Infiltrators have additional suites of sneaky sneak sneak equipment. And can most certainly jam or be invisible to Auspex. Certainly the low rent Auspex Guard would have.
Quick check up on them tells me they're mostly there to disrupt comms, so that would make things more complicated to get a coordinated assault back on them. Though that jamming could potentially get handled with non-electronic means of long range comms. Or sticking everyone close enough. Or having some dudes with a tech-knack work a fix (such as when Scions were able to counter the effects of scrap-code that was unleashed to make a mess of their Vox-net, there's precedent for it)
Little mention of sneaky stuff, outside of the fact they're Raven Guard
No Tech-Priest to attempt a bypass. Only the limited technological knowledge a Guardsman might possess.
And remember. The Marine only needs a limited operational window at any one time.
Kit wise?
40k Wiki - Phobos Armour wrote: A third variant is Mark X Phobos Armour. This suit's lighter-weight ceramite and streamlined design allow for greater mobility, and its servo-motors are engineered to be completely silent. This variant serves those Primaris Marines who take on the role of Reivers, Incursors and certain Vanguard Space Marines like Infiltrators and Eliminators. These Astartes are ruthless killers, trained in covert operations who operate behind enemy lines as saboteurs, assassins and infiltrators. All who wear the Mark X Phobos variant depend on stealth and secrecy to accomplish their missions.
40k Wiki - Primaris Infiltrators wrote: Aside from their weaponry, the most important tool at the Infiltrators' disposal is the Omni-Scrambler. This portable, back-mounted device intercepts wave signals across a broad spectrum, scrambling frequencies and diverting holo-broadcasts to ensure that enemy communiques never reach their intended recipients.
Messing with your comms, superior vision options, and completely silent.
Yes the completely silent sounds very silly, but completely silent it is
No but some Guardsmen recieve additional training when it comes to their equipment, and it's not stretching it to think they would be able to handle comms disruptions. They don't need a Tech-Priest, that was my point with me bringing up the Scion example, it's possible for regular humans to get training, and given we're talking about a fighting unit that would need reliable comms, it's absolutely possible that there are comms specialists who are trained to deal with those issues.
Or a Tech-Priest. They're part of a regiment anyway and to try and claim they're not integrated is asinine, imo.
Ah, but the quandary here is whether 1 Marine can take 10,000 Guardsmen, not an Imperial Guard regiment with all the trimmings (even then, the answer is still probably Yes, as a Space Marine combat vessel might have but a single Astartes aboard )
No Tech-Priest to attempt a bypass. Only the limited technological knowledge a Guardsman might possess.
No. We've been over this in the thread. Scions are Guard personnel. Enginseers are Guard personnel while they're working with IG regiments, they take orders from Guard officers.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Ah, but the quandary here is whether 1 Marine can take 10,000 Guardsmen, not an Imperial Guard regiment with all the trimmings (even then, the answer is still probably Yes, as a Space Marine combat vessel might have but a single Astartes aboard )
Hive World Regiments? Possibly, if only because they recruit heavily from Gangs, and so they’ve quite possibly learnt things and tricks absolutely not part of basic training.
The XVIII Bumholnowherians, raised from an Agri or Feudal World? Not a chance.
There’s also the interesting side debate as to how extensive such training would be, especially considering that Primaris tech is bleeding edge as such things can be measured in Imperium terms. The absolute imbalance in tech is something we shouldn’t gloss over.
For instance, a WW2 or Vietnamese era Veteran almost certainly knows their way round that era’s tech better than most. But, ask them to setup a Firewall for internets, and that’s like asking me to do..well….pretty much anything technological.
Further speculation, but as ever couched in established canon? If the Infiltrator can redirect comms, they can hack them. Power armour as established can record sound and vision, and play it back at least internally. I put it to all that it’s more likely than not the hypothetical Primaris Infiltrator can therefore record vox messages, and replay them on enemy channels to further misdirect enemy forces. Think Predator’s mimicking prey vocalisations, but less rough and more accurate.
I will however draw the line in my speculation there. Whilst I suppose it is possible the Infiltrator could create messages, and mimic a voice ala T800 and T1000, that might be a step too far.
There’s also the interesting side debate as to how extensive such training would be, especially considering that Primaris tech is bleeding edge as such things can be measured in Imperium terms. The absolute imbalance in tech is something we shouldn’t gloss over.
For instance, a WW2 or Vietnamese era Veteran almost certainly knows their way round that era’s tech better than most. But, ask them to setup a Firewall for internets, and that’s like asking me to do..well….pretty much anything technological.
No, and I wouldn't expect the Guardsmen to be able to use the Infiltrator's kit after they kill him without a lot of fumbling around. They, however, would know how to use their own equipement to handle a variety of issues, and jamming comms is a common thing, so it would be within what they would be qualified as.
Hive World Regiments? Possibly, if only because they recruit heavily from Gangs, and so they’ve quite possibly learnt things and tricks absolutely not part of basic training.
The XVIII Bumholnowherians, raised from an Agri or Feudal World? Not a chance.
They could learn on transit. Space travel can take quite a bit, and it's not a stretch to assume they would recieve more specialised training there, it's not like they'd just going to twirl their thumbs in space.
I’m still not persuaded, because of how compartmentalised the Imperial War Machine is by design. Tech Priest Enginseers are there for the calibration and maintenance. Most squads have by all accounts pretty basic Vox equipment.
Some just have the Vox Operator in Platoon Command. Others have earbuds for every trooper.
Given the rather short life expectancy of the average Guardsman, I just don’t think it’s worth the specialised training, leaving instead such things to the Cogboys.
The jamming needn’t be long term either. Just long enough to put the willies up the entire Guard force as the Vox Network is jammed. Is it local? Is it widespread? Who can tell when you personally are jammed. In fact thinking more about it, I don’t think it’s in the Marine’s interest to jam for a long time. Just time enough for them to complete their strike and pull out again (and running at 25-30mph they can be long gone pretty quickly).
Going for the proper psychological edge? Each blackout, widespread or localised needn’t be followed up with an attack at all. Keep them wondering, keep them on edge. Keep them from sleep. Erode, erode, erode.
Continuing my speculation? Just broadcasting false reports after a massacre can further increase that paranoia. The Marine becomes a Ghost. You’ve no reliable way to track his movements or really predict where he’ll strike next.
Send out a few bogus orders, but don’t attack all of them. Being patched in, you can just listen in for whatever steps they try to increase Vox security and order integrity. Send maybe half a dozen platoons on wild goose chases. Wipe out one or two.
It gets ever more effective if there’s actual artillery in play…after all, the Guard rarely think anything of calling strikes into areas their troops are active.
It wouldn’t be long at all before paranoia and second guessing kicks in.
There's a lot more to the Guard than just fighting folks that isn't often mentioned in books and almostn ever on the TT.
Guardsmen'S life expectancy is all over the place, if you have long span of time doing nothing (ship transit), training them more and more is an excellent use of that time.
Jamming is localised around the Marine, at least from what I heard about jammers. He'd have to be in the central command of the IG to jam the entire network, and even then, jammers have their limits, they might make a mess of a portable Vox caster, but the whole communication center point of the IG should be able to transmit.
As for erosion, I think the Marine's luck would run out much sooner than the capacity of the IG to rotate their 10 000 troops. They don't need to spread out in little isolated packs, and can occupy a relatively small area that makes isolation difficult for a single Marine. They have a single enemy to handle, why are they sending piecemeal forces to get killed for no gains? It makes no sense. Holding ground, with overlapping lanes of fire from platoons supporting eachother would be much successful (And hey, it's why we do it IRL)
How many lasgun shots should it take to kill a Marine?
In-game, it varies from 36 (hitting on 4+, saving on a 3+) to 108 (hitting on a 5+, saving on a 2+, both thanks to cover).
The game is not the fluff-but they’re not totally unrelated either.
If each guardsman shoots at the Marine ONCE, the Marine would need both massively favorable terrain and to be 100X better than they are on the tabletop in the fluff.
Do you think that Marines are 1% of what they are, in game as compared to in lore?
What weapon carried by a single marine would be the most devastating by numbers? Missile Launcher? Grav Cannon? Plasma Cannon?
Or are we still under the same goal posts that it's just one neophyte with a bolt Pistol vs 10000 Sly Marbos?
Because a Single Marine with a Heavy Bolter and a full pack pack might take down around 1000 before going down, possibly twice that to morale shock when people start literally exploding.
It's 20mm ammo, the size of it means the Marine is lucky to carry about 200 rounds of it. You're also assuming he's going to be 100% accurate with a Heavy Bolter, and that the Marine can shoot without the Guard being unable to do anything. He's alone, all the need is a lascannon out of sight to zap the Marine to death.
Still the assumption it’s a straight up shoot out. Which…it wouldn’t be.
The Marine is in no rush. He can absolutely take his time.
If the Guard bunch up? Stalk and await a gap.
If they spread out? Pick them off piecemeal.
Hence why I’m favouring a Primaris Infiltrator, as canonically they’re the most likely to be able monitor and make use of the Guard’s Vox network to plan assaults. He’s just one dude. The Guard have no inherent way to track him or locate him beyond tried and tested “just keep looking”. They can’t hack his comms, because he’s no-one to communicate with, except when he’s hijacking their own signal.
Even if they can triangulate a position during such periods of access? They’ve got to get there first, and in sufficient numbers the lone Marine doesn’t just roflstomp the scouts sent out. Which given the specific equipment in play is a lot easier than it sounds.
Given an Infiltrator’s Phobos armour is calibrated to be completely silent? You’ll need to physically spot him - and remember, Guard don’t have radar or motion trackers as standard equipment. Some regiments may do, but then that regiment needs to be specified, just as I’ve specified a Raven Guard Infiltrator for Chapter preferences and uncanny knack’s.
And I genuinely don’t know what would be more terrifying. Seeing an Astartes slaughtering his way through your mates whilst bellowing warcries amplified to deafening volume - or in complete silence beyond the sickening rending of flesh and crunching of bone amongst the shrieks of his victims. I mean, the Marine can absolutely do both.
As for Heavy Bolters? There’s precious little to stop the Marine using whatever heavy weapons the Guard have with them. And even using them against the Marine relies solely on him attacking an established position from a predicted approach…because it takes time to set them up. Considering the combination of speed, strength and skill of a Marine, combats needn’t be drawn out.
There’s a very cool bit in a novel, and I’m pretty sure it’s Nightbringer. Uriel Ventriss, the Ultramarine protagonist, is assaulting a renegade bunker, which has a heavy Bolter emplaced. He gets up to the bunker, and listens for the tell tale sound of it being reloaded. Soon as that’s done, up he pops, grabs it, wrenches it from its mountings, and promptly turns it on the bunker’s occupants to devastating effect.
Add in the Marine isn’t daft, and will always have the element of surprise (see being able to monitor as well as disrupt Vox Network and his suite of sensors), any heavy weapons already setup are going to be prime targets, as they’re the biggest threat to the Marine. Take his time, line up his shot and….that’s a dead gunner, possibly dead gun crew as a whole. Then he’s in amongst the rest before anyone can re-crew it, even if all the Guard have the training to appease the Heavy Weapon’s machine spirit.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: . . .Take his time, line up his shot and….that’s a dead gunner, possibly dead gun crew as a whole. Then he’s in amongst the rest before anyone can re-crew it, even if all the Guard have the training to appease the Heavy Weapon’s machine spirit.
Oh the Marine is just teleporting now, from his sniper position to the heavy weapon, and totally not having to make his way there under fire from the 20 Guardsmen nearby, or any other heavy weapons set up in the vicinity. Sure, fine.
And you're ignoring all the othe heavy weapon emplacement providing mutual support? Or is he able to snipe all those without a problem and never being caught as the Guardsmen just stand there being shot at. Just rushing ahead to pick up the Heavy weapon itself would be a huge risk in and off itself, once he's out of ammunition.
The Marines isn't daft, neither are the Guardsmen. They're not spread out in 10 men squads over 100 KM square waiting to be assassinated one by one. They can absolutely cover all areas of approach with trenches and fortified emplacements, there's 10 000 of them, they have no reasons to ever spread out, that's their advantage.
Uriel managed this trick because there was now mutual cover with that bunker, no multiple overlapping fields of fire, where were the other bunkers? Destroyed? Inexistent, there was just a random bunker? If it's the former, who destroyed them. Or suppressed the men inside? If it's the latter, why would you put a random, isolated fortification just there, you're begging for what you just described to happen.
I mean…consider what a Marine can do to a human body. Snapping necks is the work of a split second. Once dead, if you’ve time? Start wrenching off limbs. Turn a killing into a butchering. Leave very visual reminders of just what it is they’re trying to kill. Break that nerve. Terrify them. Make them realise that a Demi-God, and one the evidence shows to be invulnerable is stalking them.
Yeah, well, a tiger can do all that damage too. People have been shooting tigers without difficulty for a long time. Or bears. Or whatever. People like guns for a reason.
People with spears hunted friggin mammoths. Give people a weapon and train them how to use it, and they'll use it.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Hence why I’m favouring a Primaris Infiltrator, as canonically they’re the most likely to be able monitor and make use of the Guard’s Vox network to plan assaults. He’s just one dude. The Guard have no inherent way to track him or locate him beyond tried and tested “just keep looking”. They can’t hack his comms, because he’s no-one to communicate with, except when he’s hijacking their own signal.
WTF is a Valkyrie for 500, Alex.
They find him with aircraft and then radio his position, artillery blows him to bits. And yes, the Imperial guard will have artillery.
Also, Astartes aren't typically tactical geniuses at asymmetrical warfare. "Camouflage is the color of fear" and all that.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: As for Heavy Bolters? There’s precious little to stop the Marine using whatever heavy weapons the Guard have with them.
Yes there is. The fingers of his gauntlets literally don't fit inside the trigger guards.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Add in the Marine isn’t daft, and will always have the element of surprise (see being able to monitor as well as disrupt Vox Network and his suite of sensors), any heavy weapons already setup are going to be prime targets, as they’re the biggest threat to the Marine. Take his time, line up his shot and….that’s a dead gunner, possibly dead gun crew as a whole. Then he’s in amongst the rest before anyone can re-crew it, even if all the Guard have the training to appease the Heavy Weapon’s machine spirit.
Except he hasn't properly performed the ritual of machine appeasement, etc. Most members of the Imperium (Astartes included) are absolutely pants-on-head slowed when it comes to technology.
There's no reason to suspect the Astartes will always have the element of surprise. When you've got 10k guard, eventually one of them will outwit him or get the drop on him. Your ideas are consistently idiotic and break the setting in fundamental ways.
I mean, the assumption that the Marine is a tactical near-genius is ok. But the assumption that the Guard aren't remotely bare-minimum competent is not.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Still the assumption it’s a straight up shoot out. Which…it wouldn’t be.
The Marine is in no rush. He can absolutely take his time.
If the Guard bunch up? Stalk and await a gap.
If they spread out? Pick them off piecemeal.
Hence why I’m favouring a Primaris Infiltrator, as canonically they’re the most likely to be able monitor and make use of the Guard’s Vox network to plan assaults. He’s just one dude. The Guard have no inherent way to track him or locate him beyond tried and tested “just keep looking”. They can’t hack his comms, because he’s no-one to communicate with, except when he’s hijacking their own signal.
Even if they can triangulate a position during such periods of access? They’ve got to get there first, and in sufficient numbers the lone Marine doesn’t just roflstomp the scouts sent out. Which given the specific equipment in play is a lot easier than it sounds.
Given an Infiltrator’s Phobos armour is calibrated to be completely silent? You’ll need to physically spot him - and remember, Guard don’t have radar or motion trackers as standard equipment. Some regiments may do, but then that regiment needs to be specified, just as I’ve specified a Raven Guard Infiltrator for Chapter preferences and uncanny knack’s.
And I genuinely don’t know what would be more terrifying. Seeing an Astartes slaughtering his way through your mates whilst bellowing warcries amplified to deafening volume - or in complete silence beyond the sickening rending of flesh and crunching of bone amongst the shrieks of his victims. I mean, the Marine can absolutely do both.
As for Heavy Bolters? There’s precious little to stop the Marine using whatever heavy weapons the Guard have with them. And even using them against the Marine relies solely on him attacking an established position from a predicted approach…because it takes time to set them up. Considering the combination of speed, strength and skill of a Marine, combats needn’t be drawn out.
There’s a very cool bit in a novel, and I’m pretty sure it’s Nightbringer. Uriel Ventriss, the Ultramarine protagonist, is assaulting a renegade bunker, which has a heavy Bolter emplaced. He gets up to the bunker, and listens for the tell tale sound of it being reloaded. Soon as that’s done, up he pops, grabs it, wrenches it from its mountings, and promptly turns it on the bunker’s occupants to devastating effect.
Add in the Marine isn’t daft, and will always have the element of surprise (see being able to monitor as well as disrupt Vox Network and his suite of sensors), any heavy weapons already setup are going to be prime targets, as they’re the biggest threat to the Marine. Take his time, line up his shot and….that’s a dead gunner, possibly dead gun crew as a whole. Then he’s in amongst the rest before anyone can re-crew it, even if all the Guard have the training to appease the Heavy Weapon’s machine spirit.
No-the assumption I made was that, on average, each Guardsman gets ONE shot at the Marine.
Because, to refer back to the gameplay again, a squad of 10 Guardsmen versus one Intercessor will usually be ending in the favor of the Guard.
Two squads? That Intercessor is toast.
Now, I do acknowledge that gameplay is abstracted-but is it abstracted by a factor of 1,000?
So, I feel like this is why we don't use tabletop rules in fluff discussions. Because it's not representative of the actual lore. How many Primaris captains are needed to kill a single Custodian Captain? By fluff standards, likely at least 4+. By table standards, a single BA Captain with a Relic blade can kill one. Table top is not accurate.
Messing with your comms, superior vision options, and completely silent.
Yes the completely silent sounds very silly, but completely silent it is
See, you have unserious cartoon-brain (except for those posts where you choose to describe the damage marines can do to human bodies with their bare hands, when you exchange it for a barely-contained, slavering borderline-eroticism... thanks, by the way, for letting me know that masochistic ceramite bunnies are one of the obscure hazards that need to be navigated in the 40K fandom )
Do you think that a marine wearing Phobos armour, who falls down a 300 metre shaft filled with panes of glass spaced 10 metres apart, remains "completely silent?"
"Complete silence" covers the operation of the armour, not its interaction with the physical environment... unless you can locate an explicit description of the muffling fields it throws out to conceal environmental noise.
I mean…consider what a Marine can do to a human body. Snapping necks is the work of a split second. Once dead, if you’ve time? Start wrenching off limbs. Turn a killing into a butchering. Leave very visual reminders of just what it is they’re trying to kill. Break that nerve. Terrify them. Make them realise that a Demi-God, and one the evidence shows to be invulnerable is stalking them.
Yeah, well, a tiger can do all that damage too. People have been shooting tigers without difficulty for a long time. Or bears. Or whatever. People like guns for a reason.
People with spears hunted friggin mammoths. Give people a weapon and train them how to use it, and they'll use it.
Okay but Tigers and Mammoths don't wear fictional power armor or use range weapons themselves.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So, I feel like this is why we don't use tabletop rules in fluff discussions. Because it's not representative of the actual lore. How many Primaris captains are needed to kill a single Custodian Captain? By fluff standards, likely at least 4+.
No. I reject your fluff standards. You haven't established any of that.
The tabletop rules are what the fluff is derived from, more often than not. We can say that if the fluff doesn't allow for 10,000 guardsmen to defeat one marine, the fluff is in the wrong, not the rules, and anyone who supports the idea that a marine can beat 10,000 guardsmen has a screw loose and shouldn't be taken seriously. People who get too into "my chosen faction can beat yours in this fictional IP" are oftentimes mentally deranged, borderline, etc, and especially in 40k's case, they very frequently lie about the background material.
Custodians get cacked all the time. One World Eater on a whole bunch of Chaos juice punched right through one's armor.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So, I feel like this is why we don't use tabletop rules in fluff discussions. Because it's not representative of the actual lore. How many Primaris captains are needed to kill a single Custodian Captain? By fluff standards, likely at least 4+. By table standards, a single BA Captain with a Relic blade can kill one. Table top is not accurate.
Unless you want to say the tabletop is COMPLETELY unmoored from the fluff, it's useful.
A Primaris Captain can't even take Relic Blades (unless you mean an ACTUAL Relic, and not the wargear called Relic Blade) so we're looking at an MC Power Sword or a Power Fist.
With 5 attacks (6 on the charge), hitting on a 2+/3+, wounding on a 4+/3+ (Sword/Fist), saving on a 4+, and doing 2 damage a pop... A single Captain does one and a fourth failed Sword saves, or one and a third with the Fist. On the first round of combat only-drops on later rounds.
Since you need four failed saves to kill a Shield-Captain, you'd need three Primaris Captains armed with Fists to kill one in a single round. Slightly less than your off-the-cuff estimate... But not by much.
I mean…consider what a Marine can do to a human body. Snapping necks is the work of a split second. Once dead, if you’ve time? Start wrenching off limbs. Turn a killing into a butchering. Leave very visual reminders of just what it is they’re trying to kill. Break that nerve. Terrify them. Make them realise that a Demi-God, and one the evidence shows to be invulnerable is stalking them.
Yeah, well, a tiger can do all that damage too. People have been shooting tigers without difficulty for a long time. Or bears. Or whatever. People like guns for a reason.
Guardsmen will shoot at Tyranid Warriors, who are bigger and faster and stronger and more dangerous than a Marine. They'll shoot a fuggin Marine.
People with spears hunted friggin mammoths. Give people a weapon and train them how to use it, and they'll use it.
Okay but Tigers and Mammoths don't wear fictional power armor or use range weapons themselves.
That's true, but armed individuals will also happily shoot at armed and armored cars too. People will shoot at all sorts of threatening targets.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So, I feel like this is why we don't use tabletop rules in fluff discussions. Because it's not representative of the actual lore. How many Primaris captains are needed to kill a single Custodian Captain? By fluff standards, likely at least 4+. By table standards, a single BA Captain with a Relic blade can kill one. Table top is not accurate.
Unless you want to say the tabletop is COMPLETELY unmoored from the fluff, it's useful.
A Primaris Captain can't even take Relic Blades (unless you mean an ACTUAL Relic, and not the wargear called Relic Blade) so we're looking at an MC Power Sword or a Power Fist.
With 5 attacks (6 on the charge), hitting on a 2+/3+, wounding on a 4+/3+ (Sword/Fist), saving on a 4+, and doing 2 damage a pop... A single Captain does one and a fourth failed Sword saves, or one and a third with the Fist. On the first round of combat only-drops on later rounds.
Since you need four failed saves to kill a Shield-Captain, you'd need three Primaris Captains armed with Fists to kill one in a single round. Slightly less than your off-the-cuff estimate... But not by much.
So I thought BA captains could take some "Relic blade" that is a 3 damage power sword.
Plus they get +1 to wound, and then +1 to hit, and then they have the charge bonuses, point is; they CAN easily take down a Custodian Captain, and on the table top, it's an even trade points wise. Both are around 120-150 if you count the relic.
If we were to go by the books, Valarian takes down silly numbers of Primaris Minotaurs without even taking a wound.
Table top does not account for Plot Armor, which is essentially a 1+1++1+++.
Tabletop cannot reflect fluff, nor vice versa. Else the game would be a bunch of crap. As would the books. Cain would EASILY lose most of his fights, Gaunt's mob would have been dead after the first book, and the Blood Angels would have lost in Dev of Baal.
There's a HH novel where a Chaplain gets killed by a random dude with a spear. Just rips his throat clean out and the Chaplain bleeds to death before the apothecary can get to him.
There's another novel where another marine (I want to say it's a Grey Knight, but googling it I can't find the passage anywhere) gets killed by a crowd through sheer weight of numbers just bearing down on them.
(Chaos) Marines are killed pretty regularly in the Gaunts Ghosts books, whether with squad-carried explosives, high powered long las fire, or even just drowning them in lasfire until the armour fails.
Marines are only worth X amount of Guardsmen because they are a surgical tool as opposed to a hammer. The Guardsmen hold the monster at bay while the Marine goes for it's throat.
This does not mean that the Marine is taking thousands of Guardsmen in a straight fight.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So, I feel like this is why we don't use tabletop rules in fluff discussions. Because it's not representative of the actual lore. How many Primaris captains are needed to kill a single Custodian Captain? By fluff standards, likely at least 4+. By table standards, a single BA Captain with a Relic blade can kill one. Table top is not accurate.
Unless you want to say the tabletop is COMPLETELY unmoored from the fluff, it's useful.
A Primaris Captain can't even take Relic Blades (unless you mean an ACTUAL Relic, and not the wargear called Relic Blade) so we're looking at an MC Power Sword or a Power Fist.
With 5 attacks (6 on the charge), hitting on a 2+/3+, wounding on a 4+/3+ (Sword/Fist), saving on a 4+, and doing 2 damage a pop... A single Captain does one and a fourth failed Sword saves, or one and a third with the Fist. On the first round of combat only-drops on later rounds.
Since you need four failed saves to kill a Shield-Captain, you'd need three Primaris Captains armed with Fists to kill one in a single round. Slightly less than your off-the-cuff estimate... But not by much.
So I thought BA captains could take some "Relic blade" that is a 3 damage power sword.
Plus they get +1 to wound, and then +1 to hit, and then they have the charge bonuses, point is; they CAN easily take down a Custodian Captain, and on the table top, it's an even trade points wise. Both are around 120-150 if you count the relic.
If we were to go by the books, Valarian takes down silly numbers of Primaris Minotaurs without even taking a wound.
Table top does not account for Plot Armor, which is essentially a 1+1++1+++.
Tabletop cannot reflect fluff, nor vice versa. Else the game would be a bunch of crap. As would the books. Cain would EASILY lose most of his fights, Gaunt's mob would have been dead after the first book, and the Blood Angels would have lost in Dev of Baal.
Do you think that the tabletop game and the lore of 40k are completely unrelated?
Because I can certainly agree that they aren't one-to-one accurate. But to say that they have nothing to do with one another... That's a bridge too far.
Also, BA don't get +1 to-hit. They only get +1 to-wound.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: If we were to go by the books, Valarian takes down silly numbers of Primaris Minotaurs without even taking a wound.
Table top does not account for Plot Armor, which is essentially a 1+1++1+++.
Tabletop cannot reflect fluff, nor vice versa. Else the game would be a bunch of crap. As would the books. Cain would EASILY lose most of his fights, Gaunt's mob would have been dead after the first book, and the Blood Angels would have lost in Dev of Baal.
They tabletop *can* reflect fluff if the game is designed well. And the fluff can be gak in a vacuum, like a lot of the Custodes fluff that jerks them off too much is.
I noticed you avoided talking about the time the Harlequins clowned on the Custodes in the palace, or one Khorne berserker punched a custodian to death.
Harlequins didn't actually do that. The Harlequins did slaughter many Lucifer Blacks (Guardsmen btw) and took a few casualties but as soon as they got too close to the Throne Room, they were in turn butchered by the Custodes with only the Shadowseer and Death Jester actually managing to kill any Custodes in return. The Death Jester gets killed and the Shadowseer is captured.
Have you actually read Throneworld?
Gert wrote: Harlequins didn't actually do that. The Harlequins did slaughter many Lucifer Blacks (Guardsmen btw) and took a few casualties but as soon as they got too close to the Throne Room, they were in turn butchered by the Custodes with only the Shadowseer and Death Jester actually managing to kill any Custodes in return. The Death Jester gets killed and the Shadowseer is captured.
Have you actually read Throneworld?
I've read the segments in question, and I've also noticed a lot of Custodes players being very frustrated by it.
So I actually can't see who you are responding to Gert, but yeah, the Custodes did hold their own in that situation. I haven't read that book, but I do know it wasn't a major slaughter of Custodes.
I'm honestly sick of defending Custodes. We know what they are and are not by now. If you are arguing they are not the max of imperial gene science and technology, that's on you (royal).
If you think a GK in their armor can be "crushed by human bodies" I don't know what to tell you. Physics in 40k literally disproves that. A GK wears heavily modified Terminator armor. Terminators have been shown to literally survive being stepped on by a titan. But a few hundred scrawny human bodies can "kill" a GK in weight?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So I actually can't see who you are responding to Gert, but yeah, the Custodes did hold their own in that situation. I haven't read that book, but I do know it wasn't a major slaughter of Custodes.
I'm honestly sick of defending Custodes. We know what they are and are not by now. If you are arguing they are not the max of imperial gene science and technology, that's on you (royal).
If you think a GK in their armor can be "crushed by human bodies" I don't know what to tell you. Physics in 40k literally disproves that. A GK wears heavily modified Terminator armor. Terminators have been shown to literally survive being stepped on by a titan. But a few hundred scrawny human bodies can "kill" a GK in weight?
Almost like the fluff is inconsistent, and therefore any extremes should be taken with a grain of salt.
Edit: Also, best of transhuman doesn’t mean the best of the best. Necrons are more advanced. Eldar are more advanced. Orks are, in some areas, more advanced. (Force Fields and Teleportation mostly.) Tau are, in some areas, more advanced.
So what is more likely to give way first? The earth/dirt, or Terminator Armor?
If we assume the Terminator in question just got squished into the dirt about 3 yards down, I can see that being possible. If this happened on something like rockcrete or a ship hull, yeah, he's paste. But I don't think it's an "extreme" example.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So I actually can't see who you are responding to Gert, but yeah, the Custodes did hold their own in that situation. I haven't read that book, but I do know it wasn't a major slaughter of Custodes.
I'm honestly sick of defending Custodes. We know what they are and are not by now. If you are arguing they are not the max of imperial gene science and technology, that's on you (royal).
If you think a GK in their armor can be "crushed by human bodies" I don't know what to tell you. Physics in 40k literally disproves that. A GK wears heavily modified Terminator armor. Terminators have been shown to literally survive being stepped on by a titan. But a few hundred scrawny human bodies can "kill" a GK in weight?
If you can't handle discussing things with people who can easily disprove whatever masturbatory fluff theory you have about Custodes, you probably aren't mature enough to participate in this forum.
Hecaton wrote: I've read the segments in question, and I've also noticed a lot of Custodes players being very frustrated by it.
Cool, so you should know that your version of events is wrong then. As for Custodes players, were they mad because they'd read the book or mad because someone told them what they thought happened in the book? Because with War of the Beast a solid 70% of the nerd rage was because people were reading summaries rather than the actual book.
Hecaton wrote: I've read the segments in question, and I've also noticed a lot of Custodes players being very frustrated by it.
Cool, so you should know that your version of events is wrong then. As for Custodes players, were they mad because they'd read the book or mad because someone told them what they thought happened in the book?
I don't think it matters; they were mad because their enjoyment of their faction is predicated on them being shown to defeat/be better than other factions.
Hecaton wrote: I don't think it matters; they were mad because their enjoyment of their faction is predicated on them being shown to defeat/be better than other factions.
It matters that you parroted the rage posts instead of accurately relaying the events to suit your narrative. You were wrong, admit it and move on.
Hecaton wrote: I don't think it matters; they were mad because their enjoyment of their faction is predicated on them being shown to defeat/be better than other factions.
It matters that you parroted the rage posts instead of accurately relaying the events to suit your narrative. You were wrong, admit it and move on.
Nah, I'm not wrong. You missed the greater context of my posts, which is that the Custodes fanbase is uniquely toxic to other elements of the 40k fanbase because their faction's identity is mostly "is better than ither factions."
The Imperium has a thousand chapters of a thousand marines, and a million plus worlds. So about 1 marine per planet.
Every non-Imperial faction has at least something that is a marine equivalent or better (like half of the marines being chaos).
The Imperial Guard do not outnumber all threats to the Imperium combined by over 10,000:1 yet the Imperium still stands as the primary faction whose main defence is non-augmented humans.
A Space Marine can be abstractly described as being worth 10,000 Imperial Guard due to the focus of strength into a small area, the ability to perform tasks a normal human cannot, and the sheer fear factor of a squad of armoured supermen ripping apart your heretic scums command centre after drop podding through the roof. In a straight fight the Guard win, as they do daily in the fluff against all the MEQ threats the Imperium faces.
Sure, I enjoyed it. There's a lot of good stuff, some weird stuff and a lot of politics which is shown off really well. You get a really good look at how dysfunctional the Imperium is and how characters with good intentions often end up being monsters in the pursuit of them.
Plus, there's Captain Slaughter.
Insularum wrote: A Space Marine can be abstractly described as being worth 10,000 Imperial Guard due to the focus of strength into a small area, the ability to perform tasks a normal human cannot, and the sheer fear factor of a squad of armoured supermen ripping apart your heretic scums command centre after drop podding through the roof. In a straight fight the Guard win, as they do daily in the fluff against all the MEQ threats the Imperium faces.
This is an excellent summary of my position on this matter. I will not budge from it, no matter how much canon fluff is quoted at me or how many arguments to the contrary are given.
Insularum wrote: A Space Marine can be abstractly described as being worth 10,000 Imperial Guard due to the focus of strength into a small area, the ability to perform tasks a normal human cannot, and the sheer fear factor of a squad of armoured supermen ripping apart your heretic scums command centre after drop podding through the roof. In a straight fight the Guard win, as they do daily in the fluff against all the MEQ threats the Imperium faces.
Gonna be rough for Fezzik to come to terms with that idea lol
Nah, I'm not wrong. You missed the greater context of my posts, which is that the Custodes fanbase is uniquely toxic to other elements of the 40k fanbase because their faction's identity is mostly "is better than ither factions."
I thought that was the Eldar schtick?
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Insularum wrote: The Imperium has a thousand chapters of a thousand marines, and a million plus worlds. So about 1 marine per planet.
Every non-Imperial faction has at least something that is a marine equivalent or better (like half of the marines being chaos).
The Imperial Guard do not outnumber all threats to the Imperium combined by over 10,000:1 yet the Imperium still stands as the primary faction whose main defence is non-augmented humans.
A Space Marine can be abstractly described as being worth 10,000 Imperial Guard due to the focus of strength into a small area, the ability to perform tasks a normal human cannot, and the sheer fear factor of a squad of armoured supermen ripping apart your heretic scums command centre after drop podding through the roof. In a straight fight the Guard win, as they do daily in the fluff against all the MEQ threats the Imperium faces.
Very well said.
A naked marine with a sharp stick is a deadly threat to a dozen humans, no question. But a marine is worth 10k humans when he has not only his armor and weapons, but his drop pod, his strike cruiser, his network of psychic choruses and orbital augeries and all the other support that allows him and his 9 best buddies to drop through the roof of an enemy bunker and kill everyone.
The straight fights we see on the tabletop should be rare, it's like asking Navy SEALs or SAS to hold a trenchline. If your elite troops are in a fair fight, then you've done something wrong.
I continue to contend that 99% of marine battles do not rate a tabletop game or BL novel, they're literally a few squads of marines taking on cultists, orks or guard or whomever but the other guys have no plasma or power klaws and have to spend 3 turns figuring out what's going on.
The tabletop games and novels are the World Cup/Superbowl battles between two apex forces.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: How many Guardsmen would it take to kill a Necron Triarch Praetorian? Would it get as many defenders as Space Marines, saying it has a good chance against thousands?
Aha!
Trick question. Even if he gets all shot to ribbons, chances of a kill are vanishingly tiny low, because the Praetorian will phase out.
Double trick question! The Praetorian is already dead for all intents and purposes because he can not truly feel the warm fuzzy fur of a kitten.
(Yes, I know I'm jumping back a page or two...but I felt a strong urge to share this insight)
It’s not a soft kitty it’s a Canoptek Scarab but due to faulty personality engrams software it is a soft kitty to the Praetorian, and how it’s otherwise maintained sanity over its millions of years of existence.
It’s also very likely a Praetorian’s undying body would have quite accurate tactile sensors, as they didn’t get the crappy ones Warriors did, and certainly superior models to the ones Immortals wound up in.
It’s not a soft kitty it’s a Canoptek Scarab but due to faulty personality engrams software it is a soft kitty to the Praetorian, and how it’s otherwise maintained sanity over its millions of years of existence.
It’s also very likely a Praetorian’s undying body would have quite accurate tactile sensors, as they didn’t get the crappy ones Warriors did, and certainly superior models to the ones Immortals wound up in.
Well I think that nicely wraps up all the open questions in this thread.
All it takes is one guardsman with a meltagun who gets a clean shot and the marine is dead. There are a lot of guardsmen with meltaguns amongst 10,000.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Infiltrators have additional suites of sneaky sneak sneak equipment. And can most certainly jam or be invisible to Auspex. Certainly the low rent Auspex Guard would have.
Suits of armour that glow like a christmas tree when viewed in infrared because you cannot mask the excess heat put out by a nuclear reactor.
Any regiment trained in covert strike doctrines is equipped with synskin and preysense goggles (Only War, Hammer of the Emperor, page 43). Synskin masks the wearer to infrared and eyesight that is not dependent on the visible spectrum and preysense goggles will have the marine visible like a shining beacon thanks to the laws of thermodynamics.
Speaking of the laws of thermodynamics, has anyone ever figured out how much energy is in a lasbolt? I suspect the marine will be baked alive if even a relatively small percentage of the lasgun shots hit and zero of them make it through the armor, but I'm willing to be surprised.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: Speaking of the laws of thermodynamics, has anyone ever figured out how much energy is in a lasbolt? I suspect the marine will be baked alive if even a relatively small percentage of the lasgun shots hit and zero of them make it through the armor, but I'm willing to be surprised.
I mean no, becsuse it's not defined that clearly, but based on the 2e stats lasguns can penetrate through thinner plates of power armor (in that they were ap -1).
DeadliestIdiot wrote: Speaking of the laws of thermodynamics, has anyone ever figured out how much energy is in a lasbolt? I suspect the marine will be baked alive if even a relatively small percentage of the lasgun shots hit and zero of them make it through the armor, but I'm willing to be surprised.
I mean no, becsuse it's not defined that clearly, but based on the 2e stats lasguns can penetrate through thinner plates of power armor (in that they were ap -1).
But based on fluff we have an idea of what a lasbolt can do to unprotected flesh (there's a wide range, but we can take the low end of energy and work from there). Shooting a pig carcass with a laser seems like something mythbusters would have done at some point lol
These are the dice tins from a previous edition (no I don’t have them anymore). And they’re modelled as Lasgun power packs. Note each offers a Megathule range.
Is that a genuine measure? Buggered if I know. But it’s something.
Though rather helpfully, it does show 135 discharges to be the norm, based on a sample of three.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: Speaking of the laws of thermodynamics, has anyone ever figured out how much energy is in a lasbolt? I suspect the marine will be baked alive if even a relatively small percentage of the lasgun shots hit and zero of them make it through the armor, but I'm willing to be surprised.
I'm assuming that they are at least comparable to or better than a slightly larger calibre modern firearm, but I obviously don't have exact numbers and the fluff is all over the place. I also don't know how much distance or airborne debris like dust or smoke would affect a lasbolt.
Taking some info from Wikipedia for a 7.62 NATO round;
147 gr (10 g) M80 FMJ - 2,800 ft/s (850 m/s) - 2,559 ft⋅lbf (3,470 J)
175 gr (11 g) M118 long range BTHP - 2,600 ft/s (790 m/s) - 2,627 ft⋅lbf (3,562 J)
Please bear in mind that have the bare minimum of knowledge about firearms. If anyone can translate that info into something my smooth brain can understand I would be very grateful.
These are the dice tins from a previous edition (no I don’t have them anymore). And they’re modelled as Lasgun power packs. Note each offers a Megathule range.
Is that a genuine measure? Buggered if I know. But it’s something.
Though rather helpfully, it does show 135 discharges to be the norm, based on a sample of three.
The rpg books (also made by GW) had 60 shots be the standard Cadian-pattern lasgun's power pack.
At visible wavelength, attenuation is fairly weak under most circumstances. (Disclaimer, my experience with attenuation in terms of actually thinking about it consciously is limited to the microwave spectrum, so I'm mostly basing this off being able to see a fair distance without much attenuation)
Don’t know if this has been covered but I’m reading the first book in the siege on terror and there is a new Sons of Horus recruit besieging a space station (I think). He has had all the transhuman stuff done and the psycho indoctrination but is green to combat. He is basically bested by an imperial navy officer in close quarters due to his lack of experience. He only survives for narrative purposes.
Chaos Space Marines are simultaneously weaker than your basic Cultist AND able to rip the top hatches off a baneblade, and tear a human in half with it's bare hands. It's a real Shrodinger's Heretic. They are the most feared threat in the lore, and also able to be killed by a shot in the head from a las gun. So they are really inconsistent. Loyalists have the same problems. Able to take down an entire raiding ship of Dark Eldar with just a knife and a Bolter, but also able to be killed by a blunt mace wielding sentient plant with hate for blood.
I do suspect a lot of marine deaths are just due to massive overconfidence. "Puny mortals can't hurt me, i'm unstoppabl.... wait did you just clamp a krak grenade to my *BOOM*" They are vets of countless fights, they're gonna slip up or get complacent eventually.
Also, wasn't there a heresy novel of world eaters vs a whole planet of clone humans, the marines got their asses handed to them by a bunch of baseline humans peacefully walking up to them and essentially dogpilling them till they were crushed to death.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Chaos Space Marines are simultaneously weaker than your basic Cultist AND able to rip the top hatches off a baneblade, and tear a human in half with it's bare hands. It's a real Shrodinger's Heretic. They are the most feared threat in the lore, and also able to be killed by a shot in the head from a las gun. So they are really inconsistent. Loyalists have the same problems. Able to take down an entire raiding ship of Dark Eldar with just a knife and a Bolter, but also able to be killed by a blunt mace wielding sentient plant with hate for blood.
This is actually not unlike humans. Humans can die from one punch to the head. They can also survive a pole being shoved through their head. Go figure.
In this world you're either Stallone or Schwarzenegger, or you're the guy on the other end of their guns.
It may also be worth noting a few things when discussing the relative effectiveness of 40k's firearms... And I apologize for not having sources. I believe it was Bastion Wars Omnibus? And it has some ties to real world weapons.
5.56mm isn't intended to kill with one or two shots to extremities or center of mass. Will it or can it? Yes, but shots to soft tissue or "unimportant" places can still simultaneously not kill someone, and still remove them from combat. A Casualty of Combat does not necessarily mean that the combatant is dead.
Circling back around to Bastion Wars I believe, Lasguns and Stubbers/etcs are compared against one another. Lasguns are preferred weapons for protracted battles and wars for a number of reasons. They can be easily recharged/reused compared to stubbers needing solid shell ammunition made for them. As well, non-lethal wounds dealt by Las weapons are much, much harder to heal compared to solid shell. Due to the damage from the shot, and the instant burning/cauterizing effect. You may not kill with a lasgun shot just the same as a stubber shot may not kill, but a lasgun will keep that wounded opponent down for much longer. In all ways, its presented as a superior attrition weapon.
So, on the tabletop, a guardsman wounds another guardsman with a lasgun. They're removed as a casualty. That guardsman may not be dead, but they're out of the fight. Bolters on the other hand are quite obviously, highly lethal weapons.
Asenion wrote: True or false? I hear it a lot at Game Stores.
I mean, sure, if those Guardsmen were going to come at them 1 on 1.
Realistically though, that's not what's going to happen. There will be an initial shock of transhuman dread once that marine hits the Guardsmen. Eventually they'll begin to adjust to the situation, often under pressure instincts fall back onto training. That squad would likely alert their platoon, that platoon would alert their company, that company would alter surrounding forces, and they'll organise a force to defeat that marine.
If that marine is in the open, well, that's easy game. Surround him, focus fire with the small arms, distract the marine from the actual weapons that can hurt him. Split up your plasma guns, melta guns, missile launchers, lascannons, etc to hit him in multiple directions at once.
If it's in the confines of a city or hive, that's much harder. You'd try to get a rough idea of their location and direction. Lay traps, create ambushes, try to catch him in large open rooms where you can fall back to the above steps.
They will take losses, maybe a lot of losses, but they can take him down.
Nope. According to a black library book (canon ) a marine gets dragged down and killed by a mob of civilians - and all they had was some scattered shivs...
10k guardsmen with las rifles? nah... multiple examples of marines getting felled by lasfire through the lense/armor joins.
Asenion wrote: True or false? I hear it a lot at Game Stores.
I mean, sure, if those Guardsmen were going to come at them 1 on 1.
True... But even then.. one of those guardsmen will get a lucky shot in either the neck seal or lense before the marine turn them into pulp depending on how good a shot they are.
Argive wrote: Nope. According to a black library book (canon ) a marine gets dragged down and killed by a mob of civilians - and all they had was some scattered shivs...
10k guardsmen with las rifles? nah... multiple examples of marines getting felled by lasfire through the lense/armor joins.
Asenion wrote: True or false? I hear it a lot at Game Stores.
I mean, sure, if those Guardsmen were going to come at them 1 on 1.
True... But even then.. one of those guardsmen will get a lucky shot in either the neck seal or lense before the marine turn them into pulp depending on how good a shot they are.
I'm going to raise the stakes!
I say 1 Space Marine can beat 100 trillion, billion, zillion, trillion, Imperial Guard!!!
Seriously that's what I'm saying. Horus us my Evidence.
Horus isn't a "space marine" he's a Primarch, and the strongest one at that. It literally took the Emperor to beat him. And that ended up killing him in the end.
Calling the primarchs SM is like calling a Custodian a Conscript.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Horus isn't a "space marine" he's a Primarch, and the strongest one at that. It literally took the Emperor to beat him. And that ended up killing him in the end.
Calling the primarchs SM is like calling a Custodian a Conscript.
Well, it started out 10 regiments of Sly Marbos with Artillery and Air Support vs 1 neophyte with a sharp stick, then it became 10000 Conscripts with Guardsman's primers vs Dante. It's waffled fairly quickly back and forth since then.
When last we left, it was the Predator vs 10000 Imperial Sardukar?
Don't forget the "One Space Marine means a battleship and exterminatus, and Guardsmen don't know how to operate their artillery and anti space weaponry."
Astartes picket vessels such as the Gladius class might be commended, or at least overseen, by a single Astartes.
Given they’re standard issue across Chapters? Sucks to be those 10,000 hypothetical Guardsmen.
For reference? The Gladius Class was around 3km in length. To mix settings? A Super Star Destroyer is around 5.5km.
That’s right. A ship and it’s equivalent typically deployed in squadrons as picket and support ships are staggeringly huge.
The Executor Class SSD is 19km long, not to detract from the 40k conversation but which SSD class are you referring too? 5.5 is the upper end of Star BC from what I know of the Setting, Star Dreadnoughts/SSD are consistently stated to be larger.
Bringing in Starships still seems weird to me. I thought the whole point was to compare one ground based fighting force (Space Marines) with another (Guardsmen).
If we start talking spaceships (regardless in which side), shouldn't we compare 1 Space Marine vs. 10.000 Navy personell?
The space marine is allowed the ship. But they can't operate it with just themselves, as the criteria wasn't 1 space marine and several thousand serfs, servitors etc., so it does nothing even if they were on the ship in the first place.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The space marine is allowed the ship. But they can't operate it with just themselves, as the criteria wasn't 1 space marine and several thousand serfs, servitors etc., so it does nothing even if they were on the ship in the first place.
That all came up when folk were adding exclusively PDF related resources to the mix. Plus, I still maintain a Gladius, overseen by a single Astartes is still a single Astartes
Because technically correct? Is the best kind of correct
As for relative ship length, I’m happy to concede I was off on the length of a Super Star Destroyer. But in my defence I blame wildly differing Google Results.
A Town Called Malus wrote: The space marine is allowed the ship. But they can't operate it with just themselves, as the criteria wasn't 1 space marine and several thousand serfs, servitors etc., so it does nothing even if they were on the ship in the first place.
That all came up when folk were adding exclusively PDF related resources to the mix. Plus, I still maintain a Gladius, overseen by a single Astartes is still a single Astartes
Because technically correct? Is the best kind of correct
As for relative ship length, I’m happy to concede I was off on the length of a Super Star Destroyer. But in my defence I blame wildly differing Google Results.
You denied that the Imperial Guard make use of emplaced planetary defences, which is laughably wrong. Any invasion of a new world will require establishing a beachhead, which also requires establishing defences for that beachhead. You cannot rely entirely on the Navy to maintain orbital supremacy over the entire campaign.
There is no PDF on a world being invaded to be added to the Imperium, so who is operating the Guard's orbital defences?
A single Gladius, with thousands of people, counts as 1 Astartes, but Guardsmen can't even know how to man planetary defenses, which they likely would have training with, since most come from the pdf, and have to know how to use it, since the mechanicus won't always be on hand?
The Astartes can have a ship, but he needs to be on his own, if Guardsmen don't even know how to use their own weapons.
I’m not aware of IG ever having such a thing. And even then, that would be the purview of Techpriests over Guardsmen.
You think that the guard does not set up orbital batteries to defend their command centers they establish on world during wartime? That would make destroying the entire command structure of the Imperial Guard in a single nuclear strike a piece of piss provided you can gain a momentary period of orbital superiority. Since that doesn't happen, we can infer that the Guard have defences on world which does not rely on orbital superiority.
And no, the guard do not rely on techpriests to operate heavy weaponry. It is not techpriests driving their tanks, or manning earthshaker batteries. The purview of the techpriests in the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy is the maintenance of equipment, not operation.
From the Tech-Priest Enginseer specialty description in the Only War rulebook: "Conspicuous among the regiments of the Imperial Guard in their red Mechanicus robes, their bodies twisted by the numerous holy augmetics that bring them closer to their Omnissiah, the tech mystics of the Priesthood of Mars maintain the Imperial Guard’s vast store of weapons, fighting vehicles, and other various and sundry war materiel."
There's also this, from the same description: "They are often directly in harm’s way, rushing into the thick of battle to salve the machine spirits of a wounded Chimera, for example, or bringing their copious engineering knowledge to bear on enemy fortifications and armour, to the great benefit of their squad-mates."
If the tech-priests were already operating all the heavy equipment of the Guard, there would be absolutely no need for them to "rush in", they would already be there.
From Hammer of the Emperor source book of Only War, in the description of the 14th Lathe World Artillery Corps: "Whereas most artillery is serviced by men and women drawn directly from the attached regiment and overseen by Enginseers, the 14th Lathe World Artillery Corps has its crew drawn from the Lathe Worlds themselves." This description ends with: "While the Corps remains highly unusual among the artillery of the Imperial Guard of the Periphery, none can deny its deadly accuracy and impressive kill tally."
So, no. The Guard operate their own artillery with their own guardsmen with some oversight by the admech. The admech does not operate all Imperial Guard heavy weapons, as you have asserted.
Pyroalchi wrote: Bringing in Starships still seems weird to me. I thought the whole point was to compare one ground based fighting force (Space Marines) with another (Guardsmen).
Yep. Then we have to figure out who is attacking and who is defending.
If the Guard are the ones attacking then they'd have to have navy assets. Which will just annihilate the SM fleet. As the BFG source book states that SM ships aren't designed for traditional fleet engagements.
If the marines are attacking. Then you have to determine what assets the Guard have. Are there void shields? Defence batteries? Do they have deep underground bunkers to protect them from orbital strikes?
Can 10.000 guardsmen beat a white scar marine in a race?
Could they construct a fortification faster than a Imperial fist?
Perhaps play hide and seek better than a Dark Angel!
Drink more blood or alcohol than a Blood angel or Space wolf?
Have more cyberenetics than an Iron Hand
And of course, be more generic than an Ultramarine.
There are 2 that I think I can answer here, the Iron Hand question and the Ultramarine question.
For the Iron Hands question there are multiple ground rules we have to lay out before we can answer it in full. The first being how we measure the amount of cybernetics someone has. From my perspective, there are two ways to measure this, percentage of body composed of cybernetics or amount of separate cybernetics. If we go overall percentage, I think it’s very possible that a singular guardsman may be more cybernetic than an Iron Hands Marine, possibly due to losing multiple limbs or something of the sort. The other ground rule is if we are assuming that the Imperium will attempt to “repair” grunt level Imperial Guardsmen through the use of cybernetics or not. If the answer to that is no, then I think the Iron Hands Marine wins handily (ha).
For the Ultramarines question, I dug into some of the definitions of generic and found that one is not specific, and that one of generic’s synonyms is common. As I understand it, the term Imperial Guard is a lot less specific than the term Ultramarine and the Imperial Guard are also far more common than Ultramarines. So I would have to give the generic category to the Imperial Guard.
In "Brothers of the Snake" a Single Marine has just from memory: A drop ship/shuttle with guns, a Land Speeder assault ship, an entire armory on board the landing ship, and enough weaponry to reasonably kill off an entire Dark Eldar raiding party solo. And that's just a single battle brother, not even say, a SGT or a Captain. So yeah, a Single Marine comes with a lot of accessories.
A Single IG soldier comes with a Lasrifle, flak armor, webbing, a bayonet, some extra cells, a ruck sack, maybe a ration kit, and a shovel.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: In "Brothers of the Snake" a Single Marine has just from memory: A drop ship/shuttle with guns, a Land Speeder assault ship, an entire armory on board the landing ship, and enough weaponry to reasonably kill off an entire Dark Eldar raiding party solo. And that's just a single battle brother, not even say, a SGT or a Captain. So yeah, a Single Marine comes with a lot of accessories.
A Single IG soldier comes with a Lasrifle, flak armor, webbing, a bayonet, some extra cells, a ruck sack, maybe a ration kit, and a shovel.
There is a major difference.
You forgot that the single IG soldier also comes with 99999 other IG soldiers, hence the whole basis of the thread (also you forgot the grenades, copy of the imperial infantryman's uplifting primer, and faith in the Emperor...how dare you! ).
(also, I love that this thread keeps coming back to life every month or so...rolling real well on its WBB roll)
TheBestBucketHead wrote: A single Gladius, with thousands of people, counts as 1 Astartes, but Guardsmen can't even know how to man planetary defenses, which they likely would have training with, since most come from the pdf, and have to know how to use it, since the mechanicus won't always be on hand?
The Astartes can have a ship, but he needs to be on his own, if Guardsmen don't even know how to use their own weapons.
All about not drafting in allies.
Astartes Naval Crew are vassals/allies. A formal part of the wide Chapter.
Planetside defences aren’t the purview of the Imperial Guard, unless it’s their home world. Either way, to get them running you need Techpriests well beyond the rank of Enginseer.
And no, Guardsman won’t have that training. Because as above, it’s not the purview of the Imperial Guard.
A Single IG soldier comes with a Lasrifle, flak armor, webbing, a bayonet, some extra cells, a ruck sack, maybe a ration kit, and a shovel.
The universal standard kit, the baseline kit for individual guard trooper before their regiment type and combat doctrine alters it, given in Only War is the following: • One uniform • One set of poor weather gear • One laspistol (Main Weapon), and two charge packs • One knife • One flak vest • One rucksack or sling bag • One set of basic tools • One mess kit and one water canteen • One blanket and one sleep bag • One rechargeable lamp pack • One grooming kit • One set of cognomen tags or equivalent identification • One primer or instructional handbook • Combat sustenance rations, two weeks’ supply
A standard Line Infantry regiment adds full flak armour, a lasgun, 2 frag grenades and 2 krak grenades to that base kit. However, even for a line infantry regiment there can be further modifications to that kit, depending on the exact nature of the regiment in question. You could have an entire line infantry regiment equipped with chameleoline cloaks or armour, for example.
And, it was not stated in the OP that the 10,000 Guard were Line Infantry. If it were a grenadier regiment, for example, then each guardsman would have a grenade launcher attached to their lasgun, as well as light carapace armour and 2 grenade launchers per squad. If it were a heavy recon regiment then each guardsman has a Sentinel. Rough Riders? Horses and hunting lances.
And no, Guardsman won’t have that training. Because as above, it’s not the purview of the Imperial Guard.
I think the argument was that it would have been the purview of the PDF, from which the guard is tithed, and thus the guardsmen would have been trained in its use back when they were PDF. Presumably, this is under the assumption that that is some level of standardization amongst planetary defenses, which may or may not be the case (*insert joke drawing parallels to a lot of regiments looking suspiciously cadian due to model limitations* ). Also, I would assume only a fraction of PDFers would have been trained in the use of planetary defenses (even allowing for plenty of cross training). That said, I feel like the space marine being able to rely on chapter assets is like allowing the guardsmen to rely on their chain of command, in which case the issue gets bounced up the chain of command and the planetary defenses get activated (perhaps some judicial use of placing the planet under martial law by the regimental commander would be needed).
Ok... fair enough. I would agree that a single Space Marine with a Gladius Cruiser etc. will most definitly best 10.000 guardsmen standing on a planet with their basic gear.
That's a fair point.
Not really impressive... but fair
And no, Guardsman won’t have that training. Because as above, it’s not the purview of the Imperial Guard.
I think the argument was that it would have been the purview of the PDF, from which the guard is tithed, and thus the guardsmen would have been trained in its use back when they were PDF. Presumably, this is under the assumption that that is some level of standardization amongst planetary defenses, which may or may not be the case (*insert joke drawing parallels to a lot of regiments looking suspiciously cadian due to model limitations* ). Also, I would assume only a fraction of PDFers would have been trained in the use of planetary defenses (even allowing for plenty of cross training). That said, I feel like the space marine being able to rely on chapter assets is like allowing the guardsmen to rely on their chain of command, in which case the issue gets bounced up the chain of command and the planetary defenses get activated (perhaps some judicial use of placing the planet under martial law by the regimental commander would be needed).
Still requires the Cogboys, who are attached to the Regiment, making them an allied force.
So, just to be clear, 10,000 Guardsmen get nothing but the gear on their backs.
But 1 Marine gets an entire strike cruiser and all the attendant personnel that come with it?
JNAProductions wrote: So, just to be clear, 10,000 Guardsmen get nothing but the gear on their backs.
But 1 Marine gets an entire strike cruiser and all the attendant personnel that come with it?
All about the equipment they can command as an individual.
JNAProductions wrote: So, just to be clear, 10,000 Guardsmen get nothing but the gear on their backs.
But 1 Marine gets an entire strike cruiser and all the attendant personnel that come with it?
All about the equipment they can command as an individual.
Command?
Lord Solar Leonatus is also a single guardsman, and commands all the equipment in the Imperial Guard.
@ Mad Doc: As said, I concede your point it's just... a weird comparison then.
Under that premise one could argue that a Single High Lord of Terra, a more or less baseline human, has a substantial chance of beating a whole chapter of Marines.
Or a single Navy Admiral or Imperial Guard Warmaster like Maccaroth in the Ghost novels.
JNAProductions wrote: So, just to be clear, 10,000 Guardsmen get nothing but the gear on their backs.
But 1 Marine gets an entire strike cruiser and all the attendant personnel that come with it?
All about the equipment they can command as an individual.
Command?
Lord Solar Leonatus is also a single guardsman, and commands all the equipment in the Imperial Guard.
And Dante is just a single Space Marine, who commands what essentialy is a legion of Blood Angels Chapters, Sup Chapters, Sub sub Chapters, Auxillary, Naval, and planetary defensive forces, not to mention the entire Nihilus Defense Crusade force which again, is made up of several chapters broken off the Indomitus Crusade Fleet.
So yeah, "commands" is a bad possible wording here.
I would say rather, what that soldier and their like, has basic access to. A Single marine does not have access to a strike Cruiser, or an inquisitor (Unless it's a GK or a DW) so they can't unilaterally order an exterminatus.
Also a single Guard trooper wouldn't be able to just walk into their armory and requisition a personal Melta or a Hydra (Gunner Jurgen is the aide to a Commissar).
So a Basic Space Marine, with just a Bolter, and grenades, vs 10k Imperial Guard with Lasrifles and Grenades. Yeah, the space marine loses. Every Single time.
If a strike cruiser is standard issue for a single Marine, how come it used to be that, in-game, only a Chapter Master could call orbital bombardment?
And even now, it’s once per game, not once per Marine.
Can we stop pretending that anyone was honestly suggesting the "Single" entity was either a Chapter Master, or that the 10k were all Warmasters, or metaverse variants of Sly Marbo and Creed?
Can 10.000 guardsmen beat a white scar marine in a race?
Could they construct a fortification faster than a Imperial fist?
Perhaps play hide and seek better than a Dark Angel!
Drink more blood or alcohol than a Blood angel or Space wolf?
Have more cyberenetics than an Iron Hand
And of course, be more generic than an Ultramarine.
There are 2 that I think I can answer here, the Iron Hand question and the Ultramarine question.
For the Iron Hands question there are multiple ground rules we have to lay out before we can answer it in full. The first being how we measure the amount of cybernetics someone has. From my perspective, there are two ways to measure this, percentage of body composed of cybernetics or amount of separate cybernetics. If we go overall percentage, I think it’s very possible that a singular guardsman may be more cybernetic than an Iron Hands Marine, possibly due to losing multiple limbs or something of the sort. The other ground rule is if we are assuming that the Imperium will attempt to “repair” grunt level Imperial Guardsmen through the use of cybernetics or not. If the answer to that is no, then I think the Iron Hands Marine wins handily (ha).
For the Ultramarines question, I dug into some of the definitions of generic and found that one is not specific, and that one of generic’s synonyms is common. As I understand it, the term Imperial Guard is a lot less specific than the term Ultramarine and the Imperial Guard are also far more common than Ultramarines. So I would have to give the generic category to the Imperial Guard.
Admittedly I was just trying to think of something each of the legions excelled at. And the joke goes that the blue boys are very bland.
Also, people seem to be adding the things a marine could requisition to the marines toolkit. That feels unfair as then the entire equipment of the imperial guard should be at the 10,000s application.
I don't care what the marine is equipped with, if the guard have a superheavy detachment they have the upper hand. Outside of orbital bombardment of course.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can we stop pretending that anyone was honestly suggesting the "Single" entity was either a Chapter Master, or that the 10k were all Warmasters, or metaverse variants of Sly Marbo and Creed?
MDG was honestly suggesting that the “Single” space marine comes with a Strike Cruiser and all attendant crew.
All the other comparisons are reductio ad absurdum on the justifications for that point.
Everyone else would probably just be talking about more reasonable comparisons if the Strike Cruiser point didn’t keep getting pressed.
Actually, it started off with people saying that the Guard would get all the trimmings, including tanks and artillery. Here is the post:
Asenion wrote: Yeah I was kind of thinking that. And the fact is the Guard WILL be bringing vehicles and artillery. Guardsmen are the real power behind the Throne.
The point that was made by both Fezzik, myself, and MDG was that with just explicit arsenals, the Astartes do command their own naval assets whereas the Guard does not. So if the Guard force is getting tanks, artillery, and whatnot, then the Astartes gets access to its arsenal in the same way which includes escort class starships.
MDG never said anything about a Strike Cruiser.
The difference is that Guardsmen can drive the tanks on their own. A single Astartes cannot drive the ships on their own.
But, I'd be fine with giving the Astartes their own vehicle, with extra equipment and medical stuff. As well, I'd be fine restricting the Guardsmen to what they'd have on foot, rather than Baneblades and such.
But the difference is that Guardsmen can operate their vehicles, but a single Astartes cannot drive their ship on their own.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Saying that people can command those lower than them means that we can have the Guardsmen overseeing the PDF, which gives orbital defenses. So we're back to square one.
I'm honestly most interested in 10k Guardsmen with Lasguns versus 10 Astartes with Bolters and Knives, and seeing if guerilla warfare would win with such huge differences in numbers.
Gert wrote: Actually, it started off with people saying that the Guard would get all the trimmings, including tanks and artillery. Here is the post:
Asenion wrote: Yeah I was kind of thinking that. And the fact is the Guard WILL be bringing vehicles and artillery. Guardsmen are the real power behind the Throne.
The point that was made by both Fezzik, myself, and MDG was that with just explicit arsenals, the Astartes do command their own naval assets whereas the Guard does not. So if the Guard force is getting tanks, artillery, and whatnot, then the Astartes gets access to its arsenal in the same way which includes escort class starships.
MDG never said anything about a Strike Cruiser.
My mistake, it was a Gladius, which is an escort, not a Strike Cruiser. But the point still stands, it’s a ridiculous comparison given the premise.
Even an escort comes with hundreds of crew so it’s no longer a single marine. The comparison is 1 marine vs 10,000 guard, not a few hundred Gladius crew vs 10,000 guard or indeed war zone level combat between opposing marine and guard forces (where marines would obviously have their ships).
Once you’ve got a force of 10,000 people looking at what their organisational structure is a reasonable point of discussion.
Is it 10,000 basic guardsmen with lasguns plucked from 10,000 different regiments?
A 10,000 strong infantry force with attendant special and heavy weapons (and probably some chimeras)?
A 10,000 strong combined arms force as per normal guard SOPs (probably multiple regiments) which will include armour (but the crew drawn from the 10,000)?
IMO the 2nd one is the most reasonable comparison based on the premise.
Similarly it’s reasonable to discuss the different ways the single marine is equipped within the premise.
Is it a single average tactical marine or intercessor? (the most fair comparison if you insist on 10,000 basic guardsmen)
A RG stealth specialist?
A terminator?
A dreadnaught even? (Though that’s rather stretching the premise).
But once you add a few hundred spaceship crew on the justification that the ship could be ‘commanded’ by a single marine, you’ve well and truly broken the premise and invite comparisons to whatever forces could feasibly be combined by a ‘single guardsman’.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
TheBestBucketHead wrote:The difference is that Guardsmen can drive the tanks on their own. A single Astartes cannot drive the ships on their own.
But, I'd be fine with giving the Astartes their own vehicle, with extra equipment and medical stuff. As well, I'd be fine restricting the Guardsmen to what they'd have on foot, rather than Baneblades and such.
But the difference is that Guardsmen can operate their vehicles, but a single Astartes cannot drive their ship on their own.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Saying that people can command those lower than them means that we can have the Guardsmen overseeing the PDF, which gives orbital defenses. So we're back to square one.
See both of these are reasonable an interesting comparisons given the premise. A tactical squad vs a 10,000 strong infantry force is something that could actually happen.
A single marine stealthing it out to whittle down a force of guardsmen is also an interesting story.
A single tac marine vs 10,000 guardsmen with lasguns is also a valid, if unrealistic, reading of the premise.
Not ‘oh but they can command a few hundred people operating a space ship’ and ‘it’s only an escort not a cruiser so it and its few hundred attendant crew is totally a reasonable comparison that still counts as a ‘single marine’ next to vehicles crewed out of the 10,000 in the premise that guardsmen routinely personally operate’.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: The difference is that Guardsmen can drive the tanks on their own. A single Astartes cannot drive the ships on their own.
But, I'd be fine with giving the Astartes their own vehicle, with extra equipment and medical stuff. As well, I'd be fine restricting the Guardsmen to what they'd have on foot, rather than Baneblades and such.
But the difference is that Guardsmen can operate their vehicles, but a single Astartes cannot drive their ship on their own.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Saying that people can command those lower than them means that we can have the Guardsmen overseeing the PDF, which gives orbital defenses. So we're back to square one.
The Techmarine of the Black Templars who literally piloted an ordinatus SOLO until it literally killed him. That's what nueral links are for. It's also how base humans can be "upgraded" to pilot ships.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I'm honestly most interested in 10k Guardsmen with Lasguns versus 10 Astartes with Bolters and Knives, and seeing if guerilla warfare would win with such huge differences in numbers.
That is an interesting scenario. If the guard is in the form of a coherent regiment (and we assume they lost the keys to the special/heavy weapons locker) and the space marines are being all sneaky I think it'll come down to how many lasgun shots it takes to remove a marine from combat (different from killing the marine) and how the marines approach things.
If the marines just sneak in and kill the regimental command, they're now in the situation where everyone knows where they are (presumably someone has managed to raise the alarm) and the company commanders should be sufficiently competent to take command of the situation and pin the marines down. If the guard get their infantry special and heavy weapons, the marines are screwed in this scenario imho as the guard just have to occupy them until they can get the special/heavy stuff into position. In the all lasguns scenario you suggest though w/ 10 marines with bolters and knives, I'm not sure. If it was just knives, I think the guard would win via attrition. With the bolters though, they could hose down any groups of guardsmen that are not being supported by other guardsmen. Presumably the marines have an ammo stash to go and replenish from as well, otherwise it'll probably be back to favoring the guard again in my mind due to attrition.
Alternatively, the marines could just pick off the outlying or isolated (in terms of fire support) blobs of guardmen to whittle down the 10k. They'd probably take losses though over time. That's where the "how many lasgun shots" come in to play. If the number of las shots to reliably down a marine is comparable to a guard squad or two firing on full auto, attrition will rapidly favor the guard.
Either way, I think it ultimately comes down to how well the marines are able to isolate pockets of guardsmen that they can hose down with the ammo on hand before retreating to their ammo stash again. The guard tactics are presumably all about combining forces to take down a much tougher foe, so isolating them will be difficult, especially one they know their in hostile territory.
As speculated earlier, Space Marines have access to a wider range of frequencies than the Imperial Guard.
The Cain novels demonstrate this on at least a couple of occasions, where Astartes can contact any Imperial Force, but the Guard (other than Cain) can’t access the frequencies used by the Astartes, particularly not at the squad level.
That’s a pretty important consideration, as it opens the possibility of the Marines eavesdropping on the Guard, knowing their movements in advance. Naturally that’s one hell of an advantage to the Astartes, and will assist in ambushes and being where the bulk of the enemy aren’t.
Plus the possibility of accessing IG frequencies and issuing threats, or simply broadcasting static. Or my favourite possibility? Piping their Power Armour’s audio recording of a massacre non-stop on Guard frequencies. Not only will that have an impact on Guard morale, but it could tie up their Vox Frequencies entirely.
Keep that up for three or four days? The Marines won’t miss the sleep. The Guard? Far less so.
Just a thought on the question.
If I recall chapter master Astelan took over an entire planet. So I would say yet a Space Marine could beat 10,000 Gaurdsmen even if he had to instigate a planetary revolt to do it.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I'm honestly most interested in 10k Guardsmen with Lasguns versus 10 Astartes with Bolters and Knives, and seeing if guerilla warfare would win with such huge differences in numbers.
That is an interesting scenario. If the guard is in the form of a coherent regiment (and we assume they lost the keys to the special/heavy weapons locker) and the space marines are being all sneaky I think it'll come down to how many lasgun shots it takes to remove a marine from combat (different from killing the marine) and how the marines approach things.
If the marines just sneak in and kill the regimental command, they're now in the situation where everyone knows where they are (presumably someone has managed to raise the alarm) and the company commanders should be sufficiently competent to take command of the situation and pin the marines down. If the guard get their infantry special and heavy weapons, the marines are screwed in this scenario imho as the guard just have to occupy them until they can get the special/heavy stuff into position. In the all lasguns scenario you suggest though w/ 10 marines with bolters and knives, I'm not sure. If it was just knives, I think the guard would win via attrition. With the bolters though, they could hose down any groups of guardsmen that are not being supported by other guardsmen. Presumably the marines have an ammo stash to go and replenish from as well, otherwise it'll probably be back to favoring the guard again in my mind due to attrition.
Alternatively, the marines could just pick off the outlying or isolated (in terms of fire support) blobs of guardmen to whittle down the 10k. They'd probably take losses though over time. That's where the "how many lasgun shots" come in to play. If the number of las shots to reliably down a marine is comparable to a guard squad or two firing on full auto, attrition will rapidly favor the guard.
Either way, I think it ultimately comes down to how well the marines are able to isolate pockets of guardsmen that they can hose down with the ammo on hand before retreating to their ammo stash again. The guard tactics are presumably all about combining forces to take down a much tougher foe, so isolating them will be difficult, especially one they know their in hostile territory.
This would be quite an interesting scenario tbh, the marines would have to be careful to pick off unsupported squads and conserve ammo, but could potentially do it - particularly if they’re playing vox channel mind games as MDG suggests. Maybe use the vox mind games to spoof orders and the like to draw of squads or individuals out of support.
Terrain would also make a massive difference. Something like a forest or an urban scenario would give the marines more of an major advantage, whereas a large open plain would massively favour the guardsmen.
All lasguns vs normal distribution of weapons is the major factor I think. In favourable terrain our squad of marines should be able to give it a good shot vs lasguns, but add 1,000 special and 1,000 heavy weapons that infantry squads would have (more if there are heavy & special weapons squads) and then the guardsmen have a much higher chance of picking them off with a lucky shot (though they might have to be careful with the heavies not to hit each other). Even if it’s mostly grenade launchers, flamers and mortars. Let alone 1,000 plasma guns and lascannons.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: As speculated earlier, Space Marines have access to a wider range of frequencies than the Imperial Guard.
The Cain novels demonstrate this on at least a couple of occasions, where Astartes can contact any Imperial Force, but the Guard (other than Cain) can’t access the frequencies used by the Astartes, particularly not at the squad level.
That’s a pretty important consideration, as it opens the possibility of the Marines eavesdropping on the Guard, knowing their movements in advance. Naturally that’s one hell of an advantage to the Astartes, and will assist in ambushes and being where the bulk of the enemy aren’t.
Plus the possibility of accessing IG frequencies and issuing threats, or simply broadcasting static. Or my favourite possibility? Piping their Power Armour’s audio recording of a massacre non-stop on Guard frequencies. Not only will that have an impact on Guard morale, but it could tie up their Vox Frequencies entirely.
Keep that up for three or four days? The Marines won’t miss the sleep. The Guard? Far less so.
No I don’t play Nightlords.
Seems plausible, although I'm not very familiar with the technology knowledge of the average marine, but I assume they'd be able to do anything a guard vox operator would be capable of. The solution to the eaves dropping is to speak in code and cycle frequencies. As far as jamming (with static or recordings) over the entirety of the guard frequency bands, do 10 marines actually have that capability? I assume that'd take some pretty serious comms gear. Then again, far flung future power armor might very well have sufficient power to transmit on all those frequencies at once. I'm not super knowledgeable on what that would require though even for modern day.
On the topic of communication warfare: In the 10 marine scenario and assuming the guard have vox operators at a typical number for 10k guardsmen, both sides would presumably be able to get the direction of transmissions and thus be able to triangulate positions from that. This would favor the guard since the marines are the ones relying on stealth. Combatting that would come down to radio discipline and keeping any communication very short, which seems to be standard practice (presumably on both sides). If the marines are broadcasting jamming signals though, they're also broadcasting their location. While this could be used as a distraction, it would mean the marines would have to divide their forces (unless the marine squad has deployable comms gear, but I'm not sure if that's standard issue for a 10 marine squad).
We know Power Armour does far more than protect flesh and boost strength, and comes with sophisticated gear 40K doesn’t really encompass.
But even cycling frequencies? The Marines have better gear, so presumably access to more bandwidth. A squad of 10 each doing their own cycle would, I imagine, cover a multitude of possibilities in quite a short time. And I don’t think it’s too much to suggest that can be done passively.
We know Power Armour does far more than protect flesh and boost strength, and comes with sophisticated gear 40K doesn’t really encompass.
But even cycling frequencies? The Marines have better gear, so presumably access to more bandwidth. A squad of 10 each doing their own cycle would, I imagine, cover a multitude of possibilities in quite a short time. And I don’t think it’s too much to suggest that can be done passively.
I wouldn't think it would be too hard to find the new frequency once the listener knew the frequency cycled. I think current two way radios can come with a scan function, so it would absolutely be possible to passively scan through the frequencies. The benefit of the cycling is that the listener wouldn't know if the frequency had cycled or if simply nothing was being said at the moment. If we don't assume the 10k guardsmen include any specialist training above what would appear in a typical guard squad (i.e., no communications warfare advisor-type specialists), then it becomes a game of radio cat and mouse. If the 10k guardsmen come in the form of a regiment, then I would assume they'd have communication warfare specialists that might even start strategically spoofing communications. That said, even if the marines are catching a fair chunk of communications, I would imagine decoding the communications would be problematic at the marine squad level. I would think a code system would be implemented as soon as the guardsmen realized they were up against someone with access to their secure channels.
On that, we again need to properly consider what it is to be an Astartes.
They’re geet big brutal brutes of brutality, sure. But they’re also intelligent. Like, really intelligent.
Certainly their capability for problem solving goes well beyond the average Guardsman.
Which is where we genuinely run into a conundrum of “just how well educated is the average Guardsman”. I genuinely don’t think there’s an answer to that, because it will vary world to world, and depending on where a particular draft came from, sub-culture to sub-culture.
Think WW2, and I apologise in advance because I’ll almost certainly get the term wrong, Wind Talkers within the US Army. Basically, sod talking in code. Just ensure you have radio operators who can speak and comprehend a near extinct, barely documented language. Provided you can keep those folks safe during combat, let them literally do the talking, and that’s your enemy flummoxed on cracking the code. Because there is no code. Just a language known to perhaps a few thousand, maybe a few hundred people. More so if it’s not a language derived from Latin or Early Germanic in the European theatre.
Could Marines overcome that? I genuinely suspect not. Unless they’ve a natural affinity for being polyglots in their Geneseed?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit to include historical citation. Bloody heroes to a man.
The Lion might not actually resent Guilliman being in charge, as bureaucracy isn't the Lion's strong suit. The Lion could relieve some of the military command pressure from Guilliman, allowing Guilliman to focus more energy on reforming the Imperium.
Similar scenario. All it took was tactics, knowledge of warfare, and terrain advantage.
And another several thousand men. The greek force at Thermopylae numbered around 5,000 at the lower numbers given by Herodotus.
Also don't forget the Greeks *lost* at Thermopylae. I had a professor use the battle as a demonstration that superior numbers more often than not win, and the reason we remember battles like Thermopylae is because the losers died HARD, rather than actually winning.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: As speculated earlier, Space Marines have access to a wider range of frequencies than the Imperial Guard.
The Cain novels demonstrate this on at least a couple of occasions, where Astartes can contact any Imperial Force, but the Guard (other than Cain) can’t access the frequencies used by the Astartes, particularly not at the squad level.
That’s a pretty important consideration, as it opens the possibility of the Marines eavesdropping on the Guard, knowing their movements in advance. Naturally that’s one hell of an advantage to the Astartes, and will assist in ambushes and being where the bulk of the enemy aren’t.
Except that's not really enumerated anywhere clearly, and the Cain books are explicitly written by an unreliable narrator.
So we can assume it's more bull you've made up to perpetuate your frankly idiotic and asinine argument.
Imperial Guard mash Astartes to pulp in square on battles. There are many more times Leman Russ tanks in the galaxy than there are Astartes.
Except that's not really enumerated anywhere clearly, and the Cain books are explicitly written by an unreliable narrator.
Everyone makes the claim that Cain is an unreliable narrator and implies that he's lying. His only explicitly stated unreliability is that he is myopic (he only focuses on what affects him) and that he can be a bit lax about chronology of his stories and about noting of the passage of time. Unless it's in the latest book, there is no where that I recall stating that Cain is an unreliable narrator. Now if you interpret him as an unreliable narrator, you're welcome to say as much, noting the caveat that it is in your opinion, but it's far from being "explicit".
That said, I don't think anything MDG mentioned is that unreasonable considering current technology amd extrapolating into the future (I just don't think it will provide that much of an advantage).
Also, I’m citing the Cain novels purely because I’m familiar with them, rather than deliberate selective citation,
If we stick with Primary Canon being Codexes?
Those confirm Power Armour includes communication equipment, including orbit to surface discussion. There’s nothing to suggest this is restricted to Commanders.
Those also confirm the Vox Unit as being the prime method for Guard units to stay in touch, and whilst common they’re not necessarily standard issue squad for squad.
Do keep in mind my overall argument there is somewhat speculative, as it relies on certain assumptions, but not I think crazy leaps of logic.
Example. Power Armour has internal and external mic pickups. It also records events the wearer witnesses, and can amplify a shout to deafening volumes.
Whilst we have no canonical example of which I’m aware in which an Astartes puts those together to playback horrific sounds of slaughter at deafening volumes, it’s hard to see how it wouldn’t be possible.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Also, I’m citing the Cain novels purely because I’m familiar with them, rather than deliberate selective citation,
If we stick with Primary Canon being Codexes?
Those confirm Power Armour includes communication equipment, including orbit to surface discussion. There’s nothing to suggest this is restricted to Commanders.
Those also confirm the Vox Unit as being the prime method for Guard units to stay in touch, and whilst common they’re not necessarily standard issue squad for squad.
Do keep in mind my overall argument there is somewhat speculative, as it relies on certain assumptions, but not I think crazy leaps of logic.
Example. Power Armour has internal and external mic pickups. It also records events the wearer witnesses, and can amplify a shout to deafening volumes.
Whilst we have no canonical example of which I’m aware in which an Astartes puts those together to playback horrific sounds of slaughter at deafening volumes, it’s hard to see how it wouldn’t be possible.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: That said, I don't think anything MDG mentioned is that unreasonable considering current technology amd extrapolating into the future (I just don't think it will provide that much of an advantage).
It's not, but assuming that Astartes can do it and Guard can't is what I'm calling out.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: That said, I don't think anything MDG mentioned is that unreasonable considering current technology amd extrapolating into the future (I just don't think it will provide that much of an advantage).
It's not, but assuming that Astartes can do it and Guard can't is what I'm calling out.
Here I’ll lean on the wording of Hecaton’s wording.
Space Marines have “modern and then some” tech. But, if we look at the Vox Units included in IG kits? And the fact that IG tend to have cheap, cheerful but most importantly robust and easily maintained equipment? It seems clear to me they’re just not going to be on par.
Bulky, basic, relatively rudimentary is the Guard approach. You don’t need anything particularly Special Ops, because there are dedicated forces (and yes, Regiments) for that sort of thing. Such as…..Astartes.
DeadliestIdiot wrote: That said, I don't think anything MDG mentioned is that unreasonable considering current technology amd extrapolating into the future (I just don't think it will provide that much of an advantage).
It's not, but assuming that Astartes can do it and Guard can't is what I'm calling out.
Here I’ll lean on the wording of Hecaton’s wording.
Space Marines have “modern and then some” tech. But, if we look at the Vox Units included in IG kits? And the fact that IG tend to have cheap, cheerful but most importantly robust and easily maintained equipment? It seems clear to me they’re just not going to be on par.
Bulky, basic, relatively rudimentary is the Guard approach. You don’t need anything particularly Special Ops, because there are dedicated forces (and yes, Regiments) for that sort of thing. Such as…..Astartes.
Regardless of relative comms capabilities, this doesn't really change the balance of things. I'm pretty sure the guard have directional radio equipment based on the vox operator model; I think the circular bit is a directional antenna that should be able to identify the direction of radio transmission (but I'm prepared to be wrong on that). So broadcasting constantly is only going to give the marine position away. The only ones who'd hear are the vox operators. If the marines are using the comms to reduce moral, it's simple to operate without commbeads, just less efficient, but you just have to wait for the marines to come to you.
I'm still of the opinion that the 10 marines need special circumstances to defeat 10k guardsmen organized in a regiment (even with a massive cache of bolter ammo and no threat of heavy weapons)
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Space Marines have “modern and then some” tech. But, if we look at the Vox Units included in IG kits? And the fact that IG tend to have cheap, cheerful but most importantly robust and easily maintained equipment? It seems clear to me they’re just not going to be on par.
Which is not the same as saying that the Astartes has total access to and control of the IG comms network. So you should admit you're wrong and made a baseless statement.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Space Marines have “modern and then some” tech. But, if we look at the Vox Units included in IG kits? And the fact that IG tend to have cheap, cheerful but most importantly robust and easily maintained equipment? It seems clear to me they’re just not going to be on par.
Which is not the same as saying that the Astartes has total access to and control of the IG comms network. So you should admit you're wrong and made a baseless statement.
Oh dear.
Stop that line of thought. It’s silly. Very silly indeed.
Take what we know of modern military forces and indeed law enforcement. And indeed the relative budgetary differences.
Some militaries are still “men over matter”. Others use bleeding edge tech, the sort we in the Sad Git (yes me too. Well, me especially) Sphere won’t get to actually play with for years to come.
Then? 40K being 40K? Dial that bleeding edge tech Up To Eleventytwelve.
The IG simply don’t need that level of tech. And if they do, there’s another wing able to do it, such is the post-heresy super compartmentalised Imperium. Until you reach Space Marines, where even on their rank and file? Their tech is near immaculate, and they’ve actually been taught how to use it. Because Maureens are just that valuable.
Don’t think sane. Don’t think logic. Think 40K, then get back to me.
Don’t think sane. Don’t think logic. Think 40K, then get back to me.
Somehow I am left with the question what exactly is expected from those engaged in this discussion.
When the logical limits of SM are mentioned it is countered with this "Don't think logic, think 40K"
When we do and mention Gaunts Ghosts or Ciaphas Cain killing SM without outnumbering them 10.000 to 1 it is dismissed as well as unrealistic.
What do you expect from us? Bend over and hail our SM overlords?
Also, incorrect in the same paragraph ("The Guard has Guardsmen whose whole job is to operate comms equipment. There is nobody on the Astartes side like that") for two reasons:
1 - Being a specialist doesn't automatically make you better. You could be a specialist marksman, but if the person you're competing against is using better equipment, has better training, and is mentally/physiologically superior, it doesn't matter if they're not a "specialist", they'll still beat you. There's no reason to believe that a guardsman comms specialist would be superior to a fully trained Astartes, with all of their augmented skills, training, and tech. THAT'S why Astartes are held in such high regard - their basic troops are equivalent/superior to human specialists whose sole job is to excel in one field.
2 - Astartes have comms specialists. Primaris Infiltrators have comm specialists in their units, and, if we're using resources from the games, Space Marine kill teams can use comms specialists. Plus, Techmarines would also be more than capable of fulfilling that role. This is, of course, ignoring that all Marines are likely trained in such aspects, because (save for a few non-Codex Chapters) all Astartes are first trained as Scouts, for whom such asymmetric warfare is their first type of training.
The biggest issue with the premise is that 40k has such a vast gulf between sources and what is possible to occur that nearly ANY premise can be argued for, and all that ends up happening is people cherrypicking from different sources that claim different things. It's inconclusive. If you want to say in your version of 40k that a single Astartes can overcome 10k guardsmen, you can. If you want to say that 10 guardsmen could defeat an Astartes, you can.
Don’t think sane. Don’t think logic. Think 40K, then get back to me.
Somehow I am left with the question what exactly is expected from those engaged in this discussion.
When the logical limits of SM are mentioned it is countered with this "Don't think logic, think 40K"
When we do and mention Gaunts Ghosts or Ciaphas Cain killing SM without outnumbering them 10.000 to 1 it is dismissed as well as unrealistic.
What do you expect from us? Bend over and hail our SM overlords?
What logical limit of Space Marines? I’ve set out my argument, relying on canonical sources. All I’ve had back isn’t far off “nuh-uh”, as folk rely on real world examples.
For example the logical limit of "there is only so much power armor can take" combined with the exact weapons Marines use to kill other marines (Power weapons, Plasma, Melta, missile launchers, heavy bolters, Autocannons, Krak-grenades) being common in the imperial guard down to squad level (specifically leaving out tanks and the like). And that while Power armor is highly resistant to lasgunfire it is not immune (especially at joints etc.)
The Single Space marine would have to be lucky 10.000 times, the 10.000 Guardsmen only once.
Which brings us back to the Marine being far more than just fancy armour.
Guard are baseline humans. They need to rest. They need to eat. There are limits to their endurance. The Marine’s endurance is far beyond that.
The Marine will know this, and how to exploit it. Hence using the Vox Network in nefarious ways. Even if the Guard can tune into the frequencies used by the Marine, it doesn’t help them, as there’s no reason for the Marine to be broadcasting in general.
Just listening in to troop movements is a massive advantage. The potential to broadcast over the Guard’s own Vox network brings nastier options. Even just piping through a high pitched tone during combat is going to affect the Guard.
Listening to the voxchatter of 10.000 Guardsmen... simultanously?
And regarding sleep etc.: on an individual basis: yes, but 10.000 Guardsmen will never all be asleep/eating/on the loo.
Don't get me wrong: I agree that Space Marines have a higher strategic and tactic value which might be 1:10.000 or even more. I agree that a Guardsmen could only beat an SM with an incredible amount of luck or if the SM does an incredibly stupid mistake. I also don't debate that SM chapters have naval assets and Guardsmen don't or that SM have advanced Vox-tech and education.
All fine and good. I just think that pitting them up against actual 10.000 guardsmen and claiming they could reliably win, without incredible luck is too much for me to believe.
Even if they mess with Vox and are all sneaky... it takes ONE Krak grenade they missed, ONE sergeants Plasma pistols, ONE lucky lasgun shot destabilizing the Marines Plasmapistol etc...
Pyroalchi wrote:The Single Space marine would have to be lucky 10.000 times, the 10.000 Guardsmen only once.
Maybe, but the 10,000 guardsmen aren't all going to get a shot, and aren't all going to be operational at the same time. Truthfully, it likely won't be 10,000 guardsmen, but more like a few hundred at most at a time.
Pyroalchi wrote:it takes ONE Krak grenade they missed, ONE sergeants Plasma pistols, ONE lucky lasgun shot destabilizing the Marines Plasmapistol etc...
Absolutely true, but the Astartes isn't having to take those all on at once, and can take steps to eliminate the biggest threats prior to engagement. The Astartes has a better ability to dictate the area and terms of engagement than the guardsmen, statistically speaking.
Again, I don't doubt for a second that 10,000 guardsmen in a pitched battle against a single Space Marine will win. The point is that the Space Marine can pick and choose the point of engagement and how to have an effect in a way that vast outweighs their numerical disadvantage. I don't think anyone's seriously saying that in a pitched battle, with 10,000 guardsmen surrounding the Space Marine and all having their guns trained on him, that the Astartes would win.
Pyroalchi wrote:The Single Space marine would have to be lucky 10.000 times, the 10.000 Guardsmen only once.
Maybe, but the 10,000 guardsmen aren't all going to get a shot, and aren't all going to be operational at the same time. Truthfully, it likely won't be 10,000 guardsmen, but more like a few hundred at most at a time.
Pyroalchi wrote:it takes ONE Krak grenade they missed, ONE sergeants Plasma pistols, ONE lucky lasgun shot destabilizing the Marines Plasmapistol etc...
Absolutely true, but the Astartes isn't having to take those all on at once, and can take steps to eliminate the biggest threats prior to engagement. The Astartes has a better ability to dictate the area and terms of engagement than the guardsmen, statistically speaking.
Again, I don't doubt for a second that 10,000 guardsmen in a pitched battle against a single Space Marine will win. The point is that the Space Marine can pick and choose the point of engagement and how to have an effect in a way that vast outweighs their numerical disadvantage. I don't think anyone's seriously saying that in a pitched battle, with 10,000 guardsmen surrounding the Space Marine and all having their guns trained on him, that the Astartes would win.
But the thing is, let's assume the Marine can pick and choose engagements to the point they're never engaging more than 10 Guard at a time.
Let's assume that, each time the Marine chooses to engage, they're able to wipe all ten Guard with only a 1% chance of failure-not necessarily meaning death, but meaning they can't continue without considerably more risk.
That gives them odds of 0.00004317124 (thanks Google!) of taking out 10,000 Guardsmen without failing.
Put another way, they'd average one success against all 10,000 a little less than one in 23,000 times.
And the thing is, I don't think the Marine can pick and choose fights THAT well. I don't think they've got a 99% chance of wiping 10 Guard with no issues-they might have a 99% chance of doing SOME damage and escaping unharmed, but if they only kill 5 Guard at a time, it'd take 2,000 engagements, which drops their odds of success overall from one in twenty-three thousand to one in 536 MILLION.
Pyroalchi wrote: Listening to the voxchatter of 10.000 Guardsmen... simultanously?
And regarding sleep etc.: on an individual basis: yes, but 10.000 Guardsmen will never all be asleep/eating/on the loo.
Don't get me wrong: I agree that Space Marines have a higher strategic and tactic value which might be 1:10.000 or even more. I agree that a Guardsmen could only beat an SM with an incredible amount of luck or if the SM does an incredibly stupid mistake. I also don't debate that SM chapters have naval assets and Guardsmen don't or that SM have advanced Vox-tech and education.
All fine and good. I just think that pitting them up against actual 10.000 guardsmen and claiming they could reliably win, without incredible luck is too much for me to believe.
Even if they mess with Vox and are all sneaky... it takes ONE Krak grenade they missed, ONE sergeants Plasma pistols, ONE lucky lasgun shot destabilizing the Marines Plasmapistol etc...
Not 10,000 at once. Some Regiments have Vox beads per trooper, others have one Vox Unit for a squad or even Platoon. The latter two drastically reduce the number of people able to access the Vox Network.
Once the Marine knows which frequencies are in use? He can transmit on them as well. Just noise and what have you to erode the Guard’s ability to rest properly. Power Armour is also able to jam frequencies. Now the potential range of that is unknown. But likely enough for the Marine to jam whilst attacking.
And remember, the Marine needn’t be in a rush about this. A squad here, platoon there going silent then being found hideously hacked and mangled. Hours or days between attacks. That’s going to erode morale. Do it over a year. Take longer.
A year during which he must NEVER be stumbled upon or run into a trap etc. With no misshaps or accidents, no Krak Grenade hidden somewhere etc. My main concern would be something like that scene from Sodaz Death Korps vid (5:10 to 5:23)
and I fully believe that is how it would end for the SM 99% of the times he tries to solo 10.000 men, however small he chooses his battles.
And with jamming frequencies/broadcasting slaughter: to jam frequencies you must transmit something. If you transmit something you can be located via triangulation
Regarding "listening in": you can listen in to one frequency. Lets give the Marine the ability to listen into 10 frequencies at once. What about the other 20,30,100?
Regarding "stealing sleep" by broadcasting something: one can switch off Voxcasters...
But I'm under the strong impression non of us two (meaning MDG and myself) are likely to be convinced by the others arguments at this point. Fair enough, that happens during discussions.
This is the funniest thread I have seen in ages. You got to wonder if the pro space marine camp even know what it is to be human? "just kill some and the rest will run!" "just take a year to kill them and they'll lose" etc etc etc ad nauseum.
When in a personal emergency in your life have you ever just accepted your fate? Im going to assume never. When have you witnessed a civil emergency and seen people just do nothing? Never. People dont just sit about.
The other thing is, in a group of 10,000 people, you likely have the skill set of a huge town at your disposal, more technically as its essentially the productive adult population inflated to a town. Thats an insane amount of knowledge and capability in many topics and interests represented. They as a group will notice patterns, will do things by trial and error, will learn and will keep trying to overcome.
Another factor is the longer it takes, the worse for the marine it is. The Guardsmen is equipped for long term warfare, that Marine has a few minutes of intense shooting out of its gun before its a glorified bigfoot in the forest. Failing this somehow, depending on the regiment, the humans could breed prolonging this ridiculous engagement more so.
Whenever you think of an amazing space marine plan, think about what you would do to stop it. It's that simple. Then imagine 10,000 brains doing that task and realize that 1 being, especially a giant colourful meatlord, just isn't going to do it.
Even thinking of the physics of it all, one guy having to kill all day, every day, with no mistakes, no accidents and no changes in enemy behaviour, is just delusional.
Not 10,000 at once. Some Regiments have Vox beads per trooper, others have one Vox Unit for a squad or even Platoon. The latter two drastically reduce the number of people able to access the Vox Network.
Once the Marine knows which frequencies are in use? He can transmit on them as well. Just noise and what have you to erode the Guard’s ability to rest properly. Power Armour is also able to jam frequencies. Now the potential range of that is unknown. But likely enough for the Marine to jam whilst attacking.
Sorry, come again, what exactly are your sources for all the faffing over power armour communication electronics? Would I be mistaken if I guessed: 1 or 2 no context lines of text excerpted from codexes (drenched under a ganache of your lunchbreak headcanon)?
I get that you have no interest in reading anything besides codexes but that doesn't mean a combination of narrow sources + simpleton musings suddenly becomes hypervalid. Do you have an example of a Marine jamming communications from their armour alone? I'm no BL aficionado, but throughout the modest ~15 novels I've read I've never observed a Marine doing that (novels that include many situations where it would be a useful trick). If such an ability exists at all it must have extremely limited use cases.
Not 10,000 at once. Some Regiments have Vox beads per trooper, others have one Vox Unit for a squad or even Platoon. The latter two drastically reduce the number of people able to access the Vox Network.
Once the Marine knows which frequencies are in use? He can transmit on them as well. Just noise and what have you to erode the Guard’s ability to rest properly. Power Armour is also able to jam frequencies. Now the potential range of that is unknown. But likely enough for the Marine to jam whilst attacking.
Sorry, come again, what exactly are your sources for all the faffing over power armour communication electronics? Would I be mistaken if I guessed: 1 or 2 no context lines of text excerpted from codexes (drenched under a ganache of your lunchbreak headcanon)?
I get that you have no interest in reading anything besides codexes but that doesn't mean a combination of narrow sources + simpleton musings suddenly becomes hypervalid. Do you have an example of a Marine jamming communications from their armour alone? I'm no BL aficionado, but throughout the modest ~15 novels I've read I've never observed a Marine doing that (novels that include many situations where it would be a useful trick). If such an ability exists at all it must have extremely limited use cases.
Not sure why you think I’m sticking solely to Codex sources. Indeed, I’ve mentioned the Cain series multiple times.
Infiltrators Aside from their weaponry, the most important tool at the Infiltrators' disposal is the Omni-Scrambler. This portable, back-mounted device intercepts wave signals across a broad spectrum, scrambling frequencies and diverting holo-broadcasts to ensure that enemy communiques never reach their intended recipients.
It also simply doesn't work unless the signal being intercepted is sent via a focused, coherent beam, a laser, which can be blocked completely and replaced by the scrambled signal.
Typical lack of understanding of how information warfare works from GW writers. Intercepting radio transmission isn't like intercepting a ball in football, or even a letter in physical mail. The message still reaches the recipient because when an electromagnetic wave passes an antenna, the wave keeps going afterwards, as does all of the information it is carrying. And no, you can't alter it as it passes by because it is travelling at the speed of light. By the time your equipment has registered the signal from the antenna, the wavefront you picked up is thousands and thousands of metres past you. Every radio message to german u-boats the allies intercepted in ww2 still reached the u-boat in question.
What the space marines could do is just fill the area with garbage signals, but the guard could use the strength of those garbage signals to triangulate the source of interference and just drop a load of mortar or artillery fire on it.
Also, even if that backpack did work as described, it has a limited range and that allows the Guard to establish the location of the marine. Then it is just overlay a grid onto that area and pulverise them one by one with artillery or mortar fire. End result is a dead marine either way.
Swastakowey wrote: This is the funniest thread I have seen in ages. You got to wonder if the pro space marine camp even know what it is to be human? "just kill some and the rest will run!" "just take a year to kill them and they'll lose" etc etc etc ad nauseum.
When in a personal emergency in your life have you ever just accepted your fate? Im going to assume never. When have you witnessed a civil emergency and seen people just do nothing? Never. People dont just sit about.
The other thing is, in a group of 10,000 people, you likely have the skill set of a huge town at your disposal, more technically as its essentially the productive adult population inflated to a town. Thats an insane amount of knowledge and capability in many topics and interests represented. They as a group will notice patterns, will do things by trial and error, will learn and will keep trying to overcome.
Another factor is the longer it takes, the worse for the marine it is. The Guardsmen is equipped for long term warfare, that Marine has a few minutes of intense shooting out of its gun before its a glorified bigfoot in the forest. Failing this somehow, depending on the regiment, the humans could breed prolonging this ridiculous engagement more so.
Whenever you think of an amazing space marine plan, think about what you would do to stop it. It's that simple. Then imagine 10,000 brains doing that task and realize that 1 being, especially a giant colourful meatlord, just isn't going to do it.
Even thinking of the physics of it all, one guy having to kill all day, every day, with no mistakes, no accidents and no changes in enemy behaviour, is just delusional.
Thank you. This sums up my thoughts as well. I get that Space Marines are badass, but many of you just don't give normal humans enough credit, despite (presumably) being humans yourselves. Humans are nothing if not adaptable, and they won't just throw themselves at the lone Marine in endless waves like the NPCs of a Goldeneye-era video game, unless they're led by a moron like Kubrick Chenkov. They'll look for the most efficient way to get the job done with minimal losses.
Remember the film Aliens (extended edition). The xenomorphs run into a sentry gun and get mowed down in large numbers. But the gun is fast running out of ammunition. Thankfully, just before it clicks empty, the xenomorphs appear to cease their assault, and some of the Colonial Marines begin to breathe in relief... until they realize the xenomorphs have changed tactics and are now coming through the ceiling. And xenomorphs aren't even that smart or ingenious! They just have animal cunning and the ability to learn and adapt. Humans will be 10x smarter... and some of them will have plasma guns and melta guns on top of that.
So now we are comparing Xenomorphs to Space Marines? Can we compare the Average Guardsman to Leonidas from the 300 film by Zack Snyder next? That's more fun.
But honestly, I think smudge said it best. 10k all standing around a single marine, yeah, marine loses.
10k a full km away, with room for the Astartes to break off and try tactics, he'd still likely lose in the end. But there are still two very glaring flaws.
1. Not all Space Marines are Chapter masters, and thus able to live 1k+ years and go dormant for years at a time.
2. Not all Guardsmen are hyper elite baddasses. They are more like Hudson than Hicks. And Hicks was an idiot as well.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So now we are comparing Xenomorphs to Space Marines? Can we compare the Average Guardsman to Leonidas from the 300 film by Zack Snyder next? That's more fun.
But honestly, I think smudge said it best. 10k all standing around a single marine, yeah, marine loses.
10k a full km away, with room for the Astartes to break off and try tactics, he'd still likely lose in the end. But there are still two very glaring flaws.
1. Not all Space Marines are Chapter masters, and thus able to live 1k+ years and go dormant for years at a time.
2. Not all Guardsmen are hyper elite baddasses. They are more like Hudson than Hicks. And Hicks was an idiot as well.
I dont think you understood anything that was said. Nothing in what we said is what a bad ass human does. It's what normal humans do. How do you think your cities and nations dont collapse? Not because of "badasses" but because normal people putting their brains together. World war 2 wasn't hordes of "badasses" going at it, but hordes of normal people, most of whom didn't even choose to be there. Many pilots had minimal training for example. Also 1km is nothing, I can walk that in less than 10 minutes briskly.
Just as a question of interest, can you in detail explain how the space marine will kill 10,000 men? I want numbers per day, how does the marine do this when after a few days he has no ammunition? When this inevitably goes on for months or years at what point does the marine need to maintain his kit? Does his grotesque fingers have the dexterity to modify lasguns to work in his mutant hands? Try to piece it together with numbers and you'll realize how low IQ the premise is.
Thank you. This sums up my thoughts as well. I get that Space Marines are badass, but many of you just don't give normal humans enough credit, despite (presumably) being humans yourselves. Humans are nothing if not adaptable, and they won't just throw themselves at the lone Marine in endless waves like the NPCs of a Goldeneye-era video game
Yeah I agree. It surprises me a little bit to see what some people claim humans might behave like in this scenario.
Hecaton wrote: Which is not the same as saying that the Astartes has total access to and control of the IG comms network.
I highly doubt this.
1. The guard would likely have their own signal intelligence officers.
2. They could operate via regularly swapping frequencies frequently.
3. They could be encrypted, which the marine would need to find the right decryption to gain access.
4. They could also be encrypted messages, which would require the right decipher to understand.
5. Alternatively to the above, the Guard might just choose soldiers with forms of low gothic the marine simply can't understand.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So now the 10k guard includes Siggo Intel Weenies, strategic level comms, and encryption specialists. We keep jumping the shark here.
Just admit that Guard are weaker and of overall lesser quality life forms than our great angels, and we'll stop arguing.
Encryption would be in the kit, you wouldn’t need specialists, it’s just how comms kit works.
This comes back to the issue that 10,000 guard can mean a lot of different things.
But that’s by the by.
No one disagrees that guardsmen are weaker and generally less skilled, less experienced and worse equipped than Astartes.
It’s just that a lot of people disagree that they’re ’a single Space Marine has good odds at killing a force of 10,000 of them’ weaker. Particularly if it’s an actual 10,000 strong force of Guardsmen as opposed to 10,000 random grunts.
No. I'm saying that if even xenomorphs are smart enough to try new tactics when a frontal assault is getting nowhere, so are guardsmen.
Also, the Marine, just like the sentry gun, will run out of ammo.
.
Personally, I have been giving the marine the benefit of an ammo cache just to make it even worth considering. If he's stuck with only the ammo he's carrying, he's screwed. Even 10 marines would be screwed in that case. Many pages ago, it was established that a marine doesn't carry all that much ammo on them considering how fast a bolter can presumably fire
Imagine the ammo depot gets set up for the marine and just by happenstance the humans set up camp 6 weeks away from the depot or more. Cracks me up. But a depot isn't full proof, plus it can be eliminated.
Swastakowey wrote: Imagine the ammo depot gets set up for the marine and just by happenstance the humans set up camp 6 weeks away from the depot or more. Cracks me up. But a depot isn't full proof, plus it can be eliminated.
Like I said, the ammo cache was really just something I gave the marines to make things interesting (because otherwise there is almost zero possibility of the marines winning, imho).
This does raise another interesting matchup. Would a lasgun-only (to make it a challenge) regiment of 10k guardsmen be able to take an ammo storage bunker being held by 10 standard space marines?
Swastakowey wrote: Imagine the ammo depot gets set up for the marine and just by happenstance the humans set up camp 6 weeks away from the depot or more. Cracks me up. But a depot isn't full proof, plus it can be eliminated.
Like I said, the ammo cache was really just something I gave the marines to make things interesting (because otherwise there is almost zero possibility of the marines winning, imho).
This does raise another interesting matchup. Would a lasgun-only (to make it a challenge) regiment of 10k guardsmen be able to take an ammo storage bunker being held by 10 standard space marines?
considering how bunkers are built... and lasguns only. No. Not unless the guardsmen start improvising explosives. Frankly even a bunker door would be a massive hurdle for just lasgun using guardsmen.
considering how bunkers are built... and lasguns only. No. Not unless the guardsmen start improvising explosives. Frankly even a bunker door would be a massive hurdle for just lasgun using guardsmen.
*facepalm* I apparently didn't think this one through far enough to foresee the use of door technosorcery
considering how bunkers are built... and lasguns only. No. Not unless the guardsmen start improvising explosives. Frankly even a bunker door would be a massive hurdle for just lasgun using guardsmen.
*facepalm* I apparently didn't think this one through far enough to foresee the use of door technosorcery
Well, locally we are talking about reinforced concrete doors playing around in the categories of 30mm to 1.5 m, but that is normally in any combat bunker only the first door, behind this is normally a second reinforced door, creating with the first door a room that can be controlled from behind said door via normally a placement of a embrasure (normally manned by a MG but since we got marines in this case boltgun) , in essence it's a room that can be indefinatly hold so long you have ammo, especially considering what a boltgun would be capable to do in such an environment. Behind that second door, which again you'd need to blow open you would then be faced very likely with a zig zag layout which in essence would turn all corners into higgly dangerous redoubts.
NVM further doors to points of interest.
Marines are big, but not so monstrously huge human scaled equipment becomes unusuable.
Accuracy may suffer, and they’d probably look a bit silly, but it’s likely a lesser size difference between a grown adult using a child’s cap gun. Main is any trigger guard - and they’re not exactly difficult to get shot of.
All the Guard’s own equipment then becomes fair game, including heavy and special weapons.
I'm pretty sure the Deathwatch RPG book said marines were not able to shoot non-marine guns due to their fingers not fitting.
The difference in finger sizes between an adult human and a marine is akin to a babies fingers and those of Andre The Giant.
Also, that highlights a thing now. Andre likely could not fire some guns made for other humans, his fingers were huge. So even with humams there are outliers who can't operate our mass-produced weapons.
It would be awkward compared to Astartes scaled, sure. But far from insurmountable, particularly on Heavy Weapons.
Biggest risk there is that Guard Weapons may not be built with Astartes strength in mind. That’s not to say they’re therefore poorly built. But the handles and triggers may get bent out of shape by the Astartes if they’re carelessly wielding it?
Also, on Andre, the operative word there would be some guns. With the dual pistol grip style of IGHB, AC and LC? Possibly not a problem?
The inverse must also be true, except when it's not. I mean in one of the Gaunt books, Bragg literally carries around an assault cannon he ripped off a vehicle. I think this may be writer error and it was an auto-cannon...
Point is, the average guardsman can't use the standard bolter of an astartes. Or an Astartes Chain sword, or pilot one of their land speeders, etc.
If the Space Marine is solely limited to his own equipment, things shift considerably. But if, however awkwardly and performance impacting, he can use Guard issue Heavy Weapons, let alone Special Weapons, his options are considerably widened.
In terms of canonical examples? Uriel Ventriss forcibly commandeers an emplaced weapon (memory says a Heavy Bolter) in Nightbringer, and turns it on the bunker’s occupants. And in the Space Marine game, the player character can pinch Guard Heavy Bolters here and there.
Not Online!!! wrote: Well, locally we are talking about reinforced concrete doors playing around in the categories of 30mm to 1.5 m, but that is normally in any combat bunker only the first door, behind this is normally a second reinforced door, creating with the first door a room that can be controlled from behind said door via normally a placement of a embrasure (normally manned by a MG but since we got marines in this case boltgun) , in essence it's a room that can be indefinatly hold so long you have ammo, especially considering what a boltgun would be capable to do in such an environment. Behind that second door, which again you'd need to blow open you would then be faced very likely with a zig zag layout which in essence would turn all corners into higgly dangerous redoubts.
NVM further doors to points of interest.
Even regular lasgun armed Guardsmen have grenades. Frag, sometimes krak, sometimes melta, etc. Worst case, even if it’s just frag grenades they can just bundle them up and toss a bouquet at the door or into a firing slot.
You’d just end up with a scenario like WW1 when units made anti-tank grenades by just tying multiple charges together.
I’m just enjoying the whataboutism, and explaining what exactly it is that makes Marines transposed to something even dimly approximating The Real World so utterly terrifying.
To call on one of my earliest posts in this wonderful thought exercise?
Humans excel as Persistance Hunters. We don’t need to be faster or stronger, we just need greater stamina. To be able to maintain a pace over greater distances, with fewer and shorter rest periods, married to the intelligence to track prey over great distances.
Marines do that so much better than baseline humans. Sure a given human may be able to best an Astartes in a dead sprint, in terms of MPH. But the Marine can maintain that speed far, far longer. They don’t need to sleep the way us baseline humans do. Their armour can feed them the basics after a fashion.
Even in a stand up fight? Sure a well place knife might find the weak point and draw blood, but the Astartes physiology can deal with such flesh wounds handily. And due to their relative lack of fatigue, the Astartes can maintain that brawl far, far long than a human opponent.
As I said pages ago, it’s what makes fictional killers like Jason Voorhees so scary. Jason is monstrously strong, monstrously resilient, and just keeps on following you. An Astartes is all of that - but also inhumanly fast.
Not to mention their entire existence is one of fighting or training for the next fight.
I do feel like folk haven’t properly stopped and considered exactly what impact seeing an Astartes can have, let alone seeing one snapping your mates like twigs without working up a sweat or breaking its stride.
That does something to us on an instinctual level. It’s stronger than us. It’s faster than us. It’s tougher than us. It’s more resilient than us. OK we’ve had it worse on our evolutionary journey. But all at the same time, when it’s smarter than us and has greater, near inexhaustible stamina” and that, regardless of how good your training is? That’s a one way ticket to Brown Trouserville.
And that’s before we start adding in the basic weapons and other more esoteric potentials.
I’m just enjoying the whataboutism, and explaining what exactly it is that makes Marines transposed to something even dimly approximating The Real World so utterly terrifying.
To call on one of my earliest posts in this wonderful thought exercise?
Humans excel as Persistance Hunters. We don’t need to be faster or stronger, we just need greater stamina. To be able to maintain a pace over greater distances, with fewer and shorter rest periods, married to the intelligence to track prey over great distances.
Marines do that so much better than baseline humans. Sure a given human may be able to best an Astartes in a dead sprint, in terms of MPH. But the Marine can maintain that speed far, far longer. They don’t need to sleep the way us baseline humans do. Their armour can feed them the basics after a fashion.
Even in a stand up fight? Sure a well place knife might find the weak point and draw blood, but the Astartes physiology can deal with such flesh wounds handily. And due to their relative lack of fatigue, the Astartes can maintain that brawl far, far long than a human opponent.
As I said pages ago, it’s what makes fictional killers like Jason Voorhees so scary. Jason is monstrously strong, monstrously resilient, and just keeps on following you. An Astartes is all of that - but also inhumanly fast.
Not to mention their entire existence is one of fighting or training for the next fight.
I do feel like folk haven’t properly stopped and considered exactly what impact seeing an Astartes can have, let alone seeing one snapping your mates like twigs without working up a sweat or breaking its stride.
That does something to us on an instinctual level. It’s stronger than us. It’s faster than us. It’s tougher than us. It’s more resilient than us. OK we’ve had it worse on our evolutionary journey. But all at the same time, when it’s smarter than us and has greater, near inexhaustible stamina” and that, regardless of how good your training is? That’s a one way ticket to Brown Trouserville.
And that’s before we start adding in the basic weapons and other more esoteric potentials.
One-on-one, I agree with you, MDG. It would take a ridiculously exceptional human to match even a basic Astartes in pretty much any battle or warfare category.
But numbers matter. Again-if a Marine has a mere 1% chance of suffering lasting harm from taking on ten Guard, but they're able to consistently take down ten Guard each time, and never encounter more or less, never get caught out of place, never run into a booby trap, they'd succeed about 1 in 23,000 times.
If they're only able to take down five Guard at a time, with that 1% chance of mission failure, it would take them trying 536,000,000 times to succeed on average.
A Marine is not indestructible. A Marine is not omnipotent. A Marine is not infallible.
The impact of even a single squad, where but one Guardsman survived the Marine’s onslaught. What tales might that person tell, assuming they’re not rendered utterly catatonic by the experience?
It’s the death by thousands of cuts. The Astartes has never been in a rush. They can take their time. Yes there’s the argument the Marine need only make one mistake, and fair enough. But when the Guard make a mistake? Total horror show.
The Marine doesn’t need their Bolter. They can pretzel a baseline human, whilst small arms fire basically does nowt, in a relative blink of the eye.
Just the combat knife and the right opportunity and it’s hot knife, butter.
The impact of even a single squad, where but one Guardsman survived the Marine’s onslaught. What tales might that person tell, assuming they’re not rendered utterly catatonic by the experience?
It’s the death by thousands of cuts. The Astartes has never been in a rush. They can take their time. Yes there’s the argument the Marine need only make one mistake, and fair enough. But when the Guard make a mistake? Total horror show.
The Marine doesn’t need their Bolter. They can pretzel a baseline human, whilst small arms fire basically does nowt, in a relative blink of the eye.
Just the combat knife and the right opportunity and it’s hot knife, butter.
And a Tyranid Warrior is deadlier than a Marine. Yet Guardsmen still somehow fight them.
I mean that isn't quite a good argument because the Guard fight anything and everything. Just because they fight a thing doesn't mean they'd beat said thing.
Gert wrote: I mean that isn't quite a good argument because the Guard fight anything and everything. Just because they fight a thing doesn't mean they'd beat said thing.
It does mean that they're able to stand against a foe and not just wet their pants in terror.
Even when said foe is deadlier and scarier than a Marine.
Gert wrote: I mean that isn't quite a good argument because the Guard fight anything and everything. Just because they fight a thing doesn't mean they'd beat said thing.
It does mean that they're able to stand against a foe and not just wet their pants in terror.
Even when said foe is deadlier and scarier than a Marine.
Except the vast majority of Guardsmen are total noobs, such is the brutal calculus of war in 40K.
You can be as grizzled a Veteran as you want, but the greens fleeing in abject terror are going to get in the way all the same.
As I’ve kept saying? The Astartes isn’t in a rush. He can and will take his time.
Even for Veterans, there has to be a finite number of hideously abused corpses the mind can take, with no obvious signs for progress, before it snaps and the sheer apparent futility comes crashing down on your psyche.
JNAProductions wrote: It does mean that they're able to stand against a foe and not just wet their pants in terror.
Even when said foe is deadlier and scarier than a Marine.
The background is pretty consistent on big monsters tending to cause Guardsmen to scatter after they take a pasting or just prior to said pasting.
That being said fear can also manifest in a lot of different ways. Some people run, some freeze and some keep shooting in a vain attempt to kill a 7ft tall super human who is about to pound them to paste. There are of course exceptions to the rule.
Regarding psychology: I don't know... I mean... Look at places like Verdun 1916
I think you underestimate the ability of the human mind to blank out when confronted with blood and gore. They had literally corpses of their comrades as "building material" in their trenchwalls and counted a death toll of ~ 300.000 within ~10 months, so ~ 1000 a day. Continous Artillery bombardmend, the threat of a gruesome death through mustard gas, seeing people blown to bits or mutilated on a daily, hourly, sometimes per minute basis... and still they kept on fighting.
And regarding "he just punches the guy resisting next": which still does not prohibit him from priming his grenades and taking the marine with him as in the death korps video I linked.
Consider a Catachan Regimental MMA Champ. Vs a Space Marine.
And indeed the bloody smear said Catachan is about to become.
Us humans are adaptable, sure. I cannot and will not deny that. But a single Astartes can absolutely take their time and make messed even my seasoned gorehound imagination can cope with, over a sustained period.
This is entirely the aim and point of Astartes. It doesn’t matter how many there are, when you’ve seen 20, 30, 100, 200 physically shredded, rent, torn and shattered, for no discernible damage in return?
Our brains break.
A fully power armoured Marine can run at, flat out, for hours, between 30 and 50mph.
Imagine that’s their sole attack. Time in. Time out, just…..running at folk and making them go squish.
Whilst also tuning into you radio. Issuing wide ranging threats. Threat you know they can very much follow through on.
Marines serve a purpose. And they’re near beyond our comprehension good at it.
Our psyche can only handle and process so much. And it doesn’t include Marines. By the design of Marines.
The actual scale of 40k violence is often woefully small compared to the actual horrors of wars like World War 1 and 2.
For instance, the initial Imperial Guard forces of the Third War for Armageddon, a war for an entire planet, were around 1.5million guardsmen across the entire Armageddon subsector.
There were 2.5million French and British soldiers at the 1916 Battle of the Somme alone. The Soviets lost over double the number of the Imperial Guard forces holding a planet in the Siege of Leningrad alone.
The actual scale of 40k violence is often woefully small compared to the actual horrors of wars like World War 1 and 2.
For instance, the initial forces of the Third War for Armageddon, a war for an entire planet, were around 1.5million guardsmen across the entire Armageddon subsector.
There were 2.5million French and British soldiers at the Battle of the Somme alone.
Wrong. A WW2's worth of humans die brutally EVERY DAY with the wars fought in the Imperial Galaxy. In FAR worse ways. Brutally killed by demons made of rape and anger.
The actual scale of 40k violence is often woefully small compared to the actual horrors of wars like World War 1 and 2.
For instance, the initial forces of the Third War for Armageddon, a war for an entire planet, were around 1.5million guardsmen across the entire Armageddon subsector.
There were 2.5million French and British soldiers at the Battle of the Somme alone.
Wrong. A WW2's worth of humans die brutally EVERY DAY with the wars fought in the Imperial Galaxy. In FAR worse ways. Brutally killed by demons made of rape and anger.
Not even close to the same.
Sure they do, in battles for whole planets without enough men to hold a single section of the line in World War 1. Because it isn't just the rules writers at GW that suck at numbers.
But thank you for proving my point that 40k's lore has no sense of actual scale when it comes to the numbers involved in total war. WW2 casualties (85million total, thereabouts) should be a rounding error for the Imperium on a daily basis. It has a total population countless times larger than 1940s Earth. Terra alone has a population in the Quadrillions, which is around 1,000,000 times the population of the Earth in 1940. Now, if you had said every hour, or every minute, then WW2 casualty numbers might be something to balk at, but simply on the scale of the population of the Imperium of Man, it is nothing.
For Terra alone to suffer the same rate of casualties as Earth did in WW2 (approx 3% of the 1940 population), it would need 3*10^13 (or 30,000,000,000,000 in non-scientific notation) casualties, minimum. Spread that out over 6 years and Terra alone should be losing 5*10^12 every year to match the casualty rates of WW2, which is 13,698,630,137 per day. The total casualties of WW2, which you said the Imperium lost per day, is 0.6% of the daily losses of Terra alone if the wars that the Imperium is fighting are as destructive as WW2.
Now, how many soldiers did the Imperium lose in the Third War for Armageddon? How does that "massive planetary war" look when we compare it with that number we just calculated which is, remember, the daily casualties from a single planet in a ww2 scale conflict, and the Imperium has millions of planets?
Except the vast majority of Guardsmen are total noobs, such is the brutal calculus of war in 40K.
Well that's just quite untrue, especially considering that the Guard are typically drawn from among the better PDF regiments iirc.
Conscripts are nubs, sure. But not the "vast majority" of the Guard.
. . .
Bears can run 30 mph. People are plenty capable of shooting bears. If a bear is charging you and you're holding a semi or fully automatic rifle that you've trained with extensively . . . my money is on "you're gonna shoot the bear". Even if the bear has killed other soldiers, and even if the bear's been going all "Tokyo Rose" on you. Hell, you're probably quite happy to shoot the bear at that point.
Bears can run 30 mph. People are plenty capable of shooting bears. If a bear is charging you and you're holding a semi or fully automatic rifle that you've trained with extensively . . . my money is on "you're gonna shoot the bear". Even if the bear has killed other soldiers, and even if the bear's been going all "Tokyo Rose" on you. Hell, you're probably quite happy to shoot the bear at that point.
This. Marines running fast means nothing really, because even at 30mph it's not that fast. It's like facing a knight riding at full gallop towards you. A cheetah racing towards you ready for its next meal.
The whole inhuman reflexes and speed mean nothing when your basic weapon fires at the speed of light.
Realistically, a marine is about as armoured, armed, and as fast as a Sentinel. Just a smaller target and more nimble.
Insectum7 wrote: More than that, "mere humans" were taking on mammoths with ****ing SPEARS.
And how did we manage that?
Persistence Hunting. Just keep on the move, knacker the beastie out, only making with the stabby once it’s exhausted and it’s threat greatly reduced.
Here, the Marine is 100% fighting back, at a speed described as unbelievable for a being of its mass. And your shooting just…doesn’t seem to be doing anything. Even relatively glancing blows from the Marine are doing damage. It’s not a stand up slug fest. Limbs are being wrenched off effortlessly, rib cages are caving in from a single blow. Heads are being pulped by a backhand slap. All the while your foe is roaring at deafening volume - possibly tied into your Vox Net.
The Marine is also a martial artist. It’s not just pub brawling or Queensbury Rules. They don’t noticeably slow down or suffer fatigue. They can keep fighting, non-stop for hours if needs be, possibly even days at a push.
Training, discipline and bravery have limits. Marines are specifically designed to exceed those limits. They are terror troops par excellence. The sort of military horror you deploy to not just cow or defeat an opponent, but to drive all thought of future rebellion out.
Sure you might have folk snap in a useful way and become insanely heroic - but they still need to get past the squad mates frozen by the horror, or those that heavily besmirched their britches. And even then, even if they’re well trained and drilled, it’s like a five year old trying to beat up an adult. Sure a lucky hit can hurt (they always go for the nads!), but they don’t take much effort to put down if you really want to (do not pick fights with children to prove or disprove this point. It’s illustrative only).
Even if you get an arm off the Marine? They keep on fighting, possibly thrashing you with said detached limb. That’s not natural. It should take them out the fight. But it doesn’t.
And? Going back to WW1 people were being killed in their thousands every day. The Somme had over a million casualties in a 4 month period, that’s over 250 thousand deaths a month.
Artillery was wrenching off limbs. Machine guns caved in rib cages. Rifles and bayonets pulping heads. It’s not like humans haven’t seen that level of destruction before.
If anything, a space marine is less of a threat than a WW1 tank, because a lasgun can kill a marine. We’ve seen it countless times in the lore.
Marines have weaknesses. Eye slots. Weakspots in the armour. Hell, all it takes is a single Guardsmen with a bouquet of grenades to kill one. Just like they did in WW1 to kill tanks. Alternatively a Guardsmen just sets their lasgun to max charge, zap, one-lasbolt marine dead. Just like in Gaunts Ghosts.
Don't call PTSD being "out of their minds", it's an ableist dismissal of a highly complex and variable condition and only serves to make you look ignorant. Not everyone with PTSD from world war 1 became catatonic, many were highly functional outside of episodes.
You're just continuing to massively undersell the human capability to endure horror as you have been the entire thread while ignoring all evidence counter to your position.
If men could climb out of a trench and march slowly into machine gun fire over the corpses of their friends half buried in mud or caught in barbed wire, limbs torn off from shrapnel, without en-masse freezing or running away then they can stand against a marine. And World War 1 showed that men could do that, even after they didn't sleep for days due to constant shelling, living in squalor and with their feet rotting off due to sitting in a water filled trench.
This is the dumbest thread I’ve ever read, I’ve tried to keep out of it but the idea that 1 marine would be so scary that all 10000 guardsmen would be scared stiff and unable to react is just soo far fetched. Then to try and bring ptsd in as an argument is insulting.
Say your marine charges through a couple of guys, of the 10000 professional trained soldiers 1 or 2 who actually witness this my be scared into inactivity. The vast majority would be fine and would fall back on their training and drills react as soldiers. That’s how it works. That’s why they train as they do.
I am a paramedic in real life, never been a soldier but they we were trained was similar in that we practiced actions again and again so that when we were confronted with super high stress situations we could fall back on this ingrained skills with out having to think.
And you know what it works, I have been confronted with unexpected carnage and horror that has frozen many others and I have gone into auto pilot of airway drills and cpr. Afterwards the stress hits you, that’s what ptsd would do.
Those guards men, after they had killed that marine and they were digging latrines or making a brew, they would relive the high stress moment. But at the time they would act. And kill the marine.
And you know what, even at the most horrific scenes I have attended there are still untrained ordinary people who don’t freeze, and struggle, they just act on instinct, because some people just can handle stressful situations well. Humans are amazing.
I know mad doc loves transhuman dread, and it’s a neat idea but really, a trained soldier would over come that very quickly. And this is shown in the fluff so many times you can’t really argue otherwise.
Except Trans Human Dread can’t be hand waved away.
It sets the scene that Marines are more than just big fellas in hefty armour. They’re manifestations of death. Faster, stronger and tougher than the human mind is able to cope with.
And nobody is saying 10,000 all at once.
It’s the cumulative massacres. The shredded bodies, pulped organs and shattered bones, all with no sign anyone got so much as a hit on the attacker.
The potential for the Marine to actively broadcast the sounds of those massacres likewise is a horrific advantage.
Everything about a Marine is dialled up to 11. That’s their entire purpose. That’s what allows them to do what they do.
All this “just needs a grenade bouquet or a Lasgun ramped up” isn’t going to cut it, because the former assumes the Marine is just….standing there. The latter is a single example in a book where if the Marine wasn’t dropped, the main characters would all be dead and that ends the series.
For those who haven’t read the bit about transhuman dread, here’s the quote.
Age of Darkness wrote: Transhuman dread. Aximand had heard iterators talk of the condition. He’d heard descriptions of it from regular Army officers too. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing: taller and broader than a man could ever be, armoured like a demigod. The singularity of purpose was self-evident. An Adeptus Astartes was designed to fight and kill anything that didn’t annihilate it first. If you saw an Adeptus Astartes, you knew you were in trouble. The appearance alone cowed you with fear.
"But to see one move. Apparently that was the real thing. Nothing human-shaped should be so fast, so lithe, so powerful, especially not anything in excess of two metres tall and carrying more armour than four normal men could lift. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing, but the moving fact of one was quite another. The psychologists called it transhuman dread. It froze a man, stuck him to the ground, caused his mind to lock up, made him lose control of bladder and bowel. Something huge and warlike gave pause: something huge and warlike and moving with the speed of a striking snake, that was when you knew that gods moved amongst men, and that there existed a scale of strength and speed beyond anything mortal, and that you were about to die and, if you were really lucking, there might be just enough time to piss yourself first.
The sheer level of violence a Marine dishes out is insane.
Please note I’m not making light of PTSD. It’s a very real thing and not pleasant. But folk are greatly underplaying it here. A Marine breaks spirits as well as lines. That’s their entire purpose, to rip out resistance root and stem. Scaring the fleegle out of foes is part of that.
Do one massacre. Record it. Then…..broadcast it, whenever you want. Disrupt the sleep patterns. Apply stress upon stress. Sometimes follow up with an attack, sometimes just settle for the psychological impact.
Everyone has a breaking point. Marines excel at pushing folk beyond it.
It’s the cumulative massacres. The shredded bodies, pulped organs and shattered bones, all with no sign anyone got so much as a hit on the attacker.
People walked past this kind of thing with every march across No Man's Land in the first world war. They kept walking.
Everything you are saying the Marine could do to break the will and spirit of the humans is stuff that the normal humans in the horrific meat grinder of trench warfare endured, for years.
The only reason you assume Marines can break people with "transhuman dread" is because you downplay the carnage and horror of all war. People in the trenches were hearing their comrades scream and die in No Man's Land, sometimes taking hours or even days to die with nobody able to go and help them, they were subjected to constant shelling disrupting their sleep, chemical warfare blistering their skin and filling their lungs and the lungs of their friends with liquid until they drowned with no possibility of help.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: Transhuman dread might be the second worst writing in 40k, right after how they handle perpetuals.
And even Transhuman Dread is very clearly spelled out in the HH books as the extreme effects wearing off down to merely scary rather quickly, even for civilians, let alone trained soldiers. It’s frankly not much different to people’s reactions to other large aggressive creatures like bears and the like.
In the Siege of Terra there were tons of regular humans competently fighting marines for months, despite the carnage and the dying in vast numbers.
The first few times butchered squads are found there will probably be panic, but by the umpteenth it’ll just become routine and people will become numb to it like they did in the WW1 trenches as others have said.
And there’s 1,000 squads to get through here. 10,000 soldiers is *a lot* to get through and, while the chance of any given one killing the marine is very small, when there’s that many all those small chances add up. Even with lasguns, let alone the one in 5 that would usually have a special or heavy weapon, some of which should reasonably reliably take a marine out in one hit (if they hit, which is obviously the issue, but there’s enough of them that at least one probably will).
You say it can’t be hand waved away yet it is in every novel where marines face guard. Many accounts in guard novels and how models interact on the table.
Humans are adaptable. What renders one incapable one day will quickly become accepted as normal the next time you see it. 1st time you see a marine, yeah i can buy it, it’ll be scary and you struggle to make sense of it. Next few times you will know what to expect and cope with it. Before you know it you will be calmly aiming at week spots and coordinating fire to bring them down.
Never mind the impact of leaders. A good nco would help junior troops overcome such fear.
There’s a scene in a gaunts ghosts novel where a chaos marine surprises the ghosts. They just coordinate fire and bring it down.
And again you underestimate humanities ability to cope through horror. Repeated massacre wouldnt Necessarily render troops incapable. In fact, all of history shows humans can endure that and much much more. Yeah the survivors would have night terrors and flashbacks for ever but they would mostly get the job done at the time.
There is literally no basis, in setting or in real life that supports your claims. None.
Andykp wrote: You say it can’t be hand waved away yet it is in every novel where marines face guard. Many accounts in guard novels and how models interact on the table.
Humans are adaptable. What renders one incapable one day will quickly become accepted as normal the next time you see it. 1st time you see a marine, yeah i can buy it, it’ll be scary and you struggle to make sense of it. Next few times you will know what to expect and cope with it. Before you know it you will be calmly aiming at week spots and coordinating fire to bring them down.
Never mind the impact of leaders. A good nco would help junior troops overcome such fear.
There’s a scene in a gaunts ghosts novel where a chaos marine surprises the ghosts. They just coordinate fire and bring it down.
And again you underestimate humanities ability to cope through horror. Repeated massacre wouldnt Necessarily render troops incapable. In fact, all of history shows humans can endure that and much much more. Yeah the survivors would have night terrors and flashbacks for ever but they would mostly get the job done at the time.
There is literally no basis, in setting or in real life that supports your claims. None.
You speak like you have personal experience in combat situations. Can I get a confirmation on that? As a trained combat medic in an infantry battalion I can speak to seeing lots of "Really experienced and tough hombres" cracking under stress. I've spent an entire evening trying to find the ring finger of a casualty due to land mine, so we could send it back to his family. I saw two men just literally stop, go to their knees, and begin openly ugly crying. Effectively useless if bullets start flying. I myself have completely lost track of my senses, and vomited all over myself at the sight of a child being hit by a mortar round, which wasn't so bad, except I just started to mag dump at every mountain I could see. I had to be physically restrained. Combat PTSD is not easily described, or even factually described. There is no mathematical; This will happen, then this. It's just a thing that happens. Saying it doesn't happen to 40k humans is an odd stance to take, as we have been constantly led to believe the imperial guard is just about the closest thing to actual humans for the most part. Lacking in augmentation, mutation, enhancement (For the most part) and generally just basic human.
Andykp wrote: You say it can’t be hand waved away yet it is in every novel where marines face guard. Many accounts in guard novels and how models interact on the table.
Humans are adaptable. What renders one incapable one day will quickly become accepted as normal the next time you see it. 1st time you see a marine, yeah i can buy it, it’ll be scary and you struggle to make sense of it. Next few times you will know what to expect and cope with it. Before you know it you will be calmly aiming at week spots and coordinating fire to bring them down.
Never mind the impact of leaders. A good nco would help junior troops overcome such fear.
There’s a scene in a gaunts ghosts novel where a chaos marine surprises the ghosts. They just coordinate fire and bring it down.
And again you underestimate humanities ability to cope through horror. Repeated massacre wouldnt Necessarily render troops incapable. In fact, all of history shows humans can endure that and much much more. Yeah the survivors would have night terrors and flashbacks for ever but they would mostly get the job done at the time.
There is literally no basis, in setting or in real life that supports your claims. None.
You speak like you have personal experience in combat situations. Can I get a confirmation on that? As a trained combat medic in an infantry battalion I can speak to seeing lots of "Really experienced and tough hombres" cracking under stress. I've spent an entire evening trying to find the ring finger of a casualty due to land mine, so we could send it back to his family. I saw two men just literally stop, go to their knees, and begin openly ugly crying. Effectively useless if bullets start flying. I myself have completely lost track of my senses, and vomited all over myself at the sight of a child being hit by a mortar round, which wasn't so bad, except I just started to mag dump at every mountain I could see. I had to be physically restrained. Combat PTSD is not easily described, or even factually described. There is no mathematical; This will happen, then this. It's just a thing that happens. Saying it doesn't happen to 40k humans is an odd stance to take, as we have been constantly led to believe the imperial guard is just about the closest thing to actual humans for the most part. Lacking in augmentation, mutation, enhancement (For the most part) and generally just basic human.
As I said in my earlier post I have no military experience, but have been a Paramedic for the last 22 years, so I have plenty of experience of high stress situations, trauma and PTSD, I suffered with it myself for years as have pretty much all my colleagues. You don't have to military to have been hunting for body parts.
I could list an endless catalogue of traumatic experiences I have witnessed but don’t feel the need. Just trust me, anyone doing my job for as long as I have has seen enough stuff.
But more often than not I have seen professionals overcome their fear, upset and stress and rise to the occasion. And on the odd occasions I have seen people, freeze, breakdown or just crumple on a job, I have also seen their colleagues lift them and get them going.
As for being “just human”, humans are fething amazing. Humans can overcome unimaginable hurdles and succeed. Humans can adapt and survive and cope with most anything. Just human is enough.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It sets the scene that Marines are more than just big fellas in hefty armour. They’re manifestations of death. Faster, stronger and tougher than the human mind is able to cope with.
They're not. Humans can cope with tigers. Big tigers are bigger and stronger and faster than Marines. Tyranid Warriors are bigger and stronger and faster than Marines, and Guardsmen can kill them too.
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Andykp wrote: You say it can’t be hand waved away yet it is in every novel where marines face guard. Many accounts in guard novels and how models interact on the table.
Humans are adaptable. What renders one incapable one day will quickly become accepted as normal the next time you see it. 1st time you see a marine, yeah i can buy it, it’ll be scary and you struggle to make sense of it. Next few times you will know what to expect and cope with it. Before you know it you will be calmly aiming at week spots and coordinating fire to bring them down.
An example that comes to mind is from my reading of Guns, Germs and Steel. IIrc there's a bit about the Spanish encountering the Aztecs (?). It goes something like this: The first time the Aztec see the Conquistadors, the Aztecs think they are gods. They've never seen horses, they've never seen steel armor, they're just blown away with fear and reverence. There's a battle, and it's like 20 Spanish vs. a 1000 Aztecs (or whatever), and the Aztecs rout because again, they think the Spanish are immortal gods. But that only works once. At some point the Aztecs figure out that the Spanish are only human, and they can be killed, and then the Aztecs fight back and start taking Spanish lives.
I KNOW my details are going to be off about the above, I read that book like 20 fuggin years ago. I give the gist of what I recall, corrections are very welcome.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It sets the scene that Marines are more than just big fellas in hefty armour. They’re manifestations of death. Faster, stronger and tougher than the human mind is able to cope with.
They're not. Humans can cope with tigers. Big tigers are bigger and stronger and faster than Marines. Tyranid Warriors are bigger and stronger and faster than Marines, and Guardsmen can kill them too.
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Andykp wrote: You say it can’t be hand waved away yet it is in every novel where marines face guard. Many accounts in guard novels and how models interact on the table.
Humans are adaptable. What renders one incapable one day will quickly become accepted as normal the next time you see it. 1st time you see a marine, yeah i can buy it, it’ll be scary and you struggle to make sense of it. Next few times you will know what to expect and cope with it. Before you know it you will be calmly aiming at week spots and coordinating fire to bring them down.
An example that comes to mind is from my reading of Guns, Germs and Steel. IIrc there's a bit about the Spanish encountering the Aztecs (?). It goes something like this: The first time the Aztec see the Conquistadors, the Aztecs think they are gods. They've never seen horses, they've never seen steel armor, they're just blown away with fear and reverence. There's a battle, and it's like 20 Spanish vs. a 1000 Aztecs (or whatever), and the Aztecs rout because again, they think the Spanish are immortal gods. But that only works once. At some point the Aztecs figure out that the Spanish are only human, and they can be killed, and then the Aztecs fight back and start taking Spanish lives.
I KNOW my details are going to be off about the above, I read that book like 20 fuggin years ago. I give the gist of what I recall, corrections are very welcome.
I think that’s another in universe thing to consider too, humble guardsmen are expected and have been shown to face down the worst horrors of the galaxy. Marines barely crack the top 10 compared to demons and nids and necron undead things or ORKS. Ye smarminess are scary but nowhere does it ever say that fear cannot be overcome by a humble human. Quite the opposite.
This discussion about the resiliency of soldiers reminds me of an incident before WW2. Italy had invaded Ethiopia and was surprised at the level of resistance despite the outrageous technological advantages it enjoyed. At one point, barefoot Ethiopians rushed several Italian tanks and ripped the drive chains off their sprockets with their bare hands. This act cost these soldiers not only their limbs but their very lives.
Who then was more in shock about the incident? The Italian military, that's who.
Humans are capable of outlandish feats. Nothing about the lore of Space Marines stand out to me as anything beyond human resolve.
Insectum7 wrote: Big tigers are bigger and stronger and faster than Marines.
What? No they're not lol. I couldn't even begin to imagine what could have led you to believe that. The heavier Siberian Tigers are less than seven hundred pounds. That's less than lower end of a Marine.
"Whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1m tall and weighs between 500-1,000 kg."
- Deathwatch core rulebook, page 28
Their armour in the book is 180 kg, so out of armour a Marine that was 500 kg in it would weigh 320 kg, or a little over 705 pounds.
Do you have another source to contradict that weight?
And in terms of strength; I would be interested in seeing a single source that implies Marine is physically weaker than a tiger.
Insectum7 wrote: Big tigers are bigger and stronger and faster than Marines.
What? No they're not lol. I couldn't even begin to imagine what could have led you to believe that. The heavier Siberian Tigers are less than seven hundred pounds. That's less than lower end of a Marine.
"Whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1m tall and weighs between 500-1,000 kg."
- Deathwatch core rulebook, page 28
Their armour in the book is 180 kg, so out of armour a Marine that was 500 kg in it would weigh 320 kg, or a little over 705 pounds.
Do you have another source to contradict that weight?
And in terms of strength; I would be interested in seeing a single source that implies Marine is physically weaker than a tiger.
Sooo, the Guiness Book of World Records gives the weight of the largest tiger at 935 pounds. Andre the Giant was 7'4", and weighed 520 pounds. Marines are put at 7". But also GW is also often not great at numbers, so weights that they might give are maybe not great either.
(and 500 to 1000 kgs is a pretty big range). But to your point, tigers on average are a bit smaller than I thought, and I suppose since Marines are depicted as generally bulkier and described as denser than humans, then a Marine could be more massive than a tiger. As for strength, animals are just crazy strong in general. So for yuks, let's say that Marines are given "animal strength" as part of their transformation. (although at the same time they have S4, and "mere human" Catachans also were given S4. But the Strength values cover a wide ground, so it could go either way imo.) I dunno, do you have a source for Marines being stronger than a tiger?
But it doesn't change the argument. Just pick a bigger animal, like a bear. Big bears can weigh 1,400 pounds. They were also in danger of being hunted to extinction, because guns, 'Murica, etc. I'm sure there are people who would hunt four ton orcas or dinosaurs if they could.
Not to mention that a number of IG regiments are drawn from deathworlds where the local wildlife is god-knows-what.
. . .
Here's some other potentially useful reference numbers: "The Mountain" (height 6'9") at his peak strongman days weighed 463 pounds. Then he turned to boxing, and lost weight for the sport, going to 335 pounds for fighting. He's got what I imagine most people think of as being a "Space Marine physique".
And actually, the 2.1 meter height you give just happens to be about 6'9", the height of Mountain Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson.
Do one massacre. Record it. Then…..broadcast it, whenever you want.
=> it's also fascinating that the Marine is simultanously broadcasting regularly and super sneaker and undetactable. A bit like Schrödingers cat...
Also just a general note on the whole "Space Marines are inhumanly fast" etc. I'm not convinced that means "I can dodge lasguns, duh!". The fastest humans can sprint at around 40kph for a bunch of seconds. The ability to hold that speed for a minute or sprint at 50 kph for seconds already is "inhumanly fast".
The ability to lift 1000 kg for 5-10 seconds already is "inhumanly strong".
The ability to reliably dodge an arrow or crossbow bolt already is "inhumanly fast reflexes"
They are still limited by inertia etc. running towards a target at full speed sounds like a good idea, until you realize you have to change direction to dodge fire etc. And giving a 1000 pound body that moves at 40 mph (64 kph if I'm not off) a new direction needs a considerably amount of force.
Sooo, the Guiness Book of World Records gives the weight of the largest tiger at 935 pounds. Andre the Giant was 7'4", and weighed 520 pounds. Marines are put at 7". But also GW is also often not great at numbers, so weights that they might give are maybe not great either.
Those are a lot of words with no source behind them. Do you have another source for Marine weight or not?
(and 500 to 1000 kgs is a pretty big range).
Marines vary in size. Abaddon towers over most Marines and is also far bulkier than they are.
But to your point, tigers on average are a bit smaller than I thought, and I suppose since Marines are depicted as generally bulkier
Universally. You can not find a single example of a human being that weighs seven hundred pounds that isn't hugely obese. Angus MacAskill is perhaps the biggest man to ever live who didn't either have gigantism or obesity, and he was "only" 510 pounds at 7'9".
As for strength, animals are just crazy strong in general.
What a strange and nonsensical statement. Animals are as strong as their anatomy and physiology allows. Just like humans are. And plenty of animals, even those as large as humans or more, are physically less robust than humans.
And as for Astartes? They are literally built to be both strong and fast using super science by humanity's smartest and most powerful person to ever live. If anything the stretch would be assuming any animal that isn't either notably larger than a Marine like an Ogryn or also specifically bred to be strong due to another form of super science like Orks or Necron Immortals.
So for yuks, let's say that Marines are given "animal strength" as part of their transformation.
Why do that when Marine showings are filled with instances of them being stronger than any similarly-sized animal?
(although at the same time they have S4, and "mere human" Catachans also were given S4.
Humans in 40k in non-Terra worlds evolve to survive those worlds. Catachans evolved to survive in Catachan, one of the most brutal and hostile death worlds in the galaxy. So they evolved to be taller and more robust than a human from Terra would.
More to the point, statlines are arbitrary and constantly changing for the sake of game balance and other concerns. How arbitrary you ask? So arbitrary that Catachans are no longer S4, they're S3 just like everyone else. Unless they are charging if they take the brutal strength regimental doctrine.
But the Strength values cover a wide ground, so it could go either way imo.) I dunno, do you have a source for Marines being stronger than a tiger?
Do you want me to bury you under a mountain of scenes where Marines do things like shatter human skulls with a punch? Do you want me to give you the average lifting ability of an average Marine in the various 40k tabletop RPGs? Do you want me to show you cinematics of Marines doing things like lifting a Necron warrior into the air by his chainsword with one hand or punching them off their feet like in the ninth edition trailer? Maybe scenes from Space Marine where Captain Titus does things like push artillery shells that are several times bigger than him and would weigh hundreds of tons? Maybe Titus literally ripping the head off of one of those far superior to Marines Tyranid Warriors in the Space Marine 2 reveal trailer? Are you one of those intellectually dishonest people who refuses any lore that doesn't take place within a codex or some other direct game product while knowing that due to the big picture way they are written actual showcases of the physical abilities of the characters don't tend to get much focus? If so Primaris Marines at least can break a man's skull with the grip strength of a single hand, break flak armour to pieces, and bite through metal cables per the eighth edition codex. Page 11.
But it doesn't change the argument. Just pick a bigger animal, like a bear. Big bears can weigh 1,400 pounds.
The Marine is still stronger.
The average Ork boy probably is too for that matter. Certainly tougher.
They were also in danger of being hunted to extinction, because guns, 'Murica, etc. I'm sure there are people who would hunt four ton orcas or dinosaurs if they could.
\
A Space Marine is wearing armour that makes them significantly more resistant toward getting shot and killed. And is also far faster, smarter, and more skilled at killing people than a bear, orca, or dinosaur.
Not to mention that a number of IG regiments are drawn from deathworlds where the local wildlife is god-knows-what.
Most aren't, though I'm not really going to argue this point. The transhuman dread angle is very inconsistent even within Black Library and you can find plenty of examples of human overcoming it even in the books where it appears, though off the top of my head not usually the "average guardsman".
. . .
Here's some other potentially useful reference numbers: "The Mountain" (height 6'9") at his peak strongman days weighed 463 pounds. Then he turned to boxing, and lost weight for the sport, going to 335 pounds for fighting. He's got what I imagine most people think of as being a "Space Marine physique".
And actually, the 2.1 meter height you give just happens to be about 6'9", the height of Mountain Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson.
Space Marines aren't human though. Even the original Marines have two implants that enhance their strength and hardiness, one giving them a much stronger skeleton the other pumping them full of muscle-enhancing hormones throughout the process. Primaris have an extra implant that makes them even stronger. No real life human being nor do most 40k human beings (exceptions being guys like Sergeant Harker) even approach Space Marine physical strength. Nor do any animals that aren't notably larger.
As for the thread itself (assuming these are just standard flak and flash infantrymen and nothing nonstandard like tanks, ogryn, or notable heroes like Marbo)?
In a standard firefight/mixed combat and shooting engagement: the Marine loses, weight of fire and vulnerability to flanking due to being one dude fighting ten thousand means it's just a matter of time.
Pure melee fight: This one is interesting because, bluntly, realistically the Marine should actually win this. Guardsman are not equipped with significant melee weaponry, and powered armour covers the Marine head to toe without any gaps like Medieval plate mail. Wrap it around a man strong enough to cut people in half and heavy and fast enough to bulldoze through the opposition while killing them (if anyone doubts that then consider that a Marine is 5.5 times heavier than a two hundred pound man. By comparison a two hundred pound man is 5.5 times heavier than something that weighs 36 pounds, or to put it another way, slightly less than the average weight of a five year old. How hard do you imagine it would be to bulldoze through an army of five year olds? Only the five year olds would be proportionately heavier than most guardsmen the Marine would be fighting so the guardsmen would be even easier to knock over than if they were two hundred pounds and like, idk,. two and a half feet tall. Unless we have reason to believe the knives and bayonets of guardsmen are strong enough to pierce through even the joints of powered armour (which seems unlikely, seeing as how much more money and time goes into crafting their armour) it shouldn't be very feasible for your average guardsmen to do it.
But the reality is that examples of those guardsmen swarming a Marine and sticking a bayonet into his eye lense or whatever exist. It doesn't make much sense, but it does happen, so my final verdict on this fight is the old cop-out answer "it depends on who's writing it".
Now, like I said on page one, if it's a chapter like, say, the Raven Guard or the Raptors, and they wage a guerilla campaign against 10,000 guardsmen stationed somewhere? Then this is a scenario where I could see them pulling it off.
If you just want to stick to rules, and ignore established background Because Reasons?
Got look at Marines vs Guardsmen in the Inquisitor game.
They’re….horrifically powerful in that. By quirk of the rules, they can throw a pebble and it’ll hit harder than their Bolter ever could.
But of course, once again this is a case of citation met with “nuh-uh”.
As for the broadcasting? Can you show me where the Guard have the tech to triangulate a position? Because once again that’s sounding like something for the Enginseer, who are not and never have been a formal part of a Regiment, instead being attached.
The whole shtick of Marines is they’re fundamentally unnatural creatures. Not merely superhuman, but post-human. Elevated through arcane science and, depending where you fall on the creation behind the Primarchs, literal magic.
Are there regiments which would do much better and possibly be an insurmountable challenge? Sure. But the majority of Regiments aren’t all that experienced. Hence the title of the IG Novel “15 Hours”.
Read The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer to get an idea of just how woefully ill equipped and unprepared most will be, because their training deliberately lies to them about what they’ll be facing.
In an urban environment, surely it has to be advantage to the Astartes? Guard can’t bring their numbers to bear properly, and the Marine isn’t fussed about finding a door, as they’ll just, y’know, make one.
Sooo, the Guiness Book of World Records gives the weight of the largest tiger at 935 pounds. Andre the Giant was 7'4", and weighed 520 pounds. Marines are put at 7". But also GW is also often not great at numbers, so weights that they might give are maybe not great either.
Those are a lot of words with no source behind them. Do you have another source for Marine weight or not?
(and 500 to 1000 kgs is a pretty big range).
Marines vary in size. Abaddon towers over most Marines and is also far bulkier than they are.
But to your point, tigers on average are a bit smaller than I thought, and I suppose since Marines are depicted as generally bulkier
Universally. You can not find a single example of a human being that weighs seven hundred pounds that isn't hugely obese. Angus MacAskill is perhaps the biggest man to ever live who didn't either have gigantism or obesity, and he was "only" 510 pounds at 7'9".
As for strength, animals are just crazy strong in general.
What a strange and nonsensical statement. Animals are as strong as their anatomy and physiology allows. Just like humans are. And plenty of animals, even those as large as humans or more, are physically less robust than humans.
And as for Astartes? They are literally built to be both strong and fast using super science by humanity's smartest and most powerful person to ever live. If anything the stretch would be assuming any animal that isn't either notably larger than a Marine like an Ogryn or also specifically bred to be strong due to another form of super science like Orks or Necron Immortals.
So for yuks, let's say that Marines are given "animal strength" as part of their transformation.
Why do that when Marine showings are filled with instances of them being stronger than any similarly-sized animal?
(although at the same time they have S4, and "mere human" Catachans also were given S4.
Humans in 40k in non-Terra worlds evolve to survive those worlds. Catachans evolved to survive in Catachan, one of the most brutal and hostile death worlds in the galaxy. So they evolved to be taller and more robust than a human from Terra would.
More to the point, statlines are arbitrary and constantly changing for the sake of game balance and other concerns. How arbitrary you ask? So arbitrary that Catachans are no longer S4, they're S3 just like everyone else. Unless they are charging if they take the brutal strength regimental doctrine.
But the Strength values cover a wide ground, so it could go either way imo.) I dunno, do you have a source for Marines being stronger than a tiger?
Do you want me to bury you under a mountain of scenes where Marines do things like shatter human skulls with a punch? Do you want me to give you the average lifting ability of an average Marine in the various 40k tabletop RPGs? Do you want me to show you cinematics of Marines doing things like lifting a Necron warrior into the air by his chainsword with one hand or punching them off their feet like in the ninth edition trailer? Maybe scenes from Space Marine where Captain Titus does things like push artillery shells that are several times bigger than him and would weigh hundreds of tons? Maybe Titus literally ripping the head off of one of those far superior to Marines Tyranid Warriors in the Space Marine 2 reveal trailer? Are you one of those intellectually dishonest people who refuses any lore that doesn't take place within a codex or some other direct game product while knowing that due to the big picture way they are written actual showcases of the physical abilities of the characters don't tend to get much focus? If so Primaris Marines at least can break a man's skull with the grip strength of a single hand, break flak armour to pieces, and bite through metal cables per the eighth edition codex. Page 11.
But it doesn't change the argument. Just pick a bigger animal, like a bear. Big bears can weigh 1,400 pounds.
The Marine is still stronger.
The average Ork boy probably is too for that matter. Certainly tougher.
They were also in danger of being hunted to extinction, because guns, 'Murica, etc. I'm sure there are people who would hunt four ton orcas or dinosaurs if they could.
\
A Space Marine is wearing armour that makes them significantly more resistant toward getting shot and killed. And is also far faster, smarter, and more skilled at killing people than a bear, orca, or dinosaur.
Not to mention that a number of IG regiments are drawn from deathworlds where the local wildlife is god-knows-what.
Most aren't, though I'm not really going to argue this point. The transhuman dread angle is very inconsistent even within Black Library and you can find plenty of examples of human overcoming it even in the books where it appears, though off the top of my head not usually the "average guardsman".
. . .
Here's some other potentially useful reference numbers: "The Mountain" (height 6'9") at his peak strongman days weighed 463 pounds. Then he turned to boxing, and lost weight for the sport, going to 335 pounds for fighting. He's got what I imagine most people think of as being a "Space Marine physique".
And actually, the 2.1 meter height you give just happens to be about 6'9", the height of Mountain Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson.
Space Marines aren't human though. Even the original Marines have two implants that enhance their strength and hardiness, one giving them a much stronger skeleton the other pumping them full of muscle-enhancing hormones throughout the process. Primaris have an extra implant that makes them even stronger. No real life human being nor do most 40k human beings (exceptions being guys like Sergeant Harker) even approach Space Marine physical strength. Nor do any animals that aren't notably larger.
As for the thread itself (assuming these are just standard flak and flash infantrymen and nothing nonstandard like tanks, ogryn, or notable heroes like Marbo)?
In a standard firefight/mixed combat and shooting engagement: the Marine loses, weight of fire and vulnerability to flanking due to being one dude fighting ten thousand means it's just a matter of time.
Pure melee fight: This one is interesting because, bluntly, realistically the Marine should actually win this. Guardsman are not equipped with significant melee weaponry, and powered armour covers the Marine head to toe without any gaps like Medieval plate mail. Wrap it around a man strong enough to cut people in half and heavy and fast enough to bulldoze through the opposition while killing them (if anyone doubts that then consider that a Marine is 5.5 times heavier than a two hundred pound man. By comparison a two hundred pound man is 5.5 times heavier than something that weighs 36 pounds, or to put it another way, slightly less than the average weight of a five year old. How hard do you imagine it would be to bulldoze through an army of five year olds? Only the five year olds would be proportionately heavier than most guardsmen the Marine would be fighting so the guardsmen would be even easier to knock over than if they were two hundred pounds and like, idk,. two and a half feet tall. Unless we have reason to believe the knives and bayonets of guardsmen are strong enough to pierce through even the joints of powered armour (which seems unlikely, seeing as how much more money and time goes into crafting their armour) it shouldn't be very feasible for your average guardsmen to do it.
But the reality is that examples of those guardsmen swarming a Marine and sticking a bayonet into his eye lense or whatever exist. It doesn't make much sense, but it does happen, so my final verdict on this fight is the old cop-out answer "it depends on who's writing it".
Now, like I said on page one, if it's a chapter like, say, the Raven Guard or the Raptors, and they wage a guerilla campaign against 10,000 guardsmen stationed somewhere? Then this is a scenario where I could see them pulling it off.
I'm sure the lore says a lot. I'm sure you can find example this and example that in favor of the marine. But I'm also sure you can find example this and example that in favor of the guard. My eyes glaze over at the marine-wankery however.
Point stands. Humans can shoot BigFastStrong things. Humans working as a team are particularly capable at such things.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If you just want to stick to rules, and ignore established background Because Reasons?
Got look at Marines vs Guardsmen in the Inquisitor game.
They’re….horrifically powerful in that. By quirk of the rules, they can throw a pebble and it’ll hit harder than their Bolter ever could.
But of course, once again this is a case of citation met with “nuh-uh”.
As for the broadcasting? Can you show me where the Guard have the tech to triangulate a position? Because once again that’s sounding like something for the Enginseer, who are not and never have been a formal part of a Regiment, instead being attached.
The whole shtick of Marines is they’re fundamentally unnatural creatures. Not merely superhuman, but post-human. Elevated through arcane science and, depending where you fall on the creation behind the Primarchs, literal magic.
Are there regiments which would do much better and possibly be an insurmountable challenge? Sure. But the majority of Regiments aren’t all that experienced. Hence the title of the IG Novel “15 Hours”.
Read The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer to get an idea of just how woefully ill equipped and unprepared most will be, because their training deliberately lies to them about what they’ll be facing.
In an urban environment, surely it has to be advantage to the Astartes? Guard can’t bring their numbers to bear properly, and the Marine isn’t fussed about finding a door, as they’ll just, y’know, make one.
10,000 is still a lot though.
An urban environment will give the marine even more of an advantage yes, but the guardsmen don’t need to attack the marine all at once for the numbers to make a difference. Chip damage will accumulate, while the marine himself might not tire, his armour will accumulate damage which will slow him down and make him more vulnerable, even with lasguns, and an actual guard formation (as opposed to 10,000 randomers in the thunderdome) will have special and heavy weapons some of which don’t even need to be that lucky if they hit (and 10,000 guardsmen is a lot of chances).
Will a marine paste a single guardsmen - abso-freaking-lutely.
Will a marine paste a squad of guardsmen - yes, unless they’re exceedingly lucky and/or very well equipped.
Will a marine defeat 100 guardsmen - probably in good conditions, but if they’re well equipped in something like an open field or if they’re well entrenched then he may struggle .
Will a marine defeat 1,000 guardsmen (100 squads) - even this is dubious tbh, he’d probably need a good terrain advantage here, but still doable IMO in the right conditions.
I'm sure the lore says a lot. I'm sure you can find example this and example that in favor of the marine. But I'm also sure you can find example this and example that in favor of the guard. My eyes glaze over at the marine-wankery however.
Point stands. Humans can shoot BigFastStrong things. Humans working as a team are particularly capable at such things.
It's okay man, I accept the concession for your inane "tigers are bigger and stronger than Space Marines" statement.
If your argument is essentially that even in a pitched firefight where ten thousand guardsmen are trying to shoot a Marine to death while the Marine is trying to do the same in a single city then the Marine would win then naw, most Marines would die in this scenario.
MAYBE a Raven Guard or some other Marine that is skilled in nonconventional or guerilla warfare could do it. But most would end up worn down and killed, or at least incapacitated.
And that's just with guardsmen with lasguns and grenades. Giving them other assets like heavy weapons and it is more lopsided, because a direct hit from a lasgun is rather different than one from a heavy bolter, much less a lascannon.
Could Marines cripple a force 10,000 times their number in guardsmen if they had the support to launch coordinated get in and get out strikes on their leadership or supply lines? Sure, it is how they operate.
But a single Marine with a bolter and a chainsword in a firefight without any way to quickly leave against 10,000 guardsmen? Nah.
MDG i disagree with you here but on the whole think the thread has run its course, put your effort into creating one of your excellent discussion threads please!
I quite like the way this was going, which would win in a fight a marine or a tiger (insert animal here). Way better than the idea that a single marine could terrify 10000 trained soldiers into inactivity.
Would shatter the Gorillas jaw. No contest whatsoever. Even if we allow approximately equal strength, with or without power armour? The Marine absolutely has the advantage in speed and skill.
How about this thought exercise: Your nearest town of 10,000 people and you have 24 hours to prepare for the arrival of a single space marine, having been informed of his capabilities. They can't evacuate, and they know his mission is to kill every person in town.
amanita wrote: How about this thought exercise: Your nearest town of 10,000 people and you have 24 hours to prepare for the arrival of a single space marine, having been informed of his capabilities. They can't evacuate, and they know his mission is to kill every person in town.
Who wins?
The Space Marine because the nuclear material in his backpack means he can't get through customs/border patrol and never arrives at the town.
(see how this works? 10,000 people in a vacuum is such a useless metric, because they're never in a vacuum. Same with 1 Marine really).
So much mention of inhuman dread. I just don’t buy it. For a marine to being moving so fast to be a blur they’d have to be moving at hundreds of kilometres, not 50 - 60km’s.
Again, a lasgun is a laser. It moves at the speed of light. You can’t outrun that, you can’t dodge that. You can attempt to dodge the firers aim, but they can also fire in full auto in a pattern. You’re going to get hit.
Then there’s the rest of the Guardsmen’s squad. Supported by their platoon, which is the smallest operational level. This marine would be facing 50 Guardsmen in constant communication with each other. Spread over a distance, attempting to flank and surround them.
Humans aren’t idiots. It’s a single target, a marine might be fast, durable, and strong but they literally can’t be everywhere at once.
As for the broadcasting? Can you show me where the Guard have the tech to triangulate a position? Because once again that’s sounding like something for the Enginseer, who are not and never have been a formal part of a Regiment, instead being attached.
Scroll down to the section on null finding with loop antennas and give it a quick skim (the first sentence or two should suffice)
Now take a look at the voxcaster models (at least the latest ones). That little loop wire is a loop antenna and cam be used to determine the direction from which a transmission originates just by determining which direction produces the strongest signal. Two vox operators separated by enough distance (said distance would be determined by how far away the source is and how accurate a triangulation you need) could triangulate the transmission source in two dimensions. If you want the third dimension, send a third vox caster to the top of a tall building, but that's almost certainly overkill. The location in the horizontal should be sufficient.
Edit: null finding is based on the minimum signal, not maximum, same idea though.
I'm sure the lore says a lot. I'm sure you can find example this and example that in favor of the marine. But I'm also sure you can find example this and example that in favor of the guard. My eyes glaze over at the marine-wankery however.
Point stands. Humans can shoot BigFastStrong things. Humans working as a team are particularly capable at such things.
It's okay man, I accept the concession for your inane "tigers are bigger and stronger than Space Marines" statement.
I don't concede it, but I'll give it a "maybe". Nor do I think it's 'inane' that I don't have the Deathwatch RPG manual (or whatever) and take it without question. But I do wonder, since it's so specific, what it says about Marine speed.
But I'll gladly take your concession that humans, especially teams of trained humans, will hunt and kill very large, very dangerous creatures.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Would shatter the Gorillas jaw. No contest whatsoever. Even if we allow approximately equal strength, with or without power armour? The Marine absolutely has the advantage in speed and skill.
amanita wrote: How about this thought exercise: Your nearest town of 10,000 people and you have 24 hours to prepare for the arrival of a single space marine, having been informed of his capabilities. They can't evacuate, and they know his mission is to kill every person in town.
Who wins?
The Space Marine because the nuclear material in his backpack means he can't get through customs/border patrol and never arrives at the town.
(see how this works? 10,000 people in a vacuum is such a useless metric, because they're never in a vacuum. Same with 1 Marine really).
Lol, seriously? This entire thread is hypothetical reasoning. There aren't any real right or wrong answers. The 10,000 people example is not in a vacuum - it refers to what town of that size you are most familiar with and you personally. This is to give you more perspective and so not to dismiss a people group as a simple set of numbers. Frankly, if you are incapable of speculative discourse you probably don't need to comment with a sad attempt at humor to dismiss the premise. Just go back to your real world of futuristic super tanks fighting fungus goons and space pixies, mkay?
Like 42% of the town couldn't fight, just based on age. 10k people suddenly becomes less than 6k. Let's say the women fight, just to be fair. It's likely that no one has high end weaponry, but might have rifles and shotguns. They could make explosives.
A town of 10k people is nothing like a standing force of 10k trained soldiers, so I'd give it to the Marine, assuming no in the town knows how to make explosives and traps capable of killing the Marine.
Andykp wrote: I quite like the way this was going, which would win in a fight a marine or a tiger (insert animal here). Way better than the idea that a single marine could terrify 10000 trained soldiers into inactivity.
I’d like to see a marine punch a gorilla.
Gorillas are punks. Most overrated animal species tbh. They get killed by big cats half their size; a Marine would slaughter a silverback.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: Like 42% of the town couldn't fight, just based on age. 10k people suddenly becomes less than 6k. Let's say the women fight, just to be fair. It's likely that no one has high end weaponry, but might have rifles and shotguns. They could make explosives.
A town of 10k people is nothing like a standing force of 10k trained soldiers, so I'd give it to the Marine, assuming no in the town knows how to make explosives and traps capable of killing the Marine.
I can think of a particular, ongoing, Real World example where civvies have proven effective. Petrol, polystyrene, glass bottle, sock in the top. One particularly unpleasant way to go right there. And yeah, enough of them could take out a Marine.
Granted you’d need to catch him off guard and be close enough to lob one, and it’d probably take more than one or two.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If you just want to stick to rules, and ignore established background Because Reasons?
Got look at Marines vs Guardsmen in the Inquisitor game.
They’re….horrifically powerful in that. By quirk of the rules, they can throw a pebble and it’ll hit harder than their Bolter ever could.
But of course, once again this is a case of citation met with “nuh-uh”.
As you say "by a quirk in the rules".
By the rules, Marines have always moved at "human" speed in 40k. There used to be another category for fast moving animals, horses, wolves, etc. That category was Beasts. You know what was never categorized as a "beast"? Marines.
"Beasts" weren't like, particularly difficult targets to hit for Guardsmen either.
I don't concede it, but I'll give it a "maybe". Nor do I think it's 'inane' that I don't have the Deathwatch RPG manual (or whatever) and take it without question.
Bluntly, it is inane that after presumably being exposed to 40k content, even just things like the ninth edition trailer where Primaris and Sisters were fighting Necrons, for you to make a bold assertion that tigers are bigger and stronger than Marines, particularly Marines in powered armour.
But I do wonder, since it's so specific, what it says about Marine speed.
For the record I don't actually put any particular stock into things like people's capabilities based on what they can do via game mechanics, otherwise a Dark Heresy psyker can fairly trivially kill a Bloodthirster by throwing a car at him due to the way the damage is calculated.
But sure, in terms of running speed an average Marine runs like six meters per second in a round if they're running. Faster than average (how much I'm not sure, a cursory search has given me numbers as low as 2.4 and as high as 5), but slower than Usain Bolt's top sprinting speed at like 10.44 mps which is surprisingly slow. Things look better for the Marine in combat where a somewhat faster than average Marine can take the deflect shot talent to parry primitive weapons if they want, which old guns like flintlocks as well as crossbows fall under.
If you were considering using this as a gotcha for the sake of your general argument I would caution you from doing so, because the Deathwatch core rulebook also makes Marines effectively immune to lasgun fire, seeing as a lasgun does 1d10+3 damage and a Marine's damage reduction between his toughness bonus of 8 and his armour's defense of 8 or 10 (on chest) means 16-18 damage is subtracted from each instance of damage. And unfortunately for my good friends the Imperial Guardsmen, NPCs can't normally benefit from the game's crit rule "righteous fury" unless it's an important character, like a boss or elite troop basically. Even your average Chaos Marine doesn't benefit from the rule in the book.
But I'll gladly take your concession that humans, especially teams of trained humans, will hunt and kill very large, very dangerous creatures.
None half as dangerous as a Marine.
Source?
You want a source on Marines being more skilled than a gorilla?
A mere human can "shatter" a skull with a hammer.
A human can not in fact "shatter" another standing fully grown human being's skull with a framing hammer, the kind of hammer that comes to mind when someone says "hammer". They could crack the skull and very likely kill the fellow human being but they will not cause the entire skull to shatter and explode with the force of a single strike. Marines can pulp human skulls and heads with a single standing punch. To accomplish the same a person would need a sledgehammer and the person they were doing it to would have to be lying down with the floor between the sledgehammer and their skull.
Actually sure! Please do!
Sure that's easy. In powered armour they would have a total strength bonus of 10, having 40 strength, unnatural strength x2, and power armour adding 20 more strength. They have a toughness bonus of 8 on average, having 40 toughness and unnatural toughness x2. To calculate lifting strength you would have to add the strength and toughness bonus, so we get 18. So per the chart on page 208, a Marine's max lifting without having to strain themselves is 2,700 kg, or 5,952 pounds, or just shy of three tons. To put it another way, per Deathwatch a Marine in armour can comfortably lift a male white rhino over their head. I say "comfortably" because with a strength check a Marine can exceed that.
If curious, without armour their max lifting without straining is 1,350 kg; about half as much.
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TheBestBucketHead wrote: Like 42% of the town couldn't fight, just based on age. 10k people suddenly becomes less than 6k. Let's say the women fight, just to be fair. It's likely that no one has high end weaponry, but might have rifles and shotguns. They could make explosives.
A town of 10k people is nothing like a standing force of 10k trained soldiers, so I'd give it to the Marine, assuming no in the town knows how to make explosives and traps capable of killing the Marine.
Explosives and traps like what? Their armour is able to hold up against fully automatic grenade launchers that burrow into concrete and then explode. I'm no expert at making bombs in my garage but I can't imagine your average American town could come up with something that can reliably kill a Marine.
And unfortunately for my good friends the Imperial Guardsmen, NPCs can't normally benefit from the game's crit rule "righteous fury" unless it's an important character, like a boss or elite troop basically.
Why would it be unfortunate for the guardsmen that the marine doesn't benefit from "righteous fury"?
Average Space Marine vs average horde of guardsmen, using the rules for horde combat in Black Crusade.
Average Space Marine, made using Deathwatch rules, has 41 in all stats. We forgo the spending of starting XP as that is effectively accounting for the experience that a deathwatch marine has acquired beyond the baseline.
Power Armour is AP8, they have inhuman toughness 4 and a TB of 4, so total soak, before armour penetration or felling, is 16.
A magnitude 50 horde guardsmen, with BS31 as the average, with lasguns set to overload setting makes 5 semi-auto attacks. Each attack has 31% chance of hitting, 11% chance of scoring 2 hits. Attacks from hordes cannot be dodged as the sheer weight of fire is impossible to dodge. Each hit deals 1D10+5 Pen 2 damage plus 1D10 times the magnitude of the horde divided by ten, to a maximum of +2D10.
So, from 5 attacks, the Horde gets on average 2 hits. That is 2 lots of 3D10+5 Pen 2 damage, which averages to 21.5 damage from each hit. Subtract the armour, reduced to 6 by the pen of the lasgun, and the toughness bonus of 8 and the marine is taking two lots of 7.5 damage, for a total of 15 damage. The average starting wounds of a Deathwatch marine is 21. A single round of fire from only 50 guardsmen using the horde rules brought the marine down to around 1/4 of their health. The numbers only get worse when the marine attempts to close as the average hits per round go up to 3 at short range and 6 at point blank range, where each attack by the guardsmen now has the possibility of scoring three hits.
The marine needs to inflict 31 casualties before the bonus damage of the guardsmen will be reduced, though the number of attacks will drop before that point as the first digit of the horde magnitude determines the number of attacks they make (so 40-49 magnitude is 4 attacks, 30-39 is 3 etc.). The marine, on full auto with their boltgun, can only kill 5 per turn maximum as the boltgun has a full-auto of 4 and explosive damage which grants a bonus hit. So it would take over 6 turns before the hits from return fire become less damaging.
I don't concede it, but I'll give it a "maybe". Nor do I think it's 'inane' that I don't have the Deathwatch RPG manual (or whatever) and take it without question.
Bluntly, it is inane that after presumably being exposed to 40k content, even just things like the ninth edition trailer where Primaris and Sisters were fighting Necrons, for you to make a bold assertion that tigers are bigger and stronger than Marines, particularly Marines in powered armour.
Top tier humans Marines are S4 occasionally. A tiger or bear would absolutely maul a top tier human however, therefore I imagine tigers/bears etc could be stronger than a Marine.
If we're taking trailers as canon, would you like to look at the Dawn of War trailer where an Ork fells a Marine in a single blow? (A feat that appears to happen more than once, btw)
There's a LOT of 40k content out there these days, I guess I'm just not following it like you are. (And much of it is called bolter porn for a reason)
But I do wonder, since it's so specific, what it says about Marine speed.
For the record I don't actually put any particular stock into things like people's capabilities based on what they can do via game mechanics, otherwise a Dark Heresy psyker can fairly trivially kill a Bloodthirster by throwing a car at him due to the way the damage is calculated.
You know I don't particularly put much stock in the content of novels, because they're written for drama and tend to follow extreme circumstances. You know how action movies show impossible feats and totally unrealistic things for the sake of drama and entertainment? Like bullets from a gun that throw people into the air, or gas tanks in cars that always explode in fireballs. Like that, but in the written word.
Void__Dragon wrote: But sure, in terms of running speed an average Marine runs like six meters per second in a round if they're running. Faster than average (how much I'm not sure, a cursory search has given me numbers as low as 2.4 and as high as 5), but slower than Usain Bolt's top sprinting speed at like 10.44 mps which is surprisingly slow. Things look better for the Marine in combat where a somewhat faster than average Marine can take the deflect shot talent to parry primitive weapons if they want, which old guns like flintlocks as well as crossbows fall under.
If you were considering using this as a gotcha for the sake of your general argument I would caution you from doing so, because the Deathwatch core rulebook also makes Marines effectively immune to lasgun fire, seeing as a lasgun does 1d10+3 damage and a Marine's damage reduction between his toughness bonus of 8 and his armour's defense of 8 or 10 (on chest) means 16-18 damage is subtracted from each instance of damage. And unfortunately for my good friends the Imperial Guardsmen, NPCs can't normally benefit from the game's crit rule "righteous fury" unless it's an important character, like a boss or elite troop basically. Even your average Chaos Marine doesn't benefit from the rule in the book.
Maybe the lesson is to not take the Deathwatch RPG material as an absolutely infallible source then.
Or possibly you just look for consistency. (My usual tack). Marines have basically never been particularly fast in any rule set. Ergo, they're not actually that fast.
On the other hand, Marines have always been able to be brought down via Lasgun fire, with the exception of the RPG apparently. So maybe that's an indication that it's an unreliable source.
Now I'm totally on board with the idea that Marines can have a quick marching pace, and can keep it up for days. But they've never been particularly quick in any rule set. Therefore, they're not as fast as some would like to believe.
But I'll gladly take your concession that humans, especially teams of trained humans, will hunt and kill very large, very dangerous creatures.
None half as dangerous as a Marine.
Sure, but animals lack intellect and training. Imo the thing that makes a Marine dangerous is superhuman abilities combined with intellect. But the strength and speed of a Marine alone is not going to cause humans who are trained to shoot things, to not shoot at a marauding Marine.
You want a source on Marines being more skilled than a gorilla?
Stronger or faster than a tiger. So far we have one source for stronger, a non GW published RPG rulebook. A source I'd call not-reliable. Plus a bunch of faffery in the novels, which are often contradictory and embellished.
A human can not in fact "shatter" another standing fully grown human being's skull with a framing hammer, the kind of hammer that comes to mind when someone says "hammer". They could crack the skull and very likely kill the fellow human being but they will not cause the entire skull to shatter and explode with the force of a single strike. Marines can pulp human skulls and heads with a single standing punch. To accomplish the same a person would need a sledgehammer and the person they were doing it to would have to be lying down with the floor between the sledgehammer and their skull.
Source for Marine "pulping" skull in a single standing punch. The "cause the skull to shatter and explode with the force of a single strike" thing.
My counter-source btw is that Marines wound humans on a 3+.
Sure that's easy. In powered armour they would have a total strength bonus of 10, having 40 strength, unnatural strength x2, and power armour adding 20 more strength. They have a toughness bonus of 8 on average, having 40 toughness and unnatural toughness x2. To calculate lifting strength you would have to add the strength and toughness bonus, so we get 18. So per the chart on page 208, a Marine's max lifting without having to strain themselves is 2,700 kg, or 5,952 pounds, or just shy of three tons. To put it another way, per Deathwatch a Marine in armour can comfortably lift a male white rhino over their head. I say "comfortably" because with a strength check a Marine can exceed that.
If curious, without armour their max lifting without straining is 1,350 kg; about half as much.
So like, totally ignore the speed of a Marine as given by this sourcebook, but obviously the strengh as given is absolutely uncontestible, amirite?
And they still only wound a human on 3+ in 40k. So how do we square that circle?
Explosives and traps like what? Their armour is able to hold up against fully automatic grenade launchers that burrow into concrete and then explode. I'm no expert at making bombs in my garage but I can't imagine your average American town could come up with something that can reliably kill a Marine.
Drive a car into him. Repeat.
Make pit traps. If he falls in one drop a truck on him. Fill with gasoline and light it up.
Could probably use a similar method to drown him to.
It's old fashioned, but just swarming him and cutting at weak points in armor, slashing tendons at the back of the knees for example. Then bind him up with chains and feed him his own Krak grenades. That last part is less old fashioned I suppose.
Honestly, with standard setup I’d wager 50 guardsmen could pretty easily down a marine. They’re either going to have some sort of valhallan to the last type of thing going, some piece of wargear to crack their armor, a chimera or russ, a demo charge, or an artillery strike trained on their voxcaster.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: Honestly, with standard setup I’d wager 50 guardsmen could pretty easily down a marine. They’re either going to have some sort of valhallan to the last type of thing going, some piece of wargear to crack their armor, a chimera or russ, a demo charge, or an artillery strike trained on their voxcaster.
With some of the rediculousness in this thread, I'm guessing a single guardsman tech adept with an orbital defense laser battery could take a 10 marines with sharp sticks and rough language.
I don't concede it, but I'll give it a "maybe". Nor do I think it's 'inane' that I don't have the Deathwatch RPG manual (or whatever) and take it without question.
Bluntly, it is inane that after presumably being exposed to 40k content, even just things like the ninth edition trailer where Primaris and Sisters were fighting Necrons, for you to make a bold assertion that tigers are bigger and stronger than Marines, particularly Marines in powered armour.
But I do wonder, since it's so specific, what it says about Marine speed.
For the record I don't actually put any particular stock into things like people's capabilities based on what they can do via game mechanics, otherwise a Dark Heresy psyker can fairly trivially kill a Bloodthirster by throwing a car at him due to the way the damage is calculated.
But sure, in terms of running speed an average Marine runs like six meters per second in a round if they're running. Faster than average (how much I'm not sure, a cursory search has given me numbers as low as 2.4 and as high as 5), but slower than Usain Bolt's top sprinting speed at like 10.44 mps which is surprisingly slow. Things look better for the Marine in combat where a somewhat faster than average Marine can take the deflect shot talent to parry primitive weapons if they want, which old guns like flintlocks as well as crossbows fall under.
If you were considering using this as a gotcha for the sake of your general argument I would caution you from doing so, because the Deathwatch core rulebook also makes Marines effectively immune to lasgun fire, seeing as a lasgun does 1d10+3 damage and a Marine's damage reduction between his toughness bonus of 8 and his armour's defense of 8 or 10 (on chest) means 16-18 damage is subtracted from each instance of damage. And unfortunately for my good friends the Imperial Guardsmen, NPCs can't normally benefit from the game's crit rule "righteous fury" unless it's an important character, like a boss or elite troop basically. Even your average Chaos Marine doesn't benefit from the rule in the book.
But I'll gladly take your concession that humans, especially teams of trained humans, will hunt and kill very large, very dangerous creatures.
None half as dangerous as a Marine.
Source?
You want a source on Marines being more skilled than a gorilla?
A mere human can "shatter" a skull with a hammer.
A human can not in fact "shatter" another standing fully grown human being's skull with a framing hammer, the kind of hammer that comes to mind when someone says "hammer". They could crack the skull and very likely kill the fellow human being but they will not cause the entire skull to shatter and explode with the force of a single strike. Marines can pulp human skulls and heads with a single standing punch. To accomplish the same a person would need a sledgehammer and the person they were doing it to would have to be lying down with the floor between the sledgehammer and their skull.
Actually sure! Please do!
Sure that's easy. In powered armour they would have a total strength bonus of 10, having 40 strength, unnatural strength x2, and power armour adding 20 more strength. They have a toughness bonus of 8 on average, having 40 toughness and unnatural toughness x2. To calculate lifting strength you would have to add the strength and toughness bonus, so we get 18. So per the chart on page 208, a Marine's max lifting without having to strain themselves is 2,700 kg, or 5,952 pounds, or just shy of three tons. To put it another way, per Deathwatch a Marine in armour can comfortably lift a male white rhino over their head. I say "comfortably" because with a strength check a Marine can exceed that.
If curious, without armour their max lifting without straining is 1,350 kg; about half as much.
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TheBestBucketHead wrote: Like 42% of the town couldn't fight, just based on age. 10k people suddenly becomes less than 6k. Let's say the women fight, just to be fair. It's likely that no one has high end weaponry, but might have rifles and shotguns. They could make explosives.
A town of 10k people is nothing like a standing force of 10k trained soldiers, so I'd give it to the Marine, assuming no in the town knows how to make explosives and traps capable of killing the Marine.
Explosives and traps like what? Their armour is able to hold up against fully automatic grenade launchers that burrow into concrete and then explode. I'm no expert at making bombs in my garage but I can't imagine your average American town could come up with something that can reliably kill a Marine.
Speaking from experience only “ballistic” weapons would explode someone’s skull. Any blunt force isn’t going to. A marine punching someone isn’t going to do more damage than the same blunt force being applied by any tool weapon. If the sledge hammer would case massive carnival damage to the point of impact but not “pulp” it without the force being applied while the skull is against a hard surface then a marines fist is going to behave in exactly the same way.
Skulls don’t explode, they are surrounded by tissue that keeps them together even when damaged. Break the bones enough and it will deform. Split the tissue surrounding it and the contents will come out, but even that is in tissue keeping it intact. Apply enough force and the bones break enough, the tissues split and the contents are damaged and they will come out in parts. For the most part the head remains intact but deformed and the brain comes out of any holes. To destroy the head you either have to apply the force against an unmovable surface like the ground or apply high velocity forces like ballistic weapons or very high speed RTCs or trains. At which point you are talking about penetrating trauma and that’s a different game altogether but not a marine punch.
Andykp wrote: I quite like the way this was going, which would win in a fight a marine or a tiger (insert animal here). Way better than the idea that a single marine could terrify 10000 trained soldiers into inactivity.
I’d like to see a marine punch a gorilla.
Gorillas are punks. Most overrated animal species tbh. They get killed by big cats half their size; a Marine would slaughter a silverback.
Bet you wouldn’t say that to a gorillas face!
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If you just want to stick to rules, and ignore established background Because Reasons?
Got look at Marines vs Guardsmen in the Inquisitor game.
They’re….horrifically powerful in that. By quirk of the rules, they can throw a pebble and it’ll hit harder than their Bolter ever could.
But of course, once again this is a case of citation met with “nuh-uh”.
As for the broadcasting? Can you show me where the Guard have the tech to triangulate a position? Because once again that’s sounding like something for the Enginseer, who are not and never have been a formal part of a Regiment, instead being attached.
The whole shtick of Marines is they’re fundamentally unnatural creatures. Not merely superhuman, but post-human. Elevated through arcane science and, depending where you fall on the creation behind the Primarchs, literal magic.
Are there regiments which would do much better and possibly be an insurmountable challenge? Sure. But the majority of Regiments aren’t all that experienced. Hence the title of the IG Novel “15 Hours”.
Read The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer to get an idea of just how woefully ill equipped and unprepared most will be, because their training deliberately lies to them about what they’ll be facing.
In an urban environment, surely it has to be advantage to the Astartes? Guard can’t bring their numbers to bear properly, and the Marine isn’t fussed about finding a door, as they’ll just, y’know, make one.
You are ignoring all the established back ground that shows regular humans fighting marines and crying or crapping their pants but just getting on with it. I know you like transhuman dread but it isnt widespread or long lasting. I like the idea that a regular human who has never seen a marine before and thought of them as angels of legends would be blown away by seeing one in action. That’s great, but it isn’t going to be that way for everyone. And that’s established “lore” like it or not.
JNAProductions wrote: But the thing is, let's assume the Marine can pick and choose engagements to the point they're never engaging more than 10 Guard at a time.
Let's not. Let's assume that as soon as the Astartes gives away his position by trying to feth with their comms, they drop an earthshaker round on his head and you have a dead marine. No big deal.
For people talking about "transhuman dread," it can be handwaved away. It's only spoken of by in-character sources around the time of the Horus Heresy, where it can be thought of as in-universe propaganda regarding their super soldiers. Some Astartes fanboys think that regular humans piss gak and cum themselves at the sight of an Astartes, but it's not true, traitor guardsman still will kill them with plasma to the face if they have access to it. Astartes have a wonderfully intimidating in-universe reputation, but there's nothing unnatural about it.
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A Town Called Malus wrote: Don't call PTSD being "out of their minds", it's an ableist dismissal of a highly complex and variable condition and only serves to make you look ignorant. Not everyone with PTSD from world war 1 became catatonic, many were highly functional outside of episodes.
I mean that's Grotsnik. It's an incredibly disingenuous, disrespectful, and idiotic argument.
I'm not that deep into novels etc. but just to give a slightly different angle:
CSM should be more or less as strong/fast/scary as loyalists right? Most probably scarier.
I'm pretty sure the Guard fought countless times against CSM and won at least some of those engagements or fought them to a stalemate.
I would also guess that they were not always outnumbering them > 10.000:1
Based on these assumptions (feel free to give lore examples of such battles), I guess it would be fair to say that Guard needs less then a 10.000 fold numerical superiority. But I can't cite a fitting source, so feel free to contest this point.
I’ve demonstrated at the very silly end that a Space Marine support/escort vessel will have but a single Astartes aboard, who can order orbital bombardment, something the Guard cannot stand against as they lack the weaponry, and/or training to man orbital defence weapons themselves (orbital defence requiring the support of Ad Mech, making it an alliance).
Guardsmen aren’t terribly well trained. They’re not terribly well equipped. It may seem unlikely, but with the right strategy and environment, a Marine absolutely can kill 10,000 Guardsmen.
On a Deathworld or other lethal environment, sabotage the Guard’s food and water, or their environmentals. The Marine doesn’t have the same issue us squishy humans do.
Guardsmen aren’t terribly well trained. They’re not terribly well equipped. It may seem unlikely, but with the right strategy and environment, a Marine absolutely can kill 10,000 Guardsmen.
Where are you getting the idea that guardsmen aren't well trained? A large chunk of them (namely any of them trained to cadian standards, which is a lot more than just those from the Cadian worlds) have been trained to be a guardsman pretty much their entire life.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I will agree that if the guardsmen don't act like guardsmen or the situation is heavily skewed in favor of the space marine that a single marine cam kill 10k guardsmen, but a single properly armed guardsman could kill a space marine if the space marine isn't acting like a space marine (an "I bet you can't..." challenge perhaps?), but that's a silly situation that ignores a large section of what it means to ve a space marine or a guardsman.
Also, I'm still not convinced an average space marine would have a voidship at their command.
Many, many books explaining those who survive their first combat soon become efficient, but raw regiments not so much. They’re recruited in such vast numbers, intensive training simply isn’t practical unless coming from notable worlds such as Catachan or Cadia etc.
Certainly their training is nowt compared to a Space Marine.
Guardsmen aren’t terribly well trained. They’re not terribly well equipped. It may seem unlikely, but with the right strategy and environment, a Marine absolutely can kill 10,000 Guardsmen.
Where are you getting the idea that guardsmen aren't well trained? A large chunk of them (namely any of them trained to cadian standards, which is a lot more than just those from the Cadian worlds) have been trained to be a guardsman pretty much their entire life.
His arse, just like the "not well equipped".
The standard regimental kit for a guardsman in a regiment of line infantry is an M36 Lasgun, 4 charge packs, one suit of Imperial Guard Flak Armour, 2 frag grenades, 2 krak grenades, uniform, poor weathear gear, a knife, a rucksack, set of basic tools, mess kit and water canteen, blanket and sleep bag, rechargeable lamp pack, grooming kit, dog tags, primer, 2 weeks of rations.
Not in terms of the horrors they’re expected to face.
The Lasgun is a good weapon, sure. I’ve waxed lyrical before on how I’m pretty sure any modern Military would give its eye teeth for something with the same properties.
Yet in universe? It’s genuinely nothing special. It’ll kill an unarmoured human equivalent sure. Anything much more and it’s efficiency starts dropping rapidly.
It’s used because it’s basic and easy to maintain, so you don’t need to waste training time on weapon maintainance and that beyond “that end toward enemy, ammo goes in here”.
The Lasgun is a good weapon, sure. I’ve waxed lyrical before on how I’m pretty sure any modern Military would give its eye teeth for something with the same properties.
Yet in universe? It’s genuinely nothing special. It’ll kill an unarmoured human equivalent sure. Anything much more and it’s efficiency starts dropping rapidly.
It’s used because it’s basic and easy to maintain, so you don’t need to waste training time on weapon maintainance and that beyond “that end toward enemy, ammo goes in here”.
One Lasgun isn't much.
10,000 Lasguns are.
MDG, how far away from the lore do you think the tabletop game is?
Is it off by a factor of 10?
100?
1,000?
Inquisitor is daft, but official. Marines are horrifyingly hard in that game. Verging on Marines At The Movie.
40K we know to be inaccurate in terms of actual differences in power.
In Epic pretty much everything dies to a glance from a given weapon.
Hence I draw on background - only to be told “nuh-uh” without good reason (ref trans-human dread, every Guardsman is super duper trained special forces who is never scared).
In a straight fight? Sure the Marine won’t achieve much. But that’s far from the only possible scenario. Unless you really, really don’t like Marines for some reason, as some posters appear to.
Inquisitor is daft, but official. Marines are horrifyingly hard in that game. Verging on Marines At The Movie.
40K we know to be inaccurate in terms of actual differences in power.
In Epic pretty much everything dies to a glance from a given weapon.
Hence I draw on background - only to be told “nuh-uh” without good reason (ref trans-human dread, every Guardsman is super duper trained special forces who is never scared).
In a straight fight? Sure the Marine won’t achieve much. But that’s far from the only possible scenario. Unless you really, really don’t like Marines for some reason, as some posters appear to.
Inquisitor was responded to above-50 Guardsmen reliably kill a Marine there.
40k, I'm perfectly willing to agree isn't 1-to-1. But how off is it?
I do not know Epic at all, so I won't comment on it.
And isn't there a bit in Gaunt's Ghosts where a single overcharged lasgun shot kills a CSM? Like, not even a big deal?
I’ve demonstrated at the very silly end that a Space Marine support/escort vessel will have but a single Astartes aboard, who can order orbital bombardment, something the Guard cannot stand against as they lack the weaponry, and/or training to man orbital defence weapons themselves (orbital defence requiring the support of Ad Mech, making it an alliance).
You have failed to show a single example of a ship crewed by a single space marine being capable of orbital bombardment. Also, there are AdMech members of the Imperial Guard who maintain their equipment; it's not an alliance it's part of their command structure. These AdMech *maintain* the IG equipment, the Imperial Guard operate it.
Put simply, you should apologize for not knowing your fluff and get reading.
Inquisitor is daft, but official. Marines are horrifyingly hard in that game. Verging on Marines At The Movie.
40K we know to be inaccurate in terms of actual differences in power.
In Epic pretty much everything dies to a glance from a given weapon.
Hence I draw on background - only to be told “nuh-uh” without good reason (ref trans-human dread, every Guardsman is super duper trained special forces who is never scared).
In a straight fight? Sure the Marine won’t achieve much. But that’s far from the only possible scenario. Unless you really, really don’t like Marines for some reason, as some posters appear to.
Of course I have. But then I’m told to focus on the rules, whilst the same poster (not yourself) refers to That One Time In One Novel One Guardsman One Shotted A Marine.
Then I’m told (again, not by yourself) I don’t know the background, and to focus on rules. Then that background trumps rules. No not that background because it has no matching rule and so on and so forth.
Hence every Guard Regiment seems to be SAS level of training, with infinite resources and an intimate knowledge of Astartes physiology and so on and so forth also total tech wizards which can do anything, including stuff there are no canonical examples of.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Enginseers are attached to Regiments, in the same way Commissars are. They’re not part of the command structure, at all. Never have been, never will be.
Any Imperial Ship can manage an orbital bombardment. On account any weapon which can be used to engage enemy ships over thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of kilometres of range is hardly going to have a problem with orbit to surface bombardment. Sure atmospherics would almost certainly reduce effectiveness and accuracy. But when your opponent can do nothing in return, what does it matter?
The Lasgun is a good weapon, sure. I’ve waxed lyrical before on how I’m pretty sure any modern Military would give its eye teeth for something with the same properties.
Yet in universe? It’s genuinely nothing special. It’ll kill an unarmoured human equivalent sure. Anything much more and it’s efficiency starts dropping rapidly.
It’s used because it’s basic and easy to maintain, so you don’t need to waste training time on weapon maintainance and that beyond “that end toward enemy, ammo goes in here”.
And how about those ten thousand guardsmen having 20,000 krak grenades between them, with only one needing to catch the marine to feth him up badly?
How far can they throw the grenade with any kind of accuracy? Can they factor in the Marine’s surprising and unnatural speed and reactions?
Even a well placed Krak Grenade isn’t necessarily going to drop the Marine. What does it do to morale when a seemingly palpable hit fails to penetrate, and the Marine keeps going at a pace you can’t match, and he can, for all intents and purposes from your perspective, maintain indefinitely?
On the Marine’s speed and reaction time, ages ago in this thread I shared the Dojo Scene from Ip Man, as an example of fast paced combat. As ever, the response (flying in the face of established canon) was “nuh-uh Marines am not taht fast”. Said poster was partially correct. For Jet Li, fast as he is, is no Astartes. The Marine would, in-canon, be faster.
This isn’t “one tall Boi in thicc armour” vs. It’s a post-human, genetically enhanced beyond all sanity and human frailty, clad in armour that would make some tanks blush, moving faster not than the eye can follow, but that the human mind can handle a being of such bulk moving Unholy Creation vs.
Folk don’t need to like the Marine canon. But they can’t simply ignore it. It doesn’t mean Guardsman are incapable or incompetent. If they were, the Imperium would’ve collapsed millennia ago. But they’re still as children compared to a Marine. Their equipment and training by direct comparison is frankly laughable.
10,000 Guardsman absolutely is a tall order. Incredibly unlikely. All but impossible. But it’s the all but that matters.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Of course I have. But then I’m told to focus on the rules, whilst the same poster (not yourself) refers to That One Time In One Novel One Guardsman One Shotted A Marine.
It's because you're wrong in every meaningful way. You're wrong when it comes to the games, you're wrong when it comes to the fluff.
Hence every Guard Regiment seems to be SAS level of training, with infinite resources and an intimate knowledge of Astartes physiology and so on and so forth also total tech wizards which can do anything, including stuff there are no canonical examples of.
No, people aren't saying that, and it's very telling that you have to misrepresent other's arguments to have even a hope of yours looking good. You don't need SAS training to hunt down and kill someone with a 10k/1 manpower advantage, nobody supposed that the guard have or need an intimate knowledge of Astartes physiology, and triangulating a signal is not "tech wizardry" it's basic signal gak.
Enginseers are attached to Regiments, in the same way Commissars are. They’re not part of the command structure, at all. Never have been, never will be.
Nope, they are part of the Guard in every meaningful way while they're attached. They can bu punished for insubordination etc. It's also very telling how you're avoiding the fact that Astartes need Techmarines for maintenance of their equipment, and tried to say that things like chapter serfs can help Astartes in your example but Enginseers can't. This is part of why your argument is an outright lie and not just a mistake on your part.
Any Imperial Ship can manage an orbital bombardment. On account any weapon which can be used to engage enemy ships over thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of kilometres of range is hardly going to have a problem with orbit to surface bombardment. Sure atmospherics would almost certainly reduce effectiveness and accuracy. But when your opponent can do nothing in return, what does it matter?
No. Projectiles not designed for atmospheric re-entry will burn up due to atmospheric friction just like a meteor. What a projectile needs to operate in vacuum is very different from what it needs in atmosphere and the projectiles would need to be very different. Again, you're incredibly ignorant on this topic.
Also, as per the 13th Black Crusade, there are entire Cadian regiments whose purpose is to operate and man orbital defense platforms, so they do have the ability to retaliate against voidships.
All this adds up to your argument being a disingenuous lie. Those of us who don't need bolter porn to achieve satisfaction and are actually familiar with the fluff have the right of it.
: again, I'm not that well versed with Space Marine lore, but in the end, physics dictate certain limits on how fast something weighing half a ton to a ton can move and change directions. Especially the later. The faster the Marine moves in a direction, the harder it is for him to change said direction and the more predictable his movements become.
Regarding the Krak example: Sure, one might miss him, but 10-20-30 dudes throwing their grenades... that's a tall order to dodge.
Regarding Techpriests: Those are in our codex... like, literally in the very book of the IG.
Certain Space Marine chapters need several books to have access to all their units...
Ah so if one regiment or selection of regiments specialise, ergo all regiments can do the same?
Chapter Serfs are servants. Chattel. Near slaves. You want to take that to its logical conclusion? Nobody has armour. Nobody has any kind of logistical support. Nobody has guns. Just nekkid warriors going at it, hand to hand. My money is on the Marine even more so, especially if we consider inhospitable environ.
As for me begin disingenuous? Seriously. Go back. Read the comments. Tell me, who keeps shifting the goal posts? Who is it simply saying “nuh-uh” without any citation?
Enginseers? Every source I can find solely mentions “attached” or “seconded”. Like the Commissariat or Storm Troopers, they’re not a formal part of the Command Structure. So unlike Chapter Serfs and Ship Crew? They’re by definition allies.
The ship thing I freely admit is stretching things, but arose once others started claiming daftness of their own, and confusing allies with formal parts of the Guard. Oh, then there was the time I was told Chapter Serfs etc were themselves Allies, which given even the lowliest Battle Brother stands above them in the chain of command, and they’re servants of the Chapter, they categorically are not, any more than I’m merely an “ally” to the High Heedyin at work, rather than an employee.
And again we see the same selective memory regarding background, and deliberate ignoring that I freely acknowledge it’s unlikely, but have been exploring ways it could be achieved.
You call it Bolter Porn. I just call it established canon others have given a denigrating label because that’s all they’ve got in terms of reply.
: again, I'm not that well versed with Space Marine lore, but in the end, physics dictate certain limits on how fast something weighing half a ton to a ton can move and change directions. Especially the later. The faster the Marine moves in a direction, the harder it is for him to change said direction and the more predictable his movements become.
Regarding the Krak example: Sure, one might miss him, but 10-20-30 dudes throwing their grenades... that's a tall order to dodge.
Regarding Techpriests: Those are in our codex... like, literally in the very book of the IG.
Certain Space Marine chapters need several books to have access to all their units...
I’m just referring to the background. One can’t rely on physics and the background, as being very silly on one hand (background) and very real (physics) they’re kind of mutually exclusive.
But…that’s the point of Astartes. That’s what the background says makes them terrifying. They simply do not move or react the way the mind says they should. I’m not saying it’s not daft. I simply not ignoring it for the sake of a kitten weak counter argument which, again, starts with “nuh” and usually ends with “uh”.
Remember. Not faster than the eye can follow. The eye can follow them. The trouble is, the brain protests, certain as it is from millions of years of evolution baking in instincts and that, that no creature of that size should have that fluidity of movement, let alone speed. I’d argue that they eye can follow them is a key part of that problem. You see them move from position A to position B, and see how they move through positions B-Y as well. Your brain is just screaming “no way. No way did that happen”.
It’s hard to get your head round. It seems very, very silly. And it is very, very silly. But….that’s the background and canon for you, and it’s part of what makes Marines such a horrific foe.
Again, please refer to my examples and citations of a Marine’s sheer physical prowess. Not “but in this real world conflict”. Because Marines, canonically, are insanely powerful.
Again, please refer to my examples and citations of a Marine’s sheer physical prowess. Not “but in this real world conflict”. Because Marines, canonically, are insanely powerful.
How is that at all relevant? Were the guard in that book fighting marines? You are using the 15 hours lifespan to argue that guard are ill equipped and trained. Their opponent doesn't matter in that circumstance. Is it training that resulted in the 15 hour lifespan or not? If it is, then why is that not true of the German army in Stalingrad?
And physical prowess means very little on a battlefield. There's a reason we don't pump steroids into our soldiers to massively bulk their muscle mass, you just increase the calorie requirements of your soldiers for no real measurable gain. Why do marines needs to be able to punch through concrete without their armour? They are never deployed without their armour and a normal human in power armour is just as strong as a marine because the point of power armour is that the armour does the work. All that muscle mass is pointless.
Fifteen Hours is a book, it's not an average that represents the whole IG. It is limited to one battlefield on one planet at one time.
Stop using it as an average for the Guard as a whole, you're making me hate a good book because I know you're not the only one that uses that figure wrongly.
Again, please refer to my examples and citations of a Marine’s sheer physical prowess. Not “but in this real world conflict”. Because Marines, canonically, are insanely powerful.
How is that at all relevant? Were the guard in that book fighting marines? You are using the 15 hours lifespan to argue that guard are ill equipped and trained. Their opponent doesn't matter in that circumstance. Is it training that resulted in the 15 hour lifespan or not? If it is, then why is that not true of the German army in Stalingrad?
And physical prowess means very little on a battlefield. There's a reason we don't pump steroids into our soldiers to massively bulk their muscle mass, you just increase the calorie requirements of your soldiers for no real measurable gain. Why do marines needs to be able to punch through concrete without their armour? They are never deployed without their armour and a normal human in power armour is just as strong as a marine because the point of power armour is that the armour does the work. All that muscle mass is pointless.
I wouldn't go that far-Sisters of Battle, for instance, have similar gear to Marines but are only S3 (in the rules) and aren't as strong as Marines (in the background).
Power Armor enhances the existing physique, but a Marine is still massively stronger than a human, even if the human has some enhancements and the Marine is naked.
That being said, agreed on the general point that being physically superior really only matters to a certain extent.
Again, please refer to my examples and citations of a Marine’s sheer physical prowess. Not “but in this real world conflict”. Because Marines, canonically, are insanely powerful.
Please say anything about the countless times guard kill marines in the fluff, quite easily.
You’re wrong about the 15 hours, that was in book in a particular war zone not across the whole guard.
There are many examples of guard killing marines. None of marines killing 10000 guard. NONE. Not even close to that.
So if you’re talking rules, no way, if you’re talking fluff, no way. If you’re taking what ifs…..yiu have to really stretch it.
Fluff and rules all show marines aren’t that scary to an experienced soldier. Nothing in universe supports your claims. NOTHING.
Regarding the Krak example: Sure, one might miss him, but 10-20-30 dudes throwing their grenades... that's a tall order to dodge.
Regarding Techpriests: Those are in our codex... like, literally in the very book of the IG.
Certain Space Marine chapters need several books to have access to all their units...
I'm fairly certain that tech priests are not part of the guard command structure. Like Mad Doc said, they're attached and loyal to the admech. Not as sure about enginseers specifically though (nor am I certain that the admech distinguishes between the two).
As for krak grenades, I'm not sure how standard issue those are. I assume there'd probably be enough among 10k guardsmen to down a marine though.
Honestly Mad Doc always seems to have a pretty good handle on the fluff, I just disagree with the application of said fluff to this situation.
Hence I draw on background - only to be told “nuh-uh” without good reason (ref trans-human dread, every Guardsman is super duper trained special forces who is never scared).
You do not draw on background (and the transhuman dread stuff is a perfect example of it). You cherry pick random gak from books you haven't even read and then magnify bits and pieces a hundredfold, or propagandize them by assuming they're widely-applicable, word of god truths even when there's a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.
I started reading the Gaunt's Ghosts series recently so I'm going to provide you a couple of excerpts showing guardsmen dumpstering Chaos Space Marines.
"Scruffy" Guardsmen casually killing Marines, even cracking jokes in the immediate aftermath. No panic. Nobody freezes, has a heart attack, or even gaks their fatigues. And these are the special Oops All Horror flavour of Marines.
Now you find me a depiction of transhuman actually occurring in combat. I want the good stuff -- adrenalized soldiers blubbering and dropping their weapons or kneeling in beatific submission. I'm categorically Not Interested in a repost of the excerpt of a Marine (AKA a genetic supremacist) describing the idealized *concept* of transhuman dread, though.
Hence I draw on background - only to be told “nuh-uh” without good reason (ref trans-human dread, every Guardsman is super duper trained special forces who is never scared).
You do not draw on background (and the transhuman dread stuff is a perfect example of it). You cherry pick random gak from books you haven't even read and then magnify bits and pieces a hundredfold, or propagandize them by assuming they're widely-applicable, word of god truths even when there's a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.
I started reading the Gaunt's Ghosts series recently so I'm going to provide you a couple of excerpts showing guardsmen dumpstering Chaos Space Marines.
First and Only (1)
First and Only (2)
Ghostmaker (1)
"Scruffy" Guardsmen casually killing Marines, even cracking jokes in the immediate aftermath. No panic. Nobody freezes, has a heart attack, or even gaks their fatigues. And these are the special Oops All Horror flavour of Marines.
Now you find me a depiction of transhuman actually occurring in combat. I want the good stuff -- adrenalized soldiers blubbering and dropping their weapons or kneeling in beatific submission. I'm categorically Not Interested in a repost of the excerpt of a Marine (AKA a genetic supremacist) describing the idealized *concept* of transhuman dread, though.
You might want to make the link more obvious-I wasn't sure what you were referring to till I figured out that numbers were hyperlinks.
Hence I draw on background - only to be told “nuh-uh” without good reason (ref trans-human dread, every Guardsman is super duper trained special forces who is never scared).
You do not draw on background (and the transhuman dread stuff is a perfect example of it). You cherry pick random gak from books you haven't even read and then magnify bits and pieces a hundredfold, or propagandize them by assuming they're widely-applicable, word of god truths even when there's a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.
I started reading the Gaunt's Ghosts series recently so I'm going to provide you a couple of excerpts showing guardsmen dumpstering Chaos Space Marines.
First and Only (1)
First and Only (2)
Ghostmaker (1)
"Scruffy" Guardsmen casually killing Marines, even cracking jokes in the immediate aftermath. No panic. Nobody freezes, has a heart attack, or even gaks their fatigues. And these are the special Oops All Horror flavour of Marines.
Now you find me a depiction of transhuman actually occurring in combat. I want the good stuff -- adrenalized soldiers blubbering and dropping their weapons or kneeling in beatific submission. I'm categorically Not Interested in a repost of the excerpt of a Marine (AKA a genetic supremacist) describing the idealized *concept* of transhuman dread, though.
You might want to make the link more obvious-I wasn't sure what you were referring to till I figured out that numbers were hyperlinks.
Hadn’t realised that either, even more compelling with the links. Just read these books too and was thinking the same thing. No transhuman dread here.
Closest I’ve come to reading about it was when a rynns world official pissed his pants after being threatened by a crimson fist. Not really the same thing.
Closest I’ve come to reading about it was when a rynns world official pissed his pants after being threatened by a crimson fist. Not really the same thing.
Yeah, I've encountered several examples like that in my (limited) Marine-centric dips into BL offerings (mostly early HH novels). Lots of baseline humans getting big feelings when they have to have a chat with an Astartes (or worse, get instructed, scolded, or reprimanded).
The thing is, of course, that that context is incomparable to a combat scenario.
The dread piggies always seem to want to frame the thing like it's an MMORPG stunlock ability, but examples that actually depict that seem exceedingly rare, if they exist at all. Which is as it should be. Because, beyond magical Astartes chad auras, you know what else is generally agreed-upon to be pants-shittingly terrifying? Regular old "we've somehow been doing this for 5000+ years" human-on-human infantry warfare. Which only gets more terrifying in its 40K expression because sometimes the opfor's "regular infantry" consists of deranged cultists whose uniforms physically hurt to look at, or monstrous bug men with too many arms.
Strange how you only hear the Marine fanpeople trying to sabotage conversations about in-lore combat with the "noone can fight my guyz without stopping to cry and worship" routine, though...
Ok, so we are accepting Dan Abnett as a verifiable source of the truth?
Then please tell me how the Snakes of Ithaca (by Dan Abnett) send a SINGLE battle brother to handle an entire Dark Eldar Raiding force? Or how the same brother was able to dive 2-3 miles down below the surface of the ocean, and hold his breath for over two hours? Or the same brother going naked into sub zero Antarctic climates, and lugging 1 ton blocks of ice around? Fighting 40k level Polar Space Bears bare handed?
You can either say all guardsmen are members of the most elite squad of elite soldiers in 40kIG lore, in which case you have to also accept that Space Marines are literal demi-gods, or you can realize that this is all bull dooky, and none of it matters.
Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Ah so if one regiment or selection of regiments specialise, ergo all regiments can do the same?
I never said that. Nobody else ever said that. Think about what that means for your proposition i.e. it's inane.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Chapter Serfs are servants. Chattel. Near slaves. You want to take that to its logical conclusion? Nobody has armour. Nobody has any kind of logistical support. Nobody has guns. Just nekkid warriors going at it, hand to hand. My money is on the Marine even more so, especially if we consider inhospitable environ.
Given that the logical conclusion of your denying the IG access to their own personnel leads there, it might lead you to conclude that your reasoning is deeply flawed if you had self-awareness.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: As for me begin disingenuous? Seriously. Go back. Read the comments. Tell me, who keeps shifting the goal posts? Who is it simply saying “nuh-uh” without any citation?
You and Fezzik.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Enginseers? Every source I can find solely mentions “attached” or “seconded”. Like the Commissariat or Storm Troopers, they’re not a formal part of the Command Structure. So unlike Chapter Serfs and Ship Crew? They’re by definition allies.
No, they have about as much freedom as a chapter serf. If an IG colonel decides that an Enginseer needs to die for the Emperor, he puts his ass in the line of fire or is in deep gak. If you have power over someone's life, then that's not a matter of "alliance."
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The ship thing I freely admit is stretching things, but arose once others started claiming daftness of their own, and confusing allies with formal parts of the Guard. Oh, then there was the time I was told Chapter Serfs etc were themselves Allies, which given even the lowliest Battle Brother stands above them in the chain of command, and they’re servants of the Chapter, they categorically are not, any more than I’m merely an “ally” to the High Heedyin at work, rather than an employee.
Chapter serfs are allies if things like Enginseers are allies.
And if battle brother #37 starts ordering around Calgar's personal attache, there's gonna be problems.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: And again we see the same selective memory regarding background, and deliberate ignoring that I freely acknowledge it’s unlikely, but have been exploring ways it could be achieved.
You're the main one here showing "selective memory" as you denied all the cases where transhuman dread wasn't a thing, where regular humans killed Astartes, etc. It's not "selective memory" to prove you wrong, it just shows you're full of it.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You call it Bolter Porn. I just call it established canon others have given a denigrating label because that’s all they’ve got in terms of reply.
And you'd be wrong to do so because you've been lying and misrepresenting canon in your idiocy for this entire thread; this by definition makes it not "established."
But…that’s the point of Astartes. That’s what the background says makes them terrifying. They simply do not move or react the way the mind says they should. I’m not saying it’s not daft. I simply not ignoring it for the sake of a kitten weak counter argument which, again, starts with “nuh” and usually ends with “uh”.
There was actually a good thread on this in the 40klore subreddit recently - all the mentions of transhuman dread are in-character and subjected to an unreliable narrator. Given that it's not really a phenomenon in 40k (i.e. Astartes are intimidating but not as scary as Tyranid TMC's or demons etc), it's better understood as in-universe Heresy-era propaganda or one author with bad ideas. The vast majority of the fiction in the 40k universe that represents regular humans interacting with Astartes in combat situations doesn't reflect this, and in fact no fiction that depicts them interacting with humans actually depicts it unequivocally.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Remember. Not faster than the eye can follow. The eye can follow them. The trouble is, the brain protests, certain as it is from millions of years of evolution baking in instincts and that, that no creature of that size should have that fluidity of movement, let alone speed. I’d argue that they eye can follow them is a key part of that problem. You see them move from position A to position B, and see how they move through positions B-Y as well. Your brain is just screaming “no way. No way did that happen”.
That's not how human neurology works. It's best understood as fascist goons from a fascist society jerking off their super soldier program. There aren't examples of regular humans pissing, gaking, and cumming themselves at the sight of Astartes in combat situations, what you're describing is non-canon youtuber bolter porn fan spank.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s hard to get your head round. It seems very, very silly. And it is very, very silly. But….that’s the background and canon for you, and it’s part of what makes Marines such a horrific foe.
It's just not a thing, no matter how you wish it was. An Astartes tries that gak on some traitor guard and eats a plasma blast to the face, dead space marine.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lord Damocles wrote: Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
Those are Chaos marines, they don't get bolter porn novels written about them, Fezzik and Grotsnik think they're lesser somehow.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Ok, so we are accepting Dan Abnett as a verifiable source of the truth?
Then please tell me how the Snakes of Ithaca (by Dan Abnett) send a SINGLE battle brother to handle an entire Dark Eldar Raiding force? Or how the same brother was able to dive 2-3 miles down below the surface of the ocean, and hold his breath for over two hours? Or the same brother going naked into sub zero Antarctic climates, and lugging 1 ton blocks of ice around? Fighting 40k level Polar Space Bears bare handed?
You can either say all guardsmen are members of the most elite squad of elite soldiers in 40kIG lore, in which case you have to also accept that Space Marines are literal demi-gods, or you can realize that this is all bull dooky, and none of it matters.
You're ALMOST there, Fezzik.
Think of it like being radicalized on the internet. If all you read is "Space Marines are SSOOOO powerful Hur-Dur", then that's what you're going to come to believe, because you've never taken anything outside of that perspective. You've gathered no data outside of the "Space Marines are war-gods" confirmation bias rabbit hole, and thus take passages written for the sake of drama and entertainment as gospel. Your interpretation gets skewed.
There is no gospel, just more information to sift through, and some bits of it are more reliable than others.
Lord Damocles wrote: Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
Traitor’s Hand.
Cain also kills one of the Khorne Berserkers himself (with his chainsword) on his way to fight the Daemon Prince
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Ok, so we are accepting Dan Abnett as a verifiable source of the truth?
Then please tell me how the Snakes of Ithaca (by Dan Abnett) send a SINGLE battle brother to handle an entire Dark Eldar Raiding force? Or how the same brother was able to dive 2-3 miles down below the surface of the ocean, and hold his breath for over two hours? Or the same brother going naked into sub zero Antarctic climates, and lugging 1 ton blocks of ice around? Fighting 40k level Polar Space Bears bare handed?
You can either say all guardsmen are members of the most elite squad of elite soldiers in 40kIG lore, in which case you have to also accept that Space Marines are literal demi-gods, or you can realize that this is all bull dooky, and none of it matters.
So we won’t accept the word of abnet or all the black library authors, or the multitude of back ground writers or rules writers. It sounds a lot like any source that you disagree with is wrong.
Plenty of evidence of over powered marines, plenty but none of them being as overpowered as mad dok suggests. But there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary.
And the guardsmen in those links are just plain old guardsmen. Grizzled but just your standard nameless heroes of the imperium.
Lord Damocles wrote: Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
The Traitor’s Hand. Just finished reading that one
Lord Damocles wrote: Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
Traitor’s Hand.
Cain also kills one of the Khorne Berserkers himself (with his chainsword) on his way to fight the Daemon Prince
Nope. Cain engages one, and does wound it. But it’s Jurgen’s Melta which kills the Berzerker.
And remember folks. At no point have I said Guard cannot kill a Marine. I am arguing how a Marine might go about fulfilling such a tall order of taking on 10,000 Guard single handed.
Lord Damocles wrote: Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
The Traitor’s Hand. Just finished reading that one
Lord Damocles wrote: Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
Traitor’s Hand.
Cain also kills one of the Khorne Berserkers himself (with his chainsword) on his way to fight the Daemon Prince
Nope. Cain engages one, and does wound it. But it’s Jurgen’s Melta which kills the Berzerker.
And remember folks. At no point have I said Guard cannot kill a Marine. I am arguing how a Marine might go about fulfilling such a tall order of taking on 10,000 Guard single handed.
Fair, I think I misremembered based on the bit at the end about Beji backing out of the duel having seen Cain use his chainsword on a CSM and a DP.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Ok, so we are accepting Dan Abnett as a verifiable source of the truth?
Then please tell me how the Snakes of Ithaca (by Dan Abnett) send a SINGLE battle brother to handle an entire Dark Eldar Raiding force? Or how the same brother was able to dive 2-3 miles down below the surface of the ocean, and hold his breath for over two hours? Or the same brother going naked into sub zero Antarctic climates, and lugging 1 ton blocks of ice around? Fighting 40k level Polar Space Bears bare handed?
You can either say all guardsmen are members of the most elite squad of elite soldiers in 40kIG lore, in which case you have to also accept that Space Marines are literal demi-gods, or you can realize that this is all bull dooky, and none of it matters.
I haven't read it, and you have widely-known reading comprehension/logic issues, so unfortunately your attempt at paraphrasing doesn't add much to the thread. Post excerpts.
One maybe tangential though regarding how Lasgun fire might still be dangerous for SM if enough of it hits:
The SM is clad in powerarmor, his bolter, bolterammunition, grenades, possible special weapons are NOT.
If 100 Lasgun shots hit a Space Marine some will likely hit any grenades he has at his body, as I assume they are not stored inside the powerarmor.
If they are stored inside the power armor, said armor has to open at some point in time to give him access to that.
I am arguing how a Marine might go about fulfilling such a tall order of taking on 10,000 Guard single handed.
I mean... it might be me personally and related to english not being my mother tongue, but it sounded a lot like you were claiming that the odds of the Marine succeeding are on average above 50%, more like above 90%.
If you only argue that he MIGHT under certain circumstances and with a great amount of luck eventually kill 10.000 Guardsmen: sure, not debate.
But in the same line of thought: MIGHT a 10 man squad of guardsmen with a powersworn on the sergeant, a plasmagun and some Krak grenades under certain circumstances and with a great amount of luck eventually kill a Space Marine: fair game I would say.
Lord Damocles wrote: Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
The Traitor’s Hand. Just finished reading that one
Lord Damocles wrote: Which is the Cain book with the slanneshi Daemon prince? That has a squad of Khorne Berserkers being worn down by waves of cultists as they fight their way through an enemy installation, with Cain and chums following along behind.
Traitor’s Hand.
Cain also kills one of the Khorne Berserkers himself (with his chainsword) on his way to fight the Daemon Prince
Nope. Cain engages one, and does wound it. But it’s Jurgen’s Melta which kills the Berzerker.
And remember folks. At no point have I said Guard cannot kill a Marine. I am arguing how a Marine might go about fulfilling such a tall order of taking on 10,000 Guard single handed.
Fair, I think I misremembered based on the bit at the end about Beji backing out of the duel having seen Cain use his chainsword on a CSM and a DP.
Because it’s fresh in my mind, Cain specifically notes had the Berzerker gone with a horizontal swipe, rather than an overhead strike, he’d have been dead. He only survives due to deflecting the strike, not blocking it etc.
And for Pyroalchi? No worries. Slim chance sure, but never no chance. The 10 Guardsmen could do it with luck, but there are factors well beyond “how well does a Lasgun penetrate Power Armour”.
Nope. Cain engages one, and does wound it. But it’s Jurgen’s Melta which kills the Berzerker.
Nope. Cain kills a wounded berzerker with his chainsword in chapter 19, unless you count Jurgen vapourising the defeated, prone marines head as getting the kill rather than Cain sticking his chainsword into the berzerker through a hole in its armour which causes it to fall to the ground helpless in the first place. The Jurgen melta kill is from a separate fight earlier in the book.
Nope. Cain engages one, and does wound it. But it’s Jurgen’s Melta which kills the Berzerker.
Nope. Cain kills a wounded berzerker with his chainsword. The melta kill is from a separate fight earlier in the book.
Yep, Cain dispatches a badly wounded and barely alive Berserker with his chainsword, which leads Beije to believe the inflated story about soloing one in hand-to-hand earlier in the books, where Beije himself was not present. That earlier one was the one Cain just distracted long enough for Jurgen to line up a melta shot.
If you want to be particularly pedantic, Cain fights the second one also only till he drops, and Jurgen gives him a final melta shot to the head to make sure. It's on p. 737 in the Omnibus.
I know mad dok wants to turn this into “how a marine could kill 10000 guard” but he needs to address the issues being put to him rather than swerving them all the time.
Edit: no he doesn’t, I don’t know how I’ve dragged into this nonsense.
As how a marine could do it, easy, nuke them from orbit. Only way to be sure.
Pyroalchi wrote: One maybe tangential though regarding how Lasgun fire might still be dangerous for SM if enough of it hits:
The SM is clad in powerarmor, his bolter, bolterammunition, grenades, possible special weapons are NOT.
If 100 Lasgun shots hit a Space Marine some will likely hit any grenades he has at his body, as I assume they are not stored inside the powerarmor.
If they are stored inside the power armor, said armor has to open at some point in time to give him access to that.
I keep mentally getting back to this... Where do Marines store their ammo and grenades? I found a handfull of pics where the grenades can be seen fixed on their chest armor, but in most pics I found on my first click they were nowhere to be seen.
By the way: on the chest armor, where the blast would go right up their face is a really dumb way to keep them.
The point I'm getting at: when faced with power armor it seems to me aiming for their ammo and grenades seems to be a pretty good bet. I doubt that those grenades are sturdy enough to resist bolter or even lasgunfire.
I keep mentally getting back to this... Where do Marines store their ammo and grenades? I found a handfull of pics where the grenades can be seen fixed on their chest armor, but in most pics I found on my first click they were nowhere to be seen.
By the way: on the chest armor, where the blast would go right up their face is a really dumb way to keep them.
The point I'm getting at: when faced with power armor it seems to me aiming for their ammo and grenades seems to be a pretty good bet. I doubt that those grenades are sturdy enough to resist bolter or even lasgunfire.
Joke answer:
Nobody knows...not even the marines. Long ago, purely by accident, it was discovered that if a marine reached slightly behind his left hip with an empty hand, a full ammo clip would suddenly appear in his hand.
Pyroalchi wrote: One maybe tangential though regarding how Lasgun fire might still be dangerous for SM if enough of it hits:
The SM is clad in powerarmor, his bolter, bolterammunition, grenades, possible special weapons are NOT.
If 100 Lasgun shots hit a Space Marine some will likely hit any grenades he has at his body, as I assume they are not stored inside the powerarmor.
If they are stored inside the power armor, said armor has to open at some point in time to give him access to that.
I keep mentally getting back to this... Where do Marines store their ammo and grenades? I found a handfull of pics where the grenades can be seen fixed on their chest armor, but in most pics I found on my first click they were nowhere to be seen.
By the way: on the chest armor, where the blast would go right up their face is a really dumb way to keep them.
The point I'm getting at: when faced with power armor it seems to me aiming for their ammo and grenades seems to be a pretty good bet. I doubt that those grenades are sturdy enough to resist bolter or even lasgunfire.
It's a particular failing of much of the art that marines lack a bunch of spare clips and nades. On the model it's easy enough to add some pouches and nades along the waist. But it's still rather spare for a soldier that is expected to act pretty independently in the field.
Pyroalchi wrote: One maybe tangential though regarding how Lasgun fire might still be dangerous for SM if enough of it hits:
The SM is clad in powerarmor, his bolter, bolterammunition, grenades, possible special weapons are NOT.
If 100 Lasgun shots hit a Space Marine some will likely hit any grenades he has at his body, as I assume they are not stored inside the powerarmor.
If they are stored inside the power armor, said armor has to open at some point in time to give him access to that.
I keep mentally getting back to this... Where do Marines store their ammo and grenades? I found a handfull of pics where the grenades can be seen fixed on their chest armor, but in most pics I found on my first click they were nowhere to be seen.
By the way: on the chest armor, where the blast would go right up their face is a really dumb way to keep them.
The point I'm getting at: when faced with power armor it seems to me aiming for their ammo and grenades seems to be a pretty good bet. I doubt that those grenades are sturdy enough to resist bolter or even lasgunfire.
It's a particular failing of much of the art that marines lack a bunch of spare clips and nades. On the model it's easy enough to add some pouches and nades along the waist. But it's still rather spare for a soldier that is expected to act pretty independently in the field.
I thought the reverse of this was true; they're most often expected to engage in short, highly-orchestrated actions.
Also thought there was an oft-referenced source about how much ammo/gear they generally tote (not a lot, but still more than you'd see on most models).
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Ok, so we are accepting Dan Abnett as a verifiable source of the truth?
Then please tell me how the Snakes of Ithaca (by Dan Abnett) send a SINGLE battle brother to handle an entire Dark Eldar Raiding force? Or how the same brother was able to dive 2-3 miles down below the surface of the ocean, and hold his breath for over two hours? Or the same brother going naked into sub zero Antarctic climates, and lugging 1 ton blocks of ice around? Fighting 40k level Polar Space Bears bare handed?
You can either say all guardsmen are members of the most elite squad of elite soldiers in 40kIG lore, in which case you have to also accept that Space Marines are literal demi-gods, or you can realize that this is all bull dooky, and none of it matters.
I haven't read it, and you have widely-known reading comprehension/logic issues, so unfortunately your attempt at paraphrasing doesn't add much to the thread. Post excerpts.
Fezzik also likes to block people who prove him wrong; he can't handle it when he's shown to be full of it.
And remember folks. At no point have I said Guard cannot kill a Marine. I am arguing how a Marine might go about fulfilling such a tall order of taking on 10,000 Guard single handed.
No. You have said that it's likely that a marine would be able to, which is farcical and deserves ridicule and criticism.
Pyroalchi wrote: One maybe tangential though regarding how Lasgun fire might still be dangerous for SM if enough of it hits:
The SM is clad in powerarmor, his bolter, bolterammunition, grenades, possible special weapons are NOT.
If 100 Lasgun shots hit a Space Marine some will likely hit any grenades he has at his body, as I assume they are not stored inside the powerarmor.
If they are stored inside the power armor, said armor has to open at some point in time to give him access to that.
I keep mentally getting back to this... Where do Marines store their ammo and grenades? I found a handfull of pics where the grenades can be seen fixed on their chest armor, but in most pics I found on my first click they were nowhere to be seen.
By the way: on the chest armor, where the blast would go right up their face is a really dumb way to keep them.
The point I'm getting at: when faced with power armor it seems to me aiming for their ammo and grenades seems to be a pretty good bet. I doubt that those grenades are sturdy enough to resist bolter or even lasgunfire.
It's a particular failing of much of the art that marines lack a bunch of spare clips and nades. On the model it's easy enough to add some pouches and nades along the waist. But it's still rather spare for a soldier that is expected to act pretty independently in the field.
I thought the reverse of this was true; they're most often expected to engage in short, highly-orchestrated actions.
Also thought there was an oft-referenced source about how much ammo/gear they generally tote (not a lot, but still more than you'd see on most models).
They do a various array of mission types. Certainly some of it is quick-hit-and-extract stuff. But for others they're expected to be deployed for a while and run guerilla sorts of missions against forces many times their number. (it's part of where they can take advantage of some of their biology, such as not needing sleep, and being able to eat almost anything biological.) You'd expect they'd be carrying a lot of ammo for that type of thing. They may have the ability to resupply via Pods however. You'd think since they're often expected to go up against much more numerous opponents, ammunition would be a key logistical issue.
As for the referenced source for ammo, I'm unfamiliar with it. Maybe we'll get luck and someone will post
The problem with resupplying by drop pod is that it can be intercepted, and if not then you are also painting a big "shoot me" target on the landing site.
Drop pod lands, space marines converge to restock their ammo, Earthshaker barrage obliterates the LZ, all marines at the LZ are dead and all ammo is lost.
Resupply from the air is really difficult, as the Germans learned on the Eastern front of WW2. Resupply from orbit? Even worse as if you can track the ship in orbit which is launching the supplies (which is not a difficult task), and you know the area that the marines are operating in, you know exactly what windows are open for them to be resupplied.
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) a marine gets dragged down and killed by a mob of civilians - and all they had was some scattered shivs...
