly a fuel line, I cant explain it as I am not an engineer, still a strange thing to happen.
Bobthehero wrote: Erm, I am not sure what artillery piece you're talking about, but you're wrong.
20mm cannons are artillery...That is what I am talking about. They are typically anti air weapons or anti tank rifles. Every marine has one.
No, every marine has a low-velocity 20mm grenade launcher. That is NOT the same as a 20mm cannon, which is represented in 40k by the autocannon stat line. Caliber is not the only relevant attribute for a weapon.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Xenomancers wrote: Aye stat inflation is a problem. You can't honestly hold to an argument that a human should have equal speed to a space marine....
I absolutely can. Sure, fluff-wise the marine is faster but so are Eldar. And in fact Eldar are even faster than space marines, so they need more of a buff. And Tyranids are pretty fast too. And we can't have mere running infantry being faster than jet pack Tau crisis suits, so give them a buff. And now vehicles are looking kind of slow, so we'd better buff their speed. Congratulations, now everyone but normal IG infantry is faster and positioning matters even less. And the space marine fanboys will still complain that they aren't superior enough because all of these other factions are on their level.
No, the only acceptable solution is to avoid stat inflation and just accept that space marines and regular humans are close enough in speed that the difference isn't worth representing in the tabletop rules.
Low velocity? It has a friggen rocket motor to make up for the short barrel.
Low velocity? It has a friggen rocket motor to make up for the short barrel.
It's not a supersonic round and since a bolt is still rather small, it can't propel itself very fast or very far. A bolter doesn't have more range then a standard rifle. That makes it a low velocity projectile. It probably isn't faster then a normal bullet. In fact, it might actually be slower.
Xenomancers wrote: Low velocity? It has a friggen rocket motor to make up for the short barrel.
An RPG has a rocket motor and is still a fairly low velocity weapon that relies on its explosive charge to do damage rather than kinetic energy alone like a 20mm cannon. A bolter is much more comparable to a 40mm grenade launcher than a 20mm cannon.
Low velocity? It has a friggen rocket motor to make up for the short barrel.
It's not a supersonic round and since a bolt is still rather small, it can't propel itself very fast or very far. A bolter doesn't have more range then a standard rifle. That makes it a low velocity projectile. It probably isn't faster then a normal bullet. In fact, it might actually be slower.
How could you possibly know the round is not supersonic?
Xenomancers wrote: A bolter has a casing though...so it gains initial velocity in the same way a bullet does. An RPG doesn't do that.
Sure, they aren't exactly comparable because nobody in the real world is foolish enough to make an exact bolter equivalent (real-world experiments with the concept failed badly). But the point remains that "rocket" and "high-velocity shot doing damage through kinetic impact alone" are not the same thing. A bolter is fired as a bullet, much like a 40mm grenade launcher and its low-velocity grenades, to get the shell started and deal with the otherwise-crippling issue of the rocket having a minimum effective range due to acceleration distance. But it still relies on its explosive charge and blast/shrapnel effects to deal damage, it isn't like a 20mm cannon that can cause massive damage through kinetic impact alone.
I have repeated myself three times, what part of that don't you understand?
Insectum7 wrote: Oh, ok. So you actually know that this is all your headcannon and just not consistent with the lore. Got it.
No, my headcanon is consistent with a minority of the lore that portrays marines as actually superhuman walking tanks instead of stormtroopers with slightly better armor.
Insectum7 wrote: You say it only makes sense if they're invulnerable. I say it only makes sense if they're smart and used correctly. I prefer my version. Not only because it paints a more sophisticated picture of marines, but because it's more consistent with what we know.
No, I'm not saying that marines need to be invulnerable to make sense. I'm saying marines need to be a lot stronger that what the majority of the lore portrays them as to make sense. Marines can be "smart" as you say and still be walking tanks that shrug off lasgun fire like a tank would shrug off AK rounds.
w1zard wrote: It absolutely is not if you knew you had a 99% chance of victory if you just strolled forward and gunned them down and a 1% chance of getting moderately wounded in the process. Taking cover and trading potshots in that kind of situation is an absolute waste of time.
While your reasoning is correct, you're operating on pure headcannon, as we know marines are not immune to lasfire.
Again, debatable, some OFFICIAL LORE portrays marines as ALMOST totally immune to lasfire.
Insectum7 wrote: Headcannon, headcannon, headcannon... Your headcannon is the epitome of the meme "SSHPEESH MAHREEEENNS!!!"
If marines truly are more akin to your version of "slightly better stormtroopers" instead of my version of "walking tanks with twice the speed and ten times the reflexes of a regular human", then I am forced to agree with Peregrine that marines as a concept are utterly stupid and without military significance. Totally breaks my immersion. So instead of calling my interpretation of marines "wrong" you need to look at yourself and realizing you are advocating for your own interpretation of marines that is equally "wrong" to many fans of 40k, myself included.
Peregrine wrote: I absolutely can. Sure, fluff-wise the marine is faster but so are Eldar. And in fact Eldar are even faster than space marines, so they need more of a buff. And Tyranids are pretty fast too. And we can't have mere running infantry being faster than jet pack Tau crisis suits, so give them a buff. And now vehicles are looking kind of slow, so we'd better buff their speed. Congratulations, now everyone but normal IG infantry is faster and positioning matters even less. And the space marine fanboys will still complain that they aren't superior enough because all of these other factions are on their level.
I don't think anyone is advocating that the tabletop game should be a 1:1 representation of the lore. It would be utterly imbalanced (even more than it is now) and would be a horrible game to play.
On the same note, using the tabletop rules to extrapolate what something is capable of in the lore is equally stupid.
epronovost wrote: The only thing that would make Space Marine logically consistent within the univers of 40K would be if htey were an order of magnitude stronger than anything else in the galaxy which they were never described as such OR if they were basically a hundred time more numerous and fighting in much larger forces.
ABSOLUTELY AGREED!
This is the point I was trying to make! And instead of going your route of justifying it in your head with chapter serfs, I prefer to go the route of clinging to the minority of the lore that portrays marines much stronger then they are usually portrayed, plus dismissing the majority of the lore that portrays marines dropping like guardsmen to something as mundane as lasfire and attributing that to mediocre authors who have zero sense of scale and no idea what constitutes a viable military force.
Peregrine wrote: The tabletop rules have more to do with the lore than the fanfiction you keep citing.
Right... So in the lore a flak jacket has a 33% chance of stopping a bolt round, an imperial guard officer can take a meltagun blast to the face without dying, and a leman russ battle tank takes an average of 216 lasgun shots before exploding into a fireball? Get real, the game is an abstraction, and trying to extrapolate lore from the tabletop rules is absolutely remedial.
Peregrine wrote: The tabletop rules have more to do with the lore than the fanfiction you keep citing.
Right... So in the lore a flak jacket has a 33% chance of stopping a bolt round, an imperial guard officer can take a meltagun blast to the face without dying, and a leman russ battle tank takes an average of 216 lasgun shots before exploding into a fireball? Get real, the game is an abstraction, and trying to extrapolate lore from the tabletop rules is absolutely remedial.
It's noted that your own interpretation of the lore is faulty, amounting 1 marine to 50 GEQ in an open firefight, using fan animation as a resourse, and then even getting those numbers wrong. (Citing "dozens" when there are less than 20 GEQ)
Xenomancers wrote: Low velocity? It has a friggen rocket motor to make up for the short barrel.
Just to clarify, do you mean that bolter rounds are fired like normal bullets (using an explosive charge) but then each individual bullet also has a built-in rocket motor?
Xenomancers wrote: Low velocity? It has a friggen rocket motor to make up for the short barrel.
Just to clarify, do you mean that bolter rounds are fired like normal bullets (using an explosive charge) but then each individual bullet also has a built-in rocket motor?
I always thought of marine armor as secondary to their survivability to implants. Regular human dies to anything, a single cut and bacteria can do it, bleeding, shock trauma, and so on. The marine implants give a feeling that anything but penetrating hit directly to the brain can be saved against by one of the 19 super enhancements marine has.
Xenomancers wrote: Low velocity? It has a friggen rocket motor to make up for the short barrel.
Just to clarify, do you mean that bolter rounds are fired like normal bullets (using an explosive charge) but then each individual bullet also has a built-in rocket motor?
this does seem to be the case yeah.
That seems a very odd mechanism to me, though I'll freely admit to being far from an expert when it comes to firearms.
Shadenuat wrote: I always thought of marine armor as secondary to their survivability to implants. Regular human dies to anything, a single cut and bacteria can do it, bleeding, shock trauma, and so on. The marine implants give a feeling that anything but penetrating hit directly to the brain can be saved against by one of the 19 super enhancements marine has.
True, but those implants brin their own sets of problem in terms of neuro-chemical unbalancement for example.
Insectum7 wrote: It's noted that your own interpretation of the lore is faulty, amounting 1 marine to 50 GEQ in an open firefight, using fan animation as a resourse, and then even getting those numbers wrong. (Citing "dozens" when there are less than 20 GEQ)
How is my interpretation of the lore any more "faulty" than yours? I merely stated that I think marines should be more often portrayed along the lines of the animation because that is the only way that they are anywhere close to logically consistent within the universe of 40k which is a fact, not an opinion. Like it or not, people like Peregrine have a point about your "barely better than stormtroopers" version of marines.
I'm not the one who paused a video and counted little red dots in a pedantic attempt to one-up someone in an internet argument over imaginary soldiers. Please explain to me how the marines striding through the autogun/lasgun fire of 17 soldiers rather than 24 somehow undermines my argument?
I also never claimed that the fan animation is how marines are, in fact I have made it very clear that the majority of the lore portrays them as weaker. What I am trying to argue is that how they are portrayed in that animation is the way they SHOULD be portrayed. You can agree or disagree as you want, but using the tabletop game to make a lore argument or claiming that somehow that would make them too "OP" as if such a thing exists when talking about genetically modified super-soldiers with tank armor who wield .75 caliber automatic grenade launchers as rifles is laughable.
Peregrine wrote: Key word: should. Your fanfiction is not canon no matter how much you want it to be.
Neither are the rules.
The rules are official material published by GW, and even if they aren't exactly accurate they give insight into how GW views their world. The fanfic, on the other hand, is just some random person masturbating over how powerful they wish space marines could be.
Peregrine wrote: Key word: should. Your fanfiction is not canon no matter how much you want it to be.
Neither are the rules.
The rules are official material published by GW, and even if they aren't exactly accurate they give insight into how GW views their world. The fanfic, on the other hand, is just some random person masturbating over how powerful they wish space marines could be.
The rules are official material with which to play a board game, not official material as to how their fictional universe works.
GW's made it very clear that they view their world in two distinct and separate ways, judging from how the Black Library team aren't also the rules team as well.
Xenomancers wrote: A bolter has a casing though...so it gains initial velocity in the same way a bullet does. An RPG doesn't do that.
Sure, they aren't exactly comparable because nobody in the real world is foolish enough to make an exact bolter equivalent (real-world experiments with the concept failed badly). But the point remains that "rocket" and "high-velocity shot doing damage through kinetic impact alone" are not the same thing. A bolter is fired as a bullet, much like a 40mm grenade launcher and its low-velocity grenades, to get the shell started and deal with the otherwise-crippling issue of the rocket having a minimum effective range due to acceleration distance. But it still relies on its explosive charge and blast/shrapnel effects to deal damage, it isn't like a 20mm cannon that can cause massive damage through kinetic impact alone.
To be fair we don't know the ballistics of the weapon. You seem heavily inclined to assume things about it though. We know a few things. The projectile is massive and has an attached rocket motor and it can and does penetrate power armor (which appears to be several inches thick in some places). It doesn't have to make sense. It is a fantasy setting. Having failed in concept in the real world doesn't mean in this fantasy land that rocket motors on projectiles aren't effective. Perhaps it is their to maintain velocity because the initial velocity is enough to penetrate anything it needs to.
Xenomancers wrote: Low velocity? It has a friggen rocket motor to make up for the short barrel.
Just to clarify, do you mean that bolter rounds are fired like normal bullets (using an explosive charge) but then each individual bullet also has a built-in rocket motor?
this does seem to be the case yeah.
That seems a very odd mechanism to me, though I'll freely admit to being far from an expert when it comes to firearms.
AS peregrine will point out. It is a fail concept.
For something like a bolter to work (massive projectile - small barrel) You need to carry a big explosive charge.
Insectum7 wrote: It's noted that your own interpretation of the lore is faulty, amounting 1 marine to 50 GEQ in an open firefight, using fan animation as a resourse, and then even getting those numbers wrong. (Citing "dozens" when there are less than 20 GEQ)
How is my interpretation of the lore any more "faulty" than yours?
Because my interpretation of the lore is more consistent with the entire body of the lore. I'm not going down some rabbit-hole of picking my lore and then further misinterpreting it, I'm trying to keep it consistent with as much of the established lore as possible.
I merely stated that I think marines should be more often portrayed along the lines of the animation because that is the only way that they are anywhere close to logically consistent within the universe of 40k which is a fact, not an opinion. Like it or not, people like Peregrine have a point about your "barely better than stormtroopers" version of marines.
You interpret that animation far differently than I interpret that animation. And if you like that animation you can also like my interpretation of marines. The marines are moving fast and engaging only a few hostiles at a time, scattering defenses and retaining momentum. They're not "Ramboing" anything. The largest group they encounter is the first one which barely has time to get into position, and the Marines are not even outnumbered 4-1.
You however, are looking for scenarios of 30-1 or even 50-1 with some heavy weapons, and saying that the marine will kill 30 guardsmen in under 10 seconds. It's off the deep end interpretation/fantasy-fulfillment.
I'm not the one who paused a video and counted little red dots in a pedantic attempt to one-up someone in an internet argument over imaginary soldiers. Please explain to me how the marines striding through the autogun/lasgun fire of 17 soldiers rather than 24 somehow undermines my argument?
You're attempting to downplay the argument quite a bit for someone who's prone to posting in all caps.
As above, you've been trying to make an argument for marines fighting an open battle at numbers of 20-1 and greater ratios, but your own source that you say "portrays them how they should be" isn't even close to that.
I'd like to see if you can post some actual lore that starts to come close to your 50-1 ratios.
I'm trying to show how marines can be "worth 1000" normal troops, while keeping faith to the lore and game mechanics. And while lore =/= game mechanics, there is still a relationship between them that should be respected.
Peregrine wrote: Key word: should. Your fanfiction is not canon no matter how much you want it to be.
Neither are the rules.
The rules are official material published by GW, and even if they aren't exactly accurate they give insight into how GW views their world. The fanfic, on the other hand, is just some random person masturbating over how powerful they wish space marines could be.
The rules are official material with which to play a board game, not official material as to how their fictional universe works.
GW's made it very clear that they view their world in two distinct and separate ways, judging from how the Black Library team aren't also the rules team as well.
Black Library aren't the sole producer of the lore of 40K. Codex and campaign books do hold an enormous amount of information about the background and there is no solid wall between the lore and the rules in the codexes. The lore is supposed to represent or illustrate the rules. That's why we can reasonnably say that lascannon are more powerful anti-tank weapons then autocannons or rocket launchers or that Space Marines are roughly equivalent to a plethora of other units in a variety of domain.
If marines truly are more akin to your version of "slightly better stormtroopers" instead of my version of "walking tanks with twice the speed and ten times the reflexes of a regular human", then I am forced to agree with Peregrine that marines as a concept are utterly stupid and without military significance. Totally breaks my immersion. So instead of calling my interpretation of marines "wrong" you need to look at yourself and realizing you are advocating for your own interpretation of marines that is equally "wrong" to many fans of 40k, myself included.
If you're willfully misinterpreting the lore, then you are wrong, regardless of how it "breaks your immersion". All you have to do is redefine for yourself what gives a marine his worth. All they have to do is offer something of unique strategic value and that's the sort of thing that might win a war. The lore says they're great at boarding actions. Then to win a war against ground forces they simply board the orbital defenses, then turn the weapons against the ground units below. Done deal, now they have orbital superiority and can annihilate forces many times their size at will.
Say it takes only 20 marines to do the job of taking control of the defense station, but it would take 2000 Guardsmen to do the same task. That makes the marines each worth 100 normal troopers without necessitating a single marine having a 50/50 chance at winning a stand up shootout with 100 guardsmen. See what I'm saying?
Likewise, if a unit of ten marines can fight for days on end without losing effectiveness and engaging the opponent piecemeal, 10 marines might themselves kill 1000 GEQ types, they just do it over an extended period of time, rather than all at once, Rambo-style.
Marines work best when you turn the logical part of your mind off. I mean Boltguns are guns that fire rocket propelled armor penatrating explosive tipped rounds (just for the record I think we over play the explosive aspect of them with our auto grenade launcher comparisons, given bolters lack any AOE effect it's clear the explosive charge isn't that big) their primaris Melee weapon is a "chain saw sword" ignoring the practicalities of the weapons, they're certainly cool. understanding space marins is easy.
step 1: find a ten year old 40k fan. step 2: give him lots and lots and lots of sugar. step 3: ask him what makes space marines awesome. Step 4: turn your brain off and take his answers as workable.
Automatically Appended Next Post: keep in mind when people make space marine to guardsmen comparisons it's based on the assumption that the most common foe for space marines are PDFs that have been declared triator
epronovost wrote:Black Library aren't the sole producer of the lore of 40K. Codex and campaign books do hold an enormous amount of information about the background and there is no solid wall between the lore and the rules in the codexes.
Yes there is. It's called "datasheets" and "everything else that isn't a datasheet".
Yes, Codexes do have some fluff, but that fluff isn't held in the datasheets. My apologies for not being accurate enough when I implied that Codexes had no fluff impact, what I meant was "the datasheets have no fluff impact".
If it's on a datasheet, it's an abstraction. If it's not, then it's lore.
The lore is supposed to represent or illustrate the rules.
Alternatively, the rules are supposed to abstractly represent the lore.
That's why we can reasonnably say that lascannon are more powerful anti-tank weapons then autocannons or rocket launchers or that Space Marines are roughly equivalent to a plethora of other units in a variety of domain.
Yes, "roughly" being the operative word. It's not perfect however, as you have Marines dying every 1/3 shots that wounds them, a wound that occurs BEFORE it even pierces their armour.
The rules are an abstraction. The fluff is, generally, more accurate to the discussions in the 40k "Background" forum, seeing as it's explicitly background, and the rules for the game are not.
BrianDavion wrote:Marines work best when you turn the logical part of your mind off.
I'd argue 40k in general works best when you turn the logical part of your mind off.
Ignore all you know about modern science, physics, chemistry, biology, all of that, and purely work on what exists and happens in the universe.
Sure, you get some wacky inconsistencies, but I personally think that's preferable than bringing up things like the square-cube law, or how much damage a Space Marine could "really" take, or how small some conflicts are. Ignore the logic of our world, and embrace the unlogic of 40k.
epronovost wrote:Black Library aren't the sole producer of the lore of 40K. Codex and campaign books do hold an enormous amount of information about the background and there is no solid wall between the lore and the rules in the codexes.
Yes there is. It's called "datasheets" and "everything else that isn't a datasheet".
Yes, Codexes do have some fluff, but that fluff isn't held in the datasheets. My apologies for not being accurate enough when I implied that Codexes had no fluff impact, what I meant was "the datasheets have no fluff impact".
If it's on a datasheet, it's an abstraction. If it's not, then it's lore.
Can you cite a GW source for this policy, or is it just your own personal preferences? Datasheet rules may be an abstraction of the fluff but where is GW's statement that they are not relevant sources?
I'd argue 40k in general works best when you turn the logical part of your mind off.
Ignore all you know about modern science, physics, chemistry, biology, all of that, and purely work on what exists and happens in the universe.
Sure, you get some wacky inconsistencies, but I personally think that's preferable than bringing up things like the square-cube law, or how much damage a Space Marine could "really" take, or how small some conflicts are. Ignore the logic of our world, and embrace the unlogic of 40k.
If you're supposed to ignore logic then how do you have any kind of discussion at all? After all, it's only real-world logic that tells us that getting shot in the head is usually fatal, how do you know it works the same way in 40k? How do you know that gravity still pulls in the conventional direction? Etc. What you're asking for isn't to turn off logic entirely, it's to handwave away all of the inconsistencies and absurdities with your favorite faction.
epronovost wrote:Black Library aren't the sole producer of the lore of 40K. Codex and campaign books do hold an enormous amount of information about the background and there is no solid wall between the lore and the rules in the codexes.
Yes there is. It's called "datasheets" and "everything else that isn't a datasheet".
Yes, Codexes do have some fluff, but that fluff isn't held in the datasheets. My apologies for not being accurate enough when I implied that Codexes had no fluff impact, what I meant was "the datasheets have no fluff impact".
If it's on a datasheet, it's an abstraction. If it's not, then it's lore.
Can you cite a GW source for this policy, or is it just your own personal preferences? Datasheet rules may be an abstraction of the fluff but where is GW's statement that they are not relevant sources?
I'd argue 40k in general works best when you turn the logical part of your mind off.
Ignore all you know about modern science, physics, chemistry, biology, all of that, and purely work on what exists and happens in the universe.
Sure, you get some wacky inconsistencies, but I personally think that's preferable than bringing up things like the square-cube law, or how much damage a Space Marine could "really" take, or how small some conflicts are. Ignore the logic of our world, and embrace the unlogic of 40k.
If you're supposed to ignore logic then how do you have any kind of discussion at all? After all, it's only real-world logic that tells us that getting shot in the head is usually fatal, how do you know it works the same way in 40k? How do you know that gravity still pulls in the conventional direction? Etc. What you're asking for isn't to turn off logic entirely, it's to handwave away all of the inconsistencies and absurdities with your favorite faction.
no it's about accepting the premise given without questioning it too deeply.
such as not noting that the super corosive spit space marines can have should logicly play havok with their teeth thus rendering all space marines into toothless wonders.
just as a random example. the fluff says 1000 man space marine chapters work, so.. they work.
Peregrine wrote: If it's on a datasheet, it's an abstraction. If it's not, then it's lore.
Can you cite a GW source for this policy, or is it just your own personal preferences? Datasheet rules may be an abstraction of the fluff but where is GW's statement that they are not relevant sources?
I'd say common sense, but okay: can you cite a source from GW that says the rules for their game is treated in the same way as their Black Library and fluff publications?
If you're supposed to ignore logic then how do you have any kind of discussion at all? After all, it's only real-world logic that tells us that getting shot in the head is usually fatal, how do you know it works the same way in 40k? How do you know that gravity still pulls in the conventional direction? Etc. What you're asking for isn't to turn off logic entirely, it's to handwave away all of the inconsistencies and absurdities with your favorite faction.
Notice you ignored what I wrote.
I didn't say ignore "all" logic. I said ignore all real world logic, and use only facts and data shown in the 40k universe.
From that, we can see that being shot in the head is more fatal than being shot in other places, but that people can also walk off some headshots in certain circumstances. We can see that gravity, to one extent or another, does function on human-sized objects as we know IRL, but actually DOESN'T pull with the same force on things like Titans.
I'm not doing this just so XYZ faction looks better or less inconsistent - I'm doing so the actual world of 40k itself becomes more consistent with itself, as a fantasy universe, and isn't hamstrung by people saying "but what about thermodynamics", or "what about the square-cube law", or "why don't they just use exterminatus/bombs/artillery".
40k isn't devoid of logic. It's devoid of OUR logic.
Shy of the custodes. Marines are biggest force mutipler they posses.
A small force of marines can break a seige, end camapigns with a single strike. A s small number but used right they can change far beyond there number.
Also there prescense alone in a campaign can turely change thr guards strengh and morale.
Yes. There a million, or maybe higher given primias founding but those million or 2 can have a impact far beyond it.
There comandor can live 1500years, legends of mankind. Comandor beyond equal and turn bmvast camapigns with there skill.
40k isn't devoid of logic. It's devoid of OUR logic.
"40K logic" isn't consistent, thus it's not a univers with different sets of rule. One of the biggest example is the fact that Space Marines are supposed to be the elite of the elite, the spear tip of the Imperium capable of cracking the enemy at its strongest point, yet Space Marines aren't better then the best warriors of the enemy and sometimes are downright inferior while being significantly rarer then them. You can't appeal to the logic of a univers when the univers in question isn't consistent with its own premise.
40k lore states marines matter because they turn the tide of battle often. Through utter combat superiority. They aren't infallible but they are one of the best forces under imperial control. To state otherwise is to undermine the lore with your own unsupported narrative. If you wish to make claims like undermining the lore with real world logic like "that wouldn't work" you have 2 options.
You can ether use logic to make sense of the fluff (AKA describing what their capabilities must be if they are to make a difference on a battlefield with millions of combatants and number in the dozens). They must be powerful. Stronger by factors of 10. Faster by factors of 3. As durable as light tanks. Immune to fear.
Or you can state the fluff is just legend. The marines turn the tide of battle merely through acts of great bravery and sacrifice. Whatever you chose to do I don't care. This is a fantasy world though. The space marines are the protagonists. I'll never truly understand people who are interested in settings where they don't like the heros of the story. Then again - I really don't like the space wolves much so take that as you take it.
Because you can appreciate the rest of the universe and the story, without particularly liking the protagonists. And in the case of 40k there's at lesat some boosk where SM's are barely present, allowing people who don't care about them to still enjoy the universe without having to deal with their existence.
40k isn't devoid of logic. It's devoid of OUR logic.
"40K logic" isn't consistent, thus it's not a univers with different sets of rule. One of the biggest example is the fact that Space Marines are supposed to be the elite of the elite, the spear tip of the Imperium capable of cracking the enemy at its strongest point, yet Space Marines aren't better then the best warriors of the enemy and sometimes are downright inferior while being significantly rarer then them. You can't appeal to the logic of a univers when the univers in question isn't consistent with its own premise.
That isn't inconsistent. You have to strike a balance between power and numbers and Marines do that. They're better than almost all the enemies they'll fight that aren't part of a situation so rare it shouldn't be counted as part of the planning.
They could mass produce Custodes instead of Marines but then instead of having several wasted applicants per successful Marine you'd have thousands.
40k isn't devoid of logic. It's devoid of OUR logic.
"40K logic" isn't consistent, thus it's not a univers with different sets of rule. One of the biggest example is the fact that Space Marines are supposed to be the elite of the elite, the spear tip of the Imperium capable of cracking the enemy at its strongest point, yet Space Marines aren't better then the best warriors of the enemy and sometimes are downright inferior while being significantly rarer then them.
And in other cases, they're absolutely better than the enemy's best.
Sure, there's some canon conflict, which I'm not denying. What my point is, we would all be better off ONLY using logic derived from the actual lore of the game. That may conflict with itself (which is why we discuss it, in order to root out what is more likely to mesh with the wider 40k canon), but it's better than trying to argue real world physics which seem to have absolutely no bearing on 40k, and would be pointless bringing up in a discussion of 40k lore.
You can't appeal to the logic of a univers when the univers in question isn't consistent with its own premise.
No, but you can make discussing things easier in that universe by ONLY using logic derived from that fantasy universe.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bobthehero wrote: Because you can appreciate the rest of the universe and the story, without particularly liking the protagonists. And in the case of 40k there's at lesat some boosk where SM's are barely present, allowing people who don't care about them to still enjoy the universe without having to deal with their existence.
No-one's saying you can't do that, but ignoring certain lore about them? Is that really necessary?
That isn't inconsistent. You have to strike a balance between power and numbers and Marines do that. They're better than almost all the enemies they'll fight that aren't part of a situation so rare it shouldn't be counted as part of the planning.
Actually every single faction outside of the Imperium (and even then, Custodians are superior while Sisters of Battle and Scions aren't that outclassed by them) has infantry units that are either superior or equivalent to Space Marines in terms of quality. Furthermore, each of these individual infantry units outnumber Space Marines who are, by far, the least numerous faction in the 40K univers with the exception of Custodes and maybe assassins. This makes the entire premise of Space Marines inconsistent. They can't be the elite of the elite; the game changer for the Imperium if they aren't better then their equivalent in other factions all the while being much less numerous then each and every single one of them.
That isn't inconsistent. You have to strike a balance between power and numbers and Marines do that. They're better than almost all the enemies they'll fight that aren't part of a situation so rare it shouldn't be counted as part of the planning.
Actually every single faction outside of the Imperium (and even then, Custodians are superior while Sisters of Battle and Scions aren't that outclassed by them) has infantry units that are either superior or equivalent to Space Marines in terms of quality. Furthermore, each of these individual infantry units outnumber Space Marines who are, by far, the least numerous faction in the 40K univers with the exception of Custodes and maybe assassins. This makes the entire premise of Space Marines inconsistent. They can't be the elite of the elite; the game changer for the Imperium if they aren't better then their equivalent in other factions all the while being much less numerous then each and every single one of them.
You want to give examples of things that are both more numerous and better?
Scions are pretty significantly outclassed by Marines...
That isn't inconsistent. You have to strike a balance between power and numbers and Marines do that. They're better than almost all the enemies they'll fight that aren't part of a situation so rare it shouldn't be counted as part of the planning.
Actually every single faction outside of the Imperium (and even then, Custodians are superior while Sisters of Battle and Scions aren't that outclassed by them) has infantry units that are either superior or equivalent to Space Marines in terms of quality. Furthermore, each of these individual infantry units outnumber Space Marines who are, by far, the least numerous faction in the 40K univers with the exception of Custodes and maybe assassins. This makes the entire premise of Space Marines inconsistent. They can't be the elite of the elite; the game changer for the Imperium if they aren't better then their equivalent in other factions all the while being much less numerous then each and every single one of them.
While sisters are famed yes.
Theres one impact to remember. The citizens of many worlds view them as the very will of thr emparor manifest, his avaneging angels.
There not marines, there the emparors wrath made manifest.
Thr pgycolocial impact to both allies and enemies is hyge. Yes by out logic this is insane. But to the regular citizens this is true.
The sisters also are famed, not thr same but equally the prescense of hospitler order, militant is both loved and feared. They to the citizens are the emapors vengeance and protection.
Logic does not always matter. Its what people belive.
You want to give examples of things that are both more numerous and better?
Crisis Battlesuits, Tyranid Warriors, Lychguard, Castellan Robots (they are supposed to be rare, but I think it's safe to assume there are more then a million of them in the entire galaxy), Triarch Praetorians, Meganobz (or other really well equiped nobz), Grotesque, Harlequins, Immortals (definitely more numerous, might actually more or less equal though, but they are certainly more endurant and have more firepower)
Scions are pretty significantly outclassed by Marines...
Their most recent fluff suggest that while outclassed the strength ratio is something like 3:1 in favor of Marines which is big, but not massive.
You want to give examples of things that are both more numerous and better?
Crisis Battlesuits, Tyranid Warriors, Lychguard, Castellan Robots (they are supposed to be rare, but I think it's safe to assume there are more then a million of them in the entire galaxy), Triarch Praetorians, Meganobz (or other really well equiped nobz), Grotesque, Harlequins, Immortals (definitely more numerous, might actually more or less equal though, but they are certainly more endurant and have more firepower)
Scions are pretty significantly outclassed by Marines...
Their most recent fluff suggest that while outclassed the strength ratio is something like 3:1 in favor of Marines which is big, but not massive.
Harlequins are in no way more numerous than Marines are. Kastellans are stopped by just sniping the controller, Praetorians seem pretty rare as they're the personal servants of the Necrontyrs rulers, Battlesuits aren't more numerous than Marines either, Meganobz aren't that common compared to normal Orks as they're basically the Orks occupying the steps just below a Warboss, Grotesques aren't really better than Marines seeing as they just run at things with cleavers and rely on being big, Tyranid Warriors being seem about equal and are almost never going to solo'd by a Marine force and Immortals don't seem significantly better to me.
Harlequins are in no way more numerous than Marines are.
There is said to be at least a Craftworld equivalent (the Black Library) worth of them. That's probably close to a few billions.
Kastellans are stopped by just sniping the controller
which is a lot easier said then done, when those controllers are hiding right behind the Kastellans and are heavily armored themselves. Plus it doesn't completely stops them, they simply maintain their last instruction which might be something like "kill the Space Marines".
Praetorians seem pretty rare as they're the personal servants of the Necrontyrs rulers
Indeed, but since they are his personnal army and the Necron themselves are numbered in trillions, there are certainly millions if not billions of them in the galaxy.
Battlesuits aren't more numerous than Marines either
A hell of a lot more actually. The Tau have around a hundred world each with tens of billions of inhabitant of which about a quarter are Fire Cast. Even if one in a hundred Tau soldier is a battlesuit pilot (which seems reasonable) that could means over a billion Battlesuits of various design.
Meganobz aren't that common compared to normal Orks as they're basically the Orks occupying the steps just below a Warboss
There is probably more Ork Warboss then Space Marines. Orks occupy almost has many worlds (if not more) as the Imperium itself. There is at minimum one Warboss per planet. The number of Ork Meganobz is probably in the tens of billions simply because of that fact. There is probably about 5-10 meganobz (or really beefy nobz) per warboss afterall.
Grotesques aren't really better than Marines seeing as they just run at things with cleavers and rely on being big
Big enough to snap a Space Marine like a twig and regenerate from horrendous wounds.
Tyranid Warriors being seem about equal and are almost never going to solo'd by a Marine force
If you brush aside the fact that Tyranid warriors are bigger, faster, more heavily armed then the average Space Marines as well as being uterly fearless and still tacticaly very sound, they are indeed fairly equal (the only advantage of Space Marine over them is armor).
and Immortals don't seem significantly better to me.
Immortals are definitely more dangerous in a ranged engagement since they are more resistent and more heavily armed, but worse in melee since they are slower and dumber. That's why I call the contest between those two fairly even, up until the point you consider numbers.
These are all infantry units of various faction that are stronger and more numerous then Space Marines, but let's be really generous. Let's say those who are a little bit stronger are actually equal and those who are clearly stronger less numerous. Now, let's combine their number and show that Space Marines are drowned by infantry better or at least as good as them (in the equal or better, but less numerous, list you could add Aspect Warriors, Incubi, Chaos Space Marines, Raveners which makes their number even more drowned). The worst part is, other infantry aren't quite as good as they are, but still dangerous to them like lesser equipped nobz, genestealer, wytches, stealth suit Tau, etc.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: I'd say common sense, but okay: can you cite a source from GW that says the rules for their game is treated in the same way as their Black Library and fluff publications?
That's not how this works. You're the one claiming that this hierarchy of sources exists and the rules are intended to be ignored in trying to understand the fluff, you have the burden of proof and need to provide something to back up your claims. You don't get to make a claim about GW's policies and then demand that I prove you wrong.
From that, we can see that being shot in the head is more fatal than being shot in other places, but that people can also walk off some headshots in certain circumstances.
Really? How do we know any of that based only on 40k logic? How do we know that being shot in the head is fatal, and the people being shot in the head aren't simultaneously experiencing a psychic event that kills them when the bullet would have only given them a minor headache? Don't you dare use real-world ideas about causality or simplest explanations or anything like that, because you said we have to ignore real-world logic.
Harlequins travel in very small bands. They don't gather in one place. On two occasions a Craftworld has been attacked and there were very few Harlequins there. They will not outnumber Space Marines unless they're somehow attacking the Black Library.
Kastellans can walk into a chasm so they don't seem like the smartest things and if you can have your Scouts snipe a Farseer you can snipe a tech priest. But it's a moot point because they're on the same side as Marines.
But again they won't be in one place. Orks are the second most or most numerous race in the galaxy but lose all the time. Because they're spread out.
Again Battlesuits are the elites so against Space Marines there's going to be similar amounts at best except for massive fights which Marines don't do alone.
You can be as big as you like but when the Marines have blown your legs to pieces with exploding can sized rockets nobody cares.
Similar sized, to my knowledge they have similar speed and in most fights the Marines will also have defenders advantage and a lot of disposables/Guardsmen to help against Tyranids.
Call that a tie then.
The issue is you're taking all the Marines against all of X in a vacuum. That's not how it works. It's generally going to be a Company (about 100 Marines + officers and armoured support and a supporting space ship) vs the standard of the enemy like a Hunter Cadre.
In larger fights there are much more factors to think about like who has what allies and what position. All these things add up and Marines end up being worthwhile.
pm713 wrote: Battlesuits aren't more numerous than Marines either
Lolwut. Uh, no, this is not true at all. A standard Tau cadre, a formation roughly equivalent to an IG company (or a 2000 point game) in size, has ~10 crisis suits included. That's the equivalent of every single IG company having an attached tactical squad, a feat that would require orders of magnitude more space marines than the million we know exist. Crisis suits vastly outnumber space marines as a proportion of the faction's total forces, and almost certainly outnumber space marines in total numbers. So if {insert absurdly tiny number here} space marines can magically conquer a planet, and we're obligated to ignore all possible flaws in this theory and accept it without question, then the Tau have an even greater ability to conquer planets with tiny forces and we should see the Tau effortlessly expanding their empire.
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pm713 wrote: The issue is you're taking all the Marines against all of X in a vacuum. That's not how it works. It's generally going to be a Company (about 100 Marines + officers and armoured support and a supporting space ship) vs the standard of the enemy like a Hunter Cadre.
Ah yes, more space marine fanboy handwaving where we assume that space marines magically get to dictate the terms of every engagement and bring superior forces because space marines can never fail. They of course never do something like attempting a drop pod assault into a Tau AA network, lose 90% of their pods before they even hit the ground, and have the few survivors gunned down by dozens of cadres converging on their position.
every single mention of you saying "Marines don't fight them alone" can be countered by the similar X unit won't fight Space Marine alone. Space Marines don't all fight in one place. in fact, it's a rare thing for them to deploy at Chapter strength on any given battle. They usually operate in battlegroups or Company. Sometime, just a few squads like a half-company. You seem to be building a shroedinger Marine that are both dispersed and concentrated in tens of thousand strong armies at the same time. Of course there are few Nobz compared to boyz, but there are well enough of them to outnumber Space Marines on any given battlefield by an order of magnitude. If Space Marine are a speartip, then other units, sometime much better then them and more numerous on the galactic scale will do the same job. Space Marine can't counter them efficiently. Space Marines are even beaten at their own game by some of them.
/serious
The day T'au will discover Kung Fu and fit power swords on their battlesuits in addition to all the weapons, Space Marines are dead in the water.
Tau are really powerful but they can't match the imperium for battle fleets. You don't compare crisis suits to space marines anyways. You compare them to dreads or storm talons or something.
Xenomancers wrote: Tau are really powerful but they can't match the imperium for battle fleets. You don't compare crisis suits to space marines anyways. You compare them to dreads or storm talons or something.
Why not? Crisis suits fill a similar elite infantry role, while dreads/aircraft/etc have much closer equivalents in Tau tanks and aircraft. The only reason not to make the comparison is because it makes space marines look bad.
pm713 wrote: Battlesuits aren't more numerous than Marines either
Lolwut. Uh, no, this is not true at all. A standard Tau cadre, a formation roughly equivalent to an IG company (or a 2000 point game) in size, has ~10 crisis suits included. That's the equivalent of every single IG company having an attached tactical squad, a feat that would require orders of magnitude more space marines than the million we know exist. Crisis suits vastly outnumber space marines as a proportion of the faction's total forces, and almost certainly outnumber space marines in total numbers. So if {insert absurdly tiny number here} space marines can magically conquer a planet, and we're obligated to ignore all possible flaws in this theory and accept it without question, then the Tau have an even greater ability to conquer planets with tiny forces and we should see the Tau effortlessly expanding their empire.
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pm713 wrote: The issue is you're taking all the Marines against all of X in a vacuum. That's not how it works. It's generally going to be a Company (about 100 Marines + officers and armoured support and a supporting space ship) vs the standard of the enemy like a Hunter Cadre.
Ah yes, more space marine fanboy handwaving where we assume that space marines magically get to dictate the terms of every engagement and bring superior forces because space marines can never fail. They of course never do something like attempting a drop pod assault into a Tau AA network, lose 90% of their pods before they even hit the ground, and have the few survivors gunned down by dozens of cadres converging on their position.
Ah yes my rabid fanboying. You can really see the bias here.....
So basically it takes 10 cadres to be in one place to match the Marines number. In other words in most engagements Marines will have the numbers advantage because surprisingly the army that does almost solely drop pod assaults, ambushes and similar attacks can dictate when to attack.
Okay Peregrine if you want to ignore the lore for your own fan universe that's fine. Genuinely fine, I do it with Necrons but you can't bring it up as an argument for the lore. The Tau aren't going to destroy 90% of a Drop Pod assault, they take minutes at most and are canonically hard to target so they do make it to the ground most of the time. So what will normally happen is that a cadre will find their base/isolated element/recent victim of bombardment is being attacked by 100 Marines and in the time it takes for the other cadres that aren't there to mobilise the Marines will be in the thick of it, leaving or already gone.
Although, TBH, comparing crisis suits to dreads and attack aircraft makes space marines look pretty bad as well. What does it say that a common heavy infantry unit, fielded in large numbers and easily replaced, is comparable to a priceless relic vehicle carrying one of the chapter's greatest fallen heroes.
every single mention of you saying "Marines don't fight them alone" can be countered by the similar X unit won't fight Space Marine alone. Space Marines don't all fight in one place. in fact, it's a rare thing for them to deploy at Chapter strength on any given battle. They usually operate in battlegroups or Company. Sometime, just a few squads like a half-company. You seem to be building a shroedinger Marine that are both dispersed and concentrated in tens of thousand strong armies at the same time. Of course there are few Nobz compared to boyz, but there are well enough of them to outnumber Space Marines on any given battlefield by an order of magnitude. If Space Marine are a speartip, then other units, sometime much better then them and more numerous on the galactic scale will do the same job. Space Marine can't counter them efficiently. Space Marines are even beaten at their own game by some of them.
/serious
The day T'au will discover Kung Fu and fit power swords on their battlesuits in addition to all the weapons, Space Marines are dead in the water.
/joke
Most Marine fights are going to be Company level and such but if they're fighting a Tyranid Swarm, mass Necron uprising or a massive WAAAGGH where they lose their number/skill advantage they won't be stupidly charging alone at things, they'll join an Imperial Guard army, harass the enemy or something similar.
I'm thinking of an army that will only attack when there's appropriate forces around. I'm aware that sometimes that won't be the case and in those cases things will go poorly but they can dictate the terms of their fight enough of the time that that makes them better than their enemy.
For example the Nobz, there might be more Nobz than Marines in a single fight but Marines can use bombardments, snipers, ambushes and such in most of their engagements to deal with them in advance and when they can't they can deal with the overall army with increased damage that Marines heal from because they are insanely durable overall.
pm713 wrote: So basically it takes 10 cadres to be in one place to match the Marines number.
No, it takes 10 cadres to overwhelm the marines with both quality and quantity and mercilessly gun them down.
In other words in most engagements Marines will have the numbers advantage because surprisingly the army that does almost solely drop pod assaults, ambushes and similar attacks can dictate when to attack.
So yes, apparently you are going to just handwave it and declare that space marines magically get to dictate the terms of engagement, have perfect intelligence on their targets, and never find their drop pod assault/ambush/etc counter-ambushed by a prepared enemy.
The Tau aren't going to destroy 90% of a Drop Pod assault, they take minutes at most and are canonically hard to target so they do make it to the ground most of the time.
{citation needed}
We could shoot down incoming ICBMs with direct contact hits using 1950s SAMs, and demonstrated that capability in live-fire testing. I find it extremely hard to believe that a much larger and slower drop pod is an impossible target for a faction with technology way beyond what we have 60+ years later. The reputation drop pods have as being "impossible to shoot down" is entirely the result of them being used against much less sophisticated enemies armed with WWII-era manually aimed AA guns. But the Tau are not that enemy.
So what will normally happen is that a cadre will find their base/isolated element/recent victim of bombardment is being attacked by 100 Marines and in the time it takes for the other cadres that aren't there to mobilise the Marines will be in the thick of it, leaving or already gone.
Because, again, we're just going to handwave away the possibility of the space marines being wrong and dropping against an "isolated element" that is actually a strong target ready to deliver a fatal counter-attack. It must be so easy to win when your side magically only has to fight the weakest possible targets. But that just raises the question of why space marines exist at all, if they're only used to overwhelm the weakest targets that can't fight back effectively?
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pm713 wrote: For example the Nobz, there might be more Nobz than Marines in a single fight but Marines can use bombardments, snipers, ambushes and such in most of their engagements to deal with them in advance and when they can't they can deal with the overall army with increased damage that Marines heal from because they are insanely durable overall.
But why don't the nobz get to use bombardments, snipers (the orks with BS 4+), ambushes, etc? Why are the space marines allowed to use all of their tools while their enemies are magically limited to standing there passively waiting to be killed by the glorious space marine heroes?
Xenomancers wrote: Tau are really powerful but they can't match the imperium for battle fleets. You don't compare crisis suits to space marines anyways. You compare them to dreads or storm talons or something.
I would compare dreads to Ghost Keel who are of similar size or Riptides if you go for the bigger, badder dreads. As for Storm Talon, Tau have their own aircrafts too.
pm713 wrote: So basically it takes 10 cadres to be in one place to match the Marines number.
No, it takes 10 cadres to overwhelm the marines with both quality and quantity and mercilessly gun them down.
In other words in most engagements Marines will have the numbers advantage because surprisingly the army that does almost solely drop pod assaults, ambushes and similar attacks can dictate when to attack.
So yes, apparently you are going to just handwave it and declare that space marines magically get to dictate the terms of engagement, have perfect intelligence on their targets, and never find their drop pod assault/ambush/etc counter-ambushed by a prepared enemy.
The Tau aren't going to destroy 90% of a Drop Pod assault, they take minutes at most and are canonically hard to target so they do make it to the ground most of the time.
{citation needed}
We could shoot down incoming ICBMs with direct contact hits using 1950s SAMs, and demonstrated that capability in live-fire testing. I find it extremely hard to believe that a much larger and slower drop pod is an impossible target for a faction with technology way beyond what we have 60+ years later. The reputation drop pods have as being "impossible to shoot down" is entirely the result of them being used against much less sophisticated enemies armed with WWII-era manually aimed AA guns. But the Tau are not that enemy.
So what will normally happen is that a cadre will find their base/isolated element/recent victim of bombardment is being attacked by 100 Marines and in the time it takes for the other cadres that aren't there to mobilise the Marines will be in the thick of it, leaving or already gone.
Because, again, we're just going to handwave away the possibility of the space marines being wrong and dropping against an "isolated element" that is actually a strong target ready to deliver a fatal counter-attack. It must be so easy to win when your side magically only has to fight the weakest possible targets. But that just raises the question of why space marines exist at all, if they're only used to overwhelm the weakest targets that can't fight back effectively?
You understand the term MOST right?
"The ultimate weapon of terror and surprise, when a Drop Pod lands directly in the midst of an enemy line or formation and its occupants disembark and start wreaking havoc, there is little escape for the foe. Drop Pods are fired with colossal acceleration from an orbiting Strike Cruiser or Battle Barge, after which it screams through a planet's atmosphere with oversized rocket thrusters boosting it even further beyond terminal velocity; even the most advanced air defence systems have difficulty locking on to a Drop Pod travelling at up to 12,000 kilometres per hour."
Kay. Nice real world stuff there. I'm talking about 40k which is not the real world. Or is there a bunch of emotion demons messing the universe up right now?
Glass houses Peregrine. Why are the enemy always in position to counter attack things? The Guard would be great at Drop Pods, they could traumatise the enemy with pods of mashed human. Or they can use their frail little bodies to die everywhere!
That isn't inconsistent. You have to strike a balance between power and numbers and Marines do that. They're better than almost all the enemies they'll fight that aren't part of a situation so rare it shouldn't be counted as part of the planning.
Actually every single faction outside of the Imperium (and even then, Custodians are superior while Sisters of Battle and Scions aren't that outclassed by them) has infantry units that are either superior or equivalent to Space Marines in terms of quality. Furthermore, each of these individual infantry units outnumber Space Marines who are, by far, the least numerous faction in the 40K univers with the exception of Custodes and maybe assassins. This makes the entire premise of Space Marines inconsistent. They can't be the elite of the elite; the game changer for the Imperium if they aren't better then their equivalent in other factions all the while being much less numerous then each and every single one of them.
Actually no, that's not the logical way to size things up at all. It may not matter if the other factions have large groups of individual soldiers equivalent or better than space marines. The use of those soldiers is what matters, not their individual capabilities.
Most Marine fights are going to be Company level and such but if they're fighting a Tyranid Swarm, mass Necron uprising or a massive WAAAGGH where they lose their number/skill advantage they won't be stupidly charging alone at things, they'll join an Imperial Guard army, harass the enemy or something similar.
Precisely, they will count on the Imperial Guard to do the heavy lifting. Lock the enemy in combat, evaluate their forces, distract their best assets, destroy their anti-air and rapid deployment artillery to finally allow the Space Marine to launch their assault and deliver le coup de grâce. The meme of the Imperial Guarddoing all the fighting and Space Marines getting all the glory just became real. At best, Marines can claim to have saved the lives of some Imperial Guardsmen by ending an alredy pretty much won battle quicker. The Imperium supreme assets is its gigantic armies of fanatical guardsmen lead by competant officers and ferried by an equally large navy.
I'm thinking of an army that will only attack when there's appropriate forces around. I'm aware that sometimes that won't be the case and in those cases things will go poorly but they can dictate the terms of their fight enough of the time that that makes them better than their enemy.
For example the Nobz, there might be more Nobz than Marines in a single fight but Marines can use bombardments, snipers, ambushes and such in most of their engagements to deal with them in advance and when they can't they can deal with the overall army with increased damage that Marines heal from because they are insanely durable overall.
This is true enough for Orks who aren't particularly savvy when it comes to strategy, especially when compared to Marines who are supposed to be awesome (except the crazy ones and the "too stubborn" oneswho are basically "one trick poney" Chapters). Yet, Eldars don't only have warriors more numerous and similarly deadly as Space Marines, they are also just as tactically astute if not even more. Tau have also proven to be a fair match to Space Marines when it comes to tactics. Chaos Space Marines are bit more savage, but certainly not much less astute. Tyranids have proven that their best Hive Tyrant can surpass the very best Chapter Master in the domain of strategy so did the Necrons. In fact, the Space Marines are almost uterly dependant on the Imperial Guard and the local PDF to dictate the flow of the battle since they are the one's doing the dirty work and Space Marines can't directly take command of those troops to avoid all this heresy thing. At best they can advise and request.
@Insectum7
Space Marines are used in a wide variety of ways, but are mostly known as some sort of shock troopers. Nobz are either low level commanders, shock troopers or bodyguards. The same goes for Tyranid Warriors and Triarch Praetorian. Aspect Warriors, Incubi, Bloodbrides and Harlequins are used pretty much just like them. Crisis Battlesuits are either bodyguards or shock troopers. The use of these units seems fairly similar in my opinion. Hell, the Tyranids even have their own "drop pods" and can completely copycat the Space Marine most iconic strategy except with better and more numerous troops.
Actually no, that's not the logical way to size things up at all. It may not matter if the other factions have large groups of individual soldiers equivalent or better than space marines. The use of those soldiers is what matters, not their individual capabilities.
imo, it does matter, because space marines don't have exclusive rights to tactics.
The Tau, for example, have more crisis suits than the imperium has space marines, and each crisis suit has the mobility of assault marines and more firepower than a devastator marine. And while these suits are typically incorporated into infantry cadres, they can also form battlesuit-only cadres which can then be used exactly like drop-pod marines: drop in, secure objective then leave. This essentially means that for every target the marines hit, the Tau can hit 10+ with just their suits and redeploy them faster, while still supporting their frontline troops with other battlesuits.
pm713 wrote: Kay. Nice real world stuff there. I'm talking about 40k which is not the real world. Or is there a bunch of emotion demons messing the universe up right now?
I see, so we're back to complaining about "real world" when it makes marines look good but arguing based on real world understanding when that's the option that benefits space marines.
Glass houses Peregrine. Why are the enemy always in position to counter attack things?
I never said they were, only that space marines aren't always perfect.
Crisis Suits are the terminators of the Tau, the elite of the elite and relatively rare compared to the main force.
Also lets not forget the Taros campaign and the Damocles book (IIRC) even when the Tau had the upper hand, ambushed the marines from a prepared position with overwhelming firepower the Tau took a massive beating every single time or still lost, the thing here I think some of you are still not getting is the sheer power of marines, there is nothing else like them in the setting, some equal them in speed, some strength and others speed and tactics but none have the whole package.
Tau are good with the tech, the speed and the tactics, but they are just "human" they fear, they run and they panic and a marine is a terrifying foe to them, they respect the power and skill of marines and do not underestimate them like other races do.
JNAProductions wrote: But what about the Imperium and Space Marines allows them to be used better?
Well, that get's pretty ephemeral. But it could just be that they are used better, for whatever reason. Possibly because of their focus, possibly their experience, their independence, their ritualistic training regimen. It would be hard to say, but it is a possibility.
Again this could go back to the "strategy rating" concept of an older edition, where Space Marines had a higher strategy rating simply to represent their superior strategic initiative. They just know what they're doing because it's all that they do, it's all they were created for, and every bit of their fleet is 100% devoted to it.
And there are "shock troops" for every faction with various abities, sure. But there are shock troops, and there are shock troops. And Space Marines might just be on the extreme high end of that spectrum.
This would be not unlike previous versions of ATSKNF. Every faction had their super disciplined troops, etc. But Space Marines were far and away the most disciplined, and had a special rule to represent it.
Formosa wrote: Crisis Suits are the terminators of the Tau, the elite of the elite and relatively rare compared to the main force.
Not really. Crisis suits are common, a cadre (roughly equivalent to a 1500-2000 point game) is led by a commander and bodyguards and will have 1-3 squads of crisis suits, plus stealth suits and/or the heavier types. They're much more comparable to IG special weapon squads: not the bulk troops of a force, but still common and part of standard formations.
Also lets not forget the Taros campaign and the Damocles book (IIRC) even when the Tau had the upper hand, ambushed the marines from a prepared position with overwhelming firepower the Tau took a massive beating every single time or still lost
You recall incorrectly. The initial Taros attack is a very good example of what I'm talking about with intelligence failures. The space marines dropped in to do their usual "assassinate the planetary governor, end the rebellion" thing, found that the planetary governor had already been moved elsewhere and Tau forces were closing in, and suffered heavy losses before they could call for evacuation gunships and escape.
JNAProductions wrote: But what about the Imperium and Space Marines allows them to be used better?
Well, that get's pretty ephemeral. But it could just be that they are used better, for whatever reason. Possibly because of their focus, possibly their experience, their independence, their ritualistic training regimen. It would be hard to say, but it is a possibility.
Again this could go back to the "strategy rating" concept of an older edition, where Space Marines had a higher strategy rating simply to represent their superior strategic initiative. They just know what they're doing because it's all that they do, it's all they were created for, and every bit of their fleet is 100% devoted to it.
And there are "shock troops" for every faction with various abities, sure. But there are shock troops, and there are shock troops. And Space Marines might just be on the extreme high end of that spectrum.
I bolded the bit that describes Orks to a T.
And you're basically shrugging your shoulders and saying "They're better because," without offering any real explanation.
Not really. Crisis suits are common, a cadre (roughly equivalent to a 1500-2000 point game) is led by a commander and bodyguards and will have 1-3 squads of crisis suits, plus stealth suits and/or the heavier types. They're much more comparable to IG special weapon squads: not the bulk troops of a force, but still common and part of standard formations.
yes really Peregrine and as usual you know this but want to argue the point, they have always been represented as the elite of the elite they are the taus terminators, and again compared to the main force 20-30 crisis suits is RARE compared to the thousands of firewarriors, so rare compared to the main force, this is no different from the plasma gun nonsense from earlier, rare for the tau but common enough to be in most cadres (excepting for loses)
You recall incorrectly. The initial Taros attack is a very good example of what I'm talking about with intelligence failures. The space marines dropped in to do their usual "assassinate the planetary governor, end the rebellion" thing, found that the planetary governor had already been moved elsewhere and Tau forces were closing in, and suffered heavy losses before they could call for evacuation gunships and escape.
No I recalled correctly you are just purposefully ignoring what happened even after they were ambushed, several days of constant fighting with the tau taking heavy loses, they ambushed the marines, had a superior force with superior firepower and still lost a very large portion of their force, it was a failed ambush by any measure. Had the governor been there would have achieved their goal and that battle demonstrates the tau would not have been able to do a damn thing about it, it was not as cut and dry as you claim.
So for every 100 Fire Warriors there's a Crisis suit, more or less?
As compared to an excess of 1,000,000,000,000 Guardsmen and a mere 1,000,000 Marines.
I would say thats probably about right, Taros campaign had 100 hunter Cadres and if its consistent with the old description that is around 600 crisis suits including all command suits and bodyguards assuming that they are all present (which we know they were not), so for every 100 cadres we can "assume" that up to 600 suits "may" be present, but that is by no means as concrete as looking at a chapters make up which is very well documented.
Formosa wrote: yes really Peregrine and as usual you know this but want to argue the point, they have always been represented as the elite of the elite they are the taus terminators, and again compared to the main force 20-30 crisis suits is RARE compared to the thousands of firewarriors, so rare compared to the main force, this is no different from the plasma gun nonsense from earlier, rare for the tau but common enough to be in most cadres (excepting for loses)
Err, no. A cadre is ~100 Tau, of which ~10 are crisis suits and probably another ~5-10 are other classes of battlesuits. That's a rarity level on par with IG special weapon squads, where a ~50 man platoon would have ~6-18 guardsmen forming special weapon squads. IOW, they are not rare at all.
No I recalled correctly you are just purposefully ignoring what happened even after they were ambushed, several days of constant fighting with the tau taking heavy loses, they ambushed the marines, had a superior force with superior firepower and still lost a very large portion of their force, it was a failed ambush by any measure. Had the governor been there would have achieved their goal and that battle demonstrates the tau would not have been able to do a damn thing about it, it was not as cut and dry as you claim.
This is 100% wrong. The Tau took losses among their standard troops. The Avenging Sons took over 60% losses (including a priceless dreadnought) in a debacle that is explicitly stated to be a "costly defeat for the Imperium", the sort of defeat that is often described as taking years/decades to recover from. And sure, if the governor had been in the palace when the initial attack hit he would have been killed. But the same effect could have been accomplished with a single lance shot from orbit, and even successfully killing the governor would have had negligible value as long as the Tau forces on Taros were intact. By that point the governor's position was entirely a symbolic one and the Tau had all of the real power.
comparing Kastellians to space Marines is stupidty, utter stupidity, yes Kastellians are insanely powerful forces, but they lack any capacity for independant thought. one could NOT replace space marines with Kastelian robots.
JNAProductions wrote: But what about the Imperium and Space Marines allows them to be used better?
Well, that get's pretty ephemeral. But it could just be that they are used better, for whatever reason. Possibly because of their focus, possibly their experience, their independence, their ritualistic training regimen. It would be hard to say, but it is a possibility.
Again this could go back to the "strategy rating" concept of an older edition, where Space Marines had a higher strategy rating simply to represent their superior strategic initiative. They just know what they're doing because it's all that they do, it's all they were created for, and every bit of their fleet is 100% devoted to it.
And there are "shock troops" for every faction with various abities, sure. But there are shock troops, and there are shock troops. And Space Marines might just be on the extreme high end of that spectrum.
I bolded the bit that describes Orks to a T.
And you're basically shrugging your shoulders and saying "They're better because," without offering any real explanation.
It doesn't need an explanation beyond "they're better at it". You can fill it in if it's not provided. I can look back at my books later and see if there's an explicit reason for Space Marines having a strategy rating of 5 and Orks having a strategy rating of 2 or 3.
It's like asking why is the Warlord Titan consistently more effective than a Gargant, even though they are both "heavy battle titans". Onr is just better for some in-universe reason or another.
BrianDavion wrote: comparing Kastellians to space Marines is stupidty, utter stupidity, yes Kastellians are insanely powerful forces, but they lack any capacity for independant thought. one could NOT replace space marines with Kastelian robots.
Depending on the engagement, they might be much more valuable then Space Marines, but are indeed limited. If you are in a pitch battle or if you are assaulting a fortress of some sort, Kastelan are much more efficient "pound for pound" then Space Marines. If you need a quick reserve and scouting force, they are completely pointless.
Though when we describe the massive force that is the imperial guard how much of that portion are we considering to be conscripts? You hear them being described in the codex here and there but now that I think of it I can only remember conscripts being used in novels once or twice, when fighting against overwhelming threats like tyranids.
The chaos version, cultists and slaves get used much more often as I recall.
It doesn't matter how many conscripts you throw at a marine I doubt they'd do all that much.
BrianDavion wrote: comparing Kastellians to space Marines is stupidty, utter stupidity, yes Kastellians are insanely powerful forces, but they lack any capacity for independant thought. one could NOT replace space marines with Kastelian robots.
Depending on the engagement, they might be much more valuable then Space Marines, but are indeed limited. If you are in a pitch battle or if you are assaulting a fortress of some sort, Kastelan are much more efficient "pound for pound" then Space Marines. If you need a quick reserve and scouting force, they are completely pointless.
they also lack flexability and adaptability. Space Marines can swiftly adapt if the mission demands and context change, Kastellan robots can not. To use a situation that might sounds familer, imagine an enviroment where you deploy units to defend a world from Ork marauders, during the course of the mission you discover a important artifact on the world that had been there for reasons, and that the Ork invasion is being used as a cover for chaos forces to attempt to sieze this artifact. suddenly the new priority objective is to prevent this dangerous artifact from falling into the wrong hands. Kastellians obviously wou;dn't be able to react swiftly and desively to massively changing battlefield conditions the way marines can. they're a fantastic unit as a backstop in a battleline but as a flexable adaptive force? no
Commander Farsight was able to recreate the codex astartes from his observations of the space marines he fought against during his conquests of imperial space in the Damocles Crusade (the mirrorcodex). By doing so he was able to accurately predict how any codex-adherent chapter would react to battlefield situations and counter them with incredible efficiency.
Also, from Lexicanum on the Damocles Crusade:
The third wedge were made up of Space Marines from the Ultramarines, Iron Hands, and Scythes of the Emperor chapters, who found themselves bogged down by the Tau's own elite shock troops: Crisis Battlesuits. All three fronts in the Imperial advance now found themselves stalled in the woods of Gel'bryn.
The Tau were capable of deploying enough Crisis Suits to halt the advance of detachments from 3 space marine chapters.
In all there were 5 companies of Space Marines involved in the Damocles Crusade. They failed to defeat the Tau who had never fought the Space Marines before (ideal circumstances for shock troops), their chances of beating Tau who now have experience with their tactics are even smaller.
Err, no. A cadre is ~100 Tau, of which ~10 are crisis suits and probably another ~5-10 are other classes of battlesuits. That's a rarity level on par with IG special weapon squads, where a ~50 man platoon would have ~6-18 guardsmen forming special weapon squads. IOW, they are not rare at all.
Do you think I just pull this stuff out of my bum, there are 6 crisis battlesuits per hunter cadre unless this has been changed, the forces on Taros were "(defenders)
Tau Fire Caste Army: 100 Hunter Cadres, 8,000-9,000 Fire Warriors,", so 100 hunter Cadres and around 600 battlesuits, thats rare.
This is 100% wrong. The Tau took losses among their standard troops. The Avenging Sons took over 60% losses (including a priceless dreadnought) in a debacle that is explicitly stated to be a "costly defeat for the Imperium", the sort of defeat that is often described as taking years/decades to recover from. And sure, if the governor had been in the palace when the initial attack hit he would have been killed. But the same effect could have been accomplished with a single lance shot from orbit, and even successfully killing the governor would have had negligible value as long as the Tau forces on Taros were intact. By that point the governor's position was entirely a symbolic one and the Tau had all of the real power.
"the First Taros Intervention had been a heavy reverse for the Imperium. The Tau had inflicted serious damage on the Avenging Sons in two days of intense combat. The damage inflicted on the aliens was unknown, but must also have been significant. There had been many confirmed kills and the battlefield was littered with wrecks of Tau grav-tanks and Battlesuits."
So they ambushed the marines, had superior firepower and number and STILL took "significant" casualties, they had all the cards in their hand and still got smashed, as for the rest of your comment, well it just shows a fundamental lack of understanding of why space marines are used and the setting, sure, we get you irrationally hate space marines and from previous posts you seem to hate 40k too, so I am now joining other people and asking, why are you even here if you hate it so much? and no "cos I want to give my opinion" is not a good excuse if it aggravates you so much.
Galas wrote: Space Marines matter as much as the Writter wants them to matter.
In some cases 10 space marines are enough to destroy a full invasion as others have pointed out, Avenger-style. They do all the good thing and destroy the big bad boys that like Dune are inmune to all kind of damage because they have super-special anti deathstrike missile shields that can be penetrated by knives.
In another 100 marines die to a couple of missiles.
Still the best answer in the whole thread. And probably the most accurate.
It's amazing to me that the fluff bunnies aren't more outraged that marines struggle to out-damage guardsmen and are basement dwellers for tournament win rate. That's not even balance for the sake of a game. That's just taking a big old crap on every conceivable lore source.
It's amazing to me that the fluff bunnies aren't more outraged that marines struggle to out-damage guardsmen and are basement dwellers for tournament win rate. That's not even balance for the sake of a game. That's just taking a big old crap on every conceivable lore source.
I see a few variables going into that, but the most important thing to me is armies represented on the tabletop. I see GEQs on the tabletop all the time now, whereas I may have seen Guardsmen in particular only once or twice in the preceeding decade.
Imo seeing GEQs on the table is a good thing overall, and I'm willing to take a bit of a hit lore-wise for good looking armies on the table.
Formosa wrote: Do you think I just pull this stuff out of my bum, there are 6 crisis battlesuits per hunter cadre unless this has been changed, the forces on Taros were "(defenders)
Tau Fire Caste Army: 100 Hunter Cadres, 8,000-9,000 Fire Warriors,", so 100 hunter Cadres and around 600 battlesuits, thats rare.
Seriously? You're really going to nitpick this? I say that a cadre has ~10 crisis suits, the example has 6 and a pair of broadsides. That's 8 battlesuits, so ~10 is a reasonable approximation. Meanwhile other example cadres have more crisis suits than that very old example image. For example, the 8th edition codex on page 31 has an example cadre with the commander + bodyguards and four squads of crisis suits. The example cadre on page 74 has 10 crisis suits plus two broadsides, a riptide, and six stealth suits, next to only a token 12-man squad of infantry. Crisis suits are not rare.
Plus, even by your own example image it's an absurd argument to make. There are only three piranhas vs. six crisis suits, so if crisis suits are rare then piranhas are even rarer. There's only one hammerhead, so hammerheads are extremely rare. In fact, by your argument anything that isn't basic fire warriors counts as "rare" because it's not the most common unit in the cadre. And when everything is "rare" the term becomes meaningless.
"the First Taros Intervention had been a heavy reverse for the Imperium. The Tau had inflicted serious damage on the Avenging Sons in two days of intense combat. The damage inflicted on the aliens was unknown, but must also have been significant. There had been many confirmed kills and the battlefield was littered with wrecks of Tau grav-tanks and Battlesuits."
Nice of you to ignore the statement right after that, that the first attack on Taros was a "costly defeat for the Imperium". Trying to spin this into some kind of victory for the space marines is utter nonsense.
why are you even here if you hate it so much?
Because, as people keep telling you, space marines are not the entire setting.
Is Taros even strictly canonical now? Being Imperial Armour, it may not be - nor ever have been?
Plus, we've seen the Tau race develop over time, as they've come to terms with what it takes to compete in the wider Galaxy.
Taros, if memory serves, was quite early on - hence the first recorded appearance of their Titan killing flier.
It makes sense that their military doctrine has since shifted somewhat, to include more Suits. Not only are they necessary, but likely easier to make as the Spheres expand, and more resources are harvested?
Seriously? You're really going to nitpick this? I say that a cadre has ~10 crisis suits, the example has 6 and a pair of broadsides. That's 8 battlesuits, so ~10 is a reasonable approximation. Meanwhile other example cadres have more crisis suits than that very old example image. For example, the 8th edition codex on page 31 has an example cadre with the commander + bodyguards and four squads of crisis suits. The example cadre on page 74 has 10 crisis suits plus two broadsides, a riptide, and six stealth suits, next to only a token 12-man squad of infantry. Crisis suits are not rare
Your the one nitpicking as usual but I will reiterate the point to get through your dense skull, crisis suits are rare RELATIVELY TO THE MAIN FORCE
"and relatively rare compared to the main force. "
"again compared to the main force 20-30 crisis suits is RARE compared to the thousands of firewarriors"
Plus, even by your own example image it's an absurd argument to make. There are only three piranhas vs. six crisis suits, so if crisis suits are rare then piranhas are even rarer. There's only one hammerhead, so hammerheads are extremely rare. In fact, by your argument anything that isn't basic fire warriors counts as "rare" because it's not the most common unit in the cadre. And when everything is "rare" the term becomes meaningless.
It is a hunter cadre, 100 of these were on Taros, this is canon, anything else you add on is just headcanon with the caveat that "unless it has changed", I really do doubt your ability to comprehend what you are reading.
Nice of you to ignore the statement right after that, that the first attack on Taros was a "costly defeat for the Imperium". Trying to spin this into some kind of victory for the space marines is utter nonsense.
you mean like you ignored this
" Tau had the upper hand, ambushed the marines from a prepared position with overwhelming firepower the Tau took a massive beating"
and this
"after they were ambushed, several days of constant fighting with the tau taking heavy loses, they ambushed the marines, had a superior force with superior firepower and still lost a very large portion of their force, it was a failed ambush by any measure"
and this
"ambushed the marines, had superior firepower and number and STILL took "significant" casualties, they had all the cards in their hand and still got smashed"
No where did I say the marines won, again comprehension failure on your behalf... as usual, but again to hammer the point into that stubborn brain of yours, they were Ambushedoutgunnedoutnumberedhad no heavy supportAND STILL MAULED THE TAU
Because, as people keep telling you, space marines are not the entire setting.
Aaaaaaaannnnnd another comprehension failure for you, wow... you are not doing well here are you Pererine, I NEVER said they were.
I really should take my own advice and never engage with peregrine, its always a waste of time.
I just read through the battle of Taros, well at least the part where the Marines and Tau scare off. It seems that both forces were relatively tiny. The Space Marines had a battle group composed mostly of their entire 2nd company two squads of Terminators and a few dreadnaughts fighting within the same palace complex. The Tau had a Hunter Cadre, which, while bigger, isn't overwhelmingly bigger. Maybe a few hundred Tau at most.
During the description of the battle, there is a clear mention of Tau being overwhelmingly favored during ranged engagement while the Space Marines had an easy time in close combat which was possible thanks to the fact they were holding a fortified position were close combat became a necessity. That's what caused most of the casualties amongst the Tau. Furthermore, Crisis Suits are described as comparable to Terminators with a slight advantage to the later (4 casualties vs 3 in their engagement), one of the only time casualties are mentionned in anything else then purely descriptive terms. The end description mentions that the battlefield was littered with Tau grav tanks and battlesuits, yet only two hammerhead were present and destroyed and only five battlesuit (one XV88 and four XV8 were destroyed in the engagement) the littering is thus not due to the number of deaths, but the very small size of the battlefield. All in all, only a few hundred people died during that battle at most. Neither force engaged were numbered in the 1000's. The Space Marines weren't ambushed, caught by surprise, yes, since they didn't expected the enemy to receive this kind of reinforcement, but did had the time to take defensive postions within a fortified building to avoid being obliterated.
I just read through the battle of Taros, well at least the part where the Marines and Tau scare off. It seems that both forces were relatively tiny. The Space Marines had a battle group composed mostly of their entire 2nd company two squads of Terminators and a few dreadnaughts fighting within the same palace complex. The Tau had a Hunter Cadre, which, while bigger, isn't overwhelmingly bigger. Maybe a few hundred Tau at most.
During the description of the battle, there is a clear mention of Tau being overwhelmingly favored during ranged engagement while the Space Marines had an easy time in close combat which was possible thanks to the fact they were holding a fortified position were close combat became a necessity. That's what caused most of the casualties amongst the Tau. Furthermore, Crisis Suits are described as comparable to Terminators with a slight advantage to the later (4 casulaty vs 3 in their engagement), one of the only time casualties are mentionned in anything else then purely descriptive terms. The end description mentions that the battlefield was littered with Tau grav tanks and battlesuits, yet only two hammerhead were present and destroyed and only five battlesuit (one XV88 and four XV8 were destroyed in the engagement) the littering is thus not due to the number of deaths, but the small size of the battlefield. All in all, only a few hundred people died during that battle at most. Neither force engaged were numbered in the 1000's.
I never said there were thousands on each side, my point was and still is in spite of having the drop on the marines the tau got mauled, in spite of having larger numbers the tau got mauled, in spite of superior firepower and planning the tau got mauled, the tau know how dangerous and effective marines are and respect them as an enemy and do not underestimate them. as for the casualties, a lot happened "off camera" that we are not told about, with only the key points described, the end of the battle had the Tau casualties at significant and the marines having to escape or be destroyed, now to you or I that means that the Marines put up a damn good fight, used the terrain to their advantage and still lost, to Peregrine that means that marines are useless and lost, no nuance, just black or white.
Marines are not perfect, that would be boring, this battle is one of the more realistic battles involving marines because they adapted to a very bad situation that would have seen any other force destroyed and any of them surviving is a testament to the true power of space marines.
Formosa wrote: I never said there were thousands on each side, my point was and still is in spite of having the drop on the marines the tau got mauled, in spite of having larger numbers the tau got mauled, in spite of superior firepower and planning the tau got mauled, the tau know how dangerous and effective marines are and respect them as an enemy and do not underestimate them. as for the casualties, a lot happened "off camera" that we are not told about, with only the key points described, the end of the battle had the Tau casualties at significant and the marines having to escape or be destroyed, now to you or I that means that the Marines put up a damn good fight, used the terrain to their advantage and still lost, to Peregrine that means that marines are useless and lost, no nuance, just black or white.
Marines are not perfect, that would be boring, this battle is one of the more realistic battles involving marines because they adapted to a very bad situation that would have seen any other force destroyed and any of them surviving is a testament to the true power of space marines.
During an engagment, Space Marines are a force to reckonned with, I don't think anybody here is trying to make the argument that Space Marines are bad at their job. They are great at it The argument is that there are so little of them and they are, let's face it, not am overwhelmingly dominating presence. in this story a single Tau Hunter Cadre could match a Space Marine Company. Both troops are less then a 1000. There are only a million Space marine in the Imperium while Tau easily have tens of millions of Hunter Cadre. Each Space Marine isn't a titan and all other armies have troops that can either match them or surpass them well in excess to the Marines numbers, making them rather pointless in the grand scheme of things. They basically matter as much as 20 Navy SEALS matter in the entire US military. Are the 20 SEALS bad? Absolutely not, they are some of the best soldiers in the world. These 20 can do great things, but in a total war where all the US military would be used at its maximum capacity, those 20 SEALS represent a ridiculously tiny amount of that power. Their death wouldn't change anything or so very little.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Commander Farsight was able to recreate the codex astartes from his observations of the space marines he fought against during his conquests of imperial space in the Damocles Crusade (the mirrorcodex). By doing so he was able to accurately predict how any codex-adherent chapter would react to battlefield situations and counter them with incredible efficiency.
.
just as an aside I hate fluff like this because it doesn't make much sense. if the codex was a paint by numbers tactics guide the Ultramarines (whom are noted to be strict adherants) would have been destroyed during the 1st Tyranid war. there's clearly room for improvisation.
I just read through the battle of Taros, well at least the part where the Marines and Tau scare off. It seems that both forces were relatively tiny. The Space Marines had a battle group composed mostly of their entire 2nd company two squads of Terminators and a few dreadnaughts fighting within the same palace complex. The Tau had a Hunter Cadre, which, while bigger, isn't overwhelmingly bigger. Maybe a few hundred Tau at most.
During the description of the battle, there is a clear mention of Tau being overwhelmingly favored during ranged engagement while the Space Marines had an easy time in close combat which was possible thanks to the fact they were holding a fortified position were close combat became a necessity. That's what caused most of the casualties amongst the Tau. Furthermore, Crisis Suits are described as comparable to Terminators with a slight advantage to the later (4 casulaty vs 3 in their engagement), one of the only time casualties are mentionned in anything else then purely descriptive terms. The end description mentions that the battlefield was littered with Tau grav tanks and battlesuits, yet only two hammerhead were present and destroyed and only five battlesuit (one XV88 and four XV8 were destroyed in the engagement) the littering is thus not due to the number of deaths, but the small size of the battlefield. All in all, only a few hundred people died during that battle at most. Neither force engaged were numbered in the 1000's.
I never said there were thousands on each side, my point was and still is in spite of having the drop on the marines the tau got mauled, in spite of having larger numbers the tau got mauled, in spite of superior firepower and planning the tau got mauled, the tau know how dangerous and effective marines are and respect them as an enemy and do not underestimate them. as for the casualties, a lot happened "off camera" that we are not told about, with only the key points described, the end of the battle had the Tau casualties at significant and the marines having to escape or be destroyed, now to you or I that means that the Marines put up a damn good fight, used the terrain to their advantage and still lost, to Peregrine that means that marines are useless and lost, no nuance, just black or white.
Marines are not perfect, that would be boring, this battle is one of the more realistic battles involving marines because they adapted to a very bad situation that would have seen any other force destroyed and any of them surviving is a testament to the true power of space marines.
So....... admech can change their canticles. IG can change orders. Even drukhari get more buff as the fight goes on. Marines have zero adaptation rules. The more i hear about the fluff the more confused and annoyed i get.
Formosa wrote: I never said there were thousands on each side, my point was and still is in spite of having the drop on the marines the tau got mauled, in spite of having larger numbers the tau got mauled, in spite of superior firepower and planning the tau got mauled, the tau know how dangerous and effective marines are and respect them as an enemy and do not underestimate them. as for the casualties, a lot happened "off camera" that we are not told about, with only the key points described, the end of the battle had the Tau casualties at significant and the marines having to escape or be destroyed, now to you or I that means that the Marines put up a damn good fight, used the terrain to their advantage and still lost, to Peregrine that means that marines are useless and lost, no nuance, just black or white.
Marines are not perfect, that would be boring, this battle is one of the more realistic battles involving marines because they adapted to a very bad situation that would have seen any other force destroyed and any of them surviving is a testament to the true power of space marines.
During an engagment, Space Marines are a force to reckonned with, I don't think anybody here is trying to make the argument that Space Marines are bad at their job. They are great at it The argument is that there are so little of them and they are, let's face it, not am overwhelmingly dominating presence. in this story a single Tau Hunter Cadre could match a Space Marine Company. Both troops are less then a 1000. There are only a million Space marine in the Imperium while Tau easily have tens of millions of Hunter Cadre. Each Space Marine isn't a titan and all other armies have troops that can either match them or surpass them well in excess to the Marines numbers, making them rather pointless in the grand scheme of things. They basically matter as much as 20 Navy SEALS matter in the entire US military. Are the 20 SEALS bad? Absolutely not, they are some of the best soldiers in the world. These 20 can do great things, but in a total war where all the US military would be used at its maximum capacity, those 20 SEALS represent a ridiculously tiny amount of that power. Their death wouldn't change anything or so very little.
it was not a single hunter cadre that we know of and more than likely it was mutiples given the size of the area they were trying to contain the marines inside, it was an imperial govenors palace and these are fortified positions most of the time (#notall), a single hunter cadre would not be able to cover that amount of ground.
As for real world spec ops, allegedly the bravo two zero SAS team had nearly 1200 kills, I am dubious of this though as such things are notoriously hard to confirm, anyway, assuming its true and the SKUDS they destroyed (IIRC) these 8 men swung things quite heavily during that conflict and potentially saved thousands of lives, the whole thing is surrounded in so much hype and myth though its hard to find exact facts. we have many examples in history of soldier fighting overwhelming odds and coming though, small groups swinging whole engagements and even wars, its relatively rare but it does happen, this is the acheotype that marines are built upon and dialled up to sometimes stupid levels (brotherhood of the snake).
Now if we are going down the rabit hole of "but real life" then you have to clarify two important points.
Are we assuming that all the rules in the 40k universe apply to ours
Are we assuming that marines perform in real life exactly as they do in the fluff
Because if those two things are true then we literally have nothing that compares to them and from our real world perspective simply cannot understand how effective they are, a good example of this is anyone who has never been to war, sure you have read about it, but you have no idea what its really like and cannot understand it no matter how hard you try.
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So....... admech can change their canticles. IG can change orders. Even drukhari get more buff as the fight goes on. Marines have zero adaptation rules. The more i hear about the fluff the more confused and annoyed i get.[
Fluff does not equal rules and yes its stupid they have nothing (bar combat squads) to represent their adaptability.
Formosa wrote: it was not a single hunter cadre that we know of and more than likely it was mutiples given the size of the area they were trying to contain the marines inside, it was an imperial govenors palace and these are fortified positions most of the time (#notall), a single hunter cadre would not be able to cover that amount of ground.
An entire Hunter Cadre was bearing down on the Space Marines, moving at speed to reinforce the Governor's Palace.
That's the exact quote from the book in question when they described the entire force attacking the palace. Note that a 100 Space Marines were holding that ground, a few hundred Tau were thus more then enough to assault it. The fortress in question probably wasn't all that big all things considered since Taros was a scarcely populated mining colony. There was around 12 million people on the entire planet. At the height of the battle for Taros, there were a 100 Hunter Cadre active on the planet (numbering around 8 to 9 thousand fire warriors), about 5000 kroots and 10K traitorous PDF against the entire Imperial forces composed of over 12 Imperial Guard regiments, two company of stormtrooper, 4 Space Marine Companies and five titans.
As for real world spec ops, allegedly the bravo two zero SAS team had nearly 1200 kills, I am dubious of this though as such things are notoriously hard to confirm, anyway, assuming its true and the SKUDS they destroyed (IIRC) these 8 men swung things quite heavily during that conflict and potentially saved thousands of lives, the whole thing is surrounded in so much hype and myth though its hard to find exact facts. we have many examples in history of soldier fighting overwhelming odds and coming though, small groups swinging whole engagements and even wars, its relatively rare but it does happen, this is the acheotype that marines are built upon and dialled up to sometimes stupid levels (brotherhood of the snake).
Now if we are going down the rabit hole of "but real life" then you have to clarify two important points.
Are we assuming that all the rules in the 40k universe apply to ours
Are we assuming that marines perform in real life exactly as they do in the fluff
Because if those two things are true then we literally have nothing that compares to them and from our real world perspective simply cannot understand how effective they are, a good example of this is anyone who has never been to war, sure you have read about it, but you have no idea what its really like and cannot understand it no matter how hard you try.
Down the rabbit hole indeed, now, we are to assume that, even though, Space Marines aren't numerous or powerful enough to be relevent in the grand scheme of things according to the fluff of 40K, they are essential nonetheless. two things can be considered. One, the fluff of GW is so grossly incompetently written that any sort of discussion about it is nearly pointless or two one or several premise of the fluff are false. Here's a good one, what if Space Marines were numered in billions? It's been mentionned several times in the fluff that the Imperium is so large and its bureaucracy so ponderous that the High Lords of Terra are basically operating with ridiculously outdated and false information. Here's an hypothesis, the 1000 Chapter number comes from the first and last survey of Space Marine Chapters right after the Heresy was over and the Codex was approved. Since then hundreds of Chapters have been founded and others destroyed.
"Fluff does not equal rules and yes its stupid they have nothing (bar combat squads) to represent their adaptability."
You can say that, but my point was that other factions DO have something to simulate this adaptation. They consciously left it out for marines. Why is it the rules can at least get kind of close for these other factions? Look at how many special tricks Drukhari can stack up.
So for marines fluff does not equal rules, but for other factions it does?
The rules greately favours those in the weaker background scale of power.
In the lore when Dark Eldar raid a Imperial Guard outpost they had to slow the recordings just to be able to see what was happening. The same happens with Craftworld Eldars or Harlequins.
Titans and creatures like Greater Demons are incredible nerfed compared with how they are portrayed in the lore (Unless they are fighting another giant monster and/or the protagonist of the novel at hand)
Etc, etc...
But theres something I always find curious. The most fierce anti-"Marine are very superpowerfull soldiers" players are always Imperial Guard players. And I don't put in that camp of people that just don't think Marines are the Gods of War many people believe they are, but in the "Space Marines are irrelevant for the scale of 40k and they shoudln't exist because you could have 100 imperial guard basilisk doing the job" kind of people.
I assume is some kind of victim complex? They feel Space Marines have an undeserving amount of time on the spotlight but unlike Tyranids, Necrons or Orks players that have accepted their place as the NPCs, they feel that because they are humans they should be much more relevant?
Galas wrote: The rules greately favours those in the weaker background scale of power.
In the lore when Dark Eldar raid a Imperial Guard outpost they had to slow the recordings just to be able to see what was happening. The same happens with Craftworld Eldars or Harlequins.
Titans and creatures like Greater Demons are incredible nerfed compared with how they are portrayed in the lore (Unless they are fighting another giant monster and/or the protagonist of the novel at hand)
Etc, etc...
But theres something I always find curious. The most fierce anti-"Marine are very superpowerfull soldiers" players are always Imperial Guard players. And I don't put in that camp of people that just don't think Marines are the Gods of War many people believe they are, but in the "Space Marines are irrelevant for the scale of 40k and they shoudln't exist because you could have 100 imperial guard basilisk doing the job" kind of people.
I assume is some kind of victim complex? They feel Space Marines have an undeserving amount of time on the spotlight but unlike Tyranids, Necrons or Orks players that have accepted their place as the NPCs, they feel that because they are humans they should be much more relevant?
it can vary, some of it could just be saltyness at marines getting so much attention, attention they perceive taking away from their prefered faction. on the other hand it could be that they have a preferance for a certain style of fluff that matches closer to what the guard are. I suspect it's some of each
I agree with you BrianDavion. Most people that like Imperial Guard are more the kind of historical and realistic setting kind of player.
Space Marines and Imperial Guard are like oil and water. They catter to totally opposite ends of the warhammer 40k spectrum of fans.
The problem is when ones try to impose their vision onto others.
Galas wrote: I agree with you BrianDavion. Most people that like Imperial Guard are more the kind of historical and realistic setting kind of player.
Space Marines and Imperial Guard are like oil and water. They catter to totally opposite ends of the warhammer 40k spectrum of fans.
The problem is when ones try to impose their vision onto others.
For instance, by relegating anything not Space Marine as mere NPCs?
Or by writing the fluff in such a way that, when you get down to it, a faction should be utterly irrelevant?
Bobthehero wrote: Seems to be case, I've rarely seen the line ''fluff =/= rules'' coming from anyone else than Marines.
Until GSC can all show up turn 1 in charge range from deep strike I can safely say they're not terribly fluffy. They don't ignore ld like the mindless hordes of the books either. Not to mention what's happened to genestealers over the editions. Apparently "Feth your armor save" has fallen out of fashion unless you're a plasma gun.
Eldar seem to do a great deal of dying for the master planning race attempting not to die. But then that is a bit fluffy.
Tau went from a confederation race to a power armor escalation league, don't think the fluff ever changed.
Superheavies and lords of war fail to even have a proper point in battles as small as 40k is generally played.
Orks, nids and guard seem proper fluffy, but then people complain about them being NPC races.
In general I think people just really enjoy complaining.
Honestly, give marines something to better represent their shock tactics and I think they'd be plenty fluffy. You just have to remember you're not fielding squads of legendary hero marines, but rather marine jobbers.
Galas wrote: I agree with you BrianDavion. Most people that like Imperial Guard are more the kind of historical and realistic setting kind of player.
Space Marines and Imperial Guard are like oil and water. They catter to totally opposite ends of the warhammer 40k spectrum of fans.
The problem is when ones try to impose their vision onto others.
For instance, by relegating anything not Space Marine as mere NPCs?
Or by writing the fluff in such a way that, when you get down to it, a faction should be utterly irrelevant?
Have you read Horus Heresy? I don't. But when the most relevant part of the setting, at least in the eyes of the company and creators of the universe, are about Space Marines killing Space Marines commanded by bigger Space Marines , I think is pretty clear whats happening here. SM aren't irrelevant as much as people want them to be. Thats how the universe works. Just like in Superheroes comics, Earth is the most relevant part of the universe. Just because.
As I said, as a Tau player I recognise my place as the "Token sci-fi alien empire". I can read some tau-centric (Aka Rail-porn) fluff that to be honest isn't that much better than boltern porn. But GW just isn't very good at writting specific fluff. They are good at making broad strokes, creating a setting and letting people fill the gaps with their own headcanon.
Galas wrote: They feel Space Marines have an undeserving amount of time on the spotlight but unlike Tyranids, Necrons or Orks players that have accepted their place as the NPCs, they feel that because they are humans they should be much more relevant?
Well it is called the Imperium of Man, and yet the big spotlight is shone on the mutants. Furthermore, the IG are rarely portrayed as competent in books other than their own, so the more the focus go on the SM, the less likely you'll have good Guard stuff. The other faction can at least be written to be threatening antagonists, but the Guard is almost always the gakky ally that's there to be killed.
Galas wrote: They feel Space Marines have an undeserving amount of time on the spotlight but unlike Tyranids, Necrons or Orks players that have accepted their place as the NPCs, they feel that because they are humans they should be much more relevant?
Well it is called the Imperium of Man, and yet the big spotlight is shone on the mutants. Furthermore, the IG are rarely portrayed as competent in books other than their own, so the more the focus go on the SM, the less likely you'll have good Guard stuff. The other faction can at least be written to be threatening antagonists, but the Guard is almost always the gakky ally that's there to be killed.
And Superheroes are there protecting normal humans but their histories aren't normally about those small beings.
I'll agreee that actually the better ones are when normal humans and the impact of superheroes on them is the spotlight, of the history. But I don't come to warhammer 40k expecting deep background and themes. I can have them in some novels like Gaunt Ghosts. But those are exceptions. The universe, as much as it has grown, and as much as it has become much more "mature"... at is core has remained the same.
Martel732 wrote: "Fluff does not equal rules and yes its stupid they have nothing (bar combat squads) to represent their adaptability."
You can say that, but my point was that other factions DO have something to simulate this adaptation. They consciously left it out for marines. Why is it the rules can at least get kind of close for these other factions? Look at how many special tricks Drukhari can stack up.
So for marines fluff does not equal rules, but for other factions it does?
That one is quite easy to answer funnily enough, legacy rules, marines are the vanilla of vanilla for 40k, if you look at nearly every other army bar orks they have all had some good shake ups over time and gained a lot of rules and flavour, new armies gain from new army syndrome, they are actively trying to make them stand out from what we have and others are clearly given more focus and love by the writers, marines are so run of the mill cookie cutter from the writers I question whether or not they actually know the fluff exists sometimes let alone have even read it.
This problem is for ALL marines and types too, custodes, chaos space marines and all the different marine codex's, throwing one rule for the chapter/legion does nothing to fix the underlying problem with marines and that is that they suck, they suck because they have always had the same problems and in 20 years of marine codex's I have never seen them address these underlying problems, but thats GW for you.
So to answer your question, no, almost none of the factions represent the fluff that well, but the marines (all kinds) and possibly orks are at the bottom of the heap with Eldar and Tyranids at the top, play against or as those armies and you get the feel they fit the fluff more or less.
Then we get to the biggest problem, do we want them to represent the fluff accurately, yes and no, I would like them to move closer to the fluff, so an orders system of some sort (something I have asked for a lot), Bolter, pistol and close combat weapon for all marines to represent the adaptive style, and extra wound across the board... etc. etc. but this is no the place for wishlisting, I much prefer the fluff of the game that the actual game though so I am clearly Biased in that manner, I want to see more stories from non imperial points of view though, I would love to see the Taros campaign from the perspective of the Tau.
Galas wrote: They feel Space Marines have an undeserving amount of time on the spotlight but unlike Tyranids, Necrons or Orks players that have accepted their place as the NPCs, they feel that because they are humans they should be much more relevant?
Well it is called the Imperium of Man, and yet the big spotlight is shone on the mutants. Furthermore, the IG are rarely portrayed as competent in books other than their own, so the more the focus go on the SM, the less likely you'll have good Guard stuff. The other faction can at least be written to be threatening antagonists, but the Guard is almost always the gakky ally that's there to be killed.
I just read through the battle of Taros, well at least the part where the Marines and Tau scare off. It seems that both forces were relatively tiny. The Space Marines had a battle group composed mostly of their entire 2nd company two squads of Terminators and a few dreadnaughts fighting within the same palace complex. The Tau had a Hunter Cadre, which, while bigger, isn't overwhelmingly bigger. Maybe a few hundred Tau at most.
During the description of the battle, there is a clear mention of Tau being overwhelmingly favored during ranged engagement while the Space Marines had an easy time in close combat which was possible thanks to the fact they were holding a fortified position were close combat became a necessity. That's what caused most of the casualties amongst the Tau. Furthermore, Crisis Suits are described as comparable to Terminators with a slight advantage to the later (4 casulaty vs 3 in their engagement), one of the only time casualties are mentionned in anything else then purely descriptive terms. The end description mentions that the battlefield was littered with Tau grav tanks and battlesuits, yet only two hammerhead were present and destroyed and only five battlesuit (one XV88 and four XV8 were destroyed in the engagement) the littering is thus not due to the number of deaths, but the small size of the battlefield. All in all, only a few hundred people died during that battle at most. Neither force engaged were numbered in the 1000's.
I never said there were thousands on each side, my point was and still is in spite of having the drop on the marines the tau got mauled, in spite of having larger numbers the tau got mauled, in spite of superior firepower and planning the tau got mauled, the tau know how dangerous and effective marines are and respect them as an enemy and do not underestimate them. as for the casualties, a lot happened "off camera" that we are not told about, with only the key points described, the end of the battle had the Tau casualties at significant and the marines having to escape or be destroyed, now to you or I that means that the Marines put up a damn good fight, used the terrain to their advantage and still lost, to Peregrine that means that marines are useless and lost, no nuance, just black or white.
Marines are not perfect, that would be boring, this battle is one of the more realistic battles involving marines because they adapted to a very bad situation that would have seen any other force destroyed and any of them surviving is a testament to the true power of space marines.
So....... admech can change their canticles. IG can change orders. Even drukhari get more buff as the fight goes on. Marines have zero adaptation rules. The more i hear about the fluff the more confused and annoyed i get.
The only ones that have no adaption are the Minotaurs.
Before Guiliman's return the Smurfs struggled because it was their Primarch's parting gift so they did their damndest to abide.
Most of the remainder have some special unit that operates outside the codex.
If they were given a copy each some Space Wolves might read it but most would use it as toilet paper.
I just read through the battle of Taros, well at least the part where the Marines and Tau scare off. It seems that both forces were relatively tiny. The Space Marines had a battle group composed mostly of their entire 2nd company two squads of Terminators and a few dreadnaughts fighting within the same palace complex. The Tau had a Hunter Cadre, which, while bigger, isn't overwhelmingly bigger. Maybe a few hundred Tau at most.
During the description of the battle, there is a clear mention of Tau being overwhelmingly favored during ranged engagement while the Space Marines had an easy time in close combat which was possible thanks to the fact they were holding a fortified position were close combat became a necessity. That's what caused most of the casualties amongst the Tau. Furthermore, Crisis Suits are described as comparable to Terminators with a slight advantage to the later (4 casulaty vs 3 in their engagement), one of the only time casualties are mentionned in anything else then purely descriptive terms. The end description mentions that the battlefield was littered with Tau grav tanks and battlesuits, yet only two hammerhead were present and destroyed and only five battlesuit (one XV88 and four XV8 were destroyed in the engagement) the littering is thus not due to the number of deaths, but the small size of the battlefield. All in all, only a few hundred people died during that battle at most. Neither force engaged were numbered in the 1000's.
I never said there were thousands on each side, my point was and still is in spite of having the drop on the marines the tau got mauled, in spite of having larger numbers the tau got mauled, in spite of superior firepower and planning the tau got mauled, the tau know how dangerous and effective marines are and respect them as an enemy and do not underestimate them. as for the casualties, a lot happened "off camera" that we are not told about, with only the key points described, the end of the battle had the Tau casualties at significant and the marines having to escape or be destroyed, now to you or I that means that the Marines put up a damn good fight, used the terrain to their advantage and still lost, to Peregrine that means that marines are useless and lost, no nuance, just black or white.
Marines are not perfect, that would be boring, this battle is one of the more realistic battles involving marines because they adapted to a very bad situation that would have seen any other force destroyed and any of them surviving is a testament to the true power of space marines.
So....... admech can change their canticles. IG can change orders. Even drukhari get more buff as the fight goes on. Marines have zero adaptation rules. The more i hear about the fluff the more confused and annoyed i get.
The only ones that have no adaption are the Minotaurs.
Before Guiliman's return the Smurfs struggled because it was their Primarch's parting gift so they did their damndest to abide.
Most of the remainder have some special unit that operates outside the codex.
If they were given a copy each some Space Wolves might read it but most would use it as toilet paper.
keep in mind adaptability is hard to write into rules sometime. even the codex itself was written with adaptiability and flexability in mind (yet again if the codex was as rigid as some people claim the Ultramarines would have died the first time they encountered a foe outside the experiances of Gulliman, such as ohh.. TYRANIDS) the space mariens adapbility can be seen in their intensive cross training, by time a marine becomes a tactical marine they've training and experiance with quite literally every role in the Marine order of battle and are also proably less dependant on their commanders then say.. guardsmen.
personally this is why guard getting a chapter tactics AND orders annoys me, I'm of the opinion every faction should get "eaither or" a chapter tactic to reflect a broad tactical skill set or orders to reflect a basic set of skills dependant on a strong command structure that is strong yes but also vunerable to disruption.
BrianDavion wrote: personally this is why guard getting a chapter tactics AND orders annoys me, I'm of the opinion every faction should get "eaither or" a chapter tactic to reflect a broad tactical skill set or orders to reflect a basic set of skills dependant on a strong command structure that is strong yes but also vunerable to disruption.
I know this is purely rule, but my beef with Guard Orders is that there is no disadvantage for the Guard to lose their officers beside losing orders. There are no extra layer of bad. Tyranid get Instinctive Behavior that screws with them and Tau Ethereal cause moral loses, but Guards, which should be highly dependant on its officers, don't suffer any form of lost moral or efficiency. It's not even that hard to make. When I did one of my fandex, one of the xeno races I created had an order-like system with a variety of debuff built-in should they be killed. Then again, GW sometime struggles with its rules at about the same rate it struggles to make proper worldbuilding.
Well, we've certainly passed the point of absurdity here. Crisis suits are "rare" despite the standard Tau formation (roughly the size of a 2000 point game) having multiple squads of them, a battle where space marines explicitly suffer a "costly defeat for the Imperium" and lose 60% of their numbers somehow has anything positive to brag about, and space marines will grasp at any possible argument to avoid admitting that their favorite faction isn't the best. Sorry, but the simple fact here is that the space marines went up against a comparably-sized force of standard, common Tau units and lost. The Tau are explicitly shown fighting at parity or better with the space marines, and in the 40k universe there are a lot more Tau cadres than space marine companies. Like it or not, space marines are a weak and irrelevant faction that needs help to deal with even the setting's smallest empires.
Peregrine wrote: Well, we've certainly passed the point of absurdity here. Crisis suits are "rare" despite the standard Tau formation (roughly the size of a 2000 point game) having multiple squads of them, a battle where space marines explicitly suffer a "costly defeat for the Imperium" and lose 60% of their numbers somehow has anything positive to brag about, and space marines will grasp at any possible argument to avoid admitting that their favorite faction isn't the best. Sorry, but the simple fact here is that the space marines went up against a comparably-sized force of standard, common Tau units and lost. The Tau are explicitly shown fighting at parity or better with the space marines, and in the 40k universe there are a lot more Tau cadres than space marine companies. Like it or not, space marines are a weak and irrelevant faction that needs help to deal with even the setting's smallest empires.
Someones salty they got called out for not paying attention to what was written
Peregrine wrote: Well, we've certainly passed the point of absurdity here. Crisis suits are "rare" despite the standard Tau formation (roughly the size of a 2000 point game) having multiple squads of them, a battle where space marines explicitly suffer a "costly defeat for the Imperium" and lose 60% of their numbers somehow has anything positive to brag about, and space marines will grasp at any possible argument to avoid admitting that their favorite faction isn't the best. Sorry, but the simple fact here is that the space marines went up against a comparably-sized force of standard, common Tau units and lost. The Tau are explicitly shown fighting at parity or better with the space marines, and in the 40k universe there are a lot more Tau cadres than space marine companies. Like it or not, space marines are a weak and irrelevant faction that needs help to deal with even the setting's smallest empires.
Someones salty they got called out for not paying attention to what was written
Don't worry, I paid plenty of attention to your ridiculous spin attempts.
Peregrine wrote: Like it or not, space marines are a weak and irrelevant faction that needs help to deal with even the setting's smallest empires.
Like it or not, that's not the lore.
The lore is that many people in the Imperium believe that space marines are gods of war and can conquer planets with a single squad. The most reasonable explanation is that it should be considered like the Catholic priests that are trained to do exorcisms. Yes, someone devoutly believes that it works that way, but from an outside point of view we know that it's utter nonsense. So we should view most accounts of space marine exploits with a lot of skepticism and understand that many of them are cases of the non-marine forces being minimized in the story so that the cult of space Jesus can get more glory or even outright lies being told because the priest needs a sermon and it's not like the ignorant masses in a hive city are ever going to be able to question the story. The most reasonable interpretation of the reality of space marines is that they're somewhere fairly close to their tabletop rules in strength: better than most troops individually, but not by huge margins. That would be fine if GW didn't suck at scale and had there be orders of magnitude more space marines in the Imperium, but as it is we're forced to conclude that they are elite troops that are far too few in number to ever be relevant.
"Your head-canon sucks. Heres mine, based in my own logical conclusions and interpretations, and as it is mine, is not head-canon but the actual lore of the setting"
-Peregrine, 2019
Peregrine wrote: Like it or not, space marines are a weak and irrelevant faction that needs help to deal with even the setting's smallest empires.
Like it or not, that's not the lore.
The lore is that many people in the Imperium believe that space marines are gods of war and can conquer planets with a single squad. The most reasonable explanation is that it should be considered like the Catholic priests that are trained to do exorcisms. Yes, someone devoutly believes that it works that way, but from an outside point of view we know that it's utter nonsense. So we should view most accounts of space marine exploits with a lot of skepticism and understand that many of them are cases of the non-marine forces being minimized in the story so that the cult of space Jesus can get more glory or even outright lies being told because the priest needs a sermon and it's not like the ignorant masses in a hive city are ever going to be able to question the story. The most reasonable interpretation of the reality of space marines is that they're somewhere fairly close to their tabletop rules in strength: better than most troops individually, but not by huge margins. That would be fine if GW didn't suck at scale and had there be orders of magnitude more space marines in the Imperium, but as it is we're forced to conclude that they are elite troops that are far too few in number to ever be relevant.
So if we ignore the lore then you are right.
But if we don't ignore the lore, because the lore is the lore and you're just some anonymous schmoe on the internet, then you're wrong.
Ergo, Space Marines are viable and effective in the 40k universe.
No, if we interpret the lore and attempt to resolve its contradictions in the only reasonable way. The lore says both that space marines are effective and that space marines are too few in number to be relevant when their level of effectiveness is on par with the forces of other factions (as is demonstrated to be the case). So you have three options:
1) Throw out all concept of scale and just mindlessly repeat that space marines are awesome, because who cares about pesky details like an entire space marine chapter being unable to carry enough ammunition to kill a meaningful number of enemies in a planetary-scale conflict even if they get an instantly fatal headshot every time they pull the trigger.
2) Ignore all of the fluff where space marines are roughly as capable as the far more numerous elites of other factions. For example, the Taros example where a space marine force fought a standard Tau cadre equipped with nothing but the standard Tau units and suffered 60% losses in a "costly defeat for the Imperium". Even the elites of other factions can be no better than cultists armed with pointy sticks, no matter how much fluff says otherwise.
3) Acknowledge that the Imperium is a totalitarian theocracy full of lies and myths and interpret the implausible stories of space marine feats as religious doctrine much like the myths of real-world religions. When a real-world myth says that Jesus walked on water we don't ignore how water works because every piece of fluff must be true, we acknowledge that some people believe it happened but it's clearly just a work of fiction.
One of these maintains as much of the fluff as possible, the other two involve throwing out any inconvenient piece of fluff.
There's the camp that can't buy the bolter porn as serious evidence and the camp who buys it hook line and sinker. I still don't understand the point of the near masturbatory lore and then the cellar-dwelling game experience for marines.
But if we don't ignore the lore, because the lore is the lore and you're just some anonymous schmoe on the internet, then you're wrong.
Ergo, Space Marines are viable and effective in the 40k universe.
What lore? The lore like the Taros campaign that shows a single company of Space Marine being bested and almost wiped by a single Hunter Cadre which numbers at around 200 top? That lore? Because that lore tells the story of a battle that can be recreated from A to Z on the tabletop. It would be a match at around 2000 points per army and would probably go exactly as described with Space Marines being overwhelmed and outgunned, but still capble of bitting back thanks to clever use of the important cover and close combat. According to the same source, there were, later alongst the line, a 100 Hunter Cadre on the planet. That would mean a force comparable to 10 whole Chapter, all of that to conquer a small mining colony populated by 12 million people. Depending on where you get your lore Space Marines are about as viable as they are on the tabletop except that on the galactic scale they are so rare they are more myth and legend then reality. Careful not to fall into the spotlight fallacy and think that because Space Marines have a gak ton of books written about them that they are somehow important or even essential as a fighting force in the lore at the galactic scale. The actions of one hero cop, no matter how spectacular and awesome are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the effort of all police officers worldwide to uphold the law and stop crimes. Space Marines are important to the stories told about the univers because they are the protagonist and the most popular faction, not because they are a powerful and decisive fighting force.
Even the best can lose a battle. Even the best can screw up. Just because there are instances in the lore where Space Marines lose doesn't mean they aren't effective and impcatful. In fact the setting is made better if they aren't uberstomping all the time. In the vast lore of 40k, it shouldn't be at all surprising that they suffer some serious losses. Losses don't matter if they're still turning the tide of other major events, which is also par for the course in the lore.
But if we don't ignore the lore, because the lore is the lore and you're just some anonymous schmoe on the internet, then you're wrong.
Ergo, Space Marines are viable and effective in the 40k universe.
What lore? The lore like the Taros campaign that shows a single company of Space Marine being bested and almost wiped by a single Hunter Cadre which numbers at around 200 top? That lore? Because that lore tells the story of a battle that can be recreated from A to Z on the tabletop. It would be a match at around 2000 points per army and would probably go exactly as described with Space Marines being overwhelmed and outgunned, but still capble of bitting back thanks to clever use of the important cover and close combat. According to the same source, there were, later alongst the line, a 100 Hunter Cadre on the planet. That would mean a force comparable to 10 whole Chapter, all of that to conquer a small mining colony populated by 12 million people. Depending on where you get your lore Space Marines are about as viable as they are on the tabletop except that on the galactic scale they are so rare they are more myth and legend then reality. Careful not to fall into the spotlight fallacy and think that because Space Marines have a gak ton of books written about them that they are somehow important or even essential as a fighting force in the lore at the galactic scale. The actions of one hero cop, no matter how spectacular and awesome are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the effort of all police officers worldwide to uphold the law and stop crimes. Space Marines are important to the stories told about the univers because they are the protagonist and the most popular faction, not because they are a powerful and decisive fighting force.
Look at what you're doing here for a second. You're saying that Space Marines performed poorly in one battle, therefore they perform poorly in every battle across the galaxy for over 10 millenia. That's some solid reasoning, man.
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Peregrine wrote: The lore says both that space marines are effective and that space marines are too few in number to be relevant when their level of effectiveness is on par with the forces of other factions
You mean you say that.
Conversely, point me to that piece of lore. Not a single battle, but an actual quote , non-in-universe, that says Space Marines are ineffective.
Insectum7 wrote: Look at what you're doing here for a second. You're saying that Space Marines performed poorly in one battle, therefore they perform poorly in every battle across the galaxy for over 10 millenia. That's some solid reasoning, man.
They didn't do poorly, they were defeated. Everybody suffers defeat once in a while. What's revealing isn't that they were defeated but that they were defeated by a force that mirror that which can defeat Space Marines on the tabletop, that the fluff matched the tabletop fairly closely. That Space Marines aren't worth a hundred times their number in Tau Fire Warrior, they are barely worth 1.5. Thus, the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes isn't worth even a tenth of the Tau Empire military. The same can be said about your position. Space Marines had an impact in a battle, thus they have an impact on the galactic scale quasi eternal war in which the Imperium is engaged. The Tau Empire itself isn't even the biggest threat to the Imperium in the galaxy. They are too few and too localised.
Insectum7 wrote: Look at what you're doing here for a second. You're saying that Space Marines performed poorly in one battle, therefore they perform poorly in every battle across the galaxy for over 10 millenia. That's some solid reasoning, man.
They didn't do poorly, they were defeated. Everybody suffers defeat once in a while. What's revealing isn't that they were defeated but that they were defeated by a force that mirror that which can defeat Space Marines on the tabletop, that the fluff matched the tabletop fairly closely. That Space Marines aren't worth a hundred times their number in Tau Fire Warrior, they are barely worth 1.5. Thus, the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes isn't worth even a tenth of the Tau Empire military. The same can be said about your position. Space Marines had an impact in a battle, thus they have an impact on the galactic scale quasi eternal war in which the Imperium is engaged. The Tau Empire itself isn't even the biggest threat to the Imperium in the galaxy. They are too few and too localised.
There's a big difference between your extrapolating into the universe the results of one battle, and my reiteration of a literal statement of lore.
To be honest as I said earlier, those books were the equivalent of bolter-porn but for tau.
The Tau Empire winning the Damocles Crusade felt way too cheap because Farsight was so fething awesome and the Imperial Army and Space Marines were just so useless, stupid and powerless.
One would ask how even did they won the Great Crusade wipping xenos empire left and right (I know they where much more marines, with primarchs back there, but they whipped hundreds of small xenos empires and not in every waryou had the full space marine legion and the primarch) when they couldn't do anything agaisnt the Tau.
But thats what happen when you have all the fluff painting their own faction as the most awesome thing ever.
I have an Eldar-fan friend that nearly ragequited for two months when he read the fluff of that piece were the ultramarines fight Eldars and Marneus Calgar punchs a Avatar of Kaine into dust and one Space Marine Sargeants kills single handely 12 Howling Banshees. Alone.
Galas wrote: To be honest as I said earlier, those books were the equivalent of bolter-porn but for tau.
The Tau Empire winning the Damocles Crusade felt way too cheap because Farsight was so fething awesome and the Imperial Army and Space Marines were just so useless, stupid and powerless.
One would ask how even did they won the Great Crusade wipping xenos empire left and right (I know they where much more marines, with primarchs back there, but they whipped hundreds of small xenos empires and not in every waryou had the full space marine legion and the primarch) when they couldn't do anything agaisnt the Tau.
But thats what happen when you have all the fluff painting their own faction as the most awesome thing ever.
I have an Eldar-fan friend that nearly ragequited for two months when he read the fluff of that piece were the ultramarines fight Eldars and Marneus Calgar punchs a Avatar of Kaine into dust and one Space Marine Sargeants kills single handely 12 Howling Banshees. Alone.
That's just it. I don't think the great crusade would have worked with the in-lore numbers given. All you need is a couple of xenos with WMDs.
But if we don't ignore the lore, because the lore is the lore and you're just some anonymous schmoe on the internet, then you're wrong.
Ergo, Space Marines are viable and effective in the 40k universe.
What lore? The lore like the Taros campaign that shows a single company of Space Marine being bested and almost wiped by a single Hunter Cadre which numbers at around 200 top? That lore? Because that lore tells the story of a battle that can be recreated from A to Z on the tabletop. It would be a match at around 2000 points per army and would probably go exactly as described with Space Marines being overwhelmed and outgunned, but still capble of bitting back thanks to clever use of the important cover and close combat. According to the same source, there were, later alongst the line, a 100 Hunter Cadre on the planet. That would mean a force comparable to 10 whole Chapter, all of that to conquer a small mining colony populated by 12 million people. Depending on where you get your lore Space Marines are about as viable as they are on the tabletop except that on the galactic scale they are so rare they are more myth and legend then reality. Careful not to fall into the spotlight fallacy and think that because Space Marines have a gak ton of books written about them that they are somehow important or even essential as a fighting force in the lore at the galactic scale. The actions of one hero cop, no matter how spectacular and awesome are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the effort of all police officers worldwide to uphold the law and stop crimes. Space Marines are important to the stories told about the univers because they are the protagonist and the most popular faction, not because they are a powerful and decisive fighting force.
It was not a single hunter cadre, we are just told about a single hunter cadre moving in to retake the governors palace, they were clearly reinforced as time went on especially as they directly stated it, also you all keep ignoring the MANTA that was there too.
"The first the Avenging Sons knew of any Tau forces on Taros was the arrival of the Manta over the night-darkened city. Soon, Hammerhead gunships followed by XV8 Crisis Battlesuits and Devilfish-mounted Fire Warriors would be closing in on blocking position three. An entire Hunter Cadre was bearing down on the Space Mannes, moving at speed to reinforce the Governor's Palace."
" Barracudas raced low over Tarokeen to launch missiles in the Governor’s palace."
"The Tau had used the night-time full to reinforce their mauled Hunter Cadre"
So the attack was a Manta carrying a hunter cadre backed by baracudas, later reinforced with an unknown number of hunter cadres and forces against a company of marines with no heavy support elements in a reinforced position, the marines were ambushed and faced overwhelming firepower and were heavily outnumbered and still mauled the Tau....
Everything I stated is right there in the book and for some reason people are either not going to read the story or are just trusting what others are saying when they argue, the map of the palace is there, the estimated forces of the Tau are there, the overarching story of the battle is there.
Shadenuat wrote: I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.
1000 guys took on a craftWORLD? This is why I can't take bolter porn seriously.
Shadenuat wrote: I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.
1000 guys took on a craftWORLD? This is why I can't take bolter porn seriously.
I am willing to be there is more to it that just a thousand marines taking the craftworld, circumstances likely matter, any other forces present etc.
Bobthehero wrote:Because they're still part of the universe and I can give my opinion on them.
But didn't you literally just say that you want to ignore them? If you want to ignore their sheer existence (which is possible, if you shrink down your perspective of 40k - quite a lot of the Gaunt's Ghosts books take place with very little in the way of Space Marines, mostly the first three arcs), then again, why do you keep talking about them? I thought you wanted to forget they existed.
Peregrine wrote:
Sgt_Smudge wrote: I'd say common sense, but okay: can you cite a source from GW that says the rules for their game is treated in the same way as their Black Library and fluff publications?
That's not how this works. You're the one claiming that this hierarchy of sources exists and the rules are intended to be ignored in trying to understand the fluff, you have the burden of proof and need to provide something to back up your claims. You don't get to make a claim about GW's policies and then demand that I prove you wrong.
You're the one claiming they're both as valid. I gave my evidence as to why that was incorrect (different writing teams). That's absolutely how this works, so please, give me your source. If you have one, of course, and it's not just trying to pass opinion as fact.
From that, we can see that being shot in the head is more fatal than being shot in other places, but that people can also walk off some headshots in certain circumstances.
Really? How do we know any of that based only on 40k logic? How do we know that being shot in the head is fatal, and the people being shot in the head aren't simultaneously experiencing a psychic event that kills them when the bullet would have only given them a minor headache?
Easy, because there's nothing that indicates a localised psychic event that occurs when someone gets shot in the head. Instead, it's very heavily, almost obviously implied, that the shot is what kills them.
But even IF it were a small localised psychic explosion, even IF it wasn't the actual bullet causing the damage, we still see that those "small localised psychic explosions" occur after being shot in the head. So yeah, maybe you're right, and those headshot kills ARE because of psychic events - but those psychic events are being triggered by being shot in the head. Therefore, if you care so much about your "psychic events" theory, you can have it! It's not mutually exclusive to "getting shot in the head kills you".
Don't you dare use real-world ideas about causality or simplest explanations or anything like that, because you said we have to ignore real-world logic.
There's a big difference between fundamental causality and simple things like gravity, thermodynamics, and physics. 40k uses a different physics model, so to speak, but still obeys causality - at least, according to the 40k universe itself.
There ARE acausal beings in 40k (daemons, psykers, and the Primarchs, to a limited extent), but even their acausality has a cause - their manifestation of psychic powers.
Martel732 wrote:Still the best answer in the whole thread. And probably the most accurate.
Not wrong there.
It's amazing to me that the fluff bunnies aren't more outraged that marines struggle to out-damage guardsmen and are basement dwellers for tournament win rate. That's not even balance for the sake of a game. That's just taking a big old crap on every conceivable lore source.
The only reason I'm not outraged is because the game and the lore are two different things. I like to do my best to recreate the lore via the game in terms of what units I take, their organisation, their weapons XYZ, but I know fundamentally that the game isn't a perfect recreation of the lore, much like how it's also not a perfect example of balance. I work with what I'm given, and if I don't like that, then I don't play, and just enjoy the lore.
The lore and game are two very different things. That's how I reconcile the obvious disconnect of the two.
Bobthehero wrote:Seems to be case, I've rarely seen the line ''fluff =/= rules'' coming from anyone else than Marines.
Usually because Marines are one of the worst affected by the difference between fluff and rules. However, I've seen Eldar players expect Eldar to the stronger, Deathstrikes to be stronger and Dark Eldar to be better in combat, and other cases like that. However, the reason Marines are associated with that line most is because the disconnect of the rules-lore is usually far worse, and there's more Marine players than any other faction, maybe even all others combined.
Bobthehero wrote:
Galas wrote: They feel Space Marines have an undeserving amount of time on the spotlight but unlike Tyranids, Necrons or Orks players that have accepted their place as the NPCs, they feel that because they are humans they should be much more relevant?
Well it is called the Imperium of Man, and yet the big spotlight is shone on the mutants.
I prefer post-human. Plus, they're called the Imperium of Man, but are led by a supremely powerful and godlike being that is further from a man than the posthuman warriors that fight for mankind. They're called the Imperium of Man because it's an empire that is predominantly made up of humans. Doesn't mean that their best soliders can't be posthuman.
Furthermore, the IG are rarely portrayed as competent in books other than their own, so the more the focus go on the SM, the less likely you'll have good Guard stuff. The other faction can at least be written to be threatening antagonists, but the Guard is almost always the gakky ally that's there to be killed.
IOW, I don't like Space Marines because they make my faction look bad.
Of COURSE in an SM book they'll look good. But at the same time, in plenty of Guard books, SM look weak. Hell, in ANY faction books, they'll make their guys look better. However, Marines are just very popular, and are iconic to 40k. Sorry people like Marines, I guess? You can like your own guys, that's fine, no-one's forcing you to like Marines, but ignoring lore because you don't like the idea of them being strong?
No, if we interpret the lore and attempt to resolve its contradictions in the only reasonable way.
Let me guess, you're the arbiter of what's reasonable?
The lore says both that space marines are effective and that space marines are too few in number to be relevant when their level of effectiveness is on par with the forces of other factions (as is demonstrated to be the case). So you have three options:
1) Throw out all concept of scale and just mindlessly repeat that space marines are awesome, because who cares about pesky details like an entire space marine chapter being unable to carry enough ammunition to kill a meaningful number of enemies in a planetary-scale conflict even if they get an instantly fatal headshot every time they pull the trigger.
2) Ignore all of the fluff where space marines are roughly as capable as the far more numerous elites of other factions. For example, the Taros example where a space marine force fought a standard Tau cadre equipped with nothing but the standard Tau units and suffered 60% losses in a "costly defeat for the Imperium". Even the elites of other factions can be no better than cultists armed with pointy sticks, no matter how much fluff says otherwise.
3) Acknowledge that the Imperium is a totalitarian theocracy full of lies and myths and interpret the implausible stories of space marine feats as religious doctrine much like the myths of real-world religions. When a real-world myth says that Jesus walked on water we don't ignore how water works because every piece of fluff must be true, we acknowledge that some people believe it happened but it's clearly just a work of fiction.
One of these maintains as much of the fluff as possible, the other two involve throwing out any inconvenient piece of fluff.
I think the 1st option is the best. It's a fictional universe, where rule of cool is priority. The lore states XYZ, we suspend our disbelief to accept it. I've not got a problem with that, no more than I suspend my disbelief when Orks use their gestalt psychic field, or something like the Warp exists, or 40k aircraft violate the laws of aviation.
As a result, my outcome keeps the most fluff intact (almost all of it is valid) - unlike the 3rd option, which makes 1st person and omniscient 3rd person narrator stories in the 40k universe utterly useless and clearly non-canon, aka, throwing out "inconvenient pieces of fluff".
Shadenuat wrote: I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.
1000 guys took on a craftWORLD? This is why I can't take bolter porn seriously.
The fighting strength of a Space Marine chapter is far more than 1000 marines, because they get to the battle in a fleet of very capable warships, not to mention ground and air/space attack vehicles.
And where's the eldar navy? There's likely thousands or tens of thousands of vessels protecting a planet.
Also, i still don't understand why its acceptable for the lore and game to diverge so radically. They might as well change all the names. It's like having a wwii game where the us navy is garbage. Marines aren't just toned down. The system is actively hostile towards them.
Shadenuat wrote: I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.
1000 guys took on a craftWORLD? This is why I can't take bolter porn seriously.
The fighting strength of a Space Marine chapter is far more than 1000 marines, because they get to the battle in a fleet of very capable warships, not to mention ground and air/space attack vehicles.
Also how are craft worlds laid out? if the majority of a craft world is narrowish tunnels (well 40k typically presents their space ships with vast corridors I can belive that's the norm, and suspect that most passageways are smaller side passages) I could see a suprise assault on a craftworld that lands marines inside having a good chance at inflicting serious damage, or if they plant explosive charges in the right area even taking one down. Marines are specificly built for brutal tunnel fighting etc they're good at it. meanwhile Eldar are more reliant on mobility etc. so an attack on tight confines I could see potentially inflicting damage vastly disproportioate to the numbers involved.
although yeah my over all gut feeling is "bs" just that if GW tasked me to details how it happened I know the BS angle I'd take
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Martel732 wrote: And where's the eldar navy? There's likely thousands or tens of thousands of vessels protecting a planet.
tens of thousands? that seems a bit off. hundreds maybe, thousands? for the "rare race of dying eldar"? please
Not for planetary scale. Earth ocean going navies easily added up to that in wwii. Now factor in automation and advanced resource gathering. A star empire might have millions of ships
The dying race probably numbers on hundreds of billions. Space is big. GW is just scientifically illiterate..
Also, i still don't understand why its acceptable for the lore and game to diverge so radically. They might as well change all the names. It's like having a wwii game where the us navy is garbage. Marines aren't just toned down. The system is actively hostile towards them.
Because the intent of the game is ( most of the time) an evenly matched and rewarding affair between two sweet collections of models. Some concessions are made to achieve that.
Martel732 wrote: Not for planetary scale. Earth ocean going navies easily added up to that in wwii. Now factor in automation and advanced resource gathering. A star empire might have millions of ships
The dying race probably numbers on hundreds of billions. Space is big. GW is just scientifically illiterate..
You're dis punting the scale of the ships, of course. The mass of a Battlefleet Gothic ship is like a thousand wwii ships.
Irrelevant with so many resources in space. Also realize those vessels were fielding by a fraction of the total surface area of a single planet.
Just the territory to cover alone in space requires a tremendous number of vessels. Renegade Legion did a good job of showing this.
It's clear you are a fan boy. I'm never going to get on board because I like more realistic sci-fi settings. But I will never understand GW's schizophrenic handling of the marine faction. Going from bolter porn to the tabletop is too huge of a disparity.
Martel732 wrote: Going from bolter porn to the tabletop is too huge of a disparity.
It is. That's why arguments using tabletop as a source are incredibly poor, IMO.
Sure, 40k is terrible with scale, but I can make my peace with that. I like 40k lore. I don't think the tabletop is supposed, or expected, to represent it beyond "oh cool, my model approximation of XYZ unit!", in much the same way as Dawn of War.
The closest games I can think of which actually come closest to 40k lore are probably Space Marine, and the FFG40kRPGs (and as with all RPGs, they were still very abusable).
But the tabletop seems more reasonable than the lore. It's just not the outcome marine fanboys want. It's a more reasonable source than the lore. That's a big driving force for that camp, I suspect.
Martel732 wrote: But the tabletop seems more reasonable than the lore. It's just not the outcome marine fanboys want. It's a more reasonable source than the lore. That's a big driving force for that camp, I suspect.
I'm a Marine fanboy. I'm also a Guard fanboy. I'm a fanboy of most factions in the setting.
I think the "Marines are super powerful" lore is completely reasonable, because they're still not the ONLY faction, nor could they do what the guard does. They need eachother to function, like the IoM needs all of it's constituent parts and subfactions. I like the Marines for what they do in the lore - that's "be incredibly powerful, turn the tide of campaigns, operate as the tip of the spear in completing tasks that no other faction could". I like Guardsmen for what they do in the lore too.
Tabletop is more reasonable for a gaming perspective, but for lore? Not for me.
If marines were really like the top power portrayal, they would be handled by WMDs by the other factions rather than facing them. That would fix the problem real fast.
It doesn't seem reasonable that marines could do anything like they do in the lore, which is why the tabletop seems like a better source.
I'm pretty sure guardsmen in human-style power armor could do most of what marines do with no problem. And they'd still be throwaway, too.
Exactly, which is why I don't use "realistic" physics, because 40k isn't our universe. I don't care about if 40k follows our physics.
If marines were really like the top power portrayal, they would be handled by WMDs by the other factions rather than facing them. That would fix the problem real fast.
But they don't, and that's my whole point - it's not a realistic world, by our standards.
It doesn't seem reasonable that marines could do anything like they do in the lore, which is why the tabletop seems like a better source.
Whereas it's completely reasonable to me, within the context of the 40k universe as presented.
I'm pretty sure guardsmen in human-style power armor could do most of what marines do with no problem. And they'd still be throwaway, too.
If only guardsman-tier power armour was affordable to do. Again, most of what Space Marines do is done by their biology, not their armour. Their armour just enhances their already prodigious abilities. A Guardsman wearing human-grade power armour would lose to an unarmoured Astartes.
"A Guardsman wearing human-grade power armour would lose to an unarmoured Astartes."
Doesn't matter if they scale better.
"If only guardsman-tier power armour was affordable to do"
There's no reason it wouldn't be. Forgeworlds make production of anything trivial, whether the fluff understand this or not. Again, they don't understand their own scale.
I absolutely care about real physics. Or at least, kind-of real. I just don't accept what they present as sufficiently plausible.
Martel732 wrote: There's no reason it wouldn't be. Forgeworlds make production of anything trivial, whether the fluff understand this or not. Again, they don't understand their own scale.
Again, it's their universe. If they say it's not feasible on a mass production scale, it isn't feasible on a mass production scale, and that's enough for me.
If their scale is inconsistent with what our IRL scale says, maybe we shouldn't be judging it from our IRL scale.
I absolutely care about real physics. Or at least, kind-of real. I just don't accept what they present as sufficiently plausible.
Well, that's just a difference of our opinions then, and what we value more - congruency with our terms of our "reality", or congruency with it's own "reality".
I can't help it. They don't get to redefine every aspect of reality. Scale is scale. Stars have the mass they have as do their satellites. Uninhabitable rocky worlds would be completely converted to refined product. Especially on their time scale. There would be the capacity to create trillions of suits of powee armor, regardless of their opinion.
Martel732 wrote: Irrelevant with so many resources in space. Also realize those vessels were fielding by a fraction of the total surface area of a single planet.
Just the territory to cover alone in space requires a tremendous number of vessels. Renegade Legion did a good job of showing this.
It's clear you are a fan boy. I'm never going to get on board because I like more realistic sci-fi settings. But I will never understand GW's schizophrenic handling of the marine faction. Going from bolter porn to the tabletop is too huge of a disparity.
*Shrug. If you don't like the setting what are you doing here?
I like realistic sci-fi settings too, 40K is not one of them. But the lore of it is the lore of it, and it functions on it's own principles.
Space fleets may be huge, but they're often spread out over large areas, because space. Maybe Eldar have a home-fleet for each Craftworld, makes sense, but maybe it wasn't well deployed or ready at the time and the Space Marines were concentrated and able to "Pearl Harbor" them. The locations of Craftworlds iirc are a closely guarded secret of the Eldar anyways, so they weren't expecting an attack. Or maybe the whims of the warp conspired to give the Farseers bad projections. There's enough in-universe reasons available to make those events possible.
You can call me a fan-boy all you want, but the lore is the lore. "Thing X" happened. There are a thousand conflicts the Imperium is involved in on any given day, and it's been going on for ten millenia, so sometimes certain extraordinary events happen. A single Chapter wreaking havoc on a Craftworld (I don't know the story being referred to, perhaps you can point me to it) is a thing that occurred. that doesn't mean it happens all the time, that doesn't mean that a similar event might end in total disaster for the marines (and probably has). You're falling victim to the same fallacy of others by conflating a single event into a galaxy-wide precedent or trend.
every woman in Greece. They're neat stories, but they're obvious fiction and anyone outside the religion knows it. The average Imperial citizen believes that a space marine is capable of gunning down a squad of heretics with cheat code level perfection while laughing off any return fire, the average Tau commander knows a space marine is essentially a crisis suit that can't fly and tells the pathfinder squad to hit it with the laser pointers and call in a seeker missile strike.
Vengeance rounds to kill traitors.
