This seems to be the hot topic of the week and we were argueing about it at my local GW today.

What do you think?

Average is about 9', but the range between short members of "short" chapters and tall members of "tall" chapters probable ranges up to a maximum of just over 10'...

I always thought is was the decelleration from surviving repeated pod-drops that made some SM shorter than 10ft?

Like normal men there is a natural variation of height among SMs, but each chapter was less variation within it because of the commonality of the geneseed.

I don't have proof, but I believe that "Stealth" chapters like the Raven Guard are specially selected for lower height, and average under nine feet, however most SMs are certainly nine to ten feet tall, and the tallest are over ten.

ya marines are tall but some how games work shop made imp gaurd the same size?

They want to make them feel better.

Eldrad wrote:ya marines are tall but some how games work shop made imp gaurd the same size?

To fit a standard Troop Unit into the sprue frame size produced by the plastic moulding equipment.

Usually they are 8 feet tall,but FFG as always has to downgrade 40k and their marines are 7 feet tall,but it depends on the marine.

i guess 9ft since I only have the 3 choices but I thought they were 7ft tall....8ft in armor?

9 feet. 3 metres= roughly nine feet

I dunno what's up with this obsession with them being 10 feet tall. There's multiple examples of them being approximately 3 metres tall.

Samus_aran115 wrote:9 feet. 3 metres= roughly nine feet

I dunno what's up with this obsession with them being 10 feet tall. There's multiple examples of them being approximately 3 metres tall.

Souldrinker novels.
Majority of other sources say that they are 8 feet tall.

Guys, I think you're missing the most reliable source, as Monster Rain Pointed out, which is wikipedia:

Wikipedia:

While the bulk of humanity's military power is found in the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines(Adeptus Astartes)– giant, 10 foot tall, genetically-enhanced super-soldiers with world-destroying firepower and unswerving, fanatical loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind – are the most famous.[6]

Accolade wrote:Guys, I think you're missing the most reliable source, as Monster Rain Pointed out, which is wikipedia:

Wikipedia:

While the bulk of humanity's military power is found in the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines(Adeptus Astartes)– giant, 10 foot tall, genetically-enhanced super-soldiers with world-destroying firepower and unswerving, fanatical loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind – are the most famous.[6]

I don't trust wikipedia because everyone can edit it.
Provide quote from a official source.

Samus_aran115 wrote:3 metres= roughly nine feet

3 metres ≈ 10 feet

1" = 0.0254m
1' = 12"
10' = 120"
120*0.0254 = 3.048m

Ulver wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:3 metres= roughly nine feet

3 metres = 10 feet

1" = 0.0254m
1' = 12"
10' = 120"
120*0.0254 = 3.048m

Then why is a meter-stick three feet long? huh?

I thought Horus Heresy novels said about 8 ft, but I'm not positive

Samus_aran115 wrote:Then why is a meter-stick three feet long? huh?

It isn't.

A metre stick is approx 3'4".

Space Marines are 10 feet tall.

As has already been aptly pointed out, they are constantly being described as 3 meters tall. That's closer to 10 feet than it is to 9.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

IvanTih wrote:

Accolade wrote:Guys, I think you're missing the most reliable source, as Monster Rain Pointed out, which is wikipedia:

Wikipedia:

While the bulk of humanity's military power is found in the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines(Adeptus Astartes)– giant, 10 foot tall, genetically-enhanced super-soldiers with world-destroying firepower and unswerving, fanatical loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind – are the most famous.[6]

I don't trust wikipedia because everyone can edit it.
Provide quote from a official source.

Oh, like that abomination you cite whenever the subject of comparative in-universe weapon technology comes up?

Samus_aran115 wrote:9 feet. 3 metres= roughly nine feet

I dunno what's up with this obsession with them being 10 feet tall. There's multiple examples of them being approximately 3 metres tall.

A metre is 39.37 inches, so three metres is much nearer 10 feet than nine. (9.85 feet, roughly.)

I think that is a reasonable average. Some are smaller and some are larger. The armour probably adds another four inches.

9 feet tall.
one chapter has been recorded to have 11 feet tall marines.(Black Dragons I believe)

The poll options are so limited that I don't think any decent results can be drawn from it. It's like asking "Are humans 1.75m or 2m tall?".

I personally see marines as being 7′ tall, maybe a bit over, since "seven to seven foot six" is the figure Jes Goodwin has bandied about at times. This is corroborated by stuff like Raphael Van Lierop (producer for the upcoming Space Marine game) describing Marines as being "seven-foot tall" and Deathwatch saying Marines are "slightly over 2.1 metres tall" (which would be just under 7′).
Of course, the fluff is all over the place. Each author has his own view, and it often seems that they're just 'one-upping' each other. Abnett usually has Marines about a metre taller than humans, with Loken being "two and a half metres tall" (~8′2″) in Horus Rising. Swallow has his Blood Angels at "well over two metres", Reynolds' Word Bearers are, in both Power and Terminator armour, less than 3 metres tall, while Counter uses 3 metres as the benchmark for his Soul Drinkers.

So really, the 'official' background is all over the place; there's certainly no figure that's "constantly" used. Any height from 6′8″ to around 10′ is supported by something, the only definite thing is that Astartes are taller than humans.

I'm just reading the First heretic, and its funny, because this size thing has come up in the story as well.

Interestingly, regardig the Emperor himself, considering this particular discord comes from the same author, within two pages of each other, where in one paragraph he states the Emp is "just a man"...suggesting man sized! in relation to his Custodes, and in the next the Emp is described as a giant.

Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking. I wonder why GW decided that Marines have to be taller than "standard" humans anyway? I mean, certainly you'd expect the Marines to be physically dominating, but I'd imagine something like Arnie Terminator, or Superman type physique, but why this obsession with giganticism?!?

Some will say its becuase of all the organs and such like, but then, consider the Assassin temples, and what their operatives can do, and they're described as normal heght....

Monster Rain wrote:Space Marines are 10 feet tall.

As has already been aptly pointed out, they are constantly being described as 3 meters tall. That's closer to 10 feet than it is to 9.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

IvanTih wrote:

Accolade wrote:Guys, I think you're missing the most reliable source, as Monster Rain Pointed out, which is wikipedia:

Wikipedia:

While the bulk of humanity's military power is found in the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines(Adeptus Astartes)– giant, 10 foot tall, genetically-enhanced super-soldiers with world-destroying firepower and unswerving, fanatical loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind – are the most famous.[6]

I don't trust wikipedia because everyone can edit it.
Provide quote from a official source.

Oh, like that abomination you cite whenever the subject of comparative in-universe weapon technology comes up?

That abomination is a respected 40k analyser.
Now provide quote or you concede.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Delephont wrote:I'm just reading the First heretic, and its funny, because this size thing has come up in the story as well.

Interestingly, regardig the Emperor himself, considering this particular discord comes from the same author, within two pages of each other, where in one paragraph he states the Emp is "just a man"...suggesting man sized! in relation to his Custodes, and in the next the Emp is described as a giant.

Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking. I wonder why GW decided that Marines have to be taller than "standard" humans anyway? I mean, certainly you'd expect the Marines to be physically dominating, but I'd imagine something like Arnie Terminator, or Superman type physique, but why this obsession with giganticism?!?

Some will say its becuase of all the organs and such like, but then, consider the Assassin temples, and what their operatives can do, and they're described as normal heght....

Those assasins don't do quite well against Astartes IIRC in Nemesis.

Argh imp scale... where's the metric???

I think 2m is already quite daunting, but I am inclined to say 3m's. Mainly because I'm a short asian, so anything bigger than me is probably regular sized.

I think SM have to be huge to stand out from the crowd and show 'dem baddies who's boss. Plus it's pretty cool to have a 3m (10ft?) giant move faster than Usain Bolt.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Argh imp scale... where's the metric???

I think 2m is already quite daunting, but I am inclined to say 3m's. Mainly because I'm a short asian, so anything bigger than me is probably regular sized.

I think SM have to be huge to stand out from the crowd and show 'dem baddies who's boss. Plus it's pretty cool to have a 3m (10ft?) giant move faster than Usain Bolt.

One Marine was running 40 km/h and was still accelerating.

IvanTih wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Argh imp scale... where's the metric???

I think 2m is already quite daunting, but I am inclined to say 3m's. Mainly because I'm a short asian, so anything bigger than me is probably regular sized.

I think SM have to be huge to stand out from the crowd and show 'dem baddies who's boss. Plus it's pretty cool to have a 3m (10ft?) giant move faster than Usain Bolt.

One Marine was running 40 km/h and was still accelerating.

Lordy Lordy....

and wasn't there something in the Iron Snakes novel, about how long they could hold their breath?

I was under the impression that they were 8' tall.
No one commented on several posts where I made that assumption.
No one afaik made any comment in the True Scale conversion threads

Now they are 10'.
It feels like this figure has been plucked out of the air.
Sorry even if it is the fluff, and would be grateful of citations, am not impressed by the hyperbolic stature.

Delephont wrote:...
Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking. I wonder why GW decided that Marines have to be taller than "standard" humans anyway? I mean, certainly you'd expect the Marines to be physically dominating, but I'd imagine something like Arnie Terminator, or Superman type physique, but why this obsession with giganticism?!?

Some will say its becuase of all the organs and such like, but then, consider the Assassin temples, and what their operatives can do, and they're described as normal heght....

Heresy!

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:I was under the impression that they were 8' tall.
No one commented on several posts where I made that assumption.
No one afaik made any comment in the True Scale conversion threads

Now they are 10'.
It feels like this figure has been plucked out of the air.
Sorry even if it is the fluff, and would be grateful of citations, am not impressed by the hyperbolic stature.

Perhaps maybe lexicanum can be of assistance? That's the only source I know besides fluff.
I think it's the mentality that bigger is better, or badder, that is why people think they are larger than life. If you look at a lot of the artwork surrounding 40k, you see that the SM dwarfs a regular citizen. And sometimes people just don't understand the scale of these numbers.

Are there any Halo reach fans out there? If there are, have any of you seen the life sized statues of noble one? They're huge. and I'd guess about 2.5metres tall. For me, that's what the size of SM should be.

When you consider that an extra 2' from for example 6' to 8' is a 33% increase in height.
That does not take into account the extra body mass that is also accrued by the process.

That is already a significant extra bulk.
An increase to 10' is an increase of 2/3rds!
The volume will rise at an even greater rate proportionally, as I understand it. Before the extra bulk of the marinification process is included.

Hrm... Compared to that Halo spartan statue I saw...

An increase of 2/3rds... what exactly would it look like? Could you give me an idea? Compared to the modern man, how large would their hands or limbs be?

quick comparative sketch I did for an 8' marine
can do one for a 10' marine bt rather tired so apologies
will have a go tomorrow

Not sure how much to bulk out the chest
Am of the opinion that the head size would not alter.
just my take on that issue

To give some idea if you add on another 2' (ie the difference between the two figures) it would be 10'

That's pretty cool, man.

I'm pretty sure a Space Marine would have freakishly bulky chest muscles though, but I only bring it up because you did.

I think you are probably correct
Find it difficult to guage the extra bulk required tbh
Have very likely been too conservative.

Oh, I still wouldn't fight the guy!

I know that in the Horus Heresy books they talk about the humans being somewhat unnerved by the Astartes' freaky looking modified muscle bulk.

A Thousand Sons mentions it specifically.

So 9ft would be large enough.
But what I'm more concerned about is hand size. I know it's a little wierd, but I think handsize is detailed enough in fluff to be considered the measuring stick for how large a marine is. Because of proportions... and stuff...
Plus if you find the size of the hand you can roughly figure out the face.


Huh, people like them big I guess...

I was always under the Impression that the Astartes were atleast over seven feet tall, but never over ten unless in terminator armor.

Delephont wrote:I'm just reading the First heretic, and its funny, because this size thing has come up in the story as well.

Interestingly, regardig the Emperor himself, considering this particular discord comes from the same author, within two pages of each other, where in one paragraph he states the Emp is "just a man"...suggesting man sized! in relation to his Custodes, and in the next the Emp is described as a giant.

The Emperor is a special case. While Lorgar does look at the Emperor and see "just a man", it also says that his appearance "depended entirely on which facet of his face one focussed on". Lorgar looks at the Emperor and sees, among other things, his father. Meanwhile, Argel Tal looks upon the Emperor and sees his God, "a towering figure deep in a corona of agonising white light". The two descriptions are not contradictory when one considers influences his psychic abilities might have. Lorgar also doesn't see the light that blinds his Legion, and hears the Emperor speaking in a quiet voice, not the psychic roar that would bring line Astartes to their knees.
Also, I'm not sure that "just a man" really implies that he was man sized. The size of the Custodes isn't commented on in that paragraph, and "just a man" could mean that the Emperor lacks the genetic enhancements of the Primarchs or the Custodes. While a monstrously powerful psychic, the Emperor is still human.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:and wasn't there something in the Iron Snakes novel, about how long they could hold their breath?

In Brothers of the Snake Astartes swim for over 20 minutes while holding the same breath of air. The world record for a human holding his breath underwater is eleven and a half minutes, although with up to 30 minutes of hyperventilating on pure oxygen beforehand times of twenty minutes have been achieved. Those records were set by people who were just sitting in a swimming pool, the Astartes was diving to the bottom of a trench and had no equipment.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:quick comparative sketch I did for an 8' marine
can do one for a 10' marine bt rather tired so apologies
will have a go tomorrow
-snip-
Not sure how much to bulk out the chest
Am of the opinion that the head size would not alter.
just my take on that issue

Here's a picture of Jes Goodwin sitting in front of a 'life size' sketch of a Space Marine he did to figure out the proportions for Battle Brother Artemis in the Inquisitor range. Even though Jes is sitting and the Marine is only 7′ tall, you can get a feel for how massive an Astartes would actually be. You don't need to be 8′ tall to be freakin' intimidating.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:9 feet. 3 metres= roughly nine feet

I dunno what's up with this obsession with them being 10 feet tall. There's multiple examples of them being approximately 3 metres tall.

A metre is 39.37 inches, so three metres is much nearer 10 feet than nine. (9.85 feet, roughly.)

I think that is a reasonable average. Some are smaller and some are larger. The armour probably adds another four inches.

That is probably the source of the confusion right there. I have been thinking about this for a while now, height of Space Marines. I mean some people say 8' some people say 10' etc. And I have been trying to think of WHY there would be confusion.

So there you go. 9.85 feet sounds pretty 10' to me.

Maybe it's the metre conversion and the different measuring systems that are messing with people's minds?

At 8ft with such wide chests and bulky muscles they'd be very stout and squat. This is a typical physical description of the smaller marines in the novels i've read. That is why they're not 8ft but rather taller then 8ft. More like 10ft

Aretak
8' tall is hardly squat! And while 10' is too tall imho I know what you mean. This is the problem of drawing the SM's
The proportions in the Jes Goodwin pic proportion looks wrong to me

okay I am gonna get a lot of flak for that but it doesn't look like it considers the human frame within the PA.
If you imagine the outline of the armour as a cross section and allow for the thickness of the armour to see the outline of the marine's body, hopefully you will understand why I have problems with it.
The main concern I have are the legs and hips.

Consider the stance. How is the SM supposed to walk like that? The legs will need to be much stonger to support the weight of the upper torso.
I guess the exo skeleton of the PA would help but the legs out of the PA would be too skinny to be strong enough when that marine was out of his armour.

Blazingpsycho
This is a good question
I can see that the marinification process would change the hand size, but afaik, there is no indication thathead size would need to change, so the head to hand size ratio would change.

I don't know, a 10foot giant with a tiny head seems rather odd to me.

I know what you mean.
It would be very odd!

Proportionally the head grows less as the child's head is already relatively large, even at birth. It is a different ratio to height for children than an adult.
It seems to me that there is less ability to enlarge the head than other parts of the body.

Personally, if some one did a True Scale Marine and made the head proportionally correct I wouldn't argue as it would look ... err.. correct

I guess there would be some bulking of the head mass as per people who do training. Also with the enanced senses there is an argument that would effect the head size.
I hadn't considered that before.

My Cognitive Science prof hypothesized that as we learn our brains grow, and if that was so then why dont we have huge heads? He put forward the idea that at a young age, we learn a lot, how to walk, how to talk, so our heads our quite large (they were large to begin with but the brain was a clean slate) due to the vast amount of information needed.

Now looking at all the SM's learn, through hypnosis and all that jazz, rituals (armour cleaning, gun shooting), and not to mention all the things techmarines have to learn within 30 years, though the implants would help. I'd say there is much they have to learn = bigger brain = bigger head

And taking into account all the enhanced senses as you pointed out (I had almost forgotten about them ), the brain would require more processing power to deal with all the extra stiumlus. So a bigger head indeed

I like to imagine them as eight feet, nine feet at the most. Ten feet is just ridiculous.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:

IvanTih wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:Argh imp scale... where's the metric???

I think 2m is already quite daunting, but I am inclined to say 3m's. Mainly because I'm a short asian, so anything bigger than me is probably regular sized.

I think SM have to be huge to stand out from the crowd and show 'dem baddies who's boss. Plus it's pretty cool to have a 3m (10ft?) giant move faster than Usain Bolt.

One Marine was running 40 km/h and was still accelerating.

Lordy Lordy....

and wasn't there something in the Iron Snakes novel, about how long they could hold their breath?

They don't need to hold their breath, they can just activate their multi-lung.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:My Cognitive Science prof hypothesized that as we learn our brains grow, and if that was so then why dont we have huge heads? He put forward the idea that at a young age, we learn a lot, how to walk, how to talk, so our heads our quite large (they were large to begin with but the brain was a clean slate) due to the vast amount of information needed.

Now looking at all the SM's learn, through hypnosis and all that jazz, rituals (armour cleaning, gun shooting), and not to mention all the things techmarines have to learn within 30 years, though the implants would help. I'd say there is much they have to learn = bigger brain = bigger head

And taking into account all the enhanced senses as you pointed out (I had almost forgotten about them ), the brain would require more processing power to deal with all the extra stiumlus. So a bigger head indeed

There's no medical evidence that intelligence is related to brain size, or that brains grow larger as people learn things. There is evidence that more connections are built up within the brain as people learn things, and this is related to development of intelligence.

The reason why babies have large heads is that they have large brains.

SMs' brains would not grow larger, but their skulls would grow thicker, so their head would be larger than a normal man but it would be a distorted mass of bone and might look quite weird.

The other thing that does grow with age is the cartilage that forms the external ears (the pinnae). Since SMs live a long time, the older ones among them will have very large ears. This is possibly the reason why sergeants and officers do not usually wear helmets.

On topic though: http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb308/Vespa7/DSC00279.jpg there's a picture of me standing with a space marine replica in real life. To be fair that's probably not exactly right but looks to be close enough. I'm about five foot five. Or 163 cm. That space marine looks a good foot or so taller than me, and he's not standing up straight. That'd lead me to believe they're about 8 feet tall.

Element206 wrote:i guess 9ft since I only have the 3 choices but I thought they were 7ft tall....8ft in armor?

Yeah, i heard it was 7ft too

I thought they were between 7-9 ft tall.

Any larger and they are pretty much unable to fit into any human structure, which would make them pretty crap at urban and any kind of enclosed combat.

"Captain! The 10ft tall Space Marines are coming!"

"Don't worry, we've made all the corridors 6ft tall, and all the doors 5ft tall - they can't get to us" [evil laughing]

SilverMK2 wrote:I thought they were between 7-9 ft tall.

Any larger and they are pretty much unable to fit into any human structure, which would make them pretty crap at urban and any kind of enclosed combat.

"Captain! The 10ft tall Space Marines are coming!"

"Don't worry, we've made all the corridors 6ft tall, and all the doors 5ft tall - they can't get to us" [evil laughing]

That's why all imperial doors and corridors are quite tall and wide.
Also in Kill Team a Space Marine is described as 2.5 m tall and being metre wide over the chest.

i'm fairly sure a space marine would just break through the wall

Mattieau wrote:i'm fairly sure a space marine would just break through the wall

That, or just shoot until either the wall isn't there anymore

Yes, and if you are infiltrating, say, a 3 mile long space ship, with corridors you have to crawl through, it will not be long before you get chewed to pieces by the defenders.

SilverMK2 wrote:Yes, and if you are infiltrating, say, a 3 mile long space ship, with corridors you have to crawl through, it will not be long before you get chewed to pieces by the defenders.

We don't see that in fluff(points to Terminators).

Æscholt wrote:

Delephont wrote:I'm just reading the First heretic, and its funny, because this size thing has come up in the story as well.

Interestingly, regardig the Emperor himself, considering this particular discord comes from the same author, within two pages of each other, where in one paragraph he states the Emp is "just a man"...suggesting man sized! in relation to his Custodes, and in the next the Emp is described as a giant.

The Emperor is a special case. While Lorgar does look at the Emperor and see "just a man", it also says that his appearance "depended entirely on which facet of his face one focussed on". Lorgar looks at the Emperor and sees, among other things, his father. Meanwhile, Argel Tal looks upon the Emperor and sees his God, "a towering figure deep in a corona of agonising white light". The two descriptions are not contradictory when one considers influences his psychic abilities might have. Lorgar also doesn't see the light that blinds his Legion, and hears the Emperor speaking in a quiet voice, not the psychic roar that would bring line Astartes to their knees.
Also, I'm not sure that "just a man" really implies that he was man sized. The size of the Custodes isn't commented on in that paragraph, and "just a man" could mean that the Emperor lacks the genetic enhancements of the Primarchs or the Custodes. While a monstrously powerful psychic, the Emperor is still human.

Fair point, I can see what the writer is trying to do.

Moving away from the book, I guess, I look at it from a wider view. Here we have a company that has invested much into creating its own universe, and yet goes to great length to contradict itself in almost every medium it choese to represent its universe in. Just seems silly to me.

The other point is the Primarchs, if an average human comes up to a Primarchs waiste, then roughly, if an average human is 5'8" then a Primarch would be just over 11ft tall, or there abouts.....thats ridiculous then if a Marine is 10ft tall, as that would mean a Primarch is merely 1ft taller than his sons.....

Still, I'm not sure why I'm so surprised it doesn't add up

115th Cadian Shock Troops wrote:

Element206 wrote:i guess 9ft since I only have the 3 choices but I thought they were 7ft tall....8ft in armor?

Yeah, i heard it was 7ft too

I remember it being 7ft 6in, and in armour about 8ft. It's worth remembering that a Dreadnought in the Codex is stated as being about three times as tall as an ordinary man, which would make it roughly 4 and a bit metres tall, and they are also supposed to tower over SM. They wouldn't be doing any towering if the SM in question was also over the 3-metre mark.

I'm going for 8 feet tall in armour.

At a Games Day UK 2009 display, in an art section (possibly a Jes Goodwin tribute) there was a large 'mat' that was a space marine height chart which came to him being 8 feet tall in armour.

Sadly, it didn't occur to me to take a picture.

Delephont wrote:

Æscholt wrote:

Delephont wrote:I'm just reading the First heretic, and its funny, because this size thing has come up in the story as well.

Interestingly, regardig the Emperor himself, considering this particular discord comes from the same author, within two pages of each other, where in one paragraph he states the Emp is "just a man"...suggesting man sized! in relation to his Custodes, and in the next the Emp is described as a giant.

The Emperor is a special case. While Lorgar does look at the Emperor and see "just a man", it also says that his appearance "depended entirely on which facet of his face one focussed on". Lorgar looks at the Emperor and sees, among other things, his father. Meanwhile, Argel Tal looks upon the Emperor and sees his God, "a towering figure deep in a corona of agonising white light". The two descriptions are not contradictory when one considers influences his psychic abilities might have. Lorgar also doesn't see the light that blinds his Legion, and hears the Emperor speaking in a quiet voice, not the psychic roar that would bring line Astartes to their knees.
Also, I'm not sure that "just a man" really implies that he was man sized. The size of the Custodes isn't commented on in that paragraph, and "just a man" could mean that the Emperor lacks the genetic enhancements of the Primarchs or the Custodes. While a monstrously powerful psychic, the Emperor is still human.

Fair point, I can see what the writer is trying to do.

Moving away from the book, I guess, I look at it from a wider view. Here we have a company that has invested much into creating its own universe, and yet goes to great length to contradict itself in almost every medium it choese to represent its universe in. Just seems silly to me.

The other point is the Primarchs, if an average human comes up to a Primarchs waiste, then roughly, if an average human is 5'8" then a Primarch would be just over 11ft tall, or there abouts.....thats ridiculous then if a Marine is 10ft tall, as that would mean a Primarch is merely 1ft taller than his sons.....

Still, I'm not sure why I'm so surprised it doesn't add up

There are other ways to look at these points.

The Emporer's Size
If he was inhumanly tall, like much over six feet, he would have stood out like a sore thumb on historical Earth.

The Primarchs's Height
If they were over 11 feet, I don't see why it is a problem for SMs to be a foot smaller. I would be surprised if they were only 2/3rds to 3/4 the size.

The Purity of the Canon
GW didn't carefully craft and maintain their universe. It has always been cobbled together from all sorts of stuff ripped from elsewhere. Of course there has been some editorial guidance, particularly around SMs, but the standards pare pretty lax, allowing writers to come up with a lot of their own stuff.

Aretak wrote:At 8ft with such wide chests and bulky muscles they'd be very stout and squat. This is a typical physical description of the smaller marines in the novels i've read. That is why they're not 8ft but rather taller then 8ft. More like 10ft

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. It seems like you're going;
    • 8′ tall Marines would be stout and squat
    • Some Marines are described as being stout and squat.
         • Thus, Marines are much taller than 8′.
Which doesn't follow. Surely the presence of "stout and squat" Marines would imply that those "smaller marines" would be in the 8′ range, and I can't see Marines who are 2′ below the average being that common. And we'd have the other extreme, 12′ tall Marines, running around as well, which I don't think is supported anywhere.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:This is the problem of drawing the SM's
The proportions in the Jes Goodwin pic proportion looks wrong to me
okay I am gonna get a lot of flak for that but it doesn't look like it considers the human frame within the PA.

Ah, but there's the rub. There is no "human frame" within Power Armour, because Space Marines aren't human. They're genetically and surgically altered humans, 'posthumans' of a sort, who were designed and manufactured to wage war. With a score of cultured organs implanted into their bodies, and near constant chemical treatments over four or more years; with organs that cause the subject's skeleton to grow, thicken, and in places fuse together, it's no wonder that the Astartes aren't just scaled up humans.

Mattieau wrote:They don't need to hold their breath, they can just activate their multi-lung.

While there is some background stating that the multi-lung allows Astartes to breathe underwater, the Iron Snakes held their breath. This may be due to any number of reasons, perhaps a gene-seed defect means that the multi-lung isn't as efficient as in other chapters. Perhaps the nature of the trial, which is a personal test of sorts, forbids Marines from taking the 'easy way out'. Or perhaps Abnett just made a mistake, it'd certainly not be the first time he's done so.

Mattieau wrote:On topic though: http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb308/Vespa7/DSC00279.jpg there's a picture of me standing with a space marine replica in real life. To be fair that's probably not exactly right but looks to be close enough. I'm about five foot five. Or 163 cm. That space marine looks a good foot or so taller than me, and he's not standing up straight. That'd lead me to believe they're about 8 feet tall.

Assuming that's one of the statues commissioned for the release of DoW II, that replica is 2.15m tall, which is just a hair over 7′. That's including the base, but as you said it's not standing perfectly upright, so I reckon the Marine is scaled to be about 7-7′6″ tall.

Compel wrote:At a Games Day UK 2009 display, in an art section (possibly a Jes Goodwin tribute) there was a large 'mat' that was a space marine height chart which came to him being 8 feet tall in armour.
Sadly, it didn't occur to me to take a picture.

Are you sure that wasn't the Goodwin sketch I linked to earlier? It's worth noting that although the Marine's head is touching the 8′ line, Jes accidentally started the scale at 1′, so the Marine is actually only 7′ tall.

No the rub is the fact that the form inside the PA still has to function.
The drawing I referred to would not allow that imho
Even allowing for the modifications.
Look at the stance of that marine. Try walking around like with your legs outside of your shoulders. The hips are totally inadequate

I'm fairly sure that GW have categorically stated that SM height is anywhere between 7ft 6 and 8ft something without power armour. It's referenced plenty of times in BL books, and it may even be in the actual codex. Heights of 10ft seem too big, even for a genetically enhanced superhuman. I mean, seriously, 8ft is already pretty terrifying. Hell, 7ft is terrifying. I don't think there's any real advantage gained by having your super-soldiers almost as big as buses.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:quick comparative sketch I did for an 8' marine
can do one for a 10' marine bt rather tired so apologies
will have a go tomorrow

Not sure how much to bulk out the chest
Am of the opinion that the head size would not alter.
just my take on that issue

To give some idea if you add on another 2' (ie the difference between the two figures) it would be 10'

This seems both the most reasonable and the best representation of fluff descriptions that I have read...if not a little too big (at 8' w/o armor).

Marines are 7' tall, 8' tall in power armour.

Kilkrazy wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:My Cognitive Science prof hypothesized that as we learn our brains grow, and if that was so then why dont we have huge heads? He put forward the idea that at a young age, we learn a lot, how to walk, how to talk, so our heads our quite large (they were large to begin with but the brain was a clean slate) due to the vast amount of information needed.

Now looking at all the SM's learn, through hypnosis and all that jazz, rituals (armour cleaning, gun shooting), and not to mention all the things techmarines have to learn within 30 years, though the implants would help. I'd say there is much they have to learn = bigger brain = bigger head

And taking into account all the enhanced senses as you pointed out (I had almost forgotten about them ), the brain would require more processing power to deal with all the extra stiumlus. So a bigger head indeed

There's no medical evidence that intelligence is related to brain size, or that brains grow larger as people learn things. There is evidence that more connections are built up within the brain as people learn things, and this is related to development of intelligence.

The reason why babies have large heads is that they have large brains.

SMs' brains would not grow larger, but their skulls would grow thicker, so their head would be larger than a normal man but it would be a distorted mass of bone and might look quite weird.

The other thing that does grow with age is the cartilage that forms the external ears (the pinnae). Since SMs live a long time, the older ones among them will have very large ears. This is possibly the reason why sergeants and officers do not usually wear helmets.

I agree that intelligence is not related to brain size. Perhaps I worded that incorrectly. I meant with regards to all the new implants, both sensory organs and the other bits. I person would need more connections to interepret all the new stimulus and would there for need a greater processing power to deal with all the cognitive processing. There are only so many connections in the brain, mind you there are over 100 billion nerve/brain cells in the brain, these billion cells are enough for us to deal with all our systems, as imperfect as it is. Now add in the Lyman's ear, the occulobe, the multilung, the ability to go comatose, and the host of organs that marines are implanted with, that's a lot more things that the brain has to deal with. couple that with a marine's keen intellect and great memory, I don't think that a regular brain could handle that.

Of course there could be a way in the future where the connections are more complex and efficient, but comparing it to modern man, our 100 billion cells may work fine for us, but for a space marine, I don't think it would be enough. More connections, more space for connections, bigger brain. Intelligence is just a side affect.

And buddha ears? forgot about that!

Kilkrazy wrote:

Delephont wrote:

Æscholt wrote:

Delephont wrote:I'm just reading the First heretic, and its funny, because this size thing has come up in the story as well.

Interestingly, regardig the Emperor himself, considering this particular discord comes from the same author, within two pages of each other, where in one paragraph he states the Emp is "just a man"...suggesting man sized! in relation to his Custodes, and in the next the Emp is described as a giant.

The Emperor is a special case. While Lorgar does look at the Emperor and see "just a man", it also says that his appearance "depended entirely on which facet of his face one focussed on". Lorgar looks at the Emperor and sees, among other things, his father. Meanwhile, Argel Tal looks upon the Emperor and sees his God, "a towering figure deep in a corona of agonising white light". The two descriptions are not contradictory when one considers influences his psychic abilities might have. Lorgar also doesn't see the light that blinds his Legion, and hears the Emperor speaking in a quiet voice, not the psychic roar that would bring line Astartes to their knees.
Also, I'm not sure that "just a man" really implies that he was man sized. The size of the Custodes isn't commented on in that paragraph, and "just a man" could mean that the Emperor lacks the genetic enhancements of the Primarchs or the Custodes. While a monstrously powerful psychic, the Emperor is still human.

Fair point, I can see what the writer is trying to do.

Moving away from the book, I guess, I look at it from a wider view. Here we have a company that has invested much into creating its own universe, and yet goes to great length to contradict itself in almost every medium it choese to represent its universe in. Just seems silly to me.

The other point is the Primarchs, if an average human comes up to a Primarchs waiste, then roughly, if an average human is 5'8" then a Primarch would be just over 11ft tall, or there abouts.....thats ridiculous then if a Marine is 10ft tall, as that would mean a Primarch is merely 1ft taller than his sons.....

Still, I'm not sure why I'm so surprised it doesn't add up

There are other ways to look at these points.

The Emporer's Size
If he was inhumanly tall, like much over six feet, he would have stood out like a sore thumb on historical Earth.

The Primarchs's Height
If they were over 11 feet, I don't see why it is a problem for SMs to be a foot smaller. I would be surprised if they were only 2/3rds to 3/4 the size.

The Purity of the Canon
GW didn't carefully craft and maintain their universe. It has always been cobbled together from all sorts of stuff ripped from elsewhere. Of course there has been some editorial guidance, particularly around SMs, but the standards pare pretty lax, allowing writers to come up with a lot of their own stuff.

In response to the emporer's size:
In the novel Tales of Heresy, the story, the Last Church, the emporer vists an old pastor and they have a conversation about religion. The pastor sees just a regular warrior, with something special about his eyes. Only after the emperor reveals himself does the pastor see the glorious towering figure before him. Being a powerful psyker, could the emperor not hid his precense among mortals like us?

It must have been a pain for him to endure 28,000 years of bending in half at the waist to fit into normal sized buildings so that no-one would notice him being 11 feet tall.

Truly I appreciate his greatness more than ever.

I believe 8 is the most common height IIRC.

Maybe he makes use of a wheeled office chair to get around that problem, kind of like a mobile precursor to the Golden Throne. No more bending down then, and with his space emporaaaar powers he can disguise his laziness with an image of utter glory.

None of the options, I believe space marines are 8ft tall with there armour on.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Maybe he makes use of a wheeled office chair to get around that problem, kind of like a mobile precursor to the Golden Throne.

Is this what you mean?

Kilkrazy wrote:It must have been a pain for him to endure 28,000 years of bending in half at the waist to fit into normal sized buildings so that no-one would notice him being 11 feet tall.

Truly I appreciate his greatness more than ever.

Am i sensing sarcasm???

Hahaha I hadn't thought of that. Maybe he stayed outside a lot?

I dont think model size is the best indicator since their are many models improperly scaled between each other. Just go with the fluff that says 8-9 ft.

I always figured they were between 7-8 feet tall naked.

And then the armour would add around a foot of height on top of that. Anything taller than 8' really just feels like the writers are trying to one-up one another, and just sounds really stupid when you actually try to visualize it.

And hell, I model all my truescalies to be 8 feet tall (including armour).

Kilkrazy wrote:It must have been a pain for him to endure 28,000 years of bending in half at the waist to fit into normal sized buildings so that no-one would notice him being 11 feet tall.

Truly I appreciate his greatness more than ever.

He could use his psychic powers to appear differently, like he does in The Last Church, where the chair groans underneath the weight of his power armour although the image of him is that of a normal man. I guess he could do the same kind of thing if he was 11 feet tall, I doubt he was though. I mean, he can make a Legion of over 100 thousand Astartes kneel before him, i'm pretty sure he could do a quick mind trick to convince you that he is of normal height.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:
In response to the emporer's size:
In the novel Tales of Heresy, the story, the Last Church, the emporer vists an old pastor and they have a conversation about religion. The pastor sees just a regular warrior, with something special about his eyes. Only after the emperor reveals himself does the pastor see the glorious towering figure before him. Being a powerful psyker, could the emperor not hid his precense among mortals like us?

Yeah, this

Back on track this might help, from the mind of Phillip Sibbering, it's not official but gives a good idea

http://www.philipsibbering.com/WH40KRP/40K_9_Marine_1_Morphology.shtml

I was reading the Chaos Space Marine codex last night. It says very clearly that space marines are around 7'.

I always thought it depended alot on chapter, with some chapters like the Salamanders being obviously bigger than others.

Other marines, such as Veteran-Sergeant Pasanius Lysane of the Ultramarines Chapter are obviously bigger than others, just due to genetics.

However, as an average height, I think most sources seem to say Space Marines are about 7-8ft out of their armor, and then gain signifcant amounts of height, weight and width inside their armor.

Tactical Dreadnaught armor increases this further.

Randomly flicking through books behind me to try and find a reference, but I can't find anything to quote on exact heights.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:This seems to be the hot topic of the week and we were argueing about it at my local GW today.

What do you think?

At least 10 feet 11 inches. After all they are noted as "Giants" in a fluff piece in the Chaos Codex. You can't be 11 feet tall, because then you'd be cxlassed as a Monstrous creature. In Fact, I don't see how terminators get around this. Aftrer all they are huge minis and bases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Accolade wrote:Guys, I think you're missing the most reliable source, as Monster Rain Pointed out, which is wikipedia:

Wikipedia:

While the bulk of humanity's military power is found in the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines(Adeptus Astartes)– giant, 10 foot tall, genetically-enhanced super-soldiers with world-destroying firepower and unswerving, fanatical loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind – are the most famous.[6]

Wikleaks has confirmed cables from Rogal to the Emperor. All reports of marines over 10 feet were to be quashed to give them an extra psychological advantage when they actually appeared. Additionally, it appears the planetary governor of Vernakus IV is always escorted by what was described by inquisitors as a "voluptuous nurse from Valhalla."

just go measure a Space Marine.

Monster Rain wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Maybe he makes use of a wheeled office chair to get around that problem, kind of like a mobile precursor to the Golden Throne.

Is this what you mean?

Yep. In short, the Emperor is Charles Xavier. The mystery is solved.

Frazzled wrote:Wikleaks has confirmed cables from Rogal to the Emperor. All reports of marines over 10 feet were to be quashed to give them an extra psychological advantage when they actually appeared. Additionally, it appears the planetary governor of Vernakus IV is always escorted by what was described by inquisitors as a "voluptuous nurse from Valhalla."

Quoted for awesomeness

Pilau Rice wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It must have been a pain for him to endure 28,000 years of bending in half at the waist to fit into normal sized buildings so that no-one would notice him being 11 feet tall.

Truly I appreciate his greatness more than ever.

He could use his psychic powers to appear differently, like he does in The Last Church, where the chair groans underneath the weight of his power armour although the image of him is that of a normal man. I guess he could do the same kind of thing if he was 11 feet tall, I doubt he was though. I mean, he can make a Legion of over 100 thousand Astartes kneel before him, i'm pretty sure he could do a quick mind trick to convince you that he is of normal height.

No doubt the Emporer could convince anyone he was of normal height by using his psi powers. How did he convince doorways to be 12 feet high, or beds to be 12 feet long, and so on? How were the holy buttocks wedged into armchairs once these had been invented?

I can't remember which book it was in but I remember reading that an imperial guardsman was with a space marine and was described as being 2 meters tall and the Space Marine was a head taller! There was also a Space Wolf that was described as "large" even for a Space Marine. I guess this is one of those cases that just depends on who's writting the story???!!!!!!

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Maybe he makes use of a wheeled office chair to get around that problem, kind of like a mobile precursor to the Golden Throne.

Is this what you mean?

Yep. In short, the Emperor is Charles Xavier. The mystery is solved.

Onslaught looks rather space marine-esque, I dare say.

OT:

Where did that "three meters" idea come from? It's firmly implanted in my brain, but I have no idea where I got it from.

In the first Horus Heresy book, Loken is described as being 2.5 metres tall, and Horus is said to be as tall again as a space marine is to a human, which would make him 3+ metres tall.

Pilau
Excellent linky thanks
That will be super reference for if I ever get arount to doing True Scale marines.

Still have concerns with the hips.
When the marine is walking/running the inside leg armour will be likely to keep catching.

rdit:
was referring to the armour pics
The Height chart with the "evolution" leg spacing and hips are how I imagined they would need to be.

Kilkrazy wrote:
No doubt the Emporer could convince anyone he was of normal height by using his psi powers. How did he convince doorways to be 12 feet high, or beds to be 12 feet long, and so on?

He didn't need to convince low leveled ceilings, doorways etc he just got really good at limbo.

Kilkrazy wrote: How were the holy buttocks wedged into armchairs once these had been invented?

He was an excellent contortionist as well

THE EMPEROR PROTECTS

Where did this idea that marines are 9-10 feet tall originate from? I always considered marines to be tall but within a normal human range I.E. 6'4"

I have the first Angels of Death Codex which contains a story about a Blood Angels Assault Squad lead by a Captain, who are summoned to help some Iron Guard storm a fortification (Awesome story). The Captain is described as 'towering' and explicitly stated as being "seven foot tall".

It seems like Marine height is just getting more and more exaggerated. Though I realise the futility of mentioning 'realism' and 40k in the same paragraph. 10 feet tall is wholly ridiculous. A man who was 10 feet tall and heavily muscled would probably weight upwards of 1000 lbs and would likely not be able to stand up straight, or walk, let alone fight.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Æscholt wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:and wasn't there something in the Iron Snakes novel, about how long they could hold their breath?

In Brothers of the Snake Astartes swim for over 20 minutes while holding the same breath of air. The world record for a human holding his breath underwater is eleven and a half minutes, although with up to 30 minutes of hyperventilating on pure oxygen beforehand times of twenty minutes have been achieved. Those records were set by people who were just sitting in a swimming pool, the Astartes was diving to the bottom of a trench and had no equipment.

Marines can breath water thanks to their 'multi lung' organ implant.

This should give an idea of perspective of someone 9' tall (minus an inch) next to someone about 6' tall



On the subject of variance in space marine heights, e.g. why not 8'-12' if 10' was average: the whole 40K universe is dogmatic, superstitious and paranoid and (according to the only 40K novel I've read) irregularities and mutations during a space marine's development usually meant they were terminated and the mutations studied post mortem.

{ETA} - Oh, and the idea of power armour adding a foot to their height is just daft - could you imagine a space marine in 6 inch heels, with a 6 inch hat on his head? He'd look like a bride's mother.

sourclams wrote:

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:quick comparative sketch I did for an 8' marine
can do one for a 10' marine bt rather tired so apologies
will have a go tomorrow

Not sure how much to bulk out the chest
Am of the opinion that the head size would not alter.
just my take on that issue

To give some idea if you add on another 2' (ie the difference between the two figures) it would be 10'

This seems both the most reasonable and the best representation of fluff descriptions that I have read...if not a little too big (at 8' w/o armor).

Yes, I believe SM are 8 feet tall WITHOUT equipment. Obviously PA can make them even larger.

The guys in my sketchette don't have equipment
not sure how it would make them larger!?

Not sure how? Like how wearing skates adds 3 inches to your height.

Space Marines don't wear skates though.

I'd think their boots etc give them 2-3" and maybe another 4-5" between the top of their head and the top of their helmet (including vent). Most helmets have a reasonable amount of space above the head for shock absorption reasons and a marine helmet also has to cram in electronics and so forth.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think between 7 and 8.5' is reasonable for the average marine, taller for captains and notable others like Sergeant Pausanias of the Ultramarines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Much of their size difference comes from their increased muscle mass and the width of their bodies, so even a midget marine of 6.5' would appear intimidating to a regular human who was taller because of that extra width and muscle.

cadbren wrote:Space Marines don't wear skates though.

I'd think their boots etc give them 2-3" and maybe another 4-5" between the top of their head and the top of their helmet (including vent). Most helmets have a reasonable amount of space above the head for shock absorption reasons and a marine helmet also has to cram in electronics and so forth.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think between 7 and 8.5' is reasonable for the average marine, taller for captains and notable others like Sergeant Pausanias of the Ultramarines.

yes, exactly. My point is just like a person's skates make then appear taller a Marines boots make him taller.

What about their shoe size? Plus we all know what that indicates! I know it never gets mentioned but there is never a mention of Marines being castrated during the Gene seed implants so what the hell happens down there? Plus could any woman actually take the physicality of a astartes or do the Marines help a brother out?

11ft with armor on, surely.

I think you'd revise your estimate if you had to stand next to an 11' d00d with the physical dimensions of a Space Marine. Marines in armor are often described as head-and-shoulders above normal 6' humans... in other words reasonably tall people typically find themselves at eye level with their chest Aquila/breastbone.

At 11' in armor, normal humans would be at eye level with their crotch. We would literally be like 6 year old children next to grown ups. A Space Marine standing out on the street would be able to reach up and tap on the window of a second story office building. Individual Marines of those dimensions would weigh 600 lbs or more in their underwear. I'd say this is possible for certain Primarchs, but not for standard Astartes.

So you'd reckon closer to nine in armor?

Why does it matter what they'd weigh?

Are we still arguing about this? Doesn't fluff canon say that they're 3 meters tall?

Is that in or out of armor? If out, then 10 1/2 to 11 might not be unreasonable.

I'd figure that those boots added to a helmet on a guy that was already 9 feet tall would put him up over ten.

The impression I get from fluff/canon is that the 3 meters is *in armor*, and the range is more like an upper bound of 3 meters, rounded up from 2 with a high decimal.

That puts unarmored SMs firmly within the 8-9 range. Still huge, but not eye-to-crotch.

feth me running.

Are we talking about in armor or out?

And Primarchs are . . . sometimes/always larger? Fifteen footers, decked out?

I know that they are described as towering over the other Astartes.

Angron and Leman Russ in particular.

And Magnus is actually referred to as a giant from Astartes perspective. If they're about ten in armor, the Primarchs must be at least half their height again.

Monster Rain wrote:Why does it matter what they'd weigh?

Are we still arguing about this? Doesn't fluff canon say that they're 3 meters tall?

No! It says they are 2.5 metres tall.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sourclams wrote:The impression I get from fluff/canon is that the 3 meters is *in armor*, and the range is more like an upper bound of 3 meters, rounded up from 2 with a high decimal.

That puts unarmored SMs firmly within the 8-9 range. Still huge, but not eye-to-crotch.

yes, this!

Maurin wrote:I was reading the Chaos Space Marine codex last night. It says very clearly that space marines are around 7'.

It does indeed. And since codex fluff usually trumps BL fluff, we might have a definite answer here.

Monster Rain wrote:Where did that "three meters" idea come from? It's firmly implanted in my brain, but I have no idea where I got it from.

SmackCakes wrote:Where did this idea that marines are 9-10 feet tall originate from? I always considered marines to be tall but within a normal human range I.E. 6'4"

The Soul Drinkers novels describe Astartes as standing three metres tall, that might be where. There could well be other sources that say 3m, but that's the only one I've found so far.

SmackCakes wrote:I have the first Angels of Death Codex which contains a story about a Blood Angels Assault Squad lead by a Captain, who are summoned to help some Iron Guard storm a fortification (Awesome story). The Captain is described as 'towering' and explicitly stated as being "seven foot tall".

Codex: Angels of Death is fairly outdated now, and newer fluff often takes precedence over older material when they contradict. Also, this is the story on page 22, correct? 'cause I don't believe the Astartes in that story is actually described as "towering" (although he is described as taller than the Guardsmen and being seven foot tall), nor is he identified as a Captain.

SmackCakes wrote:Marines can breath water thanks to their 'multi lung' organ implant.

Yes, I already addressed that.

Æscholt wrote:While there is some background stating that the multi-lung allows Astartes to breathe underwater, the Iron Snakes held their breath. This may be due to any number of reasons, perhaps a gene-seed defect means that the multi-lung isn't as efficient as in other chapters. Perhaps the nature of the trial, which is a personal test of sorts, forbids Marines from taking the 'easy way out'. Or perhaps Abnett just made a mistake, it'd certainly not be the first time he's done so.

sourclams wrote:Individual Marines of those dimensions would weigh 600 lbs or more in their underwear.

Deathwatch's Marines, who it claims are barely 7′ tall, are described as weighing 700 - 1500 lbs. I think it's a daft figure, but they are heavy buggers. Probably due to having an ultra-dense, ceramic plated skeleton and whatnot.

Monster Rain wrote:Are we still arguing about this? Doesn't fluff canon say that they're 3 meters tall?

No. 'Fluff canon' is a slippery thing, and fully armoured Marines have been described as anywhere from 6′11″ to 9′10″ (2.1m to 3m) tall at times.

Here's a summary of the various 'canon' heights Marines have been given from time to time. If anyone has an example I've missed, then please don't hesitate to mention it.
    • Deathwatch says that "whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1 metres tall".
    • The current Codex: Chaos Space Marines says Marines "stand seven feet tall".
    • 2nd edition's Codex: Angels of Death describes a Marine as "seven foot tall".
    • Jes Goodwin has said that Marines are "seven to seven foot six", and his "life size" drawing of an armour Space Marine was 7′ tall.
    • James Swallow's Blood Angels series features Marines who stand "well over two metres" tall.
    • Dan Abnett's books usually place a Marine as being about a metre taller than a human, and in Horus Rising describes Loken as being "a giant, two and a half metres tall".
    • Anthony Reynolds's Word Bearers are shorter than three metres, with an "almost three metres" tall staff being "taller even than" the Marine carrying it, and a three metre tall Ogryn "dwarfed even the Terminators".
    • And lastly, Ben Counter describes Marines as being "three metres tall" in his Soul Drinkers novels.

Æscholt wrote:

SmackCakes wrote:I have the first Angels of Death Codex which contains a story about a Blood Angels Assault Squad lead by a Captain, who are summoned to help some Iron Guard storm a fortification (Awesome story). The Captain is described as 'towering' and explicitly stated as being "seven foot tall".

Codex: Angels of Death is fairly outdated now, and newer fluff often takes precedence over older material when they contradict. Also, this is the story on page 22, correct? 'cause I don't believe the Astartes in that story is actually described as "towering" (although he is described as taller than the Guardsmen and being seven foot tall), nor is he identified as a Captain.

Yes it is the story on page 22. And you are right that he is not described as 'towering' (I must have remembered it wrong) but he is described as being 7 foot tall, and identified as a Captain on at least 5 occasions, including the first paragraph. Being a Captain doesn't necessarily mean he is tall for a marine, but I think it does imply that he is at least average hight.

I'm not sure I agree 100% that new fluff always takes precedence over older fluff, I think it is all worth considering to paint a picture of what is going on, and there is merit in preserving original fluff and protecting old ideas from being warped and fan wanked all over by new writers.

In cases where the story has developed, such as Tycho dying, I would agree that new fluff wins. But where there is no expansion and we just have different accounts, I would argue that new and old are equally valuable.

Monster Rain wrote:Are we still arguing about this? Doesn't fluff canon say that they're 3 meters tall?

No. 'Fluff canon' is a slippery thing, and fully armoured Marines have been described as anywhere from 6′11″ to 9′10″ (2.1m to 3m) tall at times.

Here's a summary of the various 'canon' heights Marines have been given from time to time. If anyone has an example I've missed, then please don't hesitate to mention it.
    • Deathwatch says that "whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1 metres tall".
    • The current Codex: Chaos Space Marines says Marines "stand seven feet tall".
    • 2nd edition's Codex: Angels of Death describes a Marine as "seven foot tall".
    • Jes Goodwin has said that Marines are "seven to seven foot six", and his "life size" drawing of an armour Space Marine was 7′ tall.
    • James Swallow's Blood Angels series features Marines who stand "well over two metres" tall.
    • Dan Abnett's books usually place a Marine as being about a metre taller than a human, and in Horus Rising describes Loken as being "a giant, two and a half metres tall".
    • Anthony Reynolds's Word Bearers are shorter than three metres, with an "almost three metres" tall staff being "taller even than" the Marine carrying it, and a three metre tall Ogryn "dwarfed even the Terminators".
    • And lastly, Ben Counter describes Marines as being "three metres tall" in his Soul Drinkers novels.

It seems like 7 to 8 feet is the average here.

Ben Counter is the odd one out with 3 meters, which is a relief since 3 meters is seriously messed up.

Maurin wrote:I was reading the Chaos Space Marine codex last night. It says very clearly that space marines are around 7'.

But that's just the CSM Codex, I mean, for all we know, they defected to Chaos because they were sick of getting wedgies by the normal sized SM due to being the shortest in the Astartes.

Also, is that 'very clearly' in armor or out of it? Plus armor, I'd picture at least a couple feet added on top of that. I mean, this is armor that leaves them almost invincible, right? It would have to be thick, and you'd want at least the same amount of armor on your boots as you would have on your chest just so that you didn't explode the first time you stepped on a mine.

Æscholt wrote:

sourclams wrote:Individual Marines of those dimensions would weigh 600 lbs or more in their underwear.

Deathwatch's Marines, who it claims are barely 7′ tall, are described as weighing 700 - 1500 lbs. I think it's a daft figure, but they are heavy buggers. Probably due to having an ultra-dense, ceramic plated skeleton .

I got the impression that was in armor. There's simply no way that human dimensions, even at 2.5m tall un-armored, could approach 1500 lbs. That would put them closer to the specific gravity of iron than a carbon-based lifeform.

Ya, that seems a little ridiculus. I could see 700lbs though...

I think seven foot something out of armor with eight something in. Also yesterday I was looking through the 3.5 Chaos Codex and it was describing the Daemonic Stature (Makes the Character a Monstrous Creature) trait as making the character ten feet or taller. So I doubt Marines are ten feet tall out of armor.

Doesn't one of the HH Books detail "Little Horus" the captain of one of the companies as being a short arse (don't quote me for some reason i think his name began with a T?? Please correct me).

Edit : Was it something XXXXX Aximand?

Regarding weight... I made this comparison of Robert Wadlow standing next to a 9 foot tall Steve Austin.



As you can see Robet Wadlow looks like he weighs about about 130 pounds tops. Steve Austin weights in at around 250.

However standing 8'11" tall Robert Walow was in fact 490 pounds (according to wiki). That would make 9 foot Steve Austin very close to 1000 pounds.

Steve Austin is actually 6'2". If a space marine were 6'2" I'm betting he would probably be heavier given that he has denser muscles and bones etc... So 1000+ lbs might not be unrealistic. Though again I would say that someone that tall and heavy might have trouble standing and walking which is unrealistic for marines.

mwnciboo wrote:Doesn't one of the HH Books detail "Little Horus" the captain of one of the companies as being a short arse (don't quote me for some reason i think his name began with a T?? Please correct me).

Edit : Was it something XXXXX Aximand?

...."Horus". Hence the name: Horus.

Anyways, I think a lot of Chaos Marines may actually be smaller than their "modern" Loyalist brothers. In the Pre-Heresy Days the Legions stressed quantity of quality letting any joe blow become a space marine (even converted some in adulthood). Nowadays they try t recruit the most impressive dozen individuals on a whole planet.

SmackCakes wrote:Yes it is the story on page 22. And you are right that he is not described as 'towering' (I must have remembered it wrong) but he is described as being 7 foot tall, and identified as a Captain on at least 5 occasions, including the first paragraph.

Fair enough on the captain thing, that's me failing at reading properly. Expected 'captain' to have a capital and all that. My bad.

SmackCakes wrote:I'm not sure I agree 100% that new fluff always takes precedence over older fluff, I think it is all worth considering to paint a picture of what is going on, and there is merit in preserving original fluff and protecting old ideas from being warped and fan wanked all over by new writers.
In cases where the story has developed, such as Tycho dying, I would agree that new fluff wins. But where there is no expansion and we just have different accounts, I would argue that new and old are equally valuable.

While older fluff is certainly vital to a proper understanding of the 40K universe, it's useful to have some way to sort out conflicts. And if an older book says one thing but new books says another, it's all too easy to see it as a retcon. A 15 year old Codex is still a valid source, I don't feel it's quite as valid as some of the others.

daedalus wrote:

Maurin wrote:I was reading the Chaos Space Marine codex last night. It says very clearly that space marines are around 7'.

But that's just the CSM Codex, I mean, for all we know, they defected to Chaos because they were sick of getting wedgies by the normal sized SM due to being the shortest in the Astartes.

The passage reads "The Space Marines were created as the Emperor's ultimate fighting force. Implanted with the gene-seed of the Primarchs, Space Marines are giant warriors that stand seven feet tall [...]". The next paragraph then goes on to state that "the Chaos Space Marines have all of these strengths and skills, to which are added the power of Chaos", so the "seven feet tall" bit is clearly referring to loyalist Astartes.

daedalus wrote:Also, is that 'very clearly' in armor or out of it? Plus armor, I'd picture at least a couple feet added on top of that. I mean, this is armor that leaves them almost invincible, right? It would have to be thick, and you'd want at least the same amount of armor on your boots as you would have on your chest just so that you didn't explode the first time you stepped on a mine.

Look at a Space Marine model. If the soles of their boots are a foot thick, then they should be way, way taller than 7′. And if their helmet is more than a couple of inches thick, then they're more pinheaded than the even more disproportionate artwork portrays them as.

sourclams wrote:

Æscholt wrote:Deathwatch's Marines, who it claims are barely 7′ tall, are described as weighing 700 - 1500 lbs. I think it's a daft figure, but they are heavy buggers. Probably due to having an ultra-dense, ceramic plated skeleton .

I got the impression that was in armor. There's simply no way that human dimensions, even at 2.5m tall un-armored, could approach 1500 lbs. That would put them closer to the specific gravity of iron than a carbon-based lifeform.

No such luck. Deathwatch claims that a power armoured Astartes weighs "500-1,000kg" and Astartes Power Armour is listed as weighing 180kg. So a Marine without his armour must weigh 320 - 720kg, or roughly 700 - 1500 lbs.

mwnciboo wrote:Doesn't one of the HH Books detail "Little Horus" the captain of one of the companies as being a short arse (don't quote me for some reason i think his name began with a T?? Please correct me).
Edit : Was it something XXXXX Aximand?

Horus "Little Horus" Aximand was the shortest of the Mournival, yes. But I'm not sure they ever gave us his actual height.

e:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Anyways, I think a lot of Chaos Marines may actually be smaller than their "modern" Loyalist brothers. In the Pre-Heresy Days the Legions stressed quantity of quality letting any joe blow become a space marine (even converted some in adulthood). Nowadays they try t recruit the most impressive dozen individuals on a whole planet.

On the other hand, I would suggest that Chaos Marines would be taller than the current crop of Loyalists. Chaos 'gifts' the traitors might have received notwithstanding, the gene-seed Loyalists use has had 10 000 years to degrade. Think of the Blood Angels, they use a tiny amount of their Primarch's blood to make new Marines. Which is "stored" inside Sanguinary Priests, and realistically, only the most minute fraction of the Primarch's blood could have survived the past 10 000 years, changing hands as new Priests are initiated with blood taken from the old, again and again throughout the centuries.

Aren't orks traditionally 'larger' than a man... and SM in armour are a whole head taller than AoBR orcs no? So if Orks are bigger (say at least 8ft) SM must be at least 9'6" - probably more, to be that significantly larger than the orks.

Orks are all hunched over. If they stood up properly and quit slouching they "should" be at least as tall as a Marine.

The models are generally regarded as being "too short" hence the large amount of "True Scale" conversions being done to make the astartes models look bigger than any guardsmen.
There wouldn't be such a difference in height if you could get the orks to, you know, stand up straight!

mwnciboo wrote:Doesn't one of the HH Books detail "Little Horus" the captain of one of the companies as being a short arse (don't quote me for some reason i think his name began with a T?? Please correct me).

Edit : Was it something XXXXX Aximand?

That was 'Little' Horus Aximand

With the 'T' thing, you may have been thinking of Torgaddon. Captain of the 2nd company, also part of the mournival.

sourclams wrote:Orks are all hunched over. If they stood up properly and quit slouching they "should" be at least as tall as a Marine.

No ork shorter thank a WB 'stands up' and their heads are positioned far lower on their shoulders as part of their physiology, I don't think 'they'd be taller if they stood up' is fair given we already know - orks are bigger than a regular 'umie - and marines are head if not head annnd shoulders taller an easy ten feet I reckon

I am deeply concerned by this poll. The tallest recorded instance of a human just short of nine feet tall. Does anyone really want to claim that a Space Marine could be shorter than a regular human?

There need to be at least two more taller options added to the poll so that reasonable options can be chosen.

A nine foot tall person is a regular human?

Well, hopefully they are not, 10ft tall, genetically engineered mutants?

Quite, but 9' is exceptional in human terms.
10' for a marine is too big.

From everything I have read, marines vary in height with an average being approx 9 feet tall. Some space marines can be as tall as 10 feet but these are not the norm, any more then Shaquille O'Neill is the norm for modern humans.

Fairly confident that in Eisenhorn, he described the Space Marine captain as being a "9 foot tall giant of a man".

I thought they described the Captain as being larger than the other Marines in the detachment. Even then the Captain was in his Power Armor so out of it would most likely be eight foot something.

So Im still shooting for 7-8 feet out of PA average.

No, I think they were all about that height. And he didn't have a helmet on. I'm sticking with 9 feet.

In armor.

Ouze wrote:From everything I have read, marines vary in height with an average being approx 9 feet tall. Some space marines can be as tall as 10 feet but these are not the norm, any more then Shaquille O'Neill is the norm for modern humans.

Fairly confident that in Eisenhorn, he described the Space Marine captain as being a "9 foot tall giant of a man".

The full quote is "9 foot tall giant of a man, a bit of a tiddler for an SM".

What's a tiddler?

I agree with Ouze, size varies. An average of 9 feet seems logical, as there are statements saying that marines are 7 feet while others say 10 feet. 11 feet is a little iffy, 6 feet is right out, even though I feel that 7 feet is a little small. I'd say smallest marine is 8 feet, largest is 10 and a half

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:What's a tiddler?

A tiddler is a 9' tall SM, a.k.a, a ChibiMarine. SM in 40k are 10' in armor.

Says you! 9 Feet in armour. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Im sticking with 8-9 feet in armor because Daemonic Stature lists monstrous creatures as being 10 feet tall or larger. SM do not have Monstrous Creature as a rule.

I'm amazed no one has posted the image Jes drew of a full scale Marine in power armour. That imo is probably the most accurate source about the size of Marines in existence. That stood 7'6" feet tall in power armour (which realistically wouldn't add more than a few inches of height, they aren't wearing high heels) so just on 7' out of their armour sounds about right. The picture is known to cause some confusion due to the messed up scales along the side (its starts at 2').

Even ignoring the fact that some of the 40k books out there aren't considered canon, its not that unusual for writers to push the boundaries on how big they can make their main characters which makes them fairly unreliable sources. Every writer wants to make their main characters stand out from the regular guys which means they add on a foot or so and writers also tend to build off what has previously been published and further increase the height of their characters to match previous books. I would certainly put much more stock in the accounts in past and present codices than in the various novels about Marines.

There is also this http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?community=&catId=&categoryId=&pIndex=4&aId=9400003&start=5 interview with Jes where he states Marines are roughly 7'6 allowing for some natural variation (obviously some chapters are going to be bigger than average as well as natural variations within a chapter).

Also of interest could be this http://www.philipsibbering.com/WH40KRP/40K_9_Marine_1_Morphology.shtml page. Quite a bit of the advanced background/technology stuff appears to be unofficial or just totally made up, but the pictures and diagrams look pretty accurate and show just how massive a 7' Marine is going to be.

...that is pretty convincing. I prefer the non-ginormous marine anyway. I think the 10.5 foot tall 1500lbs monstrosity that some are invoking here is actually getting to the point of battlefield impracticality.

How does one survive the wrath of the mighty Space Marines!? by having stairs in your city...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
what the? According to that Astartes still grow for their first 200 years. Veterans are actually bigger - how orky! Well frankly that's case closed for me as it also explains why Loken, a captain, is over 8 feet tall.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh that's just fan fiction Nevermind! I do like it though. Seems well thought out.

Yes, Jes did draw that thing once and someone took a picture of him with it. None of that really makes it canon. And people say lots of things in interviews. Still not canon. Meanwhile, there's a ton of PUBLISHED info that would suggest SM are taller than NBA players.

Manchu wrote:Yes, Jes did draw that thing once and someone took a picture of him with it. None of that really makes it canon. And people say lots of things in interviews. Still not canon. Meanwhile, there's a ton of PUBLISHED info that would suggest SM are taller than NBA players.

I would lose a lot of respect for a Space Marine if he wasn't looking down on Shaq.

but Shaq is huge! I'm sure there are short Space Marines out there that do look up to him. Give them a break, they get teased by their brethen enough!

solkan wrote:I am deeply concerned by this poll. The tallest recorded instance of a human just short of nine feet tall. Does anyone really want to claim that a Space Marine could be shorter than a regular human?
There need to be at least two more taller options added to the poll so that reasonable options can be chosen.

Robert Wadlow, 8′11″ tall at the time of his death, was not a regular human. He suffered from hypertropy of the pituitary gland, which lead to him growing constantly throughout his life. He was not an appropriate benchmark for human height.
But I agree, the poll options are too limited. However, I think that there should be a number of shorter options added. Games Workshop has on many occasions described Space Marines as being around 7′ tall, which is somewhat shorter than a portion of the "regular humans" alive today.

Ouze wrote:Fairly confident that in Eisenhorn, he described the Space Marine captain as being a "9 foot tall giant of a man".

Eisenhorn describes a Space Marine Librarian as being "a giant of a man even without his armour", but I don't believe it puts a figure to his height. It also describes a Chaos Marine as "giant", saying he stands "well over two metres tall".

Powerguy wrote:I'm amazed no one has posted the image Jes drew of a full scale Marine in power armour.

...I did. Twice.

Powerguy wrote:That stood 7′6″ feet tall in power armour [...]

The Marine Jes drew was 7′ to the top of his helmet, with the top of the backpack being perhaps an inch higher.

Powerguy wrote:Even ignoring the fact that some of the 40k books out there aren't considered canon,[...]

I object to this. If it's published under the 40K logo, I consider it canon. It may not be accurate, but it's canon.

Powerguy wrote:There is also this [link] interview with Jes where he states Marines are roughly 7'6 allowing for some natural variation (obviously some chapters are going to be bigger than average as well as natural variations within a chapter).

Jes Goodwin states that Marines are "seven to seven foot six". He then expands, and says that "I say seven to seven foot six because actually if you read the novels they get progressively bigger every time they write a novel", and after talking about the life size drawing he did says, "it's seven to seven foot six, if you see that drawing against the wall, they're absolutely massive".

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I think the 10.5 foot tall 1500lbs monstrosity that some are invoking here is actually getting to the point of battlefield impracticality.

The 1500lb Marine is actually one of the 7′ tall ones.

Manchu wrote:Meanwhile, there's a ton of PUBLISHED info that would suggest SM are taller than NBA players.

And there's a fair number of "PUBLISHED" sources that suggests that Marines are shorter than the taller basketball players out there, including the current Codex: Chaos Space Marines and the Deathwatch Core Rulebook.
Marines are certainly a lot more massive than basketball players, as Jes Goodwin said in the interview above "you need to bolt about four of them together to get the bulk". They're just not necessarily taller than them.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:What's a tiddler?

A small fish that if you caught it, you would throw it back to let it grow to a proper size.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Æscholt wrote:

solkan wrote:I am deeply concerned by this poll. The tallest recorded instance of a human just short of nine feet tall. Does anyone really want to claim that a Space Marine could be shorter than a regular human?
There need to be at least two more taller options added to the poll so that reasonable options can be chosen.

Robert Wadlow, 8′11″ tall at the time of his death, was not a regular human. He suffered from hypertropy of the pituitary gland, which lead to him growing constantly throughout his life. He was not an appropriate benchmark for human height.
But I agree, the poll options are too limited. However, I think that there should be a number of shorter options added. Games Workshop has on many occasions described Space Marines as being around 7′ tall, which is somewhat shorter than a portion of the "regular humans" alive today.

but its not perpetual unlike Wadlow or even Andre the Giant.

7-8' is what I have always used as that's what I remember from when I started, but if the standard has changed to 10' then I can see why Marines are quite as ferocious as they are portrayed to be... The growing pains they suffer must be fierce. I'm 6' 7" and mine were bad enough.

Manchu wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:What's a tiddler?

A tiddler is a 9' tall SM, a.k.a, a ChibiMarine. SM in 40k are 10' in armor.

Wait, you serious, Manchu?
There's actual stuff in the codex that states that 10' is huge, even for a SM. Where are you even getting that data?

I don't think 10 feet is average, but if nine feet is average it stands to reason that 10 feet is not very unusual.

10ft is very close to Dreadnought height. I think it's pretty unusual. Still, given the variance in fluff, there may not be an accurate way to tell.

Doesn't it say in the Codex that a Dreadnought stands "Three times the height of a man" or something like that?

A 10-foot tall Space Marine would only be just over halfway as tall as a Dread.

Well, if we take 1.6 metres as the average height of a man:

Dreadnought is 4.8 metres tall.

10ft: 2 and a bit metres.


Hey, you're right. Fair enough then. Probably should have done the maths beforehand.

I could still be wrong. I'll have to take a gander at the codex to be sure, but I do recall them being pretty enormous.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Well, if we take 1.6 metres as the average height of a man:

Maybe should have done the research: average male height is approx 1.75m

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:10ft: 2 and a bit metres.


Hey, you're right. Fair enough then. Probably should have done the maths beforehand.

Should have done the right maths; as said before, 10' is over 3m:

Ulver wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:3 metres= roughly nine feet

3 metres ≈ 10 feet

1" = 0.0254m
1' = 12"
10' = 120"
120*0.0254 = 3.048m

Ulver wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Well, if we take 1.6 metres as the average height of a man:

Maybe should have done the research: average male height is approx 1.75m

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:10ft: 2 and a bit metres.


Hey, you're right. Fair enough then. Probably should have done the maths beforehand.

Should have done the right maths; as said before, 10' is over 3m.

Fine, whatever. I never claimed to be good at maths. In that case, avreage SM is about 3/4 of the height of a Dreadnought by those figures.
Also, given I had no idea what the average male height is, I think I can be forgiven for being about 15cm out.

No!

This is serious business! 15 CM off? We ain't lobbin hand grenades here!

Damn it! Why must everyone bring up my issues with hand grenades? WHY?

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Fine, whatever. I never claimed to be good at maths. In that case, avreage SM is about 3/4 of the height of a Dreadnought by those figures.
Also, given I had no idea what the average male height is, I think I can be forgiven for being about 15cm out.

It's under 10%, so yeah I can forgive you that

Well, now, if we take the combined stats of a Dreadnought being about 5 metres tall, and the theoretical height of a 10ft marine being about 3 metres and a bit tall, then that would make a marine just a bit over half the height of a Dread.

Now, let us look at a picture of a Space Marine and a Guardsman for size comparison:

Here, we have a SM in full power armour, an average Guardsman and some other guy. Ignore the other guy for the purposes of this comparison.
Now, the general consensus on this thread seems to be that Power Armour adds about a foot of height onto the marine. In this case, then, that puts the marine at anywhere between 7ft and 8ft without armour according to this scale.
Course, this is a fan's comparison, and may not be true, but it certainly rings true with a lot of the fluff I've read.

Why are we back to 10 feet tall? Æscholt already posted a summery of quoted cannon heights, which pointed to Space Marines being 7-8 feet tall. Jess Goodwin even said Space Marines are 7' to 7'6", the only person who ever stated anything close to 3 meters was Ben Counter who's name is frequently mentioned along with such literary geniuses as C. S. Goto. Here is is again...

Æscholt wrote:Here's a summary of the various 'canon' heights Marines have been given from time to time. If anyone has an example I've missed, then please don't hesitate to mention it.
    • Deathwatch says that "whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1 metres tall".
    • The current Codex: Chaos Space Marines says Marines "stand seven feet tall".
    • 2nd edition's Codex: Angels of Death describes a Marine as "seven foot tall".
    • Jes Goodwin has said that Marines are "seven to seven foot six", and his "life size" drawing of an armour Space Marine was 7′ tall.
    • James Swallow's Blood Angels series features Marines who stand "well over two metres" tall.
    • Dan Abnett's books usually place a Marine as being about a metre taller than a human, and in Horus Rising describes Loken as being "a giant, two and a half metres tall".
    • Anthony Reynolds's Word Bearers are shorter than three metres, with an "almost three metres" tall staff being "taller even than" the Marine carrying it, and a three metre tall Ogryn "dwarfed even the Terminators".
    • And lastly, Ben Counter describes Marines as being "three metres tall" in his Soul Drinkers novels.

This gives Space Marines an average cannon hight of around 7.6 foot tall. But the median and mode heights are still 7 foot.

Can't believe Deathwatch says armoured marines are 2.1 metres tall. Many Guardsmen are taller than that.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Can't believe Deathwatch says armoured marines are 2.1 metres tall. Many Guardsmen are taller than that.

And what is wrong with that? Why does every marine have to be taller than every human ever? What is wrong with them just being tall? 2.1 meters is insane tall, I'm not sure I've ever met anyone that tall its so rare.

I think the wealth of information that states that SM average about 7ft something kinda lends the general " poll scale is wrong" argument a lot of credibility, given that they're all well-known fluff sources. Two of these are even codexes, although one is no longer in use.

Because SPHEZ MARINES are the bestest!!! RAWR!!!


And that is the subconscious thinking of many people voting for taller marines. Don't get me wrong, I think they should be taller too. It's just that with all the fluff talking about how big marines are, we've come to the conclusion that they must be huge and dwarf everyone. A marine that is smaller than a guardsman? HERESY!

It's the way they've been cemented into people's minds from reading BL books

Bigger doesn't always mean taller. Space marines are much broader than normal humans as well as being muscular.

I've found this picture off the internet, I don't think it's canon most likely fan art, but this is how I picture the size difference. If the spacemarine was 7-8 feet tall and this is what it looks like, than I am more inclined to agree.

Other wise, I stand by a taller height

Thats what most Marines look like in Canon pictures I've seen. Clearly not 10 feet in Power armor, so he wouldn't be 10 out of it.

Never seen one shorter than 9 ft not in armour

BrotherStynier wrote:Thats what most Marines look like in Canon pictures I've seen. Clearly not 10 feet in Power armor, so he wouldn't be 10 out of it.

I'm sorry, I'm used to metric, but even then, my estimation of measurements is terrible.

What size would you say he is?

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:

BrotherStynier wrote:Thats what most Marines look like in Canon pictures I've seen. Clearly not 10 feet in Power armor, so he wouldn't be 10 out of it.

I'm sorry, I'm used to metric, but even then, my estimation of measurements is terrible.

What size would you say he is?

I would say he's 8 foot something in his armor, 7 foot something out.

yeah,
Stephen Merchant is 8' tall. the big lanky goggle-eyed freak. And that's with without his prognoid glands


Space marines are 10' tall FACT.
Scientific Fact.
and you can't argue with the facts!

Panic...

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:I've found this picture off the internet, I don't think it's canon most likely fan art, but this is how I picture the size difference. If the spacemarine was 7-8 feet tall and this is what it looks like, than I am more inclined to agree.

Other wise, I stand by a taller height

Assuming that woman is 5.5 feet tall, and assuming their poses knock off the same number of overall inches in straight-standing height, then the Marine is 7.6 feet tall at the head and 8.1 feet tall at the backpack.

If she's 6 feet tall, the Marine is a little over 8 feet in armor.

In short, unless that chick is 7 feet tall, the Marine is nowhere close to 10 feet in armor.

OP needs to update poll options. We need some 7 and 8 foot tall marines in here!

Panic wrote:yeah,
Stephen Merchant is 8' tall. the big lanky goggle-eyed freak. And that's with without his prognoid glands


Space marines are 10' tall FACT.
Scientific Fact.
and you can't argue with the facts!

Panic...

I haven't been here long enough to work out if that's humour or not but assuming you're being serious sooooo... you're kidding me right?!?! 8 foot?! You telling me Ricky Gervais (and all those blokes standing around) is 7'?! The top of that road sign is about 8' off the ground.

Stephen Merchant's wiki page claims he's 6'7"; I know it's not the be all and end all of fact, but I doubt they're out by 20%.

Ulver wrote:

Panic wrote:yeah,
Stephen Merchant is 8' tall. the big lanky goggle-eyed freak. And that's with without his prognoid glands


Space marines are 10' tall FACT.
Scientific Fact.
and you can't argue with the facts!

Panic...

I haven't been here long enough to work out if that's humour or not but assuming you're being serious sooooo... you're kidding me right?!?! 8 foot?! You telling me Ricky Gervais (and all those blokes standing around) is 7'?! The top of that road sign is about 8' off the ground.

Stephen Merchant's wiki page claims he's 6'7"; I know it's not the be all and end all of fact, but I doubt they're out by 20%.

Agreed, that road sign in the background is probably 8' up that pole, that man on the right certainly isn't 8'.

Not sure this has come up yet but the marine in this pic looks pretty massive (if a little OTT imo) I still stick with the fact marines are around 8ft as my true scale marines seem to be about that hight compared with guardsmen. I say if a guardsman is staring a space marine in the chest you've got the height right.

vodo40k wrote:Not sure this has come up yet but the marine in this pic looks pretty massive (if a little OTT imo) I still stick with the fact marines are around 8ft as my true scale marines seem to be about that hight compared with guardsmen. I say if a guardsman is staring a space marine in the chest you've got the height right.

He's not too large, the Imperial Rep is a hunched old man.

I was having a chat with Sicarius the other day, you know the sort of thing: he thinks he is a tactical genius I pointed out that last week he got his head pulled off by a Tau battle suit and then his entire company got wiped out by the new DE codex anyway long story short when we had finished our caramel machiato I whipped out my trusty tape measure and damn me if he wasn't nine and a half feet tall to the inch without his cute little blue booties on.

BrotherStynier wrote:

vodo40k wrote:Not sure this has come up yet but the marine in this pic looks pretty massive (if a little OTT imo) I still stick with the fact marines are around 8ft as my true scale marines seem to be about that hight compared with guardsmen. I say if a guardsman is staring a space marine in the chest you've got the height right.

He's not too large, the Imperial Rep is a hunched old man.

Yea I noticed that, he's probably around 5-5.5 ft tall. Tau are pretty short anway so that marine probably looks to be high 8ft.

If I am right, considering how in most of the books i have read they are stated as being "Well over 2 and a half meters tall" out of armour. And they are supposed to be about 3 meters(ten feet) in termi, I'd say they are about '8 "7 1/2

Isaac Corbett wrote:If I am right, considering how in most of the books i have read they are stated as being "Well over 2 and a half meters tall" out of armour. And they are supposed to be about 3 meters(ten feet) in termi, I'd say they are about '8 "7 1/2

Where does it say that. I want the name of the book and the page number, not some half remembered fact.

Necromancy of poll that had bad options to begin with!

vodo40k wrote:Not sure this has come up yet but the marine in this pic looks pretty massive (if a little OTT imo) I still stick with the fact marines are around 8ft as my true scale marines seem to be about that hight compared with guardsmen. I say if a guardsman is staring a space marine in the chest you've got the height right.

I agree completely with vodo40k. It's not just the height you have to think of but the mass too. The human in vodo40k's picture is about 5'8" tall give or take a couple of inches. The Space Marine is around 7' tall but the mass makes him look even larger. A lot of people seem to have a bit of a problem accepting the 7' argument but trust me, if a 7' tall Space Marine was stood in front of you with that kind of bulk on him you would be seriously impressed with the mass of his frame. Now just look at vodo40k's picture above again and now add another 3' to the Marine, THREE FEET!!! That's the range of a heavy bolter and don't forget to factor in the increase of mass too.

10' tall is WAAY over the top, even for Terminator Armour. Anyone who honestly thinks that Space Marine's would be 10 feet tall haven't thought this through properly.

Dreadnoughts are about 15'-16' tall. Look at the picture in the back of the Space Marine codex (page 141) where they are stood on parade (or whatever they are doing) and you will notice that the Space Marine's are half as tall as the dreadnought. If the Space Marine's were around 10' then they would be stood as tall as the assault cannon which is clearly a ludicrous and woefully deranged prospect.

I know that some sources have stated that Terminators are 3m tall but at the most I would think that it adds anything up to 1' in height which would mean that a Space Marine in Power Armour would come up to a Terminator's chest and NOT his solar plexus region as would be the case otherwise. Authors are not infallible and the 3m Terminators, IMO, is simply an example of this.

So let it go, 7' is PLENTY and 10' is just plain daft.