Interesting topic here. Why do Chaos Marines appear to be bested by their loyalists kin all the bloody time? The only time Chaos Marines seemed a challenge was in the HH books, then millenia down the line all they do is die. It was a while ago, but I read this book "The Chapters Due" and Scipio squad of the Ultramarines 2nd company cut down a Claws of Lorek Chaos squad as they disembarked a Rhino with only one wounded marine, if I remember correctly. This seems to happen frequently in most novels. I think some of you know what I'm talking about. My point, why does this happen? Is there a reason? I mean, they are marked by Chaos and possess power that loyalists do not.
Because the good guys always have to win. Even if the bad guys are more experienced, pumped full of warp dust and have the same wargear the good guys do.
Perhaps all those centuries of debauchery, stabbing your former brothers in the back, indulging your evil hobbies, dealing with untrustworthy allies and whatever other randomness your cursed gods want isn't conducive to being an effective military force.
I mean, the Dark Mechanicus gets eaten as often as not by their own technology, even if it is "more advanced", Fabulous Bile and other evil apothecaries spend all their time giving the equivalent of corrupt politicians SM upgrades, Nurgle cultists don't maintain equipment, Khornate fanatics run around beheading anything they can find including themselves, Slanneshi spend all their time surfing for porn and Tzennech is busy casting spells that can explode their own heads about 10% of the time.
Durandal wrote: Perhaps all those centuries of debauchery, stabbing your former brothers in the back, indulging your evil hobbies, dealing with untrustworthy allies and whatever other randomness your cursed gods want isn't conducive to being an effective military force.
I mean, the Dark Mechanicus gets eaten as often as not by their own technology, even if it is "more advanced", Fabulous Bile and other evil apothecaries spend all their time giving the equivalent of corrupt politicians SM upgrades, Nurgle cultists don't maintain equipment, Khornate fanatics run around beheading anything they can find including themselves, Slanneshi spend all their time surfing for porn and Tzennech is busy casting spells that can explode their own heads about 10% of the time.
How successful do you think chaos should be?
Chaos should be more successful then what they're always displayed as. I will assume you're being funny, consdering your references to porn and such.
By UM's you mean Ultramarines? My brother plays them and he uses the dakka tacitcs, it proves quite successful. Load up on tac squads and devastators. It should work well.
Durandal wrote: Perhaps all those centuries of debauchery, stabbing your former brothers in the back, indulging your evil hobbies, dealing with untrustworthy allies and whatever other randomness your cursed gods want isn't conducive to being an effective military force.
I mean, the Dark Mechanicus gets eaten as often as not by their own technology, even if it is "more advanced", Fabulous Bile and other evil apothecaries spend all their time giving the equivalent of corrupt politicians SM upgrades, Nurgle cultists don't maintain equipment, Khornate fanatics run around beheading anything they can find including themselves, Slanneshi spend all their time surfing for porn and Tzennech is busy casting spells that can explode their own heads about 10% of the time.
How successful do you think chaos should be?
And yet thats what makes DE so successful.
Lets see: An old thing for Khorne used to be that they had to repair and keep their weapons intact, as a useless weapon showed a useless master, Slaaneshi enjoy killing and delight in hearing the suffering, and then you have those seeking to master weapon creation, Tzeentch often mutates its weapons into..more interesting things, or infuses them with the warp, Nurgle cultists actually DO take care of their equipment, and those that usually are far to past to take care of them usually end up with mutated bile shooters anyways.
Fabius Bile enjoys getting new recruits as any other, because if he's in an experimental mood he'll create things for anyone, Dark Mechanicus doesn't often get eaten themselves...Thats usually the slaves they employ that do.
Chaos does not = Stupid Evil, in some cases yes you'll find them, but Chaos is the faction of Madmen and Evil Thinkers alike, heck at times the Warp itself will provide weapons for them.
This is very annoying to me too. In my opinion according to fluff your average CSM should be much more experienced and skillful than your average loyalist.
If you want a good book that actually levels the playing field, read Storm of Iron.
herpguy wrote: This is very annoying to me too. In my opinion according to fluff your average CSM should be much more experienced and skillful than your average loyalist.
If you want a good book that actually levels the playing field, read Storm of Iron.
It's simply plot armor for loyalists, if you read any space marine book (not knocking them helsreach is one of my favorites) they tend to win, they are GW's poster boys so they can't always have them tying the traitors or losing. I definitely wish it was better portrayed though as their aren't many good novels about chaos winning.
If you feel brave enough to see how thick plot armor can get, watch the ultramarines movie.
Also the Night Lords series by ADB is a very good read, lots of insight into daily chaos lives and they fight a lot of loyalists in the 3 books.
Kharn745 wrote: It's simply plot armor for loyalists, if you read any space marine book (not knocking them helsreach is one of my favorites) they tend to win, they are GW's poster boys so they can't always have them tying the traitors or losing. I definitely wish it was better portrayed though as their aren't many good novels about chaos winning.
If you feel brave enough to see how thick plot armor can get, watch the ultramarines movie.
Also the Night Lords series by ADB is a very good read, lots of insight into daily chaos lives and they fight a lot of loyalists in the 3 books.
Yeah, I did watch the Ultra movie. They lost 2 or 3 brothers to a slew (I don't even know how many) of Chaos Marines. Plot armor is quite ridiculous
Agreed, it's plot armour and that's a shame. When I discovered the 40k universe back when the second edition had just come out, I think that there were more stories of equal fights than there is now. Now it's "You want to read a story where your faction wins? Read your codex."
That's a real shame since that's what drew me into this universe. Also the evil and badness have been toned down - please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that it hasn't always been the way that Horus repented in the end. That kind of softness sickens me and tells me that the writers can't write something original and have to copy from Star Wars like so many other aspects have been.
Do anyone know about the background of Games Workshop and if some new owners went other ways during the late 90s or 0s? It sure would make sense.
The hilarious thing is that CSM's should actually have a larger kill ratio against loyalists, not the other way around. In a fight between a veteran and a young scrub, the veteran should win the fight as he holds the advantage of experience, which is the only variable between the two. The "young" warrior should only be winning by logistics or random luck, loyalists should only have a logistical advantage over CSM's, nothing else.
It has always bugged me that chaos marines are less expensive and less effective than loyalist marines, because really it should be the other way around. Becoming a worse guy (not a bad guy, you were already that to begin with ) should make you more powerful, because a) grimdark! b) else why do that in the first place ?
Chaospling wrote: Agreed, it's plot armour and that's a shame. When I discovered the 40k universe back when the second edition had just come out, I think that there were more stories of equal fights than there is now. Now it's "You want to read a story where your faction wins? Read your codex."
That's a real shame since that's what drew me into this universe. Also the evil and badness have been toned down - please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that it hasn't always been the way that Horus repented in the end. That kind of softness sickens me and tells me that the writers can't write something original and have to copy from Star Wars like so many other aspects have been.
Do anyone know about the background of Games Workshop and if some new owners went other ways during the late 90s or 0s? It sure would make sense.
Yes, Horus did indeed repent in the end. I agree completely with you, farrr to darth vader-ish
Bolters are deadly yes, but PA is supposed to be more than tissue paper against it.
Chaos Marines are not idiots.
UM recruits do not become Tacticals immediately.
Chaplains do not have the Staff of Deus Ex Machina.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think Dawn of War II does it great. To represent better logistics and slightly better maintained wargear, loyalists get somewhat more hitpoints (We are talking something like 1,5% though) and bolter DPS, as well as the Kraken Bolts ability, but CSM get a bit higher melee damage to compensate.
I admit I haven't read many Warhammer novels, buuuut I recall in ' Treacheries of the Space Marines ' there is a part that is grossly one sided for Chaos involving waves of Khorne worshipping marines unleashed on a city. Over all that particular story in the collection wasn't too great but that single description has stuck with me ever since in just its sheer brutality where Imperial Forces were steam rolled as if made out of paper. It was amazing.
Overall though I admit a lot of the stuff I have read about the exploits of Chaos champions has been massively dissappointing... Opening a book expecting to read of sorceries and brute force and finding yourself reading about skipping slaanesh worshippers, library scouring tzeentch followers..... Nope.
As for the tabletop, I've fielded both Death Guard ( my major army ) and Imperial Fists ( secondary), and while both are strong and more than capable I have delt far faaar more damage with Nurgle on my side.
Actually, fluffwise most regular chaos space marines don't get any extra 'bonuses' over space marines. And at the same time they have worse and more irregular maintainance and outdated gear. They do get 'freedom' and enormous ambitions. Chaos rewards those who prove themselves worthy and not everyone who says: "Aha, i'm a bad guy now! Chaos, reward me pls". So, you can expect a chaos champion, sorcerror, apostle and aspiring champions to be much more powerful than their loyalist's counterpart. And the ones who are explictly blessed by Chaos Gods - resented by plague marines, berserkers, noize marines, 1000 sons(blessed?). Also those who has mutated or accepted some sort of daemonhood - possessed, obliterators, daemon princes.
But regular CSM spend most of their lives in warband's affairs. They're usually not trained in the manner loyalists are. Their equipment is outdated and worse maintained. They're more barbaric overall.
Crimson Slaughter Supplement wrote:[...] for the Chaos Space Marines are fearsome foes. They possess all of a Space Marine's abilities and skills, and his matchless gear of war. In addition to this, such enemies also wield the corrupting powers of the Dark Gods and their insidious gifts.[...]
I have always thought the difference was about logistics - that loyalists had the entire Imperium backing them - and the traitors whilst their heroes have access to powerful weapons bought by either dark promises or piracy the average CSM is cut off from a good regular supply chain and has to make do - hence the difference ... They may be more experienced, harder warriors but when push comes to shove the quartermasters really matter.
It gets really annoying. In "Know no Fear", you read about some SM obliterating full squads of CSM with their mighty bolters while the enemy fire (bolters) only scratches their Power Armor. And if the bad guys somehow manage to get to the good guys, they fare even worse. Then, to make it even more heroic, the writer informs the reader that the bad guys are using far better armor and weapons. And a Daemon Prince appears only to be killed with a knife. And so on for hundreds of pages.
Most of the recent Black Library books and the background sections in the rules (ie, the Tyranid dataslates) are like this. And I think it is getting worse. They are targeting younger players. And they want them to play marines.
"Storm of Iron" is a good example of how a book about 40k should be written. And Dawn of War did a really good job at depicting the universe. Far better than the tabletop game, which is sad.
koooaei wrote: Actually, fluffwise most regular chaos space marines don't get any extra 'bonuses' over space marines. And at the same time they have worse and more irregular maintainance and outdated gear. They do get 'freedom' and enormous ambitions. Chaos rewards those who prove themselves worthy and not everyone who says: "Aha, i'm a bad guy now! Chaos, reward me pls". So, you can expect a chaos champion, sorcerror, apostle and aspiring champions to be much more powerful than their loyalist's counterpart. And the ones who are explictly blessed by Chaos Gods - resented by plague marines, berserkers, noize marines, 1000 sons(blessed?). Also those who has mutated or accepted some sort of daemonhood - possessed, obliterators, daemon princes.
But regular CSM spend most of their lives in warband's affairs. They're usually not trained in the manner loyalists are. Their equipment is outdated and worse maintained. They're more barbaric overall.
Outdated gear is actually wrong. During the HH, the plotting Chaos legions were the first to be issued all the newest and strongest gear, such as mark IV armour. The loyalists had been purposely left with the older mark II armour. And mark 7 was created durng the HH (Auila armour as it is most commonly known) and if you know about the fall of luna, then you know the traitors had access to this mark, so gear isn't exactly a major issue. And I don't believe Chaos Marines are stupid enough to not give their gear maintenance. Never have and never will believe that.
And Chaos Marines are still super human and the fact that "brutality" is a common trait, they're now weak and inferior? How about the sons of Russ? Are they not barbaric? The fact is irrelevant.
Most Chaos Marines DO actually get a small mark of some kind. Especially with how old most of them are.
The fact of this matter is, no matter what faults you wanna put on Chaos Marines, they should still be a bigger challenge then what they are now.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
da001 wrote: Plot armor. The good guys always win.
It gets really annoying. In "Know no Fear", you read about some SM obliterating full squads of CSM with their mighty bolters while the enemy fire (bolters) only scratches their Power Armor. And if the bad guys somehow manage to get to the good guys, they fare even worse. Then, to make it even more heroic, the writer informs the reader that the bad guys are using far better armor and weapons. And a Daemon Prince appears only to be killed with a knife. And so on for hundreds of pages.
Most of the recent Black Library books and the background sections in the rules (ie, the Tyranid dataslates) are like this. And I think it is getting worse. They are targeting younger players. And they want them to play marines.
"Storm of Iron" is a good example of how a book about 40k should be written. And Dawn of War did a really good job at depicting the universe. Far better than the tabletop game, which is sad.
Yes, perfect. I read "know no fear" so I know exactly what your talking about. Its the most ridiculous thing ever. I do like book though despite it. Dawn of war is actually the best at depicting the epic duels of good vs evil.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
koooaei wrote: And what exactly are those gifts that every chaos marine possesses?
I think the whole Grimdark setting has just twisted itself out of proportion. No new factions come in that aids the imperium. Because we systematically try to wipe them out for not being human. The setting just gets worse and worse for mankind. As a result the Loyalist marines have had to become better and better to get the imperium out of whatever gak-storm it is currently being assailed by. If chaos marines had parity, the imperium's continued existence would make even less sense than it currently does.
In all honesty it probably comes down to money. Would more people buy a book where Ultramar or Dark Angels win against impossible odds or would more people by a book where Chaos slaughters loyalist marine chapters. On a personal not I agree with a comment that was made earlier. A chaos space marine that hasn't lost its mind and become a ravening pawn of his chaos god should be much more powerful than a stock standard loyalist.
Imperious wrote: I think the whole Grimdark setting has just twisted itself out of proportion. No new factions come in that aids the imperium. Because we systematically try to wipe them out for not being human. The setting just gets worse and worse for mankind. As a result the Loyalist marines have had to become better and better to get the imperium out of whatever gak-storm it is currently being assailed by. If chaos marines had parity, the imperium's continued existence would make even less sense than it currently does.
In all honesty it probably comes down to money. Would more people buy a book where Ultramar or Dark Angels win against impossible odds or would more people by a book where Chaos slaughters loyalist marine chapters. On a personal not I agree with a comment that was made earlier. A chaos space marine that hasn't lost its mind and become a ravening pawn of his chaos god should be much more powerful than a stock standard loyalist.
Loyalists should not be slaughtering Chaos Marines and Chaos Marines should not be slaughtering SM chapters. It should be a balanced fight, because both sides have their own fair share of ups and downs.
I would that without any support on both side, and with equal numbers on both sides, the Chaos marines would have a small edge. Nothing definitive, but they should be just slightly better.
Books about CSM aren't a more balanced perspective, it's just the same from the other side. It all really just boils down to who is supposed to win the battle in the book.
The way I see it is that CSM are slightly better individual warriors, but loyalists are better at the tactical level. If the battle begins to turn against chaos however, I imagine that some of the individual warriors would just decide that it's not worth their time and they're better off without these idiots who got them into this mess in the first place. Loyalists don't think like that, except in rare cases, they fight as a cohesive unit, making up for their relative lack of experience. That's not to say CSM are incapable of tactics, far from it, but their individual nature hampers them somewhat.
This is why I say the grim dark setting has twisted story telling a bit. If Chaos and loyalist had parity the imperium wouldn't exist. Chaos has no restrictions on how many marines they can produce. You could just remake your legions and stomp your way through to Terra. The universe couldn't stand against space marines when they fought for the emperor and the Primarchs. If you had parity right now and with all the gifts your heinous gods could offer you. The emperor would be Slanesh's blow up doll right now. Because everything is so grim dark, mankind has to fight against Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar, Tau and lets not forget the Orks. There is no real credible way the Imperium should really be standing at all. I think writers have over-compensated with Loyalist Space marines coming to the rescue and as a result everything's a bit more skewed than it was.
Not defending it at all just putting it out there.
Loyalists tend to work together a bit more, with less of the whole 'wellstabyouinthebackassoonasit'sOKto' vibe.
That, logistics and greater organisation and discipline is what tends to favour SM
Imperious wrote: This is why I say the grim dark setting has twisted story telling a bit. If Chaos and loyalist had parity the imperium wouldn't exist. Chaos has no restrictions on how many marines they can produce. You could just remake your legions and stomp your way through to Terra. The universe couldn't stand against space marines when they fought for the emperor and the Primarchs. If you had parity right now and with all the gifts your heinous gods could offer you. The emperor would be Slanesh's blow up doll right now. Because everything is so grim dark, mankind has to fight against Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar, Tau and lets not forget the Orks. There is no real credible way the Imperium should really be standing at all. I think writers have over-compensated with Loyalist Space marines coming to the rescue and as a result everything's a bit more skewed than it was.
Not defending it at all just putting it out there.
Being quite frank, the Imperium can capitalize on certain fortunate situations thus preserve the life of humanity. To be honest, most of the races you stated fight among themselves all the time, especially the Tyranids. Those bugs eat anything that moves (or doesn't move anyway, yikes!) so everybody has to put up with them. Tau...young and less experienced then every single race hence would not have a complete idea of how to destroy the imerium. Well, we actually manage to barter and negotiate with them, so its not that bad. Eldar too, they're reasoned with sometimes. Orks, a bunch of block heads that run around screaming WAAGHHH! until a bolt round strikes them in the face. Necrons, a lot of grumpy metal undead a-holes that literally woke up on the wrong side of the galaxy (haha). I do understand what your saying though. Humanity is close to the edge of a very deep hole, and their inching ever closer to it with every passing day...or at least they should be.
I don't see why a chaos marine would be far superior to a regular loyalist marine at all. Unless you are expecting that that chaos marine manage to survive from pre-herasey to now without dying. Which by all accounts is highly unlikely and the ones that have you might find them to be chaos lords which you are right, are substantially better then their regular marine counter parts, oddly on par with their lord/captain choice counter parts though, as they should be.
You have to understand that chaos is constantly turning and corrupting people to maintain their numbers they are NOT the same people that turned at the very beginning.
Not to mention the entire point of chaos is descending into chaos, they don't care as much for military drills, practice, training, maintaining formations. They quite literally dive in for carnage and pray to their dark gods that they bestow demonic gifts upon them to destroy their enemies. Which, given in the book you have access to god-princes with wings and all manner of daemonically imbued things I feel that the chaos list would be perfectly fine.
Don't forget the marks of chaos also give them an advantage, perhaps to replace the more tactical aspects of a space marine.
The hilarious thing is that CSM's should actually have a larger kill ratio against loyalists, not the other way around. In a fight between a veteran and a young scrub,
Again to raise this point, the 'young scrubs' of the space marines are more susceptible to being turned to chaos then the ones that have resisted it for centuries I find it difficult not to stress enough the fact that the chaos that turned at Hersey aren't the same ones here today and again if they are they are chaos lords by now or chosen.
Yeah, games workshop writers have the literary sophistication of a six year old. The good guys go "pew pew" and the bad guys fall over to much high-fiving by the victorious.
Not to mention the entire point of chaos is descending into chaos, they don't care as much for military drills, practice, training, maintaining formations. They quite literally dive in for carnage and pray to their dark gods that they bestow demonic gifts upon them to destroy their enemies. Which, given in the book you have access to god-princes with wings and all manner of daemonically imbued things I feel that the chaos list would be perfectly fine.
...Why do people think Chaos = stupid? They do use formations, practice, training.
Sasa0mg wrote: I don't see why a chaos marine would be far superior to a regular loyalist marine at all. Unless you are expecting that that chaos marine manage to survive from pre-herasey to now without dying. Which by all accounts is highly unlikely and the ones that have you might find them to be chaos lords which you are right, are substantially better then their regular marine counter parts, oddly on par with their lord/captain choice counter parts though, as they should be.
You have to understand that chaos is constantly turning and corrupting people to maintain their numbers they are NOT the same people that turned at the very beginning.
Not to mention the entire point of chaos is descending into chaos, they don't care as much for military drills, practice, training, maintaining formations. They quite literally dive in for carnage and pray to their dark gods that they bestow demonic gifts upon them to destroy their enemies. Which, given in the book you have access to god-princes with wings and all manner of daemonically imbued things I feel that the chaos list would be perfectly fine.
Don't forget the marks of chaos also give them an advantage, perhaps to replace the more tactical aspects of a space marine.
The hilarious thing is that CSM's should actually have a larger kill ratio against loyalists, not the other way around. In a fight between a veteran and a young scrub,
Again to raise this point, the 'young scrubs' of the space marines are more susceptible to being turned to chaos then the ones that have resisted it for centuries I find it difficult not to stress enough the fact that the chaos that turned at Hersey aren't the same ones here today and again if they are they are chaos lords by now or chosen.
What you said about Chaos Marines running around like hulligans screaming praise to their dark gods hoping for carnage sounds illogical to the extreme, even for a barbaric Chaos Marine. Sounds like Khorne Berzerkers but thats it. Chaos Marines do have tactics and strategy. For instance, the Black Legion attacks their enemy command structure to kill their leaders, leaving a confused and leaderless force to play with. Iron Warriors, we all know them. They'll take you out with their expert seigecraft. All Chaos Marines have strategy and militaristic understanding of how to win battles. Its more than just "carnage," though that is their main point in life.
Iron Warriors are a great example. They have practiced their craft for ten thousand years. Newcomers like DKoK are like fumbling children next to IW expertise.
I mean really, if you read Dead Sky, Black Sun or Storm of Iron...
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Iron Warriors are a great example. They have practiced their craft for ten thousand years. Newcomers like DKoK are like fumbling children next to IW expertise.
I mean really, if you read Dead Sky, Black Sun or Storm of Iron...
Yes. Thats the whole reason the Iron Warriors went to Chaos was the fierce and bitter rivalry they had with their Imperial Fists brothers. They perfected such tactics.
Sasa0mg wrote: Unless you are expecting that that chaos marine manage to survive from pre-herasey to now without dying. Which by all accounts is highly unlikely and the ones that have you might find them to be chaos lords
No, they end up… marines with the VotLW rule. Which are not really stronger than regular rank-and-file marines…
If you want to see some loyalist get their butts kicked, armor stolen, skulls cracked, and be constantly look like self-centered-over-heroic-people, read ADB's Night Lord series.
I can see why a traitor astartes chapter of more recent times that did not betray the imperium following right after the heresy would be equal. But some of the first legions that have Astartes that are 10,000 years old they should be wiping the floor with these 300 year old or younger Astartes in the current loyalist chapters.
Just my opinion, even though they are psychopathic and are often self centered individuals (which im guessing makes them less likely to stick together as a group.) But for one on one combat you would think Chaos Space Marines from the HH era would be far more skilled.
Gjd123 wrote: I have always thought the difference was about logistics - that loyalists had the entire Imperium backing them - and the traitors whilst their heroes have access to powerful weapons bought by either dark promises or piracy the average CSM is cut off from a good regular supply chain and has to make do - hence the difference ... They may be more experienced, harder warriors but when push comes to shove the quartermasters really matter.
This is true for some legions and many renegade chapters, but the Dark Mechanicus have their own forgeworlds in the Eye that are quite capable of keeping huge armies very well equipped. The Iron Warriors' new homeworld is basically one giant factory that produces everything they need.
GravityPriest wrote: But some of the first legions that have Astartes that are 10,000 years old they should be wiping the floor with these 300 year old or younger Astartes in the current loyalist chapters.
Just my opinion, even though they are psychopathic and are often self centered individuals (which im guessing makes them less likely to stick together as a group.) But for one on one combat you would think Chaos Space Marines from the HH era would be far more skilled.
That is the common thread here. People assume just because these marines have lasted 10k years it confers some tactical advantage. But my somewhat humorous post earlier in the thread is that the Heresy era marines have not been constantly training. Given the fickle time in the warp, few have been active the entire 10k years, and the most powerful and skilled manage to elevate themselves to demon prince status. Even for those who are active, they are often very narrowly focused on one specific aspect of warcraft, and likely unhinged to some extent. This of course benefits them in the warp, in chaos vs. chaos battles, but insanity has limited advantages outside the warp, and outside the loyalists would have a larger tactical advantage. As a chaos marine's experience approaches infinity, he either gets demonhood or spawndom. This means that you don't have a large contingent of very experienced chaos marines running around from the early days. The few left over are special characters.
You also have to factor in that mutations/blessings granted by the Chaos Gods are not always beneficial and in some cases can even be a hindrance or a drawback. How else would Chaos Spawn exist?
When it comes to replacing their losses they don't have a great selection when it comes to recruits since either they are mass-manufactured like the Daemoncubla for the Iron Warriors or taken from slaves. They don't have the luxury of choosing the cream of the crop or have carte blanche on what worlds they can recruit from unlike loyalists and often have to settle for less especially training wise. They may be hard-bitten through conflict but discipline-wise I would expect them to be generally inferior to the more rigid doctrines of the loyalist Astartes.
Why do people always imply that 10k years in the warp isn't 10k years in the materium, it's not wrong, but it's not necessarily less thank 10k either. It could be 100k, 1,000,000 etc
Because time is a concept of physical reality, and doesn't exist in the Warp. All time is "Now" in the Warp, which is how a being like Slaanesh has a "birthday" and, also, has always existed.
Psienesis wrote: Because time is a concept of physical reality, and doesn't exist in the Warp. All time is "Now" in the Warp, which is how a being like Slaanesh has a "birthday" and, also, has always existed.
Time exists in the warp, it's just that the Warp does bad things to time and physics and makes them go cry in the corner for a while.
It exists in that those who live within the Warp recognize it as a "cute concept", and daemons that didn't exist until just now have always existed and always will.
In truth I doubt that there is much practical difference between the combat experience of a Loyalist and a traitor. Warp time shenanigans aside you can only sharpen the knife so much before it all becomes academic. CSM are just that little bit more experienced, which is accurately represented by Veterans of the Long War.
The biggest problem here is that too many people don't realize: the tabletop game =/= the background.
Also don't say that CSM are weaker than Loyalists because you only read books centered around loyalists. I mean anyway in loyalist books the CSM are portrayed as outclassing a loyalist marine.
In the Eisenhorn books there is 1 regular Chaos Marine who is a central villain all by himself.
In the Soul Drinkers Ombinus there is one case where they come across a CSM squad and the CSM squad takes out a bunch of the loyalists due to having 10,000 years of discipline/training. The loyalists try to charge them and they just stay in their position without flinching and shoot down a bunch of the loyalists.
The Antagonist's role in a story is to oppose the protagonist, and generally speaking; ultimately end up failing to stop the protagonist.
The Imperium is very blatantly the protagonist of 40k.
For a less meta-explanation: Chaos has a much smaller industrial and manpower base to draw from, much of it is gibbering at the mouth insane, they generally miss out on some of the newer things the Imperium has developed, and the forces of Chaos have less quality control in most cases for making marines and in many cases; quite blatantly put much less effort into training them.
Those Chaos Space Marines who are not veterans of the long war are also essentially treated and handled like more expensive cannon fodder than cultists and traitor guard, but ultimately disrespected cannon fodder nontheless. I wouldn't be surprised if the older marines hogged all the best gear and left the newbies to pick through whatever they felt wasn't good enough for them.
So you have things like 7000 Word bearers; mostly veterans of the horus heresy; holding quite well against 14 billion guardsmen (to be fair they had a titan demi-legion, space superiority, and brought boat-loads of cultists), but at the same time Captain Titus or Diomedes can single handedly slaughter hundreds if not thousands of Chaos Space marines who are presumably much newer to the whole chaos thing, given worse gear and training, and flat out made by corner cutting processes (and also lacking plot shields) in spectacular fashion.
Or of course; five chaos space marines getting butchered by musket and blowdart wielding primitives and a handful of the tanith first and only or marine after marine getting stuck like a pig on Gaunt's power sword.
Yup, the Space Marine fanboyism has gotten out of control at GW and CSM have been reduced to the equivalent of punching bags in fluff made more ridiculous by the fact that a basic CSM is probably as skilled and more experienced than a Captain. Additionally, while some CSM do die forever many are reincarnated by the Gods. The scariest part is that I was
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yup, the Space Marine fanboyism has gotten out of control at GW and CSM have been reduced to the equivalent of punching bags in fluff made more ridiculous by the fact that a basic CSM is probably as skilled and more experienced than a Captain. Additionally, while some CSM do die forever many are reincarnated by the Gods. The scariest part is that I was playing a game at a GW store when a kid told me that my Thousand Sons were unfluffy because it had Space Wolf marine bodies as basing. Sigh...
I realize people think recently recruited Chaos Marines are often treated as cannon fodder. I have to imply that this is very wrong. Chaos Lords are not stupid enough to have their Marines treated as such. Lords will be perfectly fine with having his brethren die, but only for the most important and vital scenarios. If he doesnt feel right about using his men, he will send cultists instead.
Young and inexperienced Chaos Marines are not completely blind to the ways of war and combat. Chaos Marines are recruited from slaves, as we all know. These slaves are starved and unkept teenage boys, often forced to fight and kill amongst themselves for food, water, clothing and other neccessary needs for survival. Chaos Lords mean to have this happen as it instantly turns these boys into hardened, ruthless and cold-blooded killers, perfect for Chaos stock. They are carefully examined by their slave watchers, and when deemed ready are implanted with gene-seed and turned into Chaos Marines.
After this, they are tasked with executing raids. These raids are orchestrated by Veteran Champions and such missions normally do not cost a whole lot to the warbands, it is merely meant for both training and helping a recruit adjust to the life of a Chaos Marine as they deliver much needed supplies and "more" slaves to the lord.
After several years of executing these missions, they are finally inducted into more important and significant combat operations. This process is then repeated with the bountiful loads of slaves the previous generation of recruits had captured.
So despite the disorganized ways of Chaos warbands, they still have recruiting techniques that prove a great success in replenishing their numbers.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Veteran of The Long War wrote: Yup, the Space Marine fanboyism has gotten out of control at GW and CSM have been reduced to the equivalent of punching bags in fluff made more ridiculous by the fact that a basic CSM is probably as skilled and more experienced than a Captain. Additionally, while some CSM do die forever many are reincarnated by the Gods. The scariest part is that I was
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yup, the Space Marine fanboyism has gotten out of control at GW and CSM have been reduced to the equivalent of punching bags in fluff made more ridiculous by the fact that a basic CSM is probably as skilled and more experienced than a Captain. Additionally, while some CSM do die forever many are reincarnated by the Gods. The scariest part is that I was playing a game at a GW store when a kid told me that my Thousand Sons were unfluffy because it had Space Wolf marine bodies as basing. Sigh...
Lord Tarkin wrote: I realize people think recently recruited Chaos Marines are often treated as cannon fodder. I have to imply that this is very wrong. Chaos Lords are not stupid enough to have their Marines treated as such. Lords will be perfectly fine with having his brethren die, but only for important and vital scenarios.
Young and inexperienced Chaos Marines are not completely blind to the ways of war and combat. Chaos Marines are recruited from slaves, as we all know. These slaves are starved and unkept teenage boys, often forced to fight and kill amongst themselves for food, water, clothing and other neccessary needs for survival. Chaos Lords mean to have this happen as it instantly turns these boys into hardened, ruthless and cold-blooded killers, perfect for Chaos stock. They are carefully examined by their slave watchers, and when deemed ready are implanted with gene-seed and turned into Chaos Marines.
After this, they are tasked with executing raids. These raids are orchestrated by Veteran Champions and such missions normally do not cost a whole lot to the warbands, it is merely meant for both training and helping a recruit adjust to the life of a Chaos Marine as they deliver much needed supplies and "more" slaves to the lord.
After several years of executing these missions, they are finally inducted into more important and significant combat operations. This process is then repeated with the bountiful loads of slaves the previous generation of recruits had captured.
So despite the disorganized ways of Chaos warbands, they still have recruiting techniques that prove a great success in replenishing their numbers.
Depends on the warband.
Some may have largely recognizable systems of training, reserves, and recruitment.
Others simply throw in anyone who seems strong enough through the process and then goes slaughtering.
Warsmith Honsou didn't even bother with any sort of recruitment process beyond throwing pubescent boys into the Daemonculabba, then sticking skin onto them and slapping on some armor and weapons and telling them they're Iron Warriors now, here's your squad; your aspiring champion will train you.
The Word Bearers, thanks to their unity and discipline; seem to have largely standardized organizations, recruiting processes, and the likes.
The Black Legion; while united under abaddon; seems to mostly point the grand companies in the right direction and let them loose unless the objective has Abaddon's personal interest. I'd say their recruiting process depends on the Chaos Lord your grand company serves under, with whomever leading the forces of Chaos in Ultramarines probably having hired up a bunch of roided scrubs and dressed them in paper mache replicas of power armor.
Yup, the Space Marine fanboyism has gotten out of control at GW and CSM have been reduced to the equivalent of punching bags in fluff made more ridiculous by the fact that a basic CSM is probably as skilled and more experienced than a Captain. Additionally, while some CSM do die forever many are reincarnated by the Gods. The scariest part is that I was playing a game at a GW store when a kid told me that my Thousand Sons were unfluffy because it had Space Wolf marine bodies as basing. Sigh...
I wouldn't say "basic" CSM.
Most Chaos Space marines are not veterans of the horus heresy. Those would be the units you put veterans of the long war on.
The reason is simple attrition accrued over years of warring with the Imperium and the Xenos and with themselves. Most of the CSMs who fought in the Heresy simply died in battle or in power struggles or accidents.
I'd say about 20-10% of the CSMs are veterans of the long war these days.
Lord Tarkin wrote: I realize people think recently recruited Chaos Marines are often treated as cannon fodder. I have to imply that this is very wrong. Chaos Lords are not stupid enough to have their Marines treated as such. Lords will be perfectly fine with having his brethren die, but only for important and vital scenarios.
Young and inexperienced Chaos Marines are not completely blind to the ways of war and combat. Chaos Marines are recruited from slaves, as we all know. These slaves are starved and unkept teenage boys, often forced to fight and kill amongst themselves for food, water, clothing and other neccessary needs for survival. Chaos Lords mean to have this happen as it instantly turns these boys into hardened, ruthless and cold-blooded killers, perfect for Chaos stock. They are carefully examined by their slave watchers, and when deemed ready are implanted with gene-seed and turned into Chaos Marines.
After this, they are tasked with executing raids. These raids are orchestrated by Veteran Champions and such missions normally do not cost a whole lot to the warbands, it is merely meant for both training and helping a recruit adjust to the life of a Chaos Marine as they deliver much needed supplies and "more" slaves to the lord.
After several years of executing these missions, they are finally inducted into more important and significant combat operations. This process is then repeated with the bountiful loads of slaves the previous generation of recruits had captured.
So despite the disorganized ways of Chaos warbands, they still have recruiting techniques that prove a great success in replenishing their numbers.
Depends on the warband.
Some may have largely recognizable systems of training, reserves, and recruitment.
Others simply throw in anyone who seems strong enough through the process and then goes slaughtering.
Warsmith Honsou didn't even bother with any sort of recruitment process beyond throwing pubescent boys into the Daemonculabba, then sticking skin onto them and slapping on some armor and weapons and telling them they're Iron Warriors now, here's your squad; your aspiring champion will train you.
The Word Bearers, thanks to their unity and discipline; seem to have largely standardized organizations, recruiting processes, and the likes.
The Black Legion; while united under abaddon; seems to mostly point the grand companies in the right direction and let them loose unless the objective has Abaddon's personal interest. I'd say their recruiting process depends on the Chaos Lord your grand company serves under, with whomever leading the forces of Chaos in Ultramarines probably having hired up a bunch of roided scrubs and dressed them in paper mache replicas of power armor.
Yup, the Space Marine fanboyism has gotten out of control at GW and CSM have been reduced to the equivalent of punching bags in fluff made more ridiculous by the fact that a basic CSM is probably as skilled and more experienced than a Captain. Additionally, while some CSM do die forever many are reincarnated by the Gods. The scariest part is that I was playing a game at a GW store when a kid told me that my Thousand Sons were unfluffy because it had Space Wolf marine bodies as basing. Sigh...
I wouldn't say "basic" CSM.
Most Chaos Space marines are not veterans of the horus heresy. Those would be the units you put veterans of the long war on.
The reason is simple attrition accrued over years of warring with the Imperium and the Xenos and with themselves. Most of the CSMs who fought in the Heresy simply died in battle or in power struggles or accidents.
I'd say about 20-10% of the CSMs are veterans of the long war these days.
You're right, it depends on who the lord is, but what I stated was simply the normal and most well known method. And to your point of veterans of the long war, not all of them, or even most of them aren't HH survivors. Veterans can range from 500 to 10,000 years old, so there actually are a lot of veterans. Usually lords and champs are the survivors of the horus heresy.
Did anybody even read Blood Gorgons??? Even though that warband is *only* 6000 years old they recruit and train new members in pretty much the EXACT same way as loyalists.
I'm not getting why everybody seems to think CSM don't train their recruits or that CSM are like cannon fodder. I can't see any reference to that at all besides the Ultramarines movie and maybe some fanboyish novels (but none like that come to mind). The only example I can think of where new CSM are thrown to the wind is the previous example of Honsou's Iron Warriors. At least in that case it's implied they took their soon-to-be Iron Warriors from places that train Commissars and such.
The biggest key here is that in the loyalist chapters 400 years old is considered ancient for a space marine. If you're that *young* in a CSM warband you get constantly ragged on for being just an inexperienced toddler. If you weren't around for the Heresy you're not part of the cool guy club.
Part of the problem is that the rules are starting to reflect the 'stupid evil marines' theme. The champion of chaos rule basically sends any character in the codex running headlong into any fight; a very stupid thing to do. In addition, they are the only army I can think of whose troops are tooled to be in cc but once there have no way of mitigating morale checks or sweeping moves. The result is your stupid chaos marine squad whose leader lets himself get singled out and whose squad runs away like ninnies at the first sign of trouble and get swept. It would make a lot more sense to me if the champion had stubborn or something to keep them from running away so frequently. It would also encourage people to challenge the champion which is what the champion of chaos rule was seemingly designed to do but without it being forced.
herpguy wrote: Did anybody even read Blood Gorgons??? Even though that warband is *only* 6000 years old they recruit and train new members in pretty much the EXACT same way as loyalists.
I'm not getting why everybody seems to think CSM don't train their recruits or that CSM are like cannon fodder. I can't see any reference to that at all besides the Ultramarines movie and maybe some fanboyish novels (but none like that come to mind). The only example I can think of where new CSM are thrown to the wind is the previous example of Honsou's Iron Warriors. At least in that case it's implied they took their soon-to-be Iron Warriors from places that train Commissars and such.
The biggest key here is that in the loyalist chapters 400 years old is considered ancient for a space marine. If you're that *young* in a CSM warband you get constantly ragged on for being just an inexperienced toddler. If you weren't around for the Heresy you're not part of the cool guy club.
I'm pretty sure I murdered several companies worth of the Chosen of Nemeroth in space marine.
And that the Blood Ravens wiped out an entire grand company (1k+ marines) of the Black Legion with a few squads, and then proceeded to wipe out several companies of the alpha legion in Retribution, which according to Deathwatch is canon (though how canon is Diomedes being impervious to small arms fire because he heals too fast to be hurt by bolters, regenerates every time he smacks something, and tears apart the earth with a charge before smacking open a dreadnought in three hits is unknown )
Or Chaos Space Marines who show up in most anything of Abnett's; especially Gaunts Ghosts where guardsmen take down traitor Astartes like chumps to the point you wonder why Chaos even bothers making any.
herpguy wrote: Did anybody even read Blood Gorgons??? Even though that warband is *only* 6000 years old they recruit and train new members in pretty much the EXACT same way as loyalists.
I'm not getting why everybody seems to think CSM don't train their recruits or that CSM are like cannon fodder. I can't see any reference to that at all besides the Ultramarines movie and maybe some fanboyish novels (but none like that come to mind). The only example I can think of where new CSM are thrown to the wind is the previous example of Honsou's Iron Warriors. At least in that case it's implied they took their soon-to-be Iron Warriors from places that train Commissars and such.
The biggest key here is that in the loyalist chapters 400 years old is considered ancient for a space marine. If you're that *young* in a CSM warband you get constantly ragged on for being just an inexperienced toddler. If you weren't around for the Heresy you're not part of the cool guy club.
Exactly. I wanna read the Blood Gorgons, their warband seems pretty interesting. Which by the way, the only reason Honsou was wasting away his men was because he relied to heavily on the productions from the Daemonculabba. He could just spawn some more and dress them in ceramite and they were good to go. However, he was the only lord that possessed the Daemonculabba and now it's destroyed. The Blood Gorgons by the way recruited exactly like a SM chapter because they were once exactly that. They figured they wouldn't stop when they turned traitor.
"Well, I had gotten this far. I figured I'd just keep going." -Forest Gump
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JubbJubbz wrote: Part of the problem is that the rules are starting to reflect the 'stupid evil marines' theme. The champion of chaos rule basically sends any character in the codex running headlong into any fight; a very stupid thing to do. In addition, they are the only army I can think of whose troops are tooled to be in cc but once there have no way of mitigating morale checks or sweeping moves. The result is your stupid chaos marine squad whose leader lets himself get singled out and whose squad runs away like ninnies at the first sign of trouble and get swept. It would make a lot more sense to me if the champion had stubborn or something to keep them from running away so frequently. It would also encourage people to challenge the champion which is what the champion of chaos rule was seemingly designed to do but without it being forced.
Yes, the Champion of Chaos rule was designed to make us Chaos players writhe in agony at the fact we have to feed our champions to things like Lysanders and Marneus Calgars. Nothing we can do but accept it. To make up for this I can't upgrade my champs cuz they'll end up challenging something they have no chance against anyway.
I can see why a Khorne champion would challenge everything and why a Slaaneshi champ might want to but why the hell would a Nurgle or ESPECIALLY Tzeentch champion do so?
TiamatRoar wrote: I can see why a Khorne champion would challenge everything and why a Slaaneshi champ might want to but why the hell would a Nurgle or ESPECIALLY Tzeentch champion do so?
Because GW decided they didnt want our champs to live long. Whats the point of turning into a daemon prince when your gonna challenge a tyranid hive tyrant and die anyway. Its like someone offering you 1.000.00$ but saying you gotta shoot yourself in the head first. How am I gonna enjoy it?
It's a term coined by TV tropes that refers to when a strong character is beaten up by someone else to establish that guy as a threat. It also extends to factions or no-selling traditionally very formidable attacks.
It refers to how in Star Trek; Worf was built up to be a badass warrior but was repeatedly thrown across the room by just about every villain of the week to immediately establish his credentials.
TiamatRoar wrote: I can see why a Khorne champion would challenge everything and why a Slaaneshi champ might want to but why the hell would a Nurgle or ESPECIALLY Tzeentch champion do so?
Because GW decided they didnt want our champs to live long. Whats the point of turning into a daemon prince when your gonna challenge a tyranid hive tyrant and die anyway. Its like someone offering you 1.000.00$ but saying you gotta shoot yourself in the head first. How am I gonna enjoy it?
I meant Fluff-wise. Though it's just as stupid crunch-wise too, as you've pointed out.
The whole point of Tzeentch (well, one point of Tzeentch) is that you do things from the sidelines and from behind the scenes. Issuing and accepting challenges is rather contrary to that.
To a lesser extent, one aspect of Nurgle is supposed to be about humility. Another despair. Both of which would make one try to AVOID challenges, I'd think.
TiamatRoar wrote: I can see why a Khorne champion would challenge everything and why a Slaaneshi champ might want to but why the hell would a Nurgle or ESPECIALLY Tzeentch champion do so?
Because GW decided they didnt want our champs to live long. Whats the point of turning into a daemon prince when your gonna challenge a tyranid hive tyrant and die anyway. Its like someone offering you 1.000.00$ but saying you gotta shoot yourself in the head first. How am I gonna enjoy it?
I meant Fluff-wise. Though it's just as stupid crunch-wise too, as you've pointed out.
The whole point of Tzeentch (well, one point of Tzeentch) is that you do things from the sidelines and from behind the scenes. Issuing and accepting challenges is rather contrary to that.
To a lesser extent, one aspect of Nurgle is supposed to be about humility. Another despair. Both of which would make one try to AVOID challenges, I'd think.
Oh, yea, Tzeentch champs would be the last to do such a thing. All Chaos champs are a bit cocky but their not dumb either.
It's a term coined by TV tropes that refers to when a strong character is beaten up by someone else to establish that guy as a threat. It also extends to factions or no-selling traditionally very formidable attacks.
It refers to how in Star Trek; Worf was built up to be a badass warrior but was repeatedly thrown across the room by just about every villain of the week to immediately establish his credentials.
In defense of Battle of the Fang and Know No Fear:
BotF: The 1KSons were shown to be backbiting, mere shadows of themselves. They had lost their fire, their courage and their mutual trust. They knew they were going to be destroyed, their goal was to destroy the SW's at the same time. Also, the SW had home world advantage and a pre-heresy fortress that was supposed to be second only to Terra.
KNF: The Word Bearers were repeatedly shown to be less apt at warfare than the Ultra Marines. That's not just plot armor, it's pretty much stated as fact in several books. The UM's were just better at war than the WB's. And the WB's did a LOT of destruction.
MWHistorian wrote: In defense of Battle of the Fang and Know No Fear:
BotF: The 1KSons were shown to be backbiting, mere shadows of themselves. They had lost their fire, their courage and their mutual trust. They knew they were going to be destroyed, their goal was to destroy the SW's at the same time. Also, the SW had home world advantage and a pre-heresy fortress that was supposed to be second only to Terra.
KNF: The Word Bearers were repeatedly shown to be less apt at warfare than the Ultra Marines. That's not just plot armor, it's pretty much stated as fact in several books. The UM's were just better at war than the WB's. And the WB's did a LOT of destruction.
I suppose you're right. I don't know about BftF but I did read KNF, which was a great book. WB marines had the upper hand at first because they took the element of surprise by making things look like a terrible misake but it was over as soon as Guilliman found out. He removed the gloves and poof, bye bye Lorgar. There is just something about Dan Abnett and how he writes about the ineptitude of Chaos Marines.
herpguy wrote: Did anybody even read Blood Gorgons??? Even though that warband is *only* 6000 years old they recruit and train new members in pretty much the EXACT same way as loyalists.
(...)
Exactly. I wanna read the Blood Gorgons, their warband seems pretty interesting.
It is.
I really liked that book. One of the best Chaos-related novel I have read.
JubbJubbz wrote: Part of the problem is that the rules are starting to reflect the 'stupid evil marines' theme. The champion of chaos rule basically sends any character in the codex running headlong into any fight; a very stupid thing to do. In addition, they are the only army I can think of whose troops are tooled to be in cc but once there have no way of mitigating morale checks or sweeping moves. The result is your stupid chaos marine squad whose leader lets himself get singled out and whose squad runs away like ninnies at the first sign of trouble and get swept. It would make a lot more sense to me if the champion had stubborn or something to keep them from running away so frequently. It would also encourage people to challenge the champion which is what the champion of chaos rule was seemingly designed to do but without it being forced.
^This.
The current rules depict the CSM as clearly inferior to SM in most senses. And really dumb.
MWHistorian wrote: In defense of Battle of the Fang and Know No Fear:
(...)
KNF: The Word Bearers were repeatedly shown to be less apt at warfare than the Ultra Marines. That's not just plot armor, it's pretty much stated as fact in several books. The UM's were just better at war than the WB's. And the WB's did a LOT of destruction.
Yeah, that totally explain the Bolter rounds bouncing off the loyalist armour, the loyal Bolter rounds going through "superior" traitor´s armor like nothing, the Greater Daemon being killed on the spot with a knife before doing anything noteworthy and so on.
Ultramarines are better at fighting than most Astartes. WB are worse at fighting than most Astartes. I´m OK with that. But many writers take it too far. It gets silly really fast if you stop and think about it for a while. We are not talking about 6 UMs taking on 10 WB, it is one or two against countless. Over and over again. It is like the Rambo movie.
I honestly wouldn't call them weak compared to space marines
Number 1: all the different gods they can get benefits from.
Number 2: good guys all ways have to win you know the story
Number 3: they shouldn't and aren't weak and I don't know why you think they are because they are the exactly the same except for the fact they have given their lives to the chaos gods as the emperor is weak.
Bane-.- wrote: I honestly wouldn't call them weak compared to space marines
Number 1: all the different gods they can get benefits from.
Number 2: good guys all ways have to win you know the story
Number 3: they shouldn't and aren't weak and I don't know why you think they are because they are the exactly the same except for the fact they have given their lives to the chaos gods as the emperor is weak.
That's my opinion.
There are plenty of Chaos Space Marines who couldn't give two damns about Chaos as a religion or honoring the gods any further than is beneficial for them; namely the Iron Warriors, Red Corsairs, and Night Lords
Which I find cool about the Iron Warriors. They'd be hard pressed to care less for the gods outside of their own benefit and prefer to put their trust in big guns, iron discipline, and clanking war machines over prayer, sorcery, and daemons.
Bane-.- wrote: I honestly wouldn't call them weak compared to space marines
Number 1: all the different gods they can get benefits from.
Number 2: good guys all ways have to win you know the story
Number 3: they shouldn't and aren't weak and I don't know why you think they are because they are the exactly the same except for the fact they have given their lives to the chaos gods as the emperor is weak.
That's my opinion.
It is to the detriment of the setting that Space Marines (or anyone, really) is viewed as a "good guy". Grimdark is nothing but shades of very, very dark grey.
Bane-.- wrote: I honestly wouldn't call them weak compared to space marines
Number 1: all the different gods they can get benefits from.
Number 2: good guys all ways have to win you know the story
Number 3: they shouldn't and aren't weak and I don't know why you think they are because they are the exactly the same except for the fact they have given their lives to the chaos gods as the emperor is weak.
That's my opinion.
It is to the detriment of the setting that Space Marines (or anyone, really) is viewed as a "good guy". Grimdark is nothing but shades of very, very dark grey.
"Less bad-guy-ish on average" works for Space Marines compared to Chaos Space Marines, though.
That said, most novels and stories portray Space Marines as good guys. In a light that's not very different from any other story with "good guys".
All the books are written from the viewpoint of the Imperium, and part of the Imperium is that they are blind to reality. I mean, think about how long 10,000 years is. We're only 2000 years removed from the death of Christ in real-time and look at how different the world is. The 40k universe? It hasn't changed in any significant meaningful way in 10,000 years and people still worship the Emperor and the Primarchs as literal Gods.
So basically, the Chaos Marines win I'm sure all the time but we never hear about it.
Loyalists have a monster logisitical advantage over CSM. Especially since the SM will run into the CSM usually at the tail end of a raid, when the traitors are low on ammo and somewhat banged up anyway. There is a ton of churn in the NCO ranks for the traitors too, which is really, really bad from an overall war perspective, since that's the most critical rank bracket.
Plus, I get the impression the SM are really trained and optimized to go after the hardest targets, things the Guard can't take down. CSM are more optimized to do the most damage possible in the shortest amount of time, typically to soft targets. Both are legitimate taskings, but in a paper-scissors rock matchup, you can see how SM might have the advantage.
And the time dilation of the warp probably hurts more than it helps the traitors. Aside from time in transit, a few weeks or months between campaigns, SM are perpetually in combat, 24/7. CSM might experience centuries between campaigns for their skills to atrophy, even though outside only a few days have passed.
It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
But yeah, plot armour. The good guys need to win. And the only real way for the storyline to stay stagnant is to maintain the status quo. That means killing off the hundreds of Chaos Marines that just pop out of the woodwork when ever we turn our backs.
Bane-.- wrote: Grimdark is nothing but shades of very, very dark grey.
Wyzilla wrote: The hilarious thing is that CSM's should actually have a larger kill ratio against loyalists, not the other way around. In a fight between a veteran and a young scrub, the veteran should win the fight as he holds the advantage of experience, which is the only variable between the two. The "young" warrior should only be winning by logistics or random luck, loyalists should only have a logistical advantage over CSM's, nothing else.
mathematically CSM MUST have a better kill ratio than the loyalists. Half the legions defected and they cannot make more space marines. The other half stayed loyal, and have been refreshed constantly with more men as they are killed. Today, 10,000 years later there are still nearly as many CSM as there are loyal marines, thus the CSM must kill more than they lose virtually every engagement.
The only way the Loyalists would have a better kill ratio is if somehow, with the huge resources of the entire galaxy and uncorrupted gene seeds they were able to produce less fighting men than the forces of chaos.
We simply don't have enough books about Chaos winning, likely because the imperium only writes about it's successes.
... They do make more Chaos Space Marines. They raid the Imperium for supplies of gene-seed, steal it from fallen Loyalists, and Fabius Bile has more-or-less figured out how to make it.
While I do see plot armor in books and the UM movie overall, I'd argue that its far from one side and more of a grim dark stalemate. There are amazing loyalist wins and crushing defeats. Heck, I recently read a book where AL destroyed an entire chapter with no losses. As per one on one combat and skill, I'd think of it as special ops vs mercenaries. It can go both ways but chances are special ops wins more often. My .02 anyway
actually in the night lords trilogy when there secondary fortress was being attacked by the newly reformed legions puts the whole SM vs CSM in a better perspective for me CSM are better warriors in that they have training and talents where the SM are better soldiers with better squad cohesion and such .
also on a unrelated note other good books to read
storm of iron (one of the ones that got me into reading black library fiction)
Dark apostle (the first one IMO puts the conflict between imperial guard and CSM in a more realistic perspective for me)
Psienesis wrote: ... They do make more Chaos Space Marines. They raid the Imperium for supplies of gene-seed, steal it from fallen Loyalists, and Fabius Bile has more-or-less figured out how to make it.
They make them alright, but at a much slower rate than the IoM replaces it's losses. Thus either Chaos has a higher kill ratio, or Chaos would have been defeated already.
The argument that SM fight more and die more simply because of that is moot, since Chaos fight themselves all the time. It's how their rank system works, the ones on top are there because they got rid of the competitors. They are very Darwinian.
TheCustomLime wrote: Because the good guys always have to win. Even if the bad guys are more experienced, pumped full of warp dust and have the same wargear the good guys do.
Read Storm of Iron, Iron Warriors obliterate Imperial Fists and Imperial Guard, and the Iron Warriors aren't even pumped full of Warp Dust
It might be that the loyalists are getting their new mar 8 'errant' armor and their mark 3 'sunfury' plasma pistols and all the fancy new gunships and tanks.
I agree to Gjd123. They have all the forge worlds and, not to forget, all the STCs which give them a huge advantage.
Sometimes it feels awkward but maybe the people who like normal SM have higher numbers so they choose to please the major group.
Also, I read a lot of books that have equal fights and equal destruction (ex. on malodrax the entire Imperial fists 1st company is wiped out with almost no losses to the Iron warriors
Cursed Founding wrote: It might be that the loyalists are getting their new mar 8 'errant' armor and their mark 3 'sunfury' plasma pistols and all the fancy new gunships and tanks.
I agree to Gjd123. They have all the forge worlds and, not to forget, all the STCs which give them a huge advantage.
Sometimes it feels awkward but maybe the people who like normal SM have higher numbers so they choose to please the major group.
Also, I read a lot of books that have equal fights and equal destruction (ex. on malodrax the entire Imperial fists 1st company is wiped out with almost no losses to the Iron warriors
Well, keeping in mind that Errant armour isn't wide spread yet since its production has just been launched. Also keep in mind its only real difference from Aquila Armour is the Neck Guard which protects against projectiles ricochating off the upper chest and into the jaw/chin or throat. It is also slightly more mobile. I do agree that the Imperium may have slightly better equipment and weapons but it doesn't really do any justice for the differing amount of casualties. And Chaos Marines have their own STC's and forgeworlds.
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Inkubas wrote: While I do see plot armor in books and the UM movie overall, I'd argue that its far from one side and more of a grim dark stalemate. There are amazing loyalist wins and crushing defeats. Heck, I recently read a book where AL destroyed an entire chapter with no losses. As per one on one combat and skill, I'd think of it as special ops vs mercenaries. It can go both ways but chances are special ops wins more often. My .02 anyway
Yes, an AL agent secretly destroyed the Crimson Consuls Chapter I believe. Now I find that the most stupid and unrealistic event to ever occur in 40k. There is no way an entire chapter of SM's could be dealt with so easily. Chapter Masters are very careful and meticulate with the engagements they wonder into and the fact the Consuls fell for such a thing is foolish beyond belief.
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Silverthorne wrote: Loyalists have a monster logisitical advantage over CSM. Especially since the SM will run into the CSM usually at the tail end of a raid, when the traitors are low on ammo and somewhat banged up anyway. There is a ton of churn in the NCO ranks for the traitors too, which is really, really bad from an overall war perspective, since that's the most critical rank bracket.
Plus, I get the impression the SM are really trained and optimized to go after the hardest targets, things the Guard can't take down. CSM are more optimized to do the most damage possible in the shortest amount of time, typically to soft targets. Both are legitimate taskings, but in a paper-scissors rock matchup, you can see how SM might have the advantage.
And the time dilation of the warp probably hurts more than it helps the traitors. Aside from time in transit, a few weeks or months between campaigns, SM are perpetually in combat, 24/7. CSM might experience centuries between campaigns for their skills to atrophy, even though outside only a few days have passed.
Chaos Marines optimized for "soft" targets? Uhh, I don't believe that. I don't see how SM have that significant of an advantage. People keep pointing at logistics and saying SM's win because of it. I guess Chaos Marines are armed with auto guns and sticks? Come on, lets be real, SM's may hold a slight advantage in logistics but I don't believe it's enough to doom CSM's. Lets keep in mind the technology that the Imperium has lost. For instance, Chaos Marines still wield missle launchers that carry 4 missles instead of 1. Most technology that the Imperium lost the CSM's still have.
One SM vs one CSM can be anyone's game? Add a chapter vs a warband and same thing. If you want realism then its a coin toss depending on: logistics, supply, numbers, technology,training, luck, lay of land and commanders. With that said for the most part I would say that SM have a slight edge with what the whole not getting stabbed in the back thing.
Also what's so far fetched with AL destroying a chapter? During the HH much greater tricks took place. With lots list being beat left to right. Heck even Abbadon is winning the war.
SM have the Imperium behind them, but do CSM have to carve their bullets out of wood?
I'm pretty sure being able to infuse anything with a daemon should trump anything. In all the books with Chaos pretty much every piece of machinery has some sort of daemon bound within it.
Plus CSM builders and forgeworlds have NO RESTRICTIONS. That alone makes a huge difference, plus they have warp-given knowledge and help.
The people fusing daemons into things is the Dark Mechanicus, who hold no particular allegiance to the Legions. The various warbands and such need to barter/trade with the DM to get them to make things for them... meanwhile, the Tech-Priests of the DM are all pretty much loons, and would rather work on whatever Mad Science! project they have going on, rather than building bolters or bolter-rounds and such for some SM.
herpguy wrote: I don't get this whole logistics argument.
SM have the Imperium behind them, but do CSM have to carve their bullets out of wood?
I'm pretty sure being able to infuse anything with a daemon should trump anything. In all the books with Chaos pretty much every piece of machinery has some sort of daemon bound within it.
Plus CSM builders and forgeworlds have NO RESTRICTIONS. That alone makes a huge difference, plus they have warp-given knowledge and help.
The IoM also has to use a lot of it's material advantage getting the material to the war zone and keeping the keepers of it from being corrupted. Moving stuff by armored car across the galaxy isnt cheap. Chaos on the other hand has some short supply lines, made all the shorter by the power of the warp.
Psienesis wrote: The people fusing daemons into things is the Dark Mechanicus, who hold no particular allegiance to the Legions. The various warbands and such need to barter/trade with the DM to get them to make things for them... meanwhile, the Tech-Priests of the DM are all pretty much loons, and would rather work on whatever Mad Science! project they have going on, rather than building bolters or bolter-rounds and such for some SM.
Except, you know, the Warpsmiths who are a very important part of the warbands and a central part of the Iron Warriors Legion.
The Chirumeks as well.
The CSM are not so foolish as to rely on the DM to build things for them when the Warpsmiths are already absolute masters of that craft.
Warpsmiths that follow a warband or a Legion around may not have access to an actual Forge from which to build the things he's going to tie daemons into. And if your Warpsmith is spending all his time making bolter rounds, plasma flasks, and maintaining power armor, when's he going to have time to build a LR for them?
This is also the case for those Legions that don't even have a Warpsmith. They need to raid for slaves and supplies in order to trade to the DM for ammo and supplies, in order for them to raid for slaves and supplies in order to trade to the DM for ammo and supplies...
Imagine you have to transport supplies through a very dangerous jungle and there are many things that can cause the jungle to randomly eat you.
However, your enemy never has to worry about that and actually has the carnivorous jungle creatures on their side, and can just waltz right through.
The jungle represents the warp where CSM bypass one of the largest hurdles in all of 40K by not having to worry about the warp randomly swallowing them whole (unless of course they really piss some dark entity off)
It is EXTREMELY big plot armor that one of the big SM heros doesn't evaporate in a random warp jump to some random planet.
I think that effectually the difference comes down to individual versus gestalt power. This meaning that the individual Chaos Space Marine, a Veteran of the Long War blessed by the dark gods with eldritch power should, and arguable is, more powerful than your run of the mill Space Marine. In a one on one fight a CSM should win against a space marine simply because of experience, as was mentioned. Unfortunately by definition a Chaos Space Marine is an agent of CHAOS. Meaning there is little rhyme or reason to the warfare of a Chaos chapter. Because of the highly individualistic nature of a CSM he simply does not play well with other CSM and that is the inherent flaw.
Much like Roman Soldiers would regularly defeat larger forces of Gaulish Barbarians through sheer discipline, Space Marines triumph because of their strict adherence to brotherhood and order. A smaller force of Space Marines aught to triumph simply because there is a sense of shared purpose: e'spirit d'corps, that makes a company of space marines more than any individual member.
The inherent flaw of the CSM is also the inherent downfall of the Barbarian tribes of ancient Europe, and lets face it CSM are just Techno-Barbarians. The disorganized, though warlike, culture of the Germans or Gauls or Picts valued individual Glory. Where as the Romans valued the "Glory of Rome" and actively encouraged a sense of brotherhood among their troops. The average Gaul was more experienced, more aggressive, and more talented a soldier than a Roman legionnaire, but failed to appreciate the importance of teamwork.
The downfall of the CSM military doctrine is ironically also the source of their power. Chaos is powerful force, but in embracing it you also abandon the brotherhood which had made the Chapter powerful.
Its like the CSM never watched Pokemon! Come on guys! Its all about TEAMWORK!!!
Psienesis wrote: Warpsmiths that follow a warband or a Legion around may not have access to an actual Forge from which to build the things he's going to tie daemons into. And if your Warpsmith is spending all his time making bolter rounds, plasma flasks, and maintaining power armor, when's he going to have time to build a LR for them?
This is also the case for those Legions that don't even have a Warpsmith. They need to raid for slaves and supplies in order to trade to the DM for ammo and supplies, in order for them to raid for slaves and supplies in order to trade to the DM for ammo and supplies...
Chirumeks, as said. Servitors. Various slaves.
Much like the Imperium does.
The Chirumeks probably do most of the things in the maintenance - manufacturing spectrum of bolt rounds, PA etc, with the Warpsmiths doing the more difficult things and the simple things like welding on big metal plates onto starships is something left to (supervised) slaves.
There is no reason whatsoever that CSM somehow need to bargain for their equipment.
Devious wrote: I think that effectually the difference comes down to individual versus gestalt power. This meaning that the individual Chaos Space Marine, a Veteran of the Long War blessed by the dark gods with eldritch power should, and arguable is, more powerful than your run of the mill Space Marine. In a one on one fight a CSM should win against a space marine simply because of experience, as was mentioned. Unfortunately by definition a Chaos Space Marine is an agent of CHAOS. Meaning there is little rhyme or reason to the warfare of a Chaos chapter. Because of the highly individualistic nature of a CSM he simply does not play well with other CSM and that is the inherent flaw.
Much like Roman Soldiers would regularly defeat larger forces of Gaulish Barbarians through sheer discipline, Space Marines triumph because of their strict adherence to brotherhood and order. A smaller force of Space Marines aught to triumph simply because there is a sense of shared purpose: e'spirit d'corps, that makes a company of space marines more than any individual member.
The inherent flaw of the CSM is also the inherent downfall of the Barbarian tribes of ancient Europe, and lets face it CSM are just Techno-Barbarians. The disorganized, though warlike, culture of the Germans or Gauls or Picts valued individual Glory. Where as the Romans valued the "Glory of Rome" and actively encouraged a sense of brotherhood among their troops. The average Gaul was more experienced, more aggressive, and more talented a soldier than a Roman legionnaire, but failed to appreciate the importance of teamwork.
The downfall of the CSM military doctrine is ironically also the source of their power. Chaos is powerful force, but in embracing it you also abandon the brotherhood which had made the Chapter powerful.
Its like the CSM never watched Pokemon! Come on guys! Its all about TEAMWORK!!!
Even though this is a very good point that is still assuming that CSM are raving bands of lunatics. Many warbands operate not much differently from SM chapters. CSM also as a whole are pretty wary in the fluff. They don't get to survive thousands of years by charging at every enemy. Usually they orchestrate events and insert as a special ops team to do cleanup or complete an objective.
Psienesis wrote: ... They do make more Chaos Space Marines. They raid the Imperium for supplies of gene-seed, steal it from fallen Loyalists, and Fabius Bile has more-or-less figured out how to make it.
They make them alright, but at a much slower rate than the IoM replaces it's losses. Thus either Chaos has a higher kill ratio, or Chaos would have been defeated already.
No, they survive because they can run and hide in the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom.
The other misconception is that most Chaos Marines are veterans of the Heresy. That's a minority. Most of the veterans of the Heresy are dead or transcended to daemonhood. Heck, most of the Traitors were killed in the Heresy. It's all there in the fluff. People just like to skip that part. The Legions didn't just give up and wander off. They ground themselves to burger at Terra, then were hounded and chased until the remnants were forced to retreat where the loyalists couldn't follow. The remaining Chaos Marines are mostly substandard replacements made from stolen geneseed.
The argument that SM fight more and die more simply because of that is moot, since Chaos fight themselves all the time. It's how their rank system works, the ones on top are there because they got rid of the competitors. They are very Darwinian.
It's also a ridiculously awful way to run a military, lol. Because it means the strong lead the weak by eliminating the not quite as strong. And strength itself isn't a leadership quality.
The Orks choose leaders the same way. And you see how successful they tend to be.
da001 wrote: Plot armor. The good guys always win.
It gets really annoying. In "Know no Fear", you read about some SM obliterating full squads of CSM with their mighty bolters while the enemy fire (bolters) only scratches their Power Armor.
This is just cheap and easy narrative device common to action stories. Space Marine power armor is only ever as powerful as it needs to be in any given situation.
If you read the Night Lords trilogy, on more than one occasion the loyalist Space Marines die ridiculously easily because the Night Lords need to win. It has nothing to do with the good guys always winning. Because they lose in the fluff too. I hate to pick on ADB because I like the guy, but another example that occurs to me is the battle at Armatura, where the World Eaters do everything wrong that you possibly could in warfighting, and still manage to win because angry. Where the Ultramarines have some hardened defensive position, and Kharn defeats it with the sheer power of angry and charging right at it. It's just that these stories aren't being written with technical accuracy as the main concern. Otherwise Marine vs Marine stories would actually be fairly boring.
Remember though, the most important thing to take away from 40K is that modern Space Marines are actually better than Crusade-era space Marines. A big part of the Codex Astartes was removing all the substandard recruiting and training processes that were prevalent during the Crusade when the Legions were trying to churn out Space Marines as fast as possible to keep up with their high casualty rates. Basically, the Ultramarines were the best of the Legions, and the Codex Astartes was designed to turn all the Space Marines into Ultramarines. It's funny to think of because everything in 40K is supposed to be archaic and outdated, but that works in the Space Marines' favor because 10,000 years ago was the best time to be a Space Marine. So being stuck doing it the same way means they're still doing it the best way possible.
Devious wrote: I think that effectually the difference comes down to individual versus gestalt power. This meaning that the individual Chaos Space Marine, a Veteran of the Long War blessed by the dark gods with eldritch power should, and arguable is, more powerful than your run of the mill Space Marine. In a one on one fight a CSM should win against a space marine simply because of experience, as was mentioned. Unfortunately by definition a Chaos Space Marine is an agent of CHAOS. Meaning there is little rhyme or reason to the warfare of a Chaos chapter. Because of the highly individualistic nature of a CSM he simply does not play well with other CSM and that is the inherent flaw.
Much like Roman Soldiers would regularly defeat larger forces of Gaulish Barbarians through sheer discipline, Space Marines triumph because of their strict adherence to brotherhood and order. A smaller force of Space Marines aught to triumph simply because there is a sense of shared purpose: e'spirit d'corps, that makes a company of space marines more than any individual member.
The inherent flaw of the CSM is also the inherent downfall of the Barbarian tribes of ancient Europe, and lets face it CSM are just Techno-Barbarians. The disorganized, though warlike, culture of the Germans or Gauls or Picts valued individual Glory. Where as the Romans valued the "Glory of Rome" and actively encouraged a sense of brotherhood among their troops. The average Gaul was more experienced, more aggressive, and more talented a soldier than a Roman legionnaire, but failed to appreciate the importance of teamwork.
The downfall of the CSM military doctrine is ironically also the source of their power. Chaos is powerful force, but in embracing it you also abandon the brotherhood which had made the Chapter powerful.
Its like the CSM never watched Pokemon! Come on guys! Its all about TEAMWORK!!!
THIS. Exactly! Loyal Space Marines train and train and are indoctrinated in the glory of the Emperor and Imperium. They believe in a greater cause than themselves.
CSM do what? Murder and care slaves? Raid worlds and kill PDF to a man? CSM are *very* violent and daemonically strong, but they are undisciplined.
Devious wrote: I think that effectually the difference comes down to individual versus gestalt power. This meaning that the individual Chaos Space Marine, a Veteran of the Long War blessed by the dark gods with eldritch power should, and arguable is, more powerful than your run of the mill Space Marine. In a one on one fight a CSM should win against a space marine simply because of experience, as was mentioned. Unfortunately by definition a Chaos Space Marine is an agent of CHAOS. Meaning there is little rhyme or reason to the warfare of a Chaos chapter. Because of the highly individualistic nature of a CSM he simply does not play well with other CSM and that is the inherent flaw.
Much like Roman Soldiers would regularly defeat larger forces of Gaulish Barbarians through sheer discipline, Space Marines triumph because of their strict adherence to brotherhood and order. A smaller force of Space Marines aught to triumph simply because there is a sense of shared purpose: e'spirit d'corps, that makes a company of space marines more than any individual member.
The inherent flaw of the CSM is also the inherent downfall of the Barbarian tribes of ancient Europe, and lets face it CSM are just Techno-Barbarians. The disorganized, though warlike, culture of the Germans or Gauls or Picts valued individual Glory. Where as the Romans valued the "Glory of Rome" and actively encouraged a sense of brotherhood among their troops. The average Gaul was more experienced, more aggressive, and more talented a soldier than a Roman legionnaire, but failed to appreciate the importance of teamwork.
The downfall of the CSM military doctrine is ironically also the source of their power. Chaos is powerful force, but in embracing it you also abandon the brotherhood which had made the Chapter powerful.
Its like the CSM never watched Pokemon! Come on guys! Its all about TEAMWORK!!!
Even though this is a very good point that is still assuming that CSM are raving bands of lunatics. Many warbands operate not much differently from SM chapters. CSM also as a whole are pretty wary in the fluff. They don't get to survive thousands of years by charging at every enemy. Usually they orchestrate events and insert as a special ops team to do cleanup or complete an objective.
I totally agree. Much in the same way the SM are portrayed as simply the goody-two-shoes Ultramarines, I think that the CSM are often stereotyped as the World Eaters: Khornate bersekers who carve their way through the Galaxy one chainaxe at a time. Sadly my favorite CSM chapter, the Alpha Legion, is the complete opposite of this stereotype: cold, calculating, guilesome, duplicitous, and utterly ruthless. I think it's these complex, multifaceted CSM chapters that end up falling to the wayside for many players. These chapters like the Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, or the Thousand Sons strike me as organized, ruthless machines of destruction that would in every respect be the equals (or betters) of their SM counterparts.
I still believe my post is relevant and holds water, but it's important to recognize the great diversity of tactics and chapters across the realm of Chaos. My post merely singles out the bog-standard khornate chapters that maim, and kill, and procure skulls for skull thrones or whatever (boring).
And yes, they need to make the CSM seem more dangeous, and an actual threat to mankind. That'd be epic.
And yes, they need to make the CSM seem more dangeous, and an actual threat to mankind. That'd be epic.
Wow, after reading some of these posts, it appears like chaos is not bad enough. Chaos is a MAJOR threat. It's not THE threat. I believe that spot is for the Tyranids but it's a plague that is crippling the imperium of man. The strength and skill of SM and CSM is based on the author and how much they want to empower or enfeeble. Don't believe me? Play Space Marine where one SM is able to stop an Ork Waaagh and a demonic incursion single handed. That doesn't exist in the books. That doesn't exist on the table. Other games/books are more balanced and fair but again, it can vary.
Let's just run a hypothetical situation space marine chapter comes across a chaos war band. The results will vary. It's not like the Space marines are going to be the clear winners every time, nor does it mean that the chaos warband will be able to destroy and crush the space marines. If the Space wolves meet Iron warriors the result would be different than if Dark Angels meet Death Guard. Does it mean that if DA lose they suck? Or does it mean that Iron warriors aren't as strong as SW? It can go either way. This is compounded by the fact that all the information we have is based on fluff that can/will change depending on author.
There is no ONE team (CSM/SM) that is stronger or better.
I'd put this on par with a discussion on who would win in a fight Jesus or Superman.
Alright, let me go over CSM discipline and let me be very clear about this. CSM DO in fact have a cause, a cause that actually united all their kin under one single force 13 times a count. CSM's lifelong goal is to get to Terra. It's like a child going to bed at night dreaming of that one toy. CSM's veery badly want to reach Terra and rip that bewildered corpse from his throne. They want to gloriously charge the Imperial Palace and plunder Terras cities. They commit an act known as the Crimson Path. They turn every world leading their way to Terra into a Daemon World. By thus means, reinforcements and great tithes of Daemons can be summoned from the warp, ready to reap Terra. This goal is what disciplines CSM's. Every CSM and SM are extremely smart, and I mean almost if not not as smart as Albert Einstein. They know what they must do to win, and they very frequently use teamwork. This is probably CSM's biggest misconception is the fact they dont use teamwork. They do. They have tactics, strategy, and definitely power.
Lord Tarkin wrote: Alright, let me go over CSM discipline and let me be very clear about this. CSM DO in fact have a cause, a cause that actually united all their kin under one single force 13 times a count. CSM's lifelong goal is to get to Terra. It's like a child going to bed at noght dreaming of that one toy. CSM's veery badly want to reach Terra and rip that bewildered corpse from his throne. They want to gloriously charge the Imperial Palace and plunder Terras cities. They commit an act known as the Crimson Path. They turn every world leading their way to Terra into a Daemon World. By thus means, reinforcements and great tithes of Daemons can be summoned from the warp, ready to reap Terra. This goal is what disciplines CSM's. Every CSM and SM are extremely smart, and I mean almost if not not as smart as Albert
You're confusing the Black Legion with the the entirety of chaos marines, there's probably just as many (if not more) who turned away from emps purely for their own reasons, such as Huron or the myriad of rogue SM. Also, the plot armour point is applicable in every single faction. The Ultramarines win in Uriel Ventris' books for the same reasons the Night Lords do in their books. They're the protagonists. Out of all the factions, the Tau/Eldar arguably have strongest plot armour atm.
Not all CSM want to depose Emps with the furor that BL and to a lesser extent, the Word Bearers do.
The second largest group of CSM is no longer a ex-legion, but now it's Huron's band of renegades and pirates, and I'm not entirely sure what they want, but it's definitely doesn't coincide with Abbadon's dream.
,
"The Imperium is a weak old man, ready and waiting to be broken apart by his vengeful sons." -Lufgt Huron, Tyrant of Badab
That is Hurons exact words. What do you think he wants to do? Sit around? I don't think so, he wants to tear the Imperium down and the best way to do that is killing the Emperor and plundering Terra. Do not be fooled, this is exactly what all Chaos Marines want...and they will have it.
Bobthehero wrote: Arguably, he could've meant that other vengeful scions will take care of the Imperium, not him or his warband.
And if someone's bringing down the IoM its the Nids or the Necrons.
No offense, but are you joking me? Why would he bother saying that if he himself has no intention of being a part of the scheme? Thats like saying I wanna be a rockstar yet Im sitting around hoping someone else does it for me. I do agree with you about the Nidz, they could be the death of everything. Necrons definitely could be the destruction of the Imperium but they are more likely to turn their weapons on Chaos first and then destroy the Imperium.
Play Space Marine where one SM is able to stop an Ork Waaagh and a demonic incursion single handed. That doesn't exist in the books. That doesn't exist on the table. Other games/books are more balanced and fair but again, it can vary.
The CSM in that game fought like armed vegetables and certain scenes (Like when he wrecked half a dozen of them alone easily) were just plain illogical. But to be fair the majority of that game was actually plausible. Titus rarely fought more than half a dozen foes at once and when he did it was almost always Orks.
And yes, they need to make the CSM seem more dangeous, and an actual threat to mankind. That'd be epic.
Wow, after reading some of these posts, it appears like chaos is not bad enough. Chaos is a MAJOR threat. It's not THE threat. I believe that spot is for the Tyranids but it's a plague that is crippling the imperium of man. The strength and skill of SM and CSM is based on the author and how much they want to empower or enfeeble. Don't believe me? Play Space Marine where one SM is able to stop an Ork Waaagh and a demonic incursion single handed. That doesn't exist in the books. That doesn't exist on the table. Other games/books are more balanced and fair but again, it can vary.
Let's just run a hypothetical situation space marine chapter comes across a chaos war band. The results will vary. It's not like the Space marines are going to be the clear winners every time, nor does it mean that the chaos warband will be able to destroy and crush the space marines. If the Space wolves meet Iron warriors the result would be different than if Dark Angels meet Death Guard. Does it mean that if DA lose they suck? Or does it mean that Iron warriors aren't as strong as SW? It can go either way. This is compounded by the fact that all the information we have is based on fluff that can/will change depending on author.
There is no ONE team (CSM/SM) that is stronger or better.
I'd put this on par with a discussion on who would win in a fight Jesus or Superman.
To be fair, Spacemarine was just a video game, your suppose to feel like an overpowering bad***. Just look at Master Chief in Halo, throughout the course of the series hes killed lord knows how many Covenant troops.
The slaughtering of the Orks was good and realistic until the chaos marines started gettin it. Like you said, they were terribly worfed But it was a fun game though
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
To be fair, Cain (who I assume is who you're referring to) is described as a master swordsman who practices his drills for hours every day.
Also, in that duel isn't the chainaxe wielding berserker actually killed by Jurgen with a meltagun? Cain fights him to a tie and then gets out the way so Jurgen can melt the enemy.
Later Cain does manage to kill a wounded CSM by sticking his chainsword into exposed piping in a gap in the armour.
Remember though, the most important thing to take away from 40K is that modern Space Marines are actually better than Crusade-era space Marines. A big part of the Codex Astartes was removing all the substandard recruiting and training processes that were prevalent during the Crusade when the Legions were trying to churn out Space Marines as fast as possible to keep up with their high casualty rates. Basically, the Ultramarines were the best of the Legions, and the Codex Astartes was designed to turn all the Space Marines into Ultramarines. It's funny to think of because everything in 40K is supposed to be archaic and outdated, but that works in the Space Marines' favor because 10,000 years ago was the best time to be a Space Marine. So being stuck doing it the same way means they're still doing it the best way possible.
They might have had better recruiting and training practices, but the marines of the legions had much better battle exprience and better weapons and gear. Many SM in 40k have never seen real battle, or if they have only a few. Marines of the great crusade were very quickly educated in the ways of war by actually doing. Being instructed and led by their demigod primarchs must have helped a little too(all 18 we know of were a bit insane, but they had redeeming features)
I don't know if you've ever had someone swing a crowbar at you, but it is very difficult to stop it with a piece of steel. An axe is a heavy piece of equipment, much more so then a crowbar. This particular example is massive, and is being wielded by a one-ton, genetically engineered super human. There is also the spinning teeth, which should royally screw the chainsword over. Yes, Jurgen kills him, but it is insanity that Cain (yes, you were right about it being him) can keep him occupied for even a couple seconds.
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
To be fair, Cain (who I assume is who you're referring to) is described as a master swordsman who practices his drills for hours every day.
Also, in that duel isn't the chainaxe wielding berserker actually killed by Jurgen with a meltagun? Cain fights him to a tie and then gets out the way so Jurgen can melt the enemy.
Later Cain does manage to kill a wounded CSM by sticking his chainsword into exposed piping in a gap in the armour.
Berzerkers are arguably the best close combat fighters in the galaxy. They also have three times the adrenaline a normal marine possesses with enhanced strength (yes, genetically enhanced and then enhanced by the butchers nails) and can fight through injuries that would incapacitate even the toughest warriors. And Berzerkers train several hours a day just like Cain.
Whether a close combat genious or not Cain would not and shouldn't have lasted even a couple seconds with that Berzerker. Hes human. Even a normal run-of-the-mill Chaos Marine could have assailed Cain. They train hours a day, they're superhuman and 5 times the intelligence of Cain. Realistically it is absurd he lasted with that berzerker. Cain can most likely easily dispatch a dozen humans in CC but couldn't match not even a single superhuman warp enhanced Chaos Marine.
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
To be fair, Cain (who I assume is who you're referring to) is described as a master swordsman who practices his drills for hours every day.
Also, in that duel isn't the chainaxe wielding berserker actually killed by Jurgen with a meltagun? Cain fights him to a tie and then gets out the way so Jurgen can melt the enemy.
Later Cain does manage to kill a wounded CSM by sticking his chainsword into exposed piping in a gap in the armour.
Berzerkers are arguably the best close combat fighters in the galaxy. They also have three times the adrenaline a normal marine possesses with enhanced strength (yes, genetically enhanced and then enhanced by the butchers nails) and can fight through injuries that would incapacitate even the toughest warriors. And Berzerkers train several hours a day just like Cain.
Whether a close combat genious or not Cain would not and shouldn't have lasted even a couple seconds with that Berzerker. Hes human. Even a normal run-of-the-mill Chaos Marine could have assailed Cain. They train hours a day, they're superhuman and 5 times the intelligence of Cain. Realistically it is absurd he lasted with that berzerker. Cain can most likely easily dispatch a dozen humans in CC but couldn't match not even a single superhuman warp enhanced Chaos Marine.
Thisssssssssssss so much.
Seeing Commissar Lords go around with WS/BS5 when not even Honour Guard (!) get that makes me cringe, btw.
Psienesis wrote: ... They do make more Chaos Space Marines. They raid the Imperium for supplies of gene-seed, steal it from fallen Loyalists, and Fabius Bile has more-or-less figured out how to make it.
They make them alright, but at a much slower rate than the IoM replaces it's losses. Thus either Chaos has a higher kill ratio, or Chaos would have been defeated already.
No, they survive because they can run and hide in the Eye of Terror and the Maelstrom.
The other misconception is that most Chaos Marines are veterans of the Heresy. That's a minority. Most of the veterans of the Heresy are dead or transcended to daemonhood. Heck, most of the Traitors were killed in the Heresy. It's all there in the fluff. People just like to skip that part. The Legions didn't just give up and wander off. They ground themselves to burger at Terra, then were hounded and chased until the remnants were forced to retreat where the loyalists couldn't follow. The remaining Chaos Marines are mostly substandard replacements made from stolen geneseed.
Uhh, I don't know what fluff your reading but in every book based on one of the Legions most of them are veterans of the Heresy and the recent renegades are generally described as a minority. Heck, in Blood Gorgon's, the only CSM book about renegades they are all around 6000 years old, and they are are considered youngsters to the Death Guard they fight. Additionally, Chaos Space Marines can be brought back to life, which is another way they keep up there numbers of Veterans.
The argument that SM fight more and die more simply because of that is moot, since Chaos fight themselves all the time. It's how their rank system works, the ones on top are there because they got rid of the competitors. They are very Darwinian.
It's also a ridiculously awful way to run a military, lol. Because it means the strong lead the weak by eliminating the not quite as strong. And strength itself isn't a leadership quality.
The Orks choose leaders the same way. And you see how successful they tend to be.
da001 wrote: Plot armor. The good guys always win.
It gets really annoying. In "Know no Fear", you read about some SM obliterating full squads of CSM with their mighty bolters while the enemy fire (bolters) only scratches their Power Armor.
This is just cheap and easy narrative device common to action stories. Space Marine power armor is only ever as powerful as it needs to be in any given situation.
If you read the Night Lords trilogy, on more than one occasion the loyalist Space Marines die ridiculously easily because the Night Lords need to win. It has nothing to do with the good guys always winning. Because they lose in the fluff too. I hate to pick on ADB because I like the guy, but another example that occurs to me is the battle at Armatura, where the World Eaters do everything wrong that you possibly could in warfighting, and still manage to win because angry. Where the Ultramarines have some hardened defensive position, and Kharn defeats it with the sheer power of angry and charging right at it. It's just that these stories aren't being written with technical accuracy as the main concern. Otherwise Marine vs Marine stories would actually be fairly boring.
Remember though, the most important thing to take away from 40K is that modern Space Marines are actually better than Crusade-era space Marines. A big part of the Codex Astartes was removing all the substandard recruiting and training processes that were prevalent during the Crusade when the Legions were trying to churn out Space Marines as fast as possible to keep up with their high casualty rates. Basically, the Ultramarines were the best of the Legions, and the Codex Astartes was designed to turn all the Space Marines into Ultramarines. It's funny to think of because everything in 40K is supposed to be archaic and outdated, but that works in the Space Marines' favor because 10,000 years ago was the best time to be a Space Marine. So being stuck doing it the same way means they're still doing it the best way possible.
You do realize that most Chaos Space Marines have lived in the Eye of Terror where every day is a battle for survival right? And how they consistently fight against there battle-brothers day after day? And even if the Great Crusade training was inferior, that was long ago and they have had 10000 years of combat experience.
Wow, after reading some of these posts, it appears like chaos is not bad enough. Chaos is a MAJOR threat.
Or a villain-of-the-week cartoon villain, depending on the source. Coming to think of it, there are many novels and codexes/codices that depict CSM as little more than cultists.
(...)
There is no ONE team (CSM/SM) that is stronger or better.
This is the way it should be. By making the "bad guys" so stupid and incompetent, good stories turn into childish pew-pew-pew fantasies with no drama, no emotion, no tragedy, and no surprise at all. And I really dislike it when they retcon a Chaos victory into a SM victory. It cheapens the heroes as it cheapens the villains.
And it goes against the "narrative". If you read the HH books, all traitor Legions should have been destroyed at this point, due to the massive casualties they take everywhere.
Wow, after reading some of these posts, it appears like chaos is not bad enough. Chaos is a MAJOR threat.
Or a villain-of-the-week cartoon villain, depending on the source. Coming to think of it, there are many novels and codexes/codices that depict CSM as little more than cultists.
(...)
There is no ONE team (CSM/SM) that is stronger or better.
This is the way it should be. By making the "bad guys" so stupid and incompetent, good stories turn into childish pew-pew-pew fantasies with no drama, no emotion, no tragedy, and no surprise at all. And I really dislike it when they retcon a Chaos victory into a SM victory. It cheapens the heroes as it cheapens the villains.
And it goes against the "narrative". If you read the HH books, all traitor Legions should have been destroyed at this point, due to the massive casualties they take everywhere.
I agree very much. Its boring reading about the repetitive SM victories.
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
To be fair, Cain (who I assume is who you're referring to) is described as a master swordsman who practices his drills for hours every day.
Also, in that duel isn't the chainaxe wielding berserker actually killed by Jurgen with a meltagun? Cain fights him to a tie and then gets out the way so Jurgen can melt the enemy.
Later Cain does manage to kill a wounded CSM by sticking his chainsword into exposed piping in a gap in the armour.
Berzerkers are arguably the best close combat fighters in the galaxy. They also have three times the adrenaline a normal marine possesses with enhanced strength (yes, genetically enhanced and then enhanced by the butchers nails) and can fight through injuries that would incapacitate even the toughest warriors. And Berzerkers train several hours a day just like Cain.
Whether a close combat genious or not Cain would not and shouldn't have lasted even a couple seconds with that Berzerker. Hes human. Even a normal run-of-the-mill Chaos Marine could have assailed Cain. They train hours a day, they're superhuman and 5 times the intelligence of Cain. Realistically it is absurd he lasted with that berzerker. Cain can most likely easily dispatch a dozen humans in CC but couldn't match not even a single superhuman warp enhanced Chaos Marine.
Thisssssssssssss so much.
Seeing Commissar Lords go around with WS/BS5 when not even Honour Guard (!) get that makes me cringe, btw.
Makes me cringe too. I know people want Commissars to kill some Chaos Marines to make them seem significant but logically, its not rational. Commissars win agaisnt Chaos Marines using their superior amounts of guardsmen, battle tactics and restore discipline. They were not meant to go toe-to-toe with genetically enhances killing machines. In 40k tabletop it gets pretty stupid but thats because it tries to make up for the fact that CSM's would be unbearably overpowering. A Commissar Lord killed Kharn in CC which couldn't happen in the fluff. And Chaos Champs don't stand a chance against one either.
Many SM in 40k have never seen real battle, or if they have only a few.
Really? Most Marines in 40k will have already seen quite a lot of battle as Scouts before they even get the opportunity to put on the power armour and a heck of a lot more as Devastators and Assault Marines before they can reach the tactical "backbone".
Legion Marines meanwhile just seem to have been crapped out and thrown about.
Yeah, I never saw Commissars as that elite of soldiers. They are just guardsmen with better aim, a stick up their ass and a fancier gun. Any sort of Space Marine should be able to swat one in close combat away.
Now, a platoon of Guardsman led by a Commissar....
Many SM in 40k have never seen real battle, or if they have only a few.
Really? Most Marines in 40k will have already seen quite a lot of battle as Scouts before they even get the opportunity to put on the power armour and a heck of a lot more as Devastators and Assault Marines before they can reach the tactical "backbone".
Legion Marines meanwhile just seem to have been crapped out and thrown about.
Yeah really, most of the IoM is at peace. They train, they defend their fortress monestaries, they occationally run around and show the flag to keep local rulers in line, they spend years crossing the galaxy to respond to real battles.
They do battle, but nothing like the great crusade. The great crusade every planet was hostile, needed a full assault to subdue and then needed to be defended against a very hostile galaxy.
Ashiraya wrote: Lol, logically a CSM could kill a commissar by just sitting on him.
But then you would only need to buy a few CSM to play a decent sized army and we can't have that can we, nono the $$$ must flow.
My point exactly haha gets crazy against orks. A 10 man Chaos squad can be butchered by a 30 man ork unit. In the fluff, that squad would have killed hundreds of orks, assailing them with bolter, grenade and knife. But again, lets take it easy on the ork player and not make him have to remove a couple hundred models lol
I think OP will never be truly happy till CSM are the bees knees in terms of both fluff and crunch.
They're weak in crunch because a) random tables and lack of delivery systems, and weak in fluff because a) The logistics argument, as even though Chaos has it's warpsmiths and forgeworlds, there's simply no way that it can content with the industrial titan that is the IoM. Like, for every dedicated forge world that Chaos has, the IoM has a gooooooood deal more. And though their workers may live in squalor and perpetual grimdark, they don't have quite as much risk of being torn to ribbons by daemons or other gribbly creatures. b) Warrior Vs.Soldier argument, as though CSMs are undoubtedly better fighters (the whole, 'living in a realm of perpetual battle, carnage and general unpleasantness' tends to cause that) they (with notable exceptions of Word Bearers and Black Legion) don't tend to fight as a coherent military force, or at least, as much as regular SMs do. The reason black crusades are such a big deal is that it's bloody rare for the might of the eye of terror together and acting in synergy and "teamwork"
There's only been 13 of them since the heresy, which shows a certain lack of cohesion between legions. The point isn't that the legions can't work together (they just find it very temporary) it's just that SM have the whole 'teamwork' and 'dieing for a brother' down. Chaos is good at killing and burning, SM is better at achieving objectives (or at least, that's how it was explained to me by local fluff-nut who works for GW)
Also the whole 'plot armour' argument extends to every single faction there is.
Like, look into every codex and you'll get it.
All Black Library books have it, they're mostly pulp fiction and not particularly well thought out.
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
But yeah, plot armour. The good guys need to win. And the only real way for the storyline to stay stagnant is to maintain the status quo. That means killing off the hundreds of Chaos Marines that just pop out of the woodwork when ever we turn our backs.
Bane-.- wrote: Grimdark is nothing but shades of very, very dark grey.
50 shades?
Cain (and Jurgen) has killed Warbosses, Hive Tyrants, Daemon Princesses, Genestealer Broodlords, Daemons, and Chaos Lords.
Exergy wrote: Yeah really, most of the IoM is at peace.
Even if that was true, the Marines go looking for fights and responding to distress calls or calls to battle.
Look at the Ultramarines, despite Ultramar being mostly peaceful they range about and get into fights all the time.
And again, to progress to what is essentially a line trooper they need to be hurled into war again and again.
Exergy wrote: They do battle, but nothing like the great crusade. The great crusade every planet was hostile, needed a full assault to subdue and then needed to be defended against a very hostile galaxy.
I'd say the fighting is harder, because they face world destroying threats such as Tyranids, Necrons and full Chaos manifestations, but do so without being part of a Legion.
Many SM in 40k have never seen real battle, or if they have only a few.
Really? Most Marines in 40k will have already seen quite a lot of battle as Scouts before they even get the opportunity to put on the power armour and a heck of a lot more as Devastators and Assault Marines before they can reach the tactical "backbone".
Legion Marines meanwhile just seem to have been crapped out and thrown about.
Yeah really, most of the IoM is at peace. They train, they defend their fortress monestaries, they occationally run around and show the flag to keep local rulers in line, they spend years crossing the galaxy to respond to real battles.
They do battle, but nothing like the great crusade. The great crusade every planet was hostile, needed a full assault to subdue and then needed to be defended against a very hostile galaxy.
Well actually Space Marines do earn a level of experience. They are always at war with the enemies of mankind but lets entertain the notion that they aren't. They are still frequently called upon to quell rebellions and Chapter Masters often send their youngest men to do so. This is usually they're reserve companies and the scout company, with the sergeants teaching their youthful brothers the ways of combat.
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Inky wrote: I think OP will never be truly happy till CSM are the bees knees in terms of both fluff and crunch.
They're weak in crunch because a) random tables and lack of delivery systems, and weak in fluff because a) The logistics argument, as even though Chaos has it's warpsmiths and forgeworlds, there's simply no way that it can content with the industrial titan that is the IoM. Like, for every dedicated forge world that Chaos has, the IoM has a gooooooood deal more. And though their workers may live in squalor and perpetual grimdark, they don't have quite as much risk of being torn to ribbons by daemons or other gribbly creatures. b) Warrior Vs.Soldier argument, as though CSMs are undoubtedly better fighters (the whole, 'living in a realm of perpetual battle, carnage and general unpleasantness' tends to cause that) they (with notable exceptions of Word Bearers and Black Legion) don't tend to fight as a coherent military force, or at least, as much as regular SMs do. The reason black crusades are such a big deal is that it's bloody rare for the might of the eye of terror together and acting in synergy and "teamwork"
There's only been 13 of them since the heresy, which shows a certain lack of cohesion between legions. The point isn't that the legions can't work together (they just find it very temporary) it's just that SM have the whole 'teamwork' and 'dieing for a brother' down. Chaos is good at killing and burning, SM is better at achieving objectives (or at least, that's how it was explained to me by local fluff-nut who works for GW)
Also the whole 'plot armour' argument extends to every single faction there is.
Like, look into every codex and you'll get it.
All Black Library books have it, they're mostly pulp fiction and not particularly well thought out.
Yes, the IoM has more forgeworlds but keep in mind that they're time is frequently sucked up by the fact that they have to supply billions of weapons and gear for the inumerable troops the Imperium has (mainly guardsmen) and they have to supply billions more for the PDF of thousands of planets. Why do you think Imperial citizens or even troops that aren't cleared for its use are put to death if they are found in possession of even a single bolt round or bolter for that matter? Because the Imperium can't afford to have people who dont have permission for such a weapon of war to hold onto it. SM chapters usually pick up supplies from a single nearby forgeworld and they live off it while the rest of them provide for the quantities of the Imperium which is neccesary for its continued survival.
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
To be fair, Cain (who I assume is who you're referring to) is described as a master swordsman who practices his drills for hours every day.
Also, in that duel isn't the chainaxe wielding berserker actually killed by Jurgen with a meltagun? Cain fights him to a tie and then gets out the way so Jurgen can melt the enemy.
Later Cain does manage to kill a wounded CSM by sticking his chainsword into exposed piping in a gap in the armour.
Berzerkers are arguably the best close combat fighters in the galaxy. They also have three times the adrenaline a normal marine possesses with enhanced strength (yes, genetically enhanced and then enhanced by the butchers nails) and can fight through injuries that would incapacitate even the toughest warriors. And Berzerkers train several hours a day just like Cain.
Whether a close combat genious or not Cain would not and shouldn't have lasted even a couple seconds with that Berzerker. Hes human. Even a normal run-of-the-mill Chaos Marine could have assailed Cain. They train hours a day, they're superhuman and 5 times the intelligence of Cain. Realistically it is absurd he lasted with that berzerker. Cain can most likely easily dispatch a dozen humans in CC but couldn't match not even a single superhuman warp enhanced Chaos Marine.
And Cain is a coward who has to live up to a hero's reputation in order to keep on being a coward. Never underestimate how much cowards want to survive and what they can (and will) do to ensure they do
Also a berserker just keeps swinging, they don't feint, or use any tricks. Cain doesn't have to block the big axe, just get out of its way which is, with his battle-hardened and cowardice-enhanced reflexes, possible.
Actually, the Cain books are probably the least biased (in fluff) books in the Black Library. Considering they're (in fluff) all banned by the Inquisition and definitely do not portray Cain in the light that the Imperium would want.
So they're one of the few series which are immune to the "faction propaganda" which is stuck on other books.
Actually, the Cain books are probably the least biased (in fluff) books in the Black Library. Considering they're (in fluff) all banned by the Inquisition and definitely do not portray Cain in the light that the Imperium would want.
So they're one of the few series which are immune to the "faction propaganda" which is stuck on other books.
On the other hand, they are written by Cain himself, and you have no gaurantee whatsoever saying that he himself was not biased when he wrote about his own deeds!
Maybe that CSM he saw through his binoculars one battle turned into an epic duel when it came to writing the book?
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
To be fair, Cain (who I assume is who you're referring to) is described as a master swordsman who practices his drills for hours every day.
Also, in that duel isn't the chainaxe wielding berserker actually killed by Jurgen with a meltagun? Cain fights him to a tie and then gets out the way so Jurgen can melt the enemy.
Later Cain does manage to kill a wounded CSM by sticking his chainsword into exposed piping in a gap in the armour.
Berzerkers are arguably the best close combat fighters in the galaxy. They also have three times the adrenaline a normal marine possesses with enhanced strength (yes, genetically enhanced and then enhanced by the butchers nails) and can fight through injuries that would incapacitate even the toughest warriors. And Berzerkers train several hours a day just like Cain.
Whether a close combat genious or not Cain would not and shouldn't have lasted even a couple seconds with that Berzerker. Hes human. Even a normal run-of-the-mill Chaos Marine could have assailed Cain. They train hours a day, they're superhuman and 5 times the intelligence of Cain. Realistically it is absurd he lasted with that berzerker. Cain can most likely easily dispatch a dozen humans in CC but couldn't match not even a single superhuman warp enhanced Chaos Marine.
And Cain is a coward who has to live up to a hero's reputation in order to keep on being a coward. Never underestimate how much cowards want to survive and what they can (and will) do to ensure they do
Also a berserker just keeps swinging, they don't feint, or use any tricks. Cain doesn't have to block the big axe, just get out of its way which is, with his battle-hardened and cowardice-enhanced reflexes, possible.
Please, wipe yourself off when you're done with that.
Cain is implied to have some sort of favor backing him.
Hence why he can kill warbosses (who pulp most marines, traitor or loyal in one on one), Hive Tyrants (who eat marines, traitor or loyal, for breakfast), Genestealer Broodlords (in Word Bearers, regular genestealers' claws went through Terminator armor like nothing and they could pulo a marine's head or swat off his hands in an eyeblink; a Broodlord is far worse news), A Daemon Princess of Slaanesh (admittedly he had Jurgen) and such.
A Berserker doesn't even really rate next to the nastiest things he's fought and beaten.
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: It is really quite hilarious. There's the absolute joke where a Commisar with a chainsword successfully duels with a chain axe wielding Khornate Beserker. Go figure.
To be fair, Cain (who I assume is who you're referring to) is described as a master swordsman who practices his drills for hours every day.
Also, in that duel isn't the chainaxe wielding berserker actually killed by Jurgen with a meltagun? Cain fights him to a tie and then gets out the way so Jurgen can melt the enemy.
Later Cain does manage to kill a wounded CSM by sticking his chainsword into exposed piping in a gap in the armour.
Berzerkers are arguably the best close combat fighters in the galaxy. They also have three times the adrenaline a normal marine possesses with enhanced strength (yes, genetically enhanced and then enhanced by the butchers nails) and can fight through injuries that would incapacitate even the toughest warriors. And Berzerkers train several hours a day just like Cain.
Whether a close combat genious or not Cain would not and shouldn't have lasted even a couple seconds with that Berzerker. Hes human. Even a normal run-of-the-mill Chaos Marine could have assailed Cain. They train hours a day, they're superhuman and 5 times the intelligence of Cain. Realistically it is absurd he lasted with that berzerker. Cain can most likely easily dispatch a dozen humans in CC but couldn't match not even a single superhuman warp enhanced Chaos Marine.
And Cain is a coward who has to live up to a hero's reputation in order to keep on being a coward. Never underestimate how much cowards want to survive and what they can (and will) do to ensure they do
Also a berserker just keeps swinging, they don't feint, or use any tricks. Cain doesn't have to block the big axe, just get out of its way which is, with his battle-hardened and cowardice-enhanced reflexes, possible.
I think I understand what you are saying but let me put this in perspective for you. A normal Chaos Marine is much faster and stronger than a human, with the backpack feeding electrically motivated fibre bundles into their already superhuman body. With the butchers nails, as i explained makes a berzerker even faster and stronger than that. And again, berzerkers are some of the best fighters in the galaxy. In a literal sense, there was no way he could have dodged those swings. He would have been cleaved in half like the coward he was.
Actually, the Cain books are probably the least biased (in fluff) books in the Black Library. Considering they're (in fluff) all banned by the Inquisition and definitely do not portray Cain in the light that the Imperium would want.
So they're one of the few series which are immune to the "faction propaganda" which is stuck on other books.
On the other hand, they are written by Cain himself, and you have no gaurantee whatsoever saying that he himself was not biased when he wrote about his own deeds!
Maybe that CSM he saw through his binoculars one battle turned into an epic duel when it came to writing the book?
Cain is incredibly self loathing.
He always undersells everything he does, and his memoirs were meant to be a dispelling of all the myths that surrounded him.
Amberly repeatedly notes that Cain never gives himself enough credit.
I have to agree. Besides the CSM part the game was pretty plausible because it wasn't like you were wading through thousands of Orks in an open field, you were only fighting a few at a time in more or less confined spaces.
But anyways even the World Eaters CSM aren't lunatics. Kharn, who is thought by many as being the most stereotypical of them is described in the books as being a very calm and calculating tactician when he needs to be.
Huron also definitely has the same goal as any other CSM. He even mentored Honsou for a short while.
Given that Titus can crush a Daemon Prince's skull with his hands and beat a Warboss and all his most elite and power nob bodyguards to death singlehandedly, I don't think Joe Schmoe Killsalot the Chaos Space Marine is going to slow him down much.
Please, wipe yourself off when you're done with that.
Cain is implied to have some sort of favor backing him.
Hence why he can kill warbosses (who pulp most marines, traitor or loyal in one on one), Hive Tyrants (who eat marines, traitor or loyal, for breakfast), Genestealer Broodlords (in Word Bearers, regular genestealers' claws went through Terminator armor like nothing and they could pulo a marine's head or swat off his hands in an eyeblink; a Broodlord is far worse news), A Daemon Princess of Slaanesh (admittedly he had Jurgen) and such.
A Berserker doesn't even really rate next to the nastiest things he's fought and beaten.
He should not have been able to do those things then. Its not possible for a human.
Given that Titus can crush a Daemon Prince's skull with his hands and beat a Warboss and all his most elite and power nob bodyguards to death singlehandedly, I don't think Joe Schmoe Killsalot the Chaos Space Marine is going to slow him down much.
Please, wipe yourself off when you're done with that.
Cain is implied to have some sort of favor backing him.
Hence why he can kill warbosses (who pulp most marines, traitor or loyal in one on one), Hive Tyrants (who eat marines, traitor or loyal, for breakfast), Genestealer Broodlords (in Word Bearers, regular genestealers' claws went through Terminator armor like nothing and they could pulo a marine's head or swat off his hands in an eyeblink; a Broodlord is far worse news), A Daemon Princess of Slaanesh (admittedly he had Jurgen) and such.
A Berserker doesn't even really rate next to the nastiest things he's fought and beaten.
He should not have been able to do those things then. Its not possible for a human.
As I said, it's quite likely that the Tallarns who worshipped him as a prophet of the Emperor and his suspicions that the Emperor must have an eye on him (and a sick sense of humor) are indeed right and that he's being blessed from on high.
Given that Titus can crush a Daemon Prince's skull with his hands and beat a Warboss and all his most elite and power nob bodyguards to death singlehandedly, I don't think Joe Schmoe Killsalot the Chaos Space Marine is going to slow him down much.
Irrelevant, thats a video game, come on dude.
The thing about 40k canon is that there is none.
There are only interpretations, of which none are more valid than the other. Not even the codices have any primacy over simple fan-fiction.
It's whatever you want it to be other than some bare basics.
Actually, the Cain books are probably the least biased (in fluff) books in the Black Library. Considering they're (in fluff) all banned by the Inquisition and definitely do not portray Cain in the light that the Imperium would want.
So they're one of the few series which are immune to the "faction propaganda" which is stuck on other books.
On the other hand, they are written by Cain himself, and you have no gaurantee whatsoever saying that he himself was not biased when he wrote about his own deeds!
Maybe that CSM he saw through his binoculars one battle turned into an epic duel when it came to writing the book?
Cain is incredibly self loathing.
He always undersells everything he does, and his memoirs were meant to be a dispelling of all the myths that surrounded him.
Amberly repeatedly notes that Cain never gives himself enough credit.
And where does Amberly say this? That's right, in the book written by Cain himself...
Actually, the Cain books are probably the least biased (in fluff) books in the Black Library. Considering they're (in fluff) all banned by the Inquisition and definitely do not portray Cain in the light that the Imperium would want.
So they're one of the few series which are immune to the "faction propaganda" which is stuck on other books.
On the other hand, they are written by Cain himself, and you have no gaurantee whatsoever saying that he himself was not biased when he wrote about his own deeds!
Maybe that CSM he saw through his binoculars one battle turned into an epic duel when it came to writing the book?
Cain is incredibly self loathing.
He always undersells everything he does, and his memoirs were meant to be a dispelling of all the myths that surrounded him.
Amberly repeatedly notes that Cain never gives himself enough credit.
And where does Amberly say this? That's right, in the book written by Cain himself...
I don't give that a lot of cred, sorry.
It's in the footnotes, which are written by Amberley, not Cain, as part of her work evaluating his memoirs for the Inquisition.
Actually, the Cain books are probably the least biased (in fluff) books in the Black Library. Considering they're (in fluff) all banned by the Inquisition and definitely do not portray Cain in the light that the Imperium would want.
So they're one of the few series which are immune to the "faction propaganda" which is stuck on other books.
On the other hand, they are written by Cain himself, and you have no gaurantee whatsoever saying that he himself was not biased when he wrote about his own deeds!
Maybe that CSM he saw through his binoculars one battle turned into an epic duel when it came to writing the book?
Cain is incredibly self loathing.
He always undersells everything he does, and his memoirs were meant to be a dispelling of all the myths that surrounded him.
Amberly repeatedly notes that Cain never gives himself enough credit.
And where does Amberly say this? That's right, in the book written by Cain himself...
I don't give that a lot of cred, sorry.
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
Well, Cain was still listed as alive and in active duty after he was dead and buried, so...
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
Well, Cain was still listed as alive and in active duty after he was dead and buried, so...
Crack fic idea: Cain's intense fear of Necrons reached such a fervor pitch after seeing them destroy the shadowlight that Trazyn managed to detect it with his empathic sensors while he was scouting around for new things to steal. So Trazyn snatched him away in his dying moments and replaced him with a body double and stuffed him into a Necron body, to forever accompany him as part of his collection.
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
Well, Cain was still listed as alive and in active duty after he was dead and buried, so...
Crack fic idea: Cain's intense fear of Necrons reached such a fervor pitch after seeing them destroy the shadowlight that Trazyn managed to detect it with his empathic sensors while he was scouting around for new things to steal. So Trazyn snatched him away in his dying moments and replaced him with a body double and stuffed him into a Necron body, to forever accompany him as part of his collection.
Thus Cain truly is everliving.
And is finally reunited (through his sense of smell) with Jurgen in the display case next to him
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
Well, Cain was still listed as alive and in active duty after he was dead and buried, so...
Crack fic idea: Cain's intense fear of Necrons reached such a fervor pitch after seeing them destroy the shadowlight that Trazyn managed to detect it with his empathic sensors while he was scouting around for new things to steal. So Trazyn snatched him away in his dying moments and replaced him with a body double and stuffed him into a Necron body, to forever accompany him as part of his collection.
Thus Cain truly is everliving.
And is finally reunited (through his sense of smell) with Jurgen in the display case next to him
Nah, Jurgen would be made a Pariah whose model you can buy for 100 USD$ including a supplement.
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
Well, Cain was still listed as alive and in active duty after he was dead and buried, so...
Crack fic idea: Cain's intense fear of Necrons reached such a fervor pitch after seeing them destroy the shadowlight that Trazyn managed to detect it with his empathic sensors while he was scouting around for new things to steal. So Trazyn snatched him away in his dying moments and replaced him with a body double and stuffed him into a Necron body, to forever accompany him as part of his collection.
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
Well, Cain was still listed as alive and in active duty after he was dead and buried, so...
Crack fic idea: Cain's intense fear of Necrons reached such a fervor pitch after seeing them destroy the shadowlight that Trazyn managed to detect it with his empathic sensors while he was scouting around for new things to steal. So Trazyn snatched him away in his dying moments and replaced him with a body double and stuffed him into a Necron body, to forever accompany him as part of his collection.
Thus Cain truly is everliving.
Still more plausible than the actual books.
WMG: The last ever story of 40k will finally hit M42; only to reveal that Trazyn has completed his greatest heist; stuffing the entire universe into a hyper-pocket.
Thus ending the true and grandest conflict of 40k.
The contest of thievery between the Blood Ravens and Trazyn.
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
Well, Cain was still listed as alive and in active duty after he was dead and buried, so...
Crack fic idea: Cain's intense fear of Necrons reached such a fervor pitch after seeing them destroy the shadowlight that Trazyn managed to detect it with his empathic sensors while he was scouting around for new things to steal. So Trazyn snatched him away in his dying moments and replaced him with a body double and stuffed him into a Necron body, to forever accompany him as part of his collection.
Thus Cain truly is everliving.
Still more plausible than the actual books.
WMG: The last ever story of 40k will finally hit M42; only to reveal that Trazyn has completed his greatest heist; stuffing the entire universe into a hyper-pocket.
Thus ending the true and grandest conflict of 40k.
The contest of thievery between the Blood Ravens and Trazyn.
A book he wrote as a confessional and what was meant to break the illusion he felt had surrounded his life.
And Amberly annotated the book after Cain was literally dead and buried unless you want to add "beyond the boundaries of life and death" to the list of reasons that Cain is awesome.
Well, Cain was still listed as alive and in active duty after he was dead and buried, so...
Crack fic idea: Cain's intense fear of Necrons reached such a fervor pitch after seeing them destroy the shadowlight that Trazyn managed to detect it with his empathic sensors while he was scouting around for new things to steal. So Trazyn snatched him away in his dying moments and replaced him with a body double and stuffed him into a Necron body, to forever accompany him as part of his collection.
Thus Cain truly is everliving.
Still more plausible than the actual books.
WMG: The last ever story of 40k will finally hit M42; only to reveal that Trazyn has completed his greatest heist; stuffing the entire universe into a hyper-pocket.
Thus ending the true and grandest conflict of 40k.
The contest of thievery between the Blood Ravens and Trazyn.
Welcome to my sig. You will are honoured
Edit: how do I make this my sig?
Copy and paste your quote of my post into your sig.
Remember to copy and paste the quote tags, but remove the quotes that aren't of my post.
Bobthehero wrote: Arguably, he could've meant that other vengeful scions will take care of the Imperium, not him or his warband.
And if someone's bringing down the IoM its the Nids or the Necrons.
No offense, but are you joking me? Why would he bother saying that if he himself has no intention of being a part of the scheme? Thats like saying I wanna be a rockstar yet Im sitting around hoping someone else does it for me. I do agree with you about the Nidz, they could be the death of everything. Necrons definitely could be the destruction of the Imperium but they are more likely to turn their weapons on Chaos first and then destroy the Imperium.
Because I could the same line about my father, save for the vengeful scion part, doesn't mean I will do it.
Syria's arguably ripe for a foreign invasion, doesn't mean I'll support one.
And many other things, just because you remark sometthing doesn't mean you'll so it.
Bobthehero wrote: Arguably, he could've meant that other vengeful scions will take care of the Imperium, not him or his warband.
And if someone's bringing down the IoM its the Nids or the Necrons.
No offense, but are you joking me? Why would he bother saying that if he himself has no intention of being a part of the scheme? Thats like saying I wanna be a rockstar yet Im sitting around hoping someone else does it for me. I do agree with you about the Nidz, they could be the death of everything. Necrons definitely could be the destruction of the Imperium but they are more likely to turn their weapons on Chaos first and then destroy the Imperium.
Because I could the same line about my father, save for the vengeful scion part, doesn't mean I will do it.
Syria's arguably ripe for a foreign invasion, doesn't mean I'll support one.
And many other things, just because you remark sometthing doesn't mean you'll so it.
Cursed Founding wrote: It might be that the loyalists are getting their new mar 8 'errant' armor and their mark 3 'sunfury' plasma pistols and all the fancy new gunships and tanks.
I agree to Gjd123. They have all the forge worlds and, not to forget, all the STCs which give them a huge advantage.
Sometimes it feels awkward but maybe the people who like normal SM have higher numbers so they choose to please the major group.
Also, I read a lot of books that have equal fights and equal destruction (ex. on malodrax the entire Imperial fists 1st company is wiped out with almost no losses to the Iron warriors
Mark 8 'Errant' Armour is inferior to any form of Heresy armour except the crap one that got mass-produced.. MKV I think it was. Imperial technology has continued to degrade since the Heresy, leading to general stagnation around the Imperium.
I also think that there is more love for CSMs than SMs, it's just all the little 12-year-olds that ask their mummy for more Ultramarines that push SMs up the ladder.
Also CSMs have Chaos Relics, more powerful Psykers, living Primarchs, superior technology, superior numbers, mutations (some helpful and some not), demons, cult troops, demon engines, demon worlds, possessed, more defensible turf (the warp), the ability to corrupt and whatever else I've missed.
Bobthehero wrote: Just because Huron says the Imperium is weak doesn't mean he wants to end it.
Just that he wants away with it.
The rest doesn't concern you.
Then what you say holds no real meaning. For a lord of Chaos to come out and say what he said means he's in on it. Chaos lords hold extreme power, and others are looking to take over when he slips up. If he says something, he means it. So lets stop with the whole "not all CSM's wanna kill the emperor" because I promise you they do and they dream about it everyday.
Bobthehero wrote: Just because Huron says the Imperium is weak doesn't mean he wants to end it.
Just that he wants away with it.
The rest doesn't concern you.
Then what you say holds no real meaning. For a lord of Chaos to come out and say what he said means he's in on it. Chaos lords hold extreme power, and others are looking to take over when he slips up. If he says something, he means it. So lets stop with the whole "not all CSM's wanna kill the emperor" because I promise you they do and they dream about it everyday.
Chaos is not a hive mind.
Every Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Lord is their own individual with their own goals and desires.
Some may just want to "play" with nubile daemonette consorts all day and do drugs (particularly if they have slaaneshi leanings), enjoying all the hedonistic pleasure denied to them by other Chaos Gods or the Imperial Cult.
Others just want to watch the world burn, not the Imperium in particular, just anything that breathes.
And some have this urge to paint every rock they see purple.
I can't picture EVERY Chaos marine wanting nothing more than to go right to Terra and destroy the emperor. It seems to me that they all have more common and petty desires ahead of that. "I want more slaves!" "I hate those Emperor's Children ____'s. Let's go beat on them." "We need more promethian. Let's go raid a IG depot." "Arrgh!"
That's the kind of thing that probably takes up most of their time. The veterans of the HH, sure. Yeah, they hate those loyalist douches. But most don't have that burning desire or they would have launched far more crusades against the Imperium than they have.
MWHistorian wrote: I can't picture EVERY Chaos marine wanting nothing more than to go right to Terra and destroy the emperor. It seems to me that they all have more common and petty desires ahead of that. "I want more slaves!" "I hate those Emperor's Children ____'s. Let's go beat on them." "We need more promethian. Let's go raid a IG depot." "Arrgh!" That's the kind of thing that probably takes up most of their time. The veterans of the HH, sure. Yeah, they hate those loyalist douches. But most don't have that burning desire or they would have launched far more crusades against the Imperium than they have.
Most CSMs are just looking for freedom to do what they want, barely any CSMs actually hate Loyalist space marines, they just view them as misguided. I imagine most CSMs just want to rape, pillage, destroy stuff and generally indulge themselves in whatever they wanted to do as an SM.
Cursed Founding wrote: It might be that the loyalists are getting their new mar 8 'errant' armor and their mark 3 'sunfury' plasma pistols and all the fancy new gunships and tanks.
I agree to Gjd123. They have all the forge worlds and, not to forget, all the STCs which give them a huge advantage.
Sometimes it feels awkward but maybe the people who like normal SM have higher numbers so they choose to please the major group.
Also, I read a lot of books that have equal fights and equal destruction (ex. on malodrax the entire Imperial fists 1st company is wiped out with almost no losses to the Iron warriors
Mark 8 'Errant' Armour is inferior to any form of Heresy armour except the crap one that got mass-produced.. MKV I think it was. Imperial technology has continued to degrade since the Heresy, leading to general stagnation around the Imperium.
I also think that there is more love for CSMs than SMs, it's just all the little 12-year-olds that ask their mummy for more Ultramarines that push SMs up the ladder.
Also CSMs have Chaos Relics, more powerful Psykers, living Primarchs, superior technology, superior numbers, mutations (some helpful and some not), demons, cult troops, demon engines, demon worlds, possessed, more defensible turf (the warp), the ability to corrupt and whatever else I've missed.
This is still completely valid you know.
And I like to annoy Chaos fanboys with it.
Or a few Tanith guardsmen and Musket wielding Primitives Slaughtering five veterans of the long war like a bunch of scrubs.
Also according to Kelly the Legions flat out don't exist as an organizational unit anymore.
Chaos Lords ALL share this very same goal people. Black crusades require dumploads of men and supplies, loads so big it rarely presents them an opportunity for Abaddon and his legions of Chaos Marines. If they had more opportunities they surely would've launched many more crusades. But look whats happening right now guys! As of now in 999.M41, your precious Cadia is being raped and humiliated and soon it will fall and ALL of Chaos will march their way to Terra to have one last glorious charge of the Imperial Palace and tear that decadent corpse from his putrid throne. Believe what you wanna believe, my misguided brothers but Terra will fall...and you will burn out along with this weak and overbearing galaxy!
Lord Tarkin wrote: Chaos Lords ALL share this very same goal people. Black crusades require dumploads of men and supplies, loads so big it rarely presents them an opportunity for Abaddon and his legions of Chaos Marines. If they had more opportunities they surely would've launched many more crusades. But look whats happening right now guys! As of now in 999.M41, your precious Cadia is being raped and humiliated and soon it will fall and ALL of Chaos will march their way to Terra to have one last glorious charge of the Imperial Palace and tear that decadent corpse from his putrid throne. Believe what you wanna believe, my misguided brothers but Terra will fall...and you wull burn out along with this weak and overbearing galaxy!
What actually happens: The weight of a thousand galaxies worth of teeth and claws comes in, snuffing out all human accomplishment, hopes, and dreams in an unstoppable tide that nobody ever had a chance to defeat or even meaningfully slow down.
All the struggles, all the accomplishments, all the battles, all the works, of every last species in the galaxy, from the ancient Necrons to the youthful Tau; are all meaningless as the Milky way joins a thousand other galaxies in eternal silence, all to feed the hive mind.
Such is the ultimate grimdarkness; that ultimately, nothing matters, that the end is not a screaming eternity of torment and suffering, but bleak; utter silence. Now, and forever.
Mind you, Ultramarines: The Movie is a perfect example of a piece of fluff that is immensely contradictory.
Such as Ultramarines recruits starting out as Tacticals and skipping the Scout stage. (lol, given what happened in the Ultramarines novels where they kicked one of their captains to the Warp for a tactically sound maneuver that contradicted the Codex...)
Calling people fanboys will not do you good. Especially since you show your own bias by doing so, turning it into hypocrisy as well (Yes, I am a fangirl. But so is Bobthehero. Weird that I don't see you calling him a fanboy, hmm? Maybe it does not benefit your argument?)
That movie is as canon as anything else... And since it contradicts so much, I will happily ignore it.
Ashiraya wrote: Mind you, Ultramarines: The Movie is a perfect example of a piece of fluff that is immensely contradictory.
Such as Ultramarines recruits starting out as Tacticals and skipping the Scout stage. (lol, given what happened in the Ultramarines novels where they kicked one of their captains to the Warp for a tactically sound maneuver that contradicted the Codex...)
Calling people fanboys will not do you good. Especially since you show your own bias by doing so, turning it into hypocrisy as well (Yes, I am a fangirl. But so is Bobthehero. Weird that I don't see you calling him a fanboy, hmm? Maybe it does not benefit your argument?)
That movie is as canon as anything else... And since it contradicts so much, I will happily ignore it.
I like Chaos, I just see them as just another threat.
One of the big four threats, yes.
But still, one of many.
In addition, my military background makes me see war as not an affair of soldiery or tactics; but simple numbers and production capacity. And the followers of Chaos have fewer mortal followers than the Imperium by orders of magnitude even when most of the Imperium isn't on a total war footing.
Chaos is more than a scittering tide of pasty bugz. We cannot be washed away and wiped, we will push forever onwards! Once we claim that corpse the Imperium calls an Emperor our forces of daemons and Chaos legions will pour forth in unstoppable wave of fury and a 5th Chaos god will be born. You nor any sentient being in this galaxy will stand to our gestalt presence!
Cursed Founding wrote: It might be that the loyalists are getting their new mar 8 'errant' armor and their mark 3 'sunfury' plasma pistols and all the fancy new gunships and tanks.
I agree to Gjd123. They have all the forge worlds and, not to forget, all the STCs which give them a huge advantage.
Sometimes it feels awkward but maybe the people who like normal SM have higher numbers so they choose to please the major group.
Also, I read a lot of books that have equal fights and equal destruction (ex. on malodrax the entire Imperial fists 1st company is wiped out with almost no losses to the Iron warriors
Mark 8 'Errant' Armour is inferior to any form of Heresy armour except the crap one that got mass-produced.. MKV I think it was. Imperial technology has continued to degrade since the Heresy, leading to general stagnation around the Imperium.
I also think that there is more love for CSMs than SMs, it's just all the little 12-year-olds that ask their mummy for more Ultramarines that push SMs up the ladder.
Also CSMs have Chaos Relics, more powerful Psykers, living Primarchs, superior technology, superior numbers, mutations (some helpful and some not), demons, cult troops, demon engines, demon worlds, possessed, more defensible turf (the warp), the ability to corrupt and whatever else I've missed.
This is still completely valid you know.
And I like to annoy Chaos fanboys with it.
Or a few Tanith guardsmen and Musket wielding Primitives Slaughtering five veterans of the long war like a bunch of scrubs.
Also according to Kelly the Legions flat out don't exist as an organizational unit anymore.
That's not plot armor or fanboi-ism, they were just playing 6th ed.
Cursed Founding wrote: It might be that the loyalists are getting their new mar 8 'errant' armor and their mark 3 'sunfury' plasma pistols and all the fancy new gunships and tanks.
I agree to Gjd123. They have all the forge worlds and, not to forget, all the STCs which give them a huge advantage.
Sometimes it feels awkward but maybe the people who like normal SM have higher numbers so they choose to please the major group.
Also, I read a lot of books that have equal fights and equal destruction (ex. on malodrax the entire Imperial fists 1st company is wiped out with almost no losses to the Iron warriors
Mark 8 'Errant' Armour is inferior to any form of Heresy armour except the crap one that got mass-produced.. MKV I think it was. Imperial technology has continued to degrade since the Heresy, leading to general stagnation around the Imperium.
I also think that there is more love for CSMs than SMs, it's just all the little 12-year-olds that ask their mummy for more Ultramarines that push SMs up the ladder.
Also CSMs have Chaos Relics, more powerful Psykers, living Primarchs, superior technology, superior numbers, mutations (some helpful and some not), demons, cult troops, demon engines, demon worlds, possessed, more defensible turf (the warp), the ability to corrupt and whatever else I've missed.
This is still completely valid you know.
And I like to annoy Chaos fanboys with it.
Or a few Tanith guardsmen and Musket wielding Primitives Slaughtering five veterans of the long war like a bunch of scrubs.
Also according to Kelly the Legions flat out don't exist as an organizational unit anymore.
That's not plot armor or fanboi-ism, they were just playing 6th ed.
...
This comment is so truthful it made me hurt deep inside.
Ashiraya wrote: Mind you, Ultramarines: The Movie is a perfect example of a piece of fluff that is immensely contradictory.
Such as Ultramarines recruits starting out as Tacticals and skipping the Scout stage. (lol, given what happened in the Ultramarines novels where they kicked one of their captains to the Warp for a tactically sound maneuver that contradicted the Codex...)
Calling people fanboys will not do you good. Especially since you show your own bias by doing so, turning it into hypocrisy as well (Yes, I am a fangirl. But so is Bobthehero. Weird that I don't see you calling him a fanboy, hmm? Maybe it does not benefit your argument?)
That movie is as canon as anything else... And since it contradicts so much, I will happily ignore it.
Well said, couldn't have put it any better myself.
The backstory of UM: The Movie explains why they go from Scouts to Tacticals so quickly. Yes, it's a plot device, and is not really touched on in the movie, but it explains why they send what is basically a bunch of kids on such a critical mission. Basically, the rest of the company was busy fighting Tyranids somewhere else.
Psienesis wrote: The backstory of UM: The Movie explains why they go from Scouts to Tacticals so quickly. Yes, it's a plot device, and is not really touched on in the movie, but it explains why they send what is basically a bunch of kids on such a critical mission. Basically, the rest of the company was busy fighting Tyranids somewhere else.
AKA the fight that probably would have made a better story, but the animators had neither the talent or budget to render it.
Eh, Chaos forces are stupidly outnumbered by loyalist IG that they won't get really far in, since the IoM controls space, they'll pour in enough troops to beat back the Black Crusade.
Oooooh, and then our awesome Grey Knights of doom will enter the Warp and murderize everything Chaos, wooohoooo!
And then everyone gets eaten, way to crap on the parade, Nids >:c
Bobthehero wrote: Eh, Chaos forces are stupidly outnumbered by loyalist IG that they won't get really far in, since the IoM controls space, they'll pour in enough troops to beat back the Black Crusade.
Oooooh, and then our awesome Grey Knights of doom will enter the Warp and murderize everything Chaos, wooohoooo!
And then everyone gets eaten, way to crap on the parade, Nids >:c
Actually the IOM do not control space, The 13th Crusade is still going on and has conquered large swathes of Segmentum Obscuras. As of current, the Imperial Fleet is in control of the Sector Lanes but cannot push into solar systems as they don't have the might to fight the Chaos Fleet.
Chaos is actually a lot like Orks in how much of a threat they are. Left to their own devices they are little more than street gangs with magic power trying to bully defenseless civilians around because it makes them tingle with delight. However, when a charismatic warlord (Abaddon the armless failure, Angron etc.) they can REALLY ruin the Imperium's day. Just read about the various organized offenses Chaos underwent. The Gothic War, Dominion of Fire and the 13th Black Crusade are just some examples.
Chaos may not have the infrastructure or organization that the Imperium does but it has magic powers on it's side. With it's super special space magic it can corrupt Imperial populations to give them the resources and manpower it needs. They can make an army where they didn't have one with little to no effort on their part while taking one from the Imperium. It also has elite super soldiers that are not only magically imbued but also veterans of the most brutal warfare one can imagine. To underestimate the threat they present is uninformed at best.
However, what the Imperium has on them is an organized, dedicated and motivated military. The Lost and the Damned could never reach the heights of the Astra Militarium and the Adeptus Astartes outnumber their traitor counterparts by a good margin. There is also forces such as the Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle and the Inquisition that is very aware of the threat of Chaos and has the tools to deal with it. The only reason why the Imperium hasn't crushed the forces of Chaos (Not Chaos itself, mind you. Just Chaos marines/LatD) is because it is beset on all sides by evil and powerful aliens.
TheCustomLime wrote: Chaos is actually a lot like Orks in how much of a threat they are. Left to their own devices they are little more than street gangs with magic power trying to bully defenseless civilians around because it makes them tingle with delight. However, when a charismatic warlord (Abaddon the armless failure, Angron etc.) they can REALLY ruin the Imperium's day. Just read about the various organized offenses Chaos underwent. The Gothic War, Dominion of Fire and the 13th Black Crusade are just some examples.
Chaos may not have the infrastructure or organization that the Imperium does but it has magic powers on it's side. With it's super special space magic it can corrupt Imperial populations to give them the resources and manpower it needs. They can make an army where they didn't have one with little to no effort on their part while taking one from the Imperium. It also has elite super soldiers that are not only magically imbued but also veterans of the most brutal warfare one can imagine. To underestimate the threat they present is uninformed at best.
However, what the Imperium has on them is an organized, dedicated and motivated military. The Lost and the Damned could never reach the heights of the Astra Militarium and the Adeptus Astartes outnumber their traitor counterparts by a good margin. There is also forces such as the Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle and the Inquisition that is very aware of the threat of Chaos and has the tools to deal with it. The only reason why the Imperium hasn't crushed the forces of Chaos (Not Chaos itself, mind you. Just Chaos marines/LatD) is because it is beset on all sides by evil and powerful aliens.
And because if the Imperium tried to crush the CSM/LATD, they could just retreat to the Eye and enjoy perhaps the single most unwise-to-attack shelter in 40k.
Once they have passed through the Eye and into the Warp itself, the Imperium must either retreat or follow them right into the jaws of their doom.
Imperial might is well and good but it helps you nothing while in the Warp where the Chaos Gods themselves can smack you around.
Aye, but Chaos could not really do much else besides mess with each other in that situation. The moment they leave the eye the entire Imperium would come down on them since they have no other enemies.
Well, you could argue that with no enemies the Imperium would come apart but that's another can of worms.
I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
TheCustomLime wrote: I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
Time is non-linear in the Warp. Once the Warp is united and on the side of the CSM, the CSM can not only strike where they want, but also when they want.
They can sabotage the Imperium before the war even has begun, or wait until the Imperium has aged to only bones and dust.
That can never happen, unfortunately. The warp isn't a being that can side on either Chaos or the Imperium. It is just a dimension. An unstable one at that. Sure, they could possibly learn how to manipulate it to their favor but they could end up in deep space, 1000 years in the future or with half of their number mysteriously gone. Or a combination of all of that. Such is the vagaries of the warp.
TheCustomLime wrote: I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
What? Chaos makes new astartes all he time. Pretty much every black library book focusing on the traitors has them harvesting geneseed, talking about recruiting to make up for losses or boost numbers before a crusade, and so on. Fabius Bile specifically goes about selling his favor to lords that want to start churning out new troops. Huron Blackheart attacks loyalist chapters to steal their geneseed and make more pirates.
Chaos does not have nearly the organized military might of the Imperium (nor should it!), but it has daemonic support, the help of traitors and cells inside the imperium, and more. The Imperium also has the disadvantage of being on the defensive. They cannot bring -too- much of their might to bear against a Black Crusade, say, or they start leaving their domain vulnerable against pesky orks, hungry tyranids, ambitious Necrons and the rebellion of their own systems.
Ths is sort of academic, though. Chas could have five time the power of the Imperium and it still would not win unless the writers wanted to steer the story in that direction. Hence why the big mess of Nids never arrives, Ghaz never seems to get past Armaggedon, and every Black Crusade -almost- breaks Cadia.
TheCustomLime wrote: I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
What? Chaos makes new astartes all he time. Pretty much every black library book focusing on the traitors has them harvesting geneseed, talking about recruiting to make up for losses or boost numbers before a crusade, and so on. Fabius Bile specifically goes about selling his favor to lords that want to start churning out new troops. Huron Blackheart attacks loyalist chapters to steal their geneseed and make more pirates.
Chaos does not have nearly the organized military might of the Imperium (nor should it!), but it has daemonic support, the help of traitors and cells inside the imperium, and more. The Imperium also has the disadvantage of being on the defensive. They cannot bring -too- much of their might to bear against a Black Crusade, say, or they start leaving their domain vulnerable against pesky orks, hungry tyranids, ambitious Necrons and the rebellion of their own systems.
Ths is sort of academic, though. Chas could have five time the power of the Imperium and it still would not win unless the writers wanted to steer the story in that direction. Hence why the big mess of Nids never arrives, Ghaz never seems to get past Armaggedon, and every Black Crusade -almost- breaks Cadia.
TheCustomLime wrote: I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
What? Chaos makes new astartes all he time. Pretty much every black library book focusing on the traitors has them harvesting geneseed, talking about recruiting to make up for losses or boost numbers before a crusade, and so on. Fabius Bile specifically goes about selling his favor to lords that want to start churning out new troops. Huron Blackheart attacks loyalist chapters to steal their geneseed and make more pirates.
Chaos does not have nearly the organized military might of the Imperium (nor should it!), but it has daemonic support, the help of traitors and cells inside the imperium, and more. The Imperium also has the disadvantage of being on the defensive. They cannot bring -too- much of their might to bear against a Black Crusade, say, or they start leaving their domain vulnerable against pesky orks, hungry tyranids, ambitious Necrons and the rebellion of their own systems.
Ths is sort of academic, though. Chas could have five time the power of the Imperium and it still would not win unless the writers wanted to steer the story in that direction. Hence why the big mess of Nids never arrives, Ghaz never seems to get past Armaggedon, and every Black Crusade -almost- breaks Cadia.
Oh, yes, that is right. Derp. Well, they can't really create a quality force on the level of the Adeptus Astartes unless they manage to make a more effecient version of the Daemonculba or something similar. One bad thing about Chaos is that it's taint mutates and warps what it touches which isn't conducive to creating an organized army especially with the way new Space Marines are created. If I am not wrong, the reason why the traitors need to harvest the gene seed of loyalists is because the gene seed harvested from Chaos marines is too unstable to be viable.
TheCustomLime wrote: I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
What? Chaos makes new astartes all he time. Pretty much every black library book focusing on the traitors has them harvesting geneseed, talking about recruiting to make up for losses or boost numbers before a crusade, and so on. Fabius Bile specifically goes about selling his favor to lords that want to start churning out new troops. Huron Blackheart attacks loyalist chapters to steal their geneseed and make more pirates.
Chaos does not have nearly the organized military might of the Imperium (nor should it!), but it has daemonic support, the help of traitors and cells inside the imperium, and more. The Imperium also has the disadvantage of being on the defensive. They cannot bring -too- much of their might to bear against a Black Crusade, say, or they start leaving their domain vulnerable against pesky orks, hungry tyranids, ambitious Necrons and the rebellion of their own systems.
Ths is sort of academic, though. Chas could have five time the power of the Imperium and it still would not win unless the writers wanted to steer the story in that direction. Hence why the big mess of Nids never arrives, Ghaz never seems to get past Armaggedon, and every Black Crusade -almost- breaks Cadia.
Oh, yes, that is right. Derp. Well, they can't really create a quality force on the level of the Adeptus Astartes unless they manage to make a more effecient version of the Daemonculba or something similar. One bad thing about Chaos is that it's taint mutates and warps what it touches which isn't conducive to creating an organized army especially with the way new Space Marines are created. If I am not wrong, the reason why the traitors need to harvest the gene seed of loyalists is because the gene seed harvested from Chaos marines is too unstable to be viable.
The thing about the Adeptas is that they don't actually create that many in number, and usually create to replenish numbers rather then creating to make super huge armies, Chaos really doesn't have that sort of stipulation, and the recruitment for space marines is pretty low as well due to the fact that as said they are regulated when creating, need proper recruits from their recruiting worlds, and generally are kept in check by rules. So while Chaos has issues creating due to requiring outside gene-seed and new methods, the Space Marines aren't exactly creating numbers above that either, theirs is just far more stable.
Also the Black Crusades usually were about Abbadon getting things outside (and he slips past cadia), with the 13th being the only one to actually try and break Cadia...And if it wasn't for a retcon, he actually did!
TheCustomLime wrote: I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
What? Chaos makes new astartes all he time. Pretty much every black library book focusing on the traitors has them harvesting geneseed, talking about recruiting to make up for losses or boost numbers before a crusade, and so on. Fabius Bile specifically goes about selling his favor to lords that want to start churning out new troops. Huron Blackheart attacks loyalist chapters to steal their geneseed and make more pirates.
Chaos does not have nearly the organized military might of the Imperium (nor should it!), but it has daemonic support, the help of traitors and cells inside the imperium, and more. The Imperium also has the disadvantage of being on the defensive. They cannot bring -too- much of their might to bear against a Black Crusade, say, or they start leaving their domain vulnerable against pesky orks, hungry tyranids, ambitious Necrons and the rebellion of their own systems.
Ths is sort of academic, though. Chas could have five time the power of the Imperium and it still would not win unless the writers wanted to steer the story in that direction. Hence why the big mess of Nids never arrives, Ghaz never seems to get past Armaggedon, and every Black Crusade -almost- breaks Cadia.
Oh, yes, that is right. Derp. Well, they can't really create a quality force on the level of the Adeptus Astartes unless they manage to make a more effecient version of the Daemonculba or something similar. One bad thing about Chaos is that it's taint mutates and warps what it touches which isn't conducive to creating an organized army especially with the way new Space Marines are created. If I am not wrong, the reason why the traitors need to harvest the gene seed of loyalists is because the gene seed harvested from Chaos marines is too unstable to be viable.
What do you mean by unstable?
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TheCustomLime wrote: Aye, but Chaos could not really do much else besides mess with each other in that situation. The moment they leave the eye the entire Imperium would come down on them since they have no other enemies.
Well, you could argue that with no enemies the Imperium would come apart but that's another can of worms.
There will never be a time the Imperium doesn't have any enemies. A matter a fact, I think nids are threatening creation itself. Billions and Billions of Tyranids exist within the boundaries of the Imperium and according to Magos Biologists trillions and trillions more of them have yet to appear. These damn things could probably even just overflow the eye of terror, they'll destroy everything.
If everybody forgetting that in Legion Alpharius was told by the Cabal that if Horus was killed it would take 10,000 years for Chaos to destroy humanity? Looks like time is running out.
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There will never be a time the Imperium doesn't have any enemies. A matter a fact, I think nids are threatening creation itself. Billions and Billions of Tyranids exist within the boundaries of the Imperium and according to Magos Biologists trillions and trillions more of them have yet to appear. These damn things could probably even just overflow the eye of terror, they'll destroy everything.
The problem is that there are two very broken factions in 40K. Chaos and Nids. Chaos can never lose as long as humanity (and to a lesser extent other sentient xenos) is around, and can only be destroyed with the destruction of the human race. As far as Nids go, the writers seem to have gone wild with writing out how uber they are and how helpless everybody else is, that there literally is NO HOPE for the rest of the galaxy from them. As far as books go, Nids have been written with more fanoi-ism in the grand scheme of things than all other races combined. Sure they lose battles in the books, but the books then never fail to remind you that it doesn't matter because it's like the equivalent of sterilizing one bacteria cell when there is a mountain of rotting trash rolling in behind it.
herpguy wrote: If everybody forgetting that in Legion Alpharius was told by the Cabal that if Horus was killed it would take 10,000 years for Chaos to destroy humanity? Looks like time is running out.
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There will never be a time the Imperium doesn't have any enemies. A matter a fact, I think nids are threatening creation itself. Billions and Billions of Tyranids exist within the boundaries of the Imperium and according to Magos Biologists trillions and trillions more of them have yet to appear. These damn things could probably even just overflow the eye of terror, they'll destroy everything.
The problem is that there are two very broken factions in 40K. Chaos and Nids. Chaos can never lose as long as humanity (and to a lesser extent other sentient xenos) is around, and can only be destroyed with the destruction of the human race. As far as Nids go, the writers seem to have gone wild with writing out how uber they are and how helpless everybody else is, that there literally is NO HOPE for the rest of the galaxy from them. As far as books go, Nids have been written with more fanoi-ism in the grand scheme of things than all other races combined. Sure they lose battles in the books, but the books then never fail to remind you that it doesn't matter because it's like the equivalent of sterilizing one bacteria cell when there is a mountain of rotting trash rolling in behind it.
Yes, I agree. Nids have been made to look like they're unstoppable. Lets not forget that the nids are responsble for the destruction of half a dozen SM chapters and dozens and dozens of planets. With the way they've been portrayed I don't believe anybody will stop them, nobody. Hmanity as a whole is screwed. Apparently nids have already been in the Milky way galaxy once before. Indeginous creatures such as the Catachan Devil and the Fenrisian Kraken are rumoured to be organisms of ancient hive fleets. As interesting as that is they are probably gonna rape this galaxy one more time
herpguy wrote: If everybody forgetting that in Legion Alpharius was told by the Cabal that if Horus was killed it would take 10,000 years for Chaos to destroy humanity? Looks like time is running out.
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There will never be a time the Imperium doesn't have any enemies. A matter a fact, I think nids are threatening creation itself. Billions and Billions of Tyranids exist within the boundaries of the Imperium and according to Magos Biologists trillions and trillions more of them have yet to appear. These damn things could probably even just overflow the eye of terror, they'll destroy everything.
The problem is that there are two very broken factions in 40K. Chaos and Nids. Chaos can never lose as long as humanity (and to a lesser extent other sentient xenos) is around, and can only be destroyed with the destruction of the human race. As far as Nids go, the writers seem to have gone wild with writing out how uber they are and how helpless everybody else is, that there literally is NO HOPE for the rest of the galaxy from them. As far as books go, Nids have been written with more fanoi-ism in the grand scheme of things than all other races combined. Sure they lose battles in the books, but the books then never fail to remind you that it doesn't matter because it's like the equivalent of sterilizing one bacteria cell when there is a mountain of rotting trash rolling in behind it.
Yes, I agree. Nids have been made to look like they're unstoppable. Lets not forget that the nids are responsble for the destruction of half a dozen SM chapters and dozens and dozens of planets. With the way they've been portrayed I don't believe anybody will stop them, nobody. Hmanity as a whole is screwed. Apparently nids have already been in the Milky way galaxy once before. Indeginous creatures such as the Catachan Devil and the Fenrisian Kraken are rumoured to be organisms of ancient hive fleets. As interesting as that is they are probably gonnarpe this galaxy one more time
The fluff about there being way more Tyranids is only speculative.
The Tyranid codex outright states that the Hive Fleets we've seen in the Galaxy this far are vanguard fleets and there are *confirmed* new fleets (can't remember their names) that have entered the galaxy and started attacking planets.
TheCustomLime wrote: I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
What? Chaos makes new astartes all he time. Pretty much every black library book focusing on the traitors has them harvesting geneseed, talking about recruiting to make up for losses or boost numbers before a crusade, and so on. Fabius Bile specifically goes about selling his favor to lords that want to start churning out new troops. Huron Blackheart attacks loyalist chapters to steal their geneseed and make more pirates.
Chaos does not have nearly the organized military might of the Imperium (nor should it!), but it has daemonic support, the help of traitors and cells inside the imperium, and more. The Imperium also has the disadvantage of being on the defensive. They cannot bring -too- much of their might to bear against a Black Crusade, say, or they start leaving their domain vulnerable against pesky orks, hungry tyranids, ambitious Necrons and the rebellion of their own systems.
Ths is sort of academic, though. Chas could have five time the power of the Imperium and it still would not win unless the writers wanted to steer the story in that direction. Hence why the big mess of Nids never arrives, Ghaz never seems to get past Armaggedon, and every Black Crusade -almost- breaks Cadia.
Oh, yes, that is right. Derp. Well, they can't really create a quality force on the level of the Adeptus Astartes unless they manage to make a more effecient version of the Daemonculba or something similar. One bad thing about Chaos is that it's taint mutates and warps what it touches which isn't conducive to creating an organized army especially with the way new Space Marines are created. If I am not wrong, the reason why the traitors need to harvest the gene seed of loyalists is because the gene seed harvested from Chaos marines is too unstable to be viable.
What do you mean by unstable?
I mean that it's mutated. If you tried making more Space Marines out of the stuff you could end up with anything.
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TheCustomLime wrote: Aye, but Chaos could not really do much else besides mess with each other in that situation. The moment they leave the eye the entire Imperium would come down on them since they have no other enemies.
Well, you could argue that with no enemies the Imperium would come apart but that's another can of worms.
There will never be a time the Imperium doesn't have any enemies. A matter a fact, I think nids are threatening creation itself. Billions and Billions of Tyranids exist within the boundaries of the Imperium and according to Magos Biologists trillions and trillions more of them have yet to appear. These damn things could probably even just overflow the eye of terror, they'll destroy everything.
I was talking about a hypothetical situation where the Imperium's only enemy was Chaos. But yes, in the real 40k the Imperium will always have some big nasty trying to take it down. It would be pretty amusing if the Magos Biologists were wrong and what we are seeing now is the bulk of the overall Tyranid hive fleet, though.
TheCustomLime wrote: I.. don't think they really would present much more of a threat given the time.They don't have the resources or structure to build up an attack force big enough to attack the Imperium unless the Daemonculba project or something similar was done to create more Chaos Space Marines. The only force they could really build up is the LatD but they aren't near organized, motivated or equipped enough to deal with the Imperial Guard. The Chaos Space Marines and their varying specialties is what seems to give Chaos it's edge to fight the Imperium. If Chaos does manage to make a new Legiones Astartes.. yeah, the Imperium is going to have a war on it's hands.
What? Chaos makes new astartes all he time. Pretty much every black library book focusing on the traitors has them harvesting geneseed, talking about recruiting to make up for losses or boost numbers before a crusade, and so on. Fabius Bile specifically goes about selling his favor to lords that want to start churning out new troops. Huron Blackheart attacks loyalist chapters to steal their geneseed and make more pirates.
Chaos does not have nearly the organized military might of the Imperium (nor should it!), but it has daemonic support, the help of traitors and cells inside the imperium, and more. The Imperium also has the disadvantage of being on the defensive. They cannot bring -too- much of their might to bear against a Black Crusade, say, or they start leaving their domain vulnerable against pesky orks, hungry tyranids, ambitious Necrons and the rebellion of their own systems.
Ths is sort of academic, though. Chas could have five time the power of the Imperium and it still would not win unless the writers wanted to steer the story in that direction. Hence why the big mess of Nids never arrives, Ghaz never seems to get past Armaggedon, and every Black Crusade -almost- breaks Cadia.
Oh, yes, that is right. Derp. Well, they can't really create a quality force on the level of the Adeptus Astartes unless they manage to make a more effecient version of the Daemonculba or something similar. One bad thing about Chaos is that it's taint mutates and warps what it touches which isn't conducive to creating an organized army especially with the way new Space Marines are created. If I am not wrong, the reason why the traitors need to harvest the gene seed of loyalists is because the gene seed harvested from Chaos marines is too unstable to be viable.
What do you mean by unstable?
I mean that it's mutated. If you tried making more Space Marines out of the stuff you could end up with anything.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
TheCustomLime wrote: Aye, but Chaos could not really do much else besides mess with each other in that situation. The moment they leave the eye the entire Imperium would come down on them since they have no other enemies.
Well, you could argue that with no enemies the Imperium would come apart but that's another can of worms.
There will never be a time the Imperium doesn't have any enemies. A matter a fact, I think nids are threatening creation itself. Billions and Billions of Tyranids exist within the boundaries of the Imperium and according to Magos Biologists trillions and trillions more of them have yet to appear. These damn things could probably even just overflow the eye of terror, they'll destroy everything.
I was talking about a hypothetical situation where the Imperium's only enemy was Chaos. But yes, in the real 40k the Imperium will always have some big nasty trying to take it down. It would be pretty amusing if the Magos Biologists were wrong and what we are seeing now is the bulk of the overall Tyranid hive fleet, though.
Ah, you're right. They do prefer loyal gene-seed but they can still recover some of their own fallen, it just depends on how old the gene-seed is. And yeah, we all hope the Magos are wrong but so far the evidence is overwhelming. As BlaxicanX stated this is only the vanguard of a terrifyingly tremendous horde of Tyranids. The galaxy is truly doomed. So, SM's should start partying and fornicating while they got the chance!
CSM lost even more marine due to them Having to weed out the loyalist among them. EX: Gavriel Loken and the Luna Wolves. I think about half of the traitor legions had to do this as well. Just look at the dropsite massacre.
Its worth noting that due to the nature of TIME in the warp, some chaos marines feel like the heresy was very recent, where some remember it as lifetimes ago. The ranks of chaos are constantly replenished from renegades and fallen imperials, just because you tack on "Chaos" does not make those marines true Veterans of the Long War.
For example, Abbadon and his Terminator Retinue are probably one of the most elite fighting units in the universe, bar none, but the likelyhood of them running into Calgar and his retinue of Honor Guard is slim to none for example.
The FFG books for Black Crusade did a great job of explaining this, as you can become FAR more powerful in Black Crusade than you could as a loyalist, but your baseline starting level is somewhat less.
Armor gets damaged and not repaired properly, things get stolen and lost, betrayals ect make it hard for them to always measure up. The Dark Mechanicus does not have contracts like loyalists do with the Ad Mech to repair their gear, they do it in return for services rendered ect ect.
Vash108 wrote: CSM lost even more marine due to them Having to weed out the loyalist among them. EX: Gavriel Loken and the Luna Wolves. I think about half of the traitor legions had to do this as well. Just look at the dropsite massacre.
The dropsite massacre was actually just betrayal, it had nothing to do with rooting out the Emperor faithfuls. This was Isstvan III, where Horus and his fellow traitor primarchs had gathered those amongst the traitor legions that wouldnt leave the emperor and dropped them down below only to be virus bombed. This was really the only instance of this kind of action and the rooting of loyalists was not needed anytime afterwards.
Why do they seem weak? Because Space Marines get shiny new toys like Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers while CSM just get a vehicle that wants to be a real MC.
Happyjew wrote: Why do they seem weak? Because Space Marines get shiny new toys like Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers while CSM just get a vehicle that wants to be a real MC.
Happyjew wrote: Why do they seem weak? Because Space Marines get shiny new toys like Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers while CSM just get a vehicle that wants to be a real MC.
Alrighty then. What's your point?
That is why they seem weak. Because unlike their loyal brethren they don't get shiny new toys to make them better.
Happyjew wrote: Why do they seem weak? Because Space Marines get shiny new toys like Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers while CSM just get a vehicle that wants to be a real MC.
Alrighty then. What's your point?
That is why they seem weak. Because unlike their loyal brethren they don't get shiny new toys to make them better.
Well, it depends. Are you talking tabletop or fluff? Or both?
Happyjew wrote: Why do they seem weak? Because Space Marines get shiny new toys like Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers while CSM just get a vehicle that wants to be a real MC.
Alrighty then. What's your point?
That is why they seem weak. Because unlike their loyal brethren they don't get shiny new toys to make them better.
Well, it depends. Are you talking tabletop or fluff? Or both?
Oh tabletop of course. Was this a discussion on why they seem weak in the fluff? If so, because loyalists are GW's poster children and as such all fluff is required to show them in a glorious light.
Happyjew wrote: Why do they seem weak? Because Space Marines get shiny new toys like Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers while CSM just get a vehicle that wants to be a real MC.
Alrighty then. What's your point?
That is why they seem weak. Because unlike their loyal brethren they don't get shiny new toys to make them better.
Well, it depends. Are you talking tabletop or fluff? Or both?
Oh tabletop of course. Was this a discussion on why they seem weak in the fluff? If so, because loyalists are GW's poster children and as such all fluff is required to show them in a glorious light.
This is a uh... this is the fluff discussion sub-forum.
Happyjew wrote: Why do they seem weak? Because Space Marines get shiny new toys like Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers while CSM just get a vehicle that wants to be a real MC.
Alrighty then. What's your point?
That is why they seem weak. Because unlike their loyal brethren they don't get shiny new toys to make them better.
Well, it depends. Are you talking tabletop or fluff? Or both?
Oh tabletop of course. Was this a discussion on why they seem weak in the fluff? If so, because loyalists are GW's poster children and as such all fluff is required to show them in a glorious light.
Well, I actually love Chaos Marine tabletop. They're quite fun to play and I find them to be an easy army to play. I do feel they have cool toys of their own.
But yes, this was a fluffy question and you're right. They are the poster boys hence a regular tactical marine is a god in his own right because of it. Plot armour takes huge effect
Bobthehero wrote: Eh, once again, it depends, in the Scion codex there's at least one instance where the Scions save the bacon of a bunch of SM, agaisnt CSM, no less.
Happyjew wrote: Why do they seem weak? Because Space Marines get shiny new toys like Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers while CSM just get a vehicle that wants to be a real MC.
Alrighty then. What's your point?
That is why they seem weak. Because unlike their loyal brethren they don't get shiny new toys to make them better.
Well, it depends. Are you talking tabletop or fluff? Or both?
Oh tabletop of course. Was this a discussion on why they seem weak in the fluff? If so, because loyalists are GW's poster children and as such all fluff is required to show them in a glorious light.
This is a uh... this is the fluff discussion sub-forum.
Yeah, I know. I was trying to interject some humour into things.
Inkubas wrote: While I do see plot armor in books and the UM movie overall, I'd argue that its far from one side and more of a grim dark stalemate. There are amazing loyalist wins and crushing defeats. Heck, I recently read a book where AL destroyed an entire chapter with no losses. As per one on one combat and skill, I'd think of it as special ops vs mercenaries. It can go both ways but chances are special ops wins more often. My .02 anyway
Done it twice! Emperor's Swords and Crimson Consuls!
Vash108 wrote: CSM lost even more marine due to them Having to weed out the loyalist among them. EX: Gavriel Loken and the Luna Wolves. I think about half of the traitor legions had to do this as well. Just look at the dropsite massacre.
The dropsite massacre was actually just betrayal, it had nothing to do with rooting out the Emperor faithfuls. This was Isstvan III, where Horus and his fellow traitor primarchs had gathered those amongst the traitor legions that wouldnt leave the emperor and dropped them down below only to be virus bombed. This was really the only instance of this kind of action and the rooting of loyalists was not needed anytime afterwards.
Inkubas wrote: While I do see plot armor in books and the UM movie overall, I'd argue that its far from one side and more of a grim dark stalemate. There are amazing loyalist wins and crushing defeats. Heck, I recently read a book where AL destroyed an entire chapter with no losses. As per one on one combat and skill, I'd think of it as special ops vs mercenaries. It can go both ways but chances are special ops wins more often. My .02 anyway
Done it twice! Emperor's Swords and Crimson Consuls!
Vash108 wrote: CSM lost even more marine due to them Having to weed out the loyalist among them. EX: Gavriel Loken and the Luna Wolves. I think about half of the traitor legions had to do this as well. Just look at the dropsite massacre.
The dropsite massacre was actually just betrayal, it had nothing to do with rooting out the Emperor faithfuls. This was Isstvan III, where Horus and his fellow traitor primarchs had gathered those amongst the traitor legions that wouldnt leave the emperor and dropped them down below only to be virus bombed. This was really the only instance of this kind of action and the rooting of loyalists was not needed anytime afterwards.
Oh. Hey, I know earlier in this thread I seemed like a rude ***hole but just know that I didn't mean any insult, I'm just a really passionate 40k player and collector. So my bad
Bobthehero wrote: Eh, once again, it depends, in the Scion codex there's at least one instance where the Scions save the bacon of a bunch of SM, agaisnt CSM, no less.
Yes but Scions codex likes Scions to look good.
Without plot armour Scions lose every time vs. CSMs.
I disagree, but I seem to be one of the few that likes to see humans not getting their asses handed to themselves at all times.
The Scions also lose a lot vs Tau in their own codex, makes the victories vs Chaos more legit, imo.
And besides, one of the many advantages of CSM is PA, which a hellgun beam goes punches through with little issue, and the gear of the Scions is pretty advanced, too.
Bobthehero wrote: Eh, once again, it depends, in the Scion codex there's at least one instance where the Scions save the bacon of a bunch of SM, agaisnt CSM, no less.
Yes but Scions codex likes Scions to look good.
Without plot armour Scions lose every time vs. CSMs.
Why? Most Scion weapons can go through CSM armor while Carapace protects against Boltgun rounds. The Hotshot Volleygun alone makes minecmeat out of MEQ thanks to being an AP 3 bolter. I am not saying they are gods of war when fighting Chaos but it's not like CSM will roll over them. It'd be a tough fight for both sides.
Bobthehero wrote: Eh, once again, it depends, in the Scion codex there's at least one instance where the Scions save the bacon of a bunch of SM, agaisnt CSM, no less.
Yes but Scions codex likes Scions to look good.
Without plot armour Scions lose every time vs. CSMs.
Why? Most Scion weapons can go through CSM armor while Carapace protects against Boltgun rounds. The Hotshot Volleygun alone makes minecmeat out of MEQ thanks to being an AP 3 bolter. I am not saying they are gods of war when fighting Chaos but it's not like CSM will roll over them. It'd be a tough fight for both sides.
Agreed, then there's the setting for that fight, which was a bunch of scions swoop by, pop out of transports and kill everything in sight.
Which is, y'know, exactly their modus operandi.
They're a fast attacking assassination army, and they fought exactly to their strengths.
It's not really that criminal for assuming that they'd win.
Bobthehero wrote: Eh, once again, it depends, in the Scion codex there's at least one instance where the Scions save the bacon of a bunch of SM, agaisnt CSM, no less.
Yes but Scions codex likes Scions to look good.
Without plot armour Scions lose every time vs. CSMs.
Why? Most Scion weapons can go through CSM armor while Carapace protects against Boltgun rounds. The Hotshot Volleygun alone makes minecmeat out of MEQ thanks to being an AP 3 bolter. I am not saying they are gods of war when fighting Chaos but it's not like CSM will roll over them. It'd be a tough fight for both sides.
That's game mechanics, mind you.
Saying 's4' is proof for volleyguns being as strong as bolters is like saying 'ws4' is proof of Ork Boyz being as skilled in melee as Space Marine Honour Guard.
I disagree, but I seem to be one of the few that likes to see humans not getting their asses handed to themselves at all times. The Scions also lose a lot vs Tau in their own codex, makes the victories vs Chaos more legit, imo.
To the latter sentence: Aaaaaaaa cherrypicking!
To the former sentence: It's grimdark. Can't have humans not getting their asses handed to them in grimdark.
BlaxicanX wrote: The Tyranid codex outright states that the Hive Fleets we've seen in the Galaxy this far are vanguard fleets and there are *confirmed* new fleets (can't remember their names) that have entered the galaxy and started attacking planets.
and again, it's all speculative how big or strong these new fleet are. A Vanguard might be 1/3 of the total force or it could be 1/100 but the only consistent thing with 40k is that GW has no sense for numbers or scale.
BlaxicanX wrote: The Tyranid codex outright states that the Hive Fleets we've seen in the Galaxy this far are vanguard fleets and there are *confirmed* new fleets (can't remember their names) that have entered the galaxy and started attacking planets.
and again, it's all speculative how big or strong these new fleet are. A Vanguard might be 1/3 of the total force or it could be 1/100 but the only consistent thing with 40k is that GW has no sense for numbers or scale.
Either way, the universe is doomed. As of now hundreds of billions of these creature have already been encountered and 1/3 of the vanguard still spells death. 1/100 means the same thing only it will be quicker. Keep in mind every planet these bugz swallow up they spawn a couple billion more.
I have a more pragmatic explanation that I have always thought to be true.
Evil men are weaker, because ultimately all of their desires boil down to selfishness. They look out for number one, and they are constantly in-fighting.
Both of those things would weaken them. All of the loyalists, especially the very noble ones like the Salamanders or the Ultramarines would fight and die for their brothers, they will put themselves in harms way for them. This breeds trust and strength, like the interlocking shields of a Roman column, trust builds strength of the kind that weak devious men can never know.
A Salamander would gladly sacrifice himself to save his brothers, perhaps buying them time to escape with a desperate rearguard action. Not so the treacherous warriors of chaos. They would always inevitably look for a way to save their own skin when it really came to the crunch.
Plus they seem to spend all day plotting and killing each other in the books... is it any wonder they have less time for training and such as their loyalists counterparts?!
I wouldn't even be able to sleep sharing a billet with my mates in the Iron Warriors, let alone go for a jog and a few hours sparring with one!
mattyrm wrote: I have a more pragmatic explanation that I have always thought to be true.
Evil men are weaker, because ultimately all of their desires boil down to selfishness. They look out for number one, and they are constantly in-fighting.
Both of those things would weaken them. All of the loyalists, especially the very noble ones like the Salamanders or the Ultramarines would fight and die for their brothers, they will put themselves in harms way for them. This breeds trust and strength, like the interlocking shields of a Roman column, trust builds strength of the kind that weak devious men can never know.
A Salamander would gladly sacrifice himself to save his brothers, perhaps buying them time to escape with a desperate rearguard action. Not so the treacherous warriors of chaos. They would always inevitably look for a way to save their own skin when it really came to the crunch.
Plus they seem to spend all day plotting and killing each other in the books... is it any wonder they have less time for training and such as their loyalists counterparts?!
I wouldn't even be able to sleep sharing a billet with my mates in the Iron Warriors, let alone go for a jog and a few hours sparring with one!
While true they are still much older. No matter how you slice it, a 10,000 year old veteran who has lived and warred in hell itself should be more than capable of handling a 200 year old youngster.
mattyrm wrote: I have a more pragmatic explanation that I have always thought to be true.
Evil men are weaker, because ultimately all of their desires boil down to selfishness. They look out for number one, and they are constantly in-fighting.
Both of those things would weaken them. All of the loyalists, especially the very noble ones like the Salamanders or the Ultramarines would fight and die for their brothers, they will put themselves in harms way for them. This breeds trust and strength, like the interlocking shields of a Roman column, trust builds strength of the kind that weak devious men can never know.
A Salamander would gladly sacrifice himself to save his brothers, perhaps buying them time to escape with a desperate rearguard action. Not so the treacherous warriors of chaos. They would always inevitably look for a way to save their own skin when it really came to the crunch.
Plus they seem to spend all day plotting and killing each other in the books... is it any wonder they have less time for training and such as their loyalists counterparts?!
I wouldn't even be able to sleep sharing a billet with my mates in the Iron Warriors, let alone go for a jog and a few hours sparring with one!
While true they are still much older. No matter how you slice it, a 10,000 year old veteran who has lived and warred in hell itself should be more than capable of handling a 200 year old youngster.
I agree to a degree, but I think its like the skill curve that we see when it comes to anything, you know how to truly master something they say it takes 10,000 hours, but the cruve from 0-1000 is enormous, and then it sorta tapers off and rises really really slowly after you hit the 1000 hours mark?
I reckon we think that because we are so short lived, but common sense tells me the curve would taper out rapidly. I know for a fact I am far better a solider now at 34 than I was at 18 because I am calm and collected in almost any situation, I ddint keep a count, but on my tour of Kajaki every single patrol was an advance to contact, I was there for 5 months and I think we were engaged on every patrol except for about 3, so say I was in over 90 firefights, I felt more of a difference in my state of mind and my capability between 0-10 than I compared to the negligible, if any, difference between my knowledge and my demeanor during times 85-90.
So, I agree and I disagree at the same time. To be sure veterancy counts for absolutely gak loads and I would take 10 grizzled veterans aged 30-35 over 20 18-20 year olds any day of the week.. but how much more can you learn about war when you exist just to fight? Space Marines dont get shore leave.. I reckon 200 years will be about the crescendo of your talents personally, but its pure speculation obviously.
And we are really going into nerd-overdrive at this point and really over thinking things.
I stand by the selfishness thing as well. Chaos spend more time killing each other and plotting than they do anything else, I reckon Id have my money of the Loyalists 9 times out of 10.
mattyrm wrote: I have a more pragmatic explanation that I have always thought to be true.
Evil men are weaker, because ultimately all of their desires boil down to selfishness. They look out for number one, and they are constantly in-fighting.
Both of those things would weaken them. All of the loyalists, especially the very noble ones like the Salamanders or the Ultramarines would fight and die for their brothers, they will put themselves in harms way for them. This breeds trust and strength, like the interlocking shields of a Roman column, trust builds strength of the kind that weak devious men can never know.
A Salamander would gladly sacrifice himself to save his brothers, perhaps buying them time to escape with a desperate rearguard action. Not so the treacherous warriors of chaos. They would always inevitably look for a way to save their own skin when it really came to the crunch.
Plus they seem to spend all day plotting and killing each other in the books... is it any wonder they have less time for training and such as their loyalists counterparts?!
I wouldn't even be able to sleep sharing a billet with my mates in the Iron Warriors, let alone go for a jog and a few hours sparring with one!
While true they are still much older. No matter how you slice it, a 10,000 year old veteran who has lived and warred in hell itself should be more than capable of handling a 200 year old youngster.
Yup, and a 200 year old youngster is in the form of a captain.
mattyrm wrote: I have a more pragmatic explanation that I have always thought to be true.
Evil men are weaker, because ultimately all of their desires boil down to selfishness. They look out for number one, and they are constantly in-fighting.
Both of those things would weaken them. All of the loyalists, especially the very noble ones like the Salamanders or the Ultramarines would fight and die for their brothers, they will put themselves in harms way for them. This breeds trust and strength, like the interlocking shields of a Roman column, trust builds strength of the kind that weak devious men can never know.
A Salamander would gladly sacrifice himself to save his brothers, perhaps buying them time to escape with a desperate rearguard action. Not so the treacherous warriors of chaos. They would always inevitably look for a way to save their own skin when it really came to the crunch.
Plus they seem to spend all day plotting and killing each other in the books... is it any wonder they have less time for training and such as their loyalists counterparts?!
I wouldn't even be able to sleep sharing a billet with my mates in the Iron Warriors, let alone go for a jog and a few hours sparring with one!
While true they are still much older. No matter how you slice it, a 10,000 year old veteran who has lived and warred in hell itself should be more than capable of handling a 200 year old youngster.
I agree to a degree, but I think its like the skill curve that we see when it comes to anything, you know how to truly master something they say it takes 10,000 hours, but the cruve from 0-1000 is enormous, and then it sorta tapers off and rises really really slowly after you hit the 1000 hours mark?
I reckon we think that because we are so short lived, but common sense tells me the curve would taper out rapidly. I know for a fact I am far better a solider now at 34 than I was at 18 because I am calm and collected in almost any situation, I ddint keep a count, but on my tour of Kajaki every single patrol was an advance to contact, I was there for 5 months and I think we were engaged on every patrol except for about 3, so say I was in over 90 firefights, I felt more of a difference in my state of mind and my capability between 0-10 than I compared to the negligible, if any, difference between my knowledge and my demeanor during times 85-90.
So, I agree and I disagree at the same time. To be sure veterancy counts for absolutely gak loads and I would take 10 grizzled veterans aged 30-35 over 20 18-20 year olds any day of the week.. but how much more can you learn about war when you exist just to fight? Space Marines dont get shore leave.. I reckon 200 years will be about the crescendo of your talents personally, but its pure speculation obviously.
And we are really going into nerd-overdrive at this point and really over thinking things.
I stand by the selfishness thing as well. Chaos spend more time killing each other and plotting than they do anything else, I reckon Id have my money of the Loyalists 9 times out of 10.
Look, CSM's are still superhuman and they know when best to throw their uttmost loyalty to their champions. They only war against eachother in the eye of terror because they have nothing better to do and they all need gene-seed and as sad as it is....it is experience nonetheless. Soo, lets not say bad guys suck because they're bad, ok? Because they are SM's at heart, litterally.
I didn't say that they are bad because they are bad, that would be foolish and infantile.
Read the post.
Seeing as you clearly cant be bothered, allow me to sum up succinctly for you.
There are plenty of reasons why professional and dedicated soldiers who are better equipped and supplied and train more relentlessly and work with practiced teamwork and efficiency can win a fight against drug using, mentally unbalanced foes who don't spend half as much time fighting because they don't flock to the defense of others but instead spend their days plotting against each other and squabbling.
Veteran of The Long War wrote:
You do realize that most Chaos Space Marines have lived in the Eye of Terror where every day is a battle for survival right? And how they consistently fight against there battle-brothers day after day? And even if the Great Crusade training was inferior, that was long ago and they have had 10000 years of combat experience.
Except time flows differently in the Warp, so it isn't really 10,000 years, and most of the traitors from the Heresy are dead.
Veteran of The Long War wrote:
You do realize that most Chaos Space Marines have lived in the Eye of Terror where every day is a battle for survival right? And how they consistently fight against there battle-brothers day after day? And even if the Great Crusade training was inferior, that was long ago and they have had 10000 years of combat experience.
Except time flows differently in the Warp, so it isn't really 10,000 years, and most of the traitors from the Heresy are dead.
As said, the warp makes no sense. Most would be more along the age of 100s of years as a standard marine would. Time flows oddly and for some it would seem like only 50 years whilst others would feel as though 1111 years had passed by. In short, the warp makes no sense.
Bobthehero wrote: And its not like every CSM is from the heresy, either, shouldn't be that many running around.
Well yea, most are chaos lords and champions and thats about it but most are indeed veterans of the long war who can be anywhere between 200 to 9,999 years old
Veteran of The Long War wrote:
You do realize that most Chaos Space Marines have lived in the Eye of Terror where every day is a battle for survival right? And how they consistently fight against there battle-brothers day after day? And even if the Great Crusade training was inferior, that was long ago and they have had 10000 years of combat experience.
Except time flows differently in the Warp, so it isn't really 10,000 years, and most of the traitors from the Heresy are dead.
Your right, time does flow differently in the warp but that works both ways. For example; you could have 1 Chaos Marine for whom the flight from Terra was seconds ago but you could also have some who have lived millions of years in there minds. And while many of the original traitors did die they are still a majority. For example; In Storm of Iron one of the youngest marines there in the warband, Honsou is considered a youngster at only 6000 years old.
Veteran Sergeant wrote: Except time flows differently in the Warp, so it isn't really 10,000 years, and most of the traitors from the Heresy are dead.
Source. Like, please? This argument gets bandied about and there is literally nothing to support it.
Where did you find casualty figures for the heresy and since? Where have you sourced this unique OOB? Why, if it's not 10K years, is it <10K years, why not >10K???
Co'tor Shas wrote: No, but it has been stated and shown in canon. That's what hellguns (and hot shot charge packs) do, pierce armour.
Hot shot charge packs make it easier to pierce armour, keyword being easier. Its not just "pow pow pow" and it kills a SM. Its just easier but it still requires concentrated volleys of fire added with some skill (which is why ST's and high ranking IG are allowed to possess these weapons) to fell SM's. PA has built its sturdy reputation for a reason.
Read the Night Lords novels Soul Hunter through Void Stalker if you want to see CSMs teased out more feasibly.
This explains the passage of time living both in the Eye, as well as in the warp itself where they spend a lot of time.
The Night Lords in that series (which is pretty canonical and predates the HH books) are all veterans who typically best their loyalist counterparts in most engagements. They refer to current generation loyalist as "weakbloods" who are too far removed from their Primarchs and first foundings to truly stand toe-to-toe with a real legionary.
They only get beaten back because they are usually outnumbered, being all Heresy Era renegades, they haven't recruited since the destruction of Nostromo and don't relish the idea of increasing their ranks with non-Nostromans.
A real CSM Codex would actually have more individual veteran stat characters who break off into other units (think Wolf Guard style), but you'd actually have groups of them together, all with better stats, special rules and abilities, equipment etc.
The current CSM book just doesn't stack up to the fluff at all IMO short of some special characters.
As Bob said. Though, a Space Marine's remarkable toughness means he can weather a hot shot lasguns bite. Until he gets hit by several at least. The Hotshots are very well suited for killing power armored humans/PA equivalent xenos though.
Co'tor Shas wrote: No, but it has been stated and shown in canon. That's what hellguns (and hot shot charge packs) do, pierce armour.
Hot shot charge packs make it easier to pierce armour, keyword being easier. Its not just "pow pow pow" and it kills a SM. Its just easier but it still requires concentrated volleys of fire added with some skill (which is why ST's and high ranking IG are allowed to possess these weapons) to fell SM's. PA has built its sturdy reputation for a reason.
I never said it would kill a SM, just that it would penetrate PA.
mattyrm wrote: I have a more pragmatic explanation that I have always thought to be true.
Evil men are weaker, because ultimately all of their desires boil down to selfishness. They look out for number one, and they are constantly in-fighting.
Both of those things would weaken them. All of the loyalists, especially the very noble ones like the Salamanders or the Ultramarines would fight and die for their brothers, they will put themselves in harms way for them. This breeds trust and strength, like the interlocking shields of a Roman column, trust builds strength of the kind that weak devious men can never know.
A Salamander would gladly sacrifice himself to save his brothers, perhaps buying them time to escape with a desperate rearguard action. Not so the treacherous warriors of chaos. They would always inevitably look for a way to save their own skin when it really came to the crunch.
Plus they seem to spend all day plotting and killing each other in the books... is it any wonder they have less time for training and such as their loyalists counterparts?!
I wouldn't even be able to sleep sharing a billet with my mates in the Iron Warriors, let alone go for a jog and a few hours sparring with one!
This exactly.
But I'll add a bit more. Soldiers vs warriors. Warriors (such as Chaos Marines) fight as individuals. On the field they fight for themselves, unit cohesion is not very strong and group tactics are vague at best. They tend to fight on their own and go for glory or to save themselves. A great example of a warrior is the Samurai. On the battlefield they would call out personal challenges and fight for their clan or personal honor.
A good example of a soldier is the Roman legionnaire. One on one the samurai would slaughter the legionnaire. However, on the battlefield the romans fought as a single unit. Each soldier had his place and duty and they worked together as one. For centuries they were able to defeat massively larger forces due to their training, discipline and unit tactics. It wasn't until barbarian ways of fighting entered the legion that they began to deteriorate.
Chaos marines should be tougher and more deadly than any individual loyalist. However, the loyalists fighting together in highly trained units should be able to defeat larger forces of traitors.
For further reading I'd suggest "Carnage and Culture" by Victor David Hanson. He goes into great detail with many examples of how and why this happens.
mattyrm wrote: I have a more pragmatic explanation that I have always thought to be true.
Evil men are weaker, because ultimately all of their desires boil down to selfishness. They look out for number one, and they are constantly in-fighting.
Both of those things would weaken them. All of the loyalists, especially the very noble ones like the Salamanders or the Ultramarines would fight and die for their brothers, they will put themselves in harms way for them. This breeds trust and strength, like the interlocking shields of a Roman column, trust builds strength of the kind that weak devious men can never know.
A Salamander would gladly sacrifice himself to save his brothers, perhaps buying them time to escape with a desperate rearguard action. Not so the treacherous warriors of chaos. They would always inevitably look for a way to save their own skin when it really came to the crunch.
Plus they seem to spend all day plotting and killing each other in the books... is it any wonder they have less time for training and such as their loyalists counterparts?!
I wouldn't even be able to sleep sharing a billet with my mates in the Iron Warriors, let alone go for a jog and a few hours sparring with one!
This exactly.
But I'll add a bit more. Soldiers vs warriors. Warriors (such as Chaos Marines) fight as individuals. On the field they fight for themselves, unit cohesion is not very strong and group tactics are vague at best. They tend to fight on their own and go for glory or to save themselves. A great example of a warrior is the Samurai. On the battlefield they would call out personal challenges and fight for their clan or personal honor.
A good example of a soldier is the Roman legionnaire. One on one the samurai would slaughter the legionnaire. However, on the battlefield the romans fought as a single unit. Each soldier had his place and duty and they worked together as one. For centuries they were able to defeat massively larger forces due to their training, discipline and unit tactics. It wasn't until barbarian ways of fighting entered the legion that they began to deteriorate.
Chaos marines should be tougher and more deadly than any individual loyalist. However, the loyalists fighting together in highly trained units should be able to defeat larger forces of traitors.
For further reading I'd suggest "Carnage and Culture" by Victor David Hanson. He goes into great detail with many examples of how and why this happens.
mattyrm wrote: I have a more pragmatic explanation that I have always thought to be true.
Evil men are weaker, because ultimately all of their desires boil down to selfishness. They look out for number one, and they are constantly in-fighting.
Both of those things would weaken them. All of the loyalists, especially the very noble ones like the Salamanders or the Ultramarines would fight and die for their brothers, they will put themselves in harms way for them. This breeds trust and strength, like the interlocking shields of a Roman column, trust builds strength of the kind that weak devious men can never know.
A Salamander would gladly sacrifice himself to save his brothers, perhaps buying them time to escape with a desperate rearguard action. Not so the treacherous warriors of chaos. They would always inevitably look for a way to save their own skin when it really came to the crunch.
Plus they seem to spend all day plotting and killing each other in the books... is it any wonder they have less time for training and such as their loyalists counterparts?!
I wouldn't even be able to sleep sharing a billet with my mates in the Iron Warriors, let alone go for a jog and a few hours sparring with one!
This exactly.
But I'll add a bit more. Soldiers vs warriors. Warriors (such as Chaos Marines) fight as individuals. On the field they fight for themselves, unit cohesion is not very strong and group tactics are vague at best. They tend to fight on their own and go for glory or to save themselves. A great example of a warrior is the Samurai. On the battlefield they would call out personal challenges and fight for their clan or personal honor.
A good example of a soldier is the Roman legionnaire. One on one the samurai would slaughter the legionnaire. However, on the battlefield the romans fought as a single unit. Each soldier had his place and duty and they worked together as one. For centuries they were able to defeat massively larger forces due to their training, discipline and unit tactics. It wasn't until barbarian ways of fighting entered the legion that they began to deteriorate.
Chaos marines should be tougher and more deadly than any individual loyalist. However, the loyalists fighting together in highly trained units should be able to defeat larger forces of traitors.
For further reading I'd suggest "Carnage and Culture" by Victor David Hanson. He goes into great detail with many examples of how and why this happens.
I have never done this before but...
/thread
Have an exalt too.
I'd agree with this except the fact that it never ends up working this way. It really comes down to one thing. Who is the main character? That dramatically influences who wins. Thing is, SM are the poster boys and are part of the Imperium (which more often than not is regarded as the protagonist of the story). And then you have bolter guns popping CSM into nothing in seconds in many a book and then books where CSM suddenly, mystically, get powers. It's fiction with the might of plot armor. This is the world where a recruit can slay a DP with a knife, some random GK dunks a daemon primarch and does stupid silly things.
I mean, I'd normally agree with you but at the same time it usually seems like they try to equal the two factions a bit in concept at least. The game itself basically makes it almost this way since 10 CSM costs the same as 10 SM but can also grow more disorganized with additional units to be even 20 boots strong. That and there are many a faction that wouldn't be so up or glory in challenge (Thousand Sons are a prime example of a faction that wouldn't want to challenge too much and, at least within their units, would be heavily unified. Other factions will come and go)
As for one last detail, I can't help but feel this same argument goes out to SW which are arguably more warriorlike than anything else. That said, fun read.
Space Wolves actually have a very good sense of camaraderie and espirit de corps. This makes them a very cohesive fighting force for these reasons alone. They just like boasting is all.
TheCustomLime wrote: Space Wolves actually have a very good sense of camaraderie and espirit de corps. This makes them a very cohesive fighting force for these reasons alone. They just like boasting is all.
To be honest SW are basically everything under the fun. Drunkards, expert combatants, Vikings, warriors, mobilized fighting force, passionate, willing to kill things in a short cited manner, given high leadership for their skills and planning. I still can't tell how I should react to them sometimes.
TheCustomLime wrote: Space Wolves actually have a very good sense of camaraderie and espirit de corps. This makes them a very cohesive fighting force for these reasons alone. They just like boasting is all.
To be honest SW are basically everything under the fun. Drunkards, expert combatants, Vikings, warriors, mobilized fighting force, passionate, willing to kill things in a short cited manner, given high leadership for their skills and planning. I still can't tell how I should react to them sometimes.
TheCustomLime wrote: Space Wolves actually have a very good sense of camaraderie and espirit de corps. This makes them a very cohesive fighting force for these reasons alone. They just like boasting is all.
To be honest SW are basically everything under the fun. Drunkards, expert combatants, Vikings, warriors, mobilized fighting force, passionate, willing to kill things in a short cited manner, given high leadership for their skills and planning. I still can't tell how I should react to them sometimes.
I posted this in a diff. thread about a month ago...
Quoted from the 3.5 Chaos Space Marine codex
"Why collect a Chaos Space Marine Army?
There is something darkly fascinating about villains. Not the run-of-the-mill petty villains, but the big villains, the ones that plot universal domination and have the ability to see it through. These villains are just as resourceful, just as determined and just as capable as any hero but they also have faults and weaknesses that make them far more interesting. This is, I believe, the attraction of the Chaos Space Marines."
So there. We are the bad guys. They are the good guys. Its supposed to be a bad day when Chaos wins.
Veteran Sergeant wrote: Except time flows differently in the Warp, so it isn't really 10,000 years, and most of the traitors from the Heresy are dead.
Source. Like, please? This argument gets bandied about and there is literally nothing to support it.
Where did you find casualty figures for the heresy and since? Where have you sourced this unique OOB? Why, if it's not 10K years, is it <10K years, why not >10K???
Please, reveal your secrets.
He actively hates on CSM and is a major SM fanboy, he does this often.
Co'tor Shas wrote: No, but it has been stated and shown in canon. That's what hellguns (and hot shot charge packs) do, pierce armour.
Hot shot charge packs make it easier to pierce armour, keyword being easier. Its not just "pow pow pow" and it kills a SM. Its just easier but it still requires concentrated volleys of fire added with some skill (which is why ST's and high ranking IG are allowed to possess these weapons) to fell SM's. PA has built its sturdy reputation for a reason.
I never said it would kill a SM, just that it would penetrate PA.
Apparently you're correct then, as I checked with my IG buddy at the gaming store. It appears helllguns are a bigger problem then I thought. No matter, I got my bolter you mangy mortals
Ravenous D wrote: It also has to do with paying for the sins of 3.5, those were the glory days of chaos where you actually saw the other legions on the table.
I'm still waiting for Eldar to have to suffer their time in shame for all the seasons they've gone godmod in (I'm also waiting for the day where the legion or unit Thousand Sons are actually not bad. I think I'll be waiting a long time though)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bellzo wrote: Plot armour confers a 2+ invul. Check it out in the war gear section.
Nonsense! That would imply certain daemons having a higher invuln save! No, it's a special rule permitting your regular saves and then plot save which is a re-rollable 2++ invuln (yes this means you can get 2 invuln saves)
Bobthehero wrote: The Hotshot Volley Gun is also said to be the perfect tool to kill renegade Marines.
I would assume for loyalists the lasers would bounce harmlessly off their plot armor.
Yes, let's ignore the plot-armoured IG (E.g Cain, Gaunt) in favour of assuming that the plot armour always lies with SM to such a great degree that the plot armour of other races are negligible.
If you are going to base your arguments on cherrypicking at least say you are doing so instead of presenting it as some kind of objective absolute statement a lá
Bobthehero wrote:The new Scion codex mentions the Hellgun being able to punch through Ceramite, therefore it can punch through PA.
And I thought the SM fans were the ones who were supposed to be doing the fanboying around here?
Seems not.
By all means, use your codex as a supposedly flawless source when you happily dismiss arguments taken from the SM codex as 'codex bias'.
The hypocrisy is so blatant it's almost sickening.
Bobthehero wrote: The Hotshot Volley Gun is also said to be the perfect tool to kill renegade Marines.
I would assume for loyalists the lasers would bounce harmlessly off their plot armor.
Yes, let's ignore the plot-armoured IG (E.g Cain, Gaunt) in favour of assuming that the plot armour always lies with SM to such a great degree that the plot armour of other races are negligible.
If you are going to base your arguments on cherrypicking at least say you are doing so instead of presenting it as some kind of objective absolute statement a lá
Bobthehero wrote:The new Scion codex mentions the Hellgun being able to punch through Ceramite, therefore it can punch through PA.
And I thought the SM fans were the ones who were supposed to be doing the fanboying around here?
Seems not.
By all means, use your codex as a supposedly flawless source when you happily dismiss arguments taken from the SM codex as 'codex bias'.
The hypocrisy is so blatant it's almost sickening.
I think the joke was talking about how it penetrates through CSM armor but it doesn't work against SM because of plot armor reasons. IG will often have plot armor but it was looking more at two units that are supposed to be weak to hellguns.
Considering hellguns are Ap3, it seems to make sense that it'd be capable of punching through PA. Problem being is that it's strength isn't high enough to do reliable damage. So maybe something like taking 3 shots average to down a foe (not at the same point, but more due to getting enough power to pen the armor and then seriously injure the marien to make them either dead or too injured to fight on)
Mmmm, I think there's a difference between saying the laser is strong enough to punch through ceramite and saying Dolie McDoogle the SM conquers a planet on his own.
I mean, you could argue that boltguns are not rocket firing gun because the codex are unreliable.
Edit 2: For that matter, I doubt the 3rd Alphic Jackals really made that out-of-orbit jump or that there was only 190 Scions to stop that Thousand Sons warband, or for that matter, that the Scions really managed to guess 67% of the Eldar tactics.
Bobthehero wrote: Mmmm, I think there's a difference between saying the laser is strong enough to punch through ceramite and saying Dolie McDoogle the SM conquers a planet on his own.
I mean, you could argue that boltguns are not rocket firing gun because the codex are unreliable.
Edit 2: For that matter, I doubt the 3rd Alphic Jackals really made that out-of-orbit jump or that there was only 190 Scions to stop that Thousand Sons warband, or for that matter, that the Scions really managed to guess 67% of the Eldar tactics.
Curious question, did they elaborate the size of the Thousand Son warband? (curious because some are described and actually extremely outrageous. If left vague, I could say from 30-400 Ksons. Heck, I could add in Tzeentch marines and armadas of cultists if I wanted t. I could also go on to explain the 190 Scions DSing in and doing a all or nothing tactics to weaken the warband leading to the scions and Guardsman forces besting the foe.
Considering hellguns are Ap3, it seems to make sense that it'd be capable of punching through PA. Problem being is that it's strength isn't high enough to do reliable damage. So maybe something like taking 3 shots average to down a foe (not at the same point, but more due to getting enough power to pen the armor and then seriously injure the marien to make them either dead or too injured to fight on)
Game mechanics are entirely irrelevant, unless you're arguing that a Grot parries every third blow made by Lelith Hesperax.
Bobthehero wrote:Mmmm, I think there's a difference between saying the laser is strong enough to punch through ceramite and saying Dolie McDoogle the SM conquers a planet on his own.
I mean, you could argue that boltguns are not rocket firing gun because the codex are unreliable.
Edit 2: For that matter, I doubt the 3rd Alphic Jackals really made that out-of-orbit jump or that there was only 190 Scions to stop that Thousand Sons warband, or for that matter, that the Scions really managed to guess 67% of the Eldar tactics.
I can't remember a Marine ever having conquered a planet alone.
Considering hellguns are Ap3, it seems to make sense that it'd be capable of punching through PA. Problem being is that it's strength isn't high enough to do reliable damage. So maybe something like taking 3 shots average to down a foe (not at the same point, but more due to getting enough power to pen the armor and then seriously injure the marien to make them either dead or too injured to fight on)
Game mechanics are entirely irrelevant, unless you're arguing that a Grot parries every third blow made by Lelith Hesperax.
Bobthehero wrote:Mmmm, I think there's a difference between saying the laser is strong enough to punch through ceramite and saying Dolie McDoogle the SM conquers a planet on his own.
I mean, you could argue that boltguns are not rocket firing gun because the codex are unreliable.
Edit 2: For that matter, I doubt the 3rd Alphic Jackals really made that out-of-orbit jump or that there was only 190 Scions to stop that Thousand Sons warband, or for that matter, that the Scions really managed to guess 67% of the Eldar tactics.
I can't remember a Marine ever having conquered a planet alone.
I was focusing on the ap3 part. That's not really something that is handed out to many units unless they were built to hurt heavily armored units frequently. It's an oddity simply due to it being the, possibly, rarest form of ap in the game (maybe ap1 is rarer? Regardless, even with that, most ap3 weapons are rather bad). So, the fact it exists, in combination with references to ceramite, make it highly likely that the answer is so.
As for your next statement, I'd have to flip a book but I think the chaos book references one SM surviving a chaos daemon onslaught and changing everything for that planet into hope of humans winning. It's a small caption though. That said, there's a reason why the jokes of 5 man tactical marine squads and 10 man marine squads saving planets/conquering planets is so popular. Discounting the SPACE MARINE game for basically making it a one man rescue of the planet (for the fun of the game mind you), fluffwise, SM do get a bit OTT wiping out CSM as they do in the Space Marine movie and conquering planets with ease or even outfighting a group of IG and SoB in a rather idiotic fashion. There's also some captions, I believe, of something like a small unit of Space Marines slaughtering hundreds, or was it a thousand DE with relative ease.
I was focusing on the ap3 part. That's not really something that is handed out to many units unless they were built to hurt heavily armored units frequently. It's an oddity simply due to it being the, possibly, rarest form of ap in the game (maybe ap1 is rarer? Regardless, even with that, most ap3 weapons are rather bad). So, the fact it exists, in combination with references to ceramite, make it highly likely that the answer is so.
And Straken has a godmode bionic arm that gives him strength 6, so he is as strong as a Dreadknight, right? Right? You can see that directly when you put the models next to each other!
Oh, and it gives him toughness 4, protection equivalent of Power Armour, AND AP2 in melee, AND armourbane.
Seems reasonable, rofl.
Right.
It's still a game mechanic.
It can just as easily be some arbitrary stat change to prevent Stormtroopers from having absolutely disastrous attack power in the game.
As for your next statement, I'd have to flip a book but I think the chaos book references one SM surviving a chaos daemon onslaught and changing everything for that planet into hope of humans winning. It's a small caption though.
One SM making the difference, pushing the fight over the edge =/= one SM capturing a planet.
StarTrotter wrote: Discounting the SPACE MARINE game for basically making it a one man rescue of the planet (for the fun of the game mind you)
Except Space Marine was, aside from the sequences where you fought Chaos Astartes (And possibly the final boss fight), an entirely believable game. As a Space Marine Captain you often had your command squad with you and you rarely fought more than a dozen foes at once. And when you did, it was almost only orks or traitor guard. You killed a lot, but you killed a little at a time.
StarTrotter wrote: fluffwise, SM do get a bit OTT wiping out CSM as they do in the Space Marine movie and conquering planets with ease or even outfighting a group of IG and SoB in a rather idiotic fashion.
But a cranky old man dueling the mightiest warboss in the galaxy is a-ok, since it is IG and IG can't do wrong.
Oh, and the Ultramarines movie is awful and takes a dump on so much 40K lore so I won't use it so prove anything.
'Outfighting IG and SoB' is not wrong in itself at all. I need specifics!
StarTrotter wrote: There's also some captions, I believe, of something like a small unit of Space Marines slaughtering hundreds, or was it a thousand DE with relative ease.
Brothers of the Snake? Have not read it tbh, heard it's reeeeeeeally wierd.
I was focusing on the ap3 part. That's not really something that is handed out to many units unless they were built to hurt heavily armored units frequently. It's an oddity simply due to it being the, possibly, rarest form of ap in the game (maybe ap1 is rarer? Regardless, even with that, most ap3 weapons are rather bad). So, the fact it exists, in combination with references to ceramite, make it highly likely that the answer is so.
And Straken has a godmode bionic arm that gives him strength 6, so he is as strong as a Dreadknight, right? Right? You can see that directly when you put the models next to each other!
Oh, and it gives him toughness 4, protection equivalent of Power Armour, AND AP2 in melee, AND armourbane.
Seems reasonable, rofl.
Right.
It's still a game mechanic.
It can just as easily be some arbitrary stat change to prevent Stormtroopers from having absolutely disastrous attack power in the game.
As for your next statement, I'd have to flip a book but I think the chaos book references one SM surviving a chaos daemon onslaught and changing everything for that planet into hope of humans winning. It's a small caption though.
One SM making the difference, pushing the fight over the edge =/= one SM capturing a planet.
StarTrotter wrote: Discounting the SPACE MARINE game for basically making it a one man rescue of the planet (for the fun of the game mind you)
Except Space Marine was, aside from the sequences where you fought Chaos Astartes (And possibly the final boss fight), an entirely believable game. As a Space Marine Captain you often had your command squad with you and you rarely fought more than a dozen foes at once. And when you did, it was almost only orks or traitor guard. You killed a lot, but you killed a little at a time.
StarTrotter wrote: fluffwise, SM do get a bit OTT wiping out CSM as they do in the Space Marine movie and conquering planets with ease or even outfighting a group of IG and SoB in a rather idiotic fashion.
But a cranky old man dueling the mightiest warboss in the galaxy is a-ok, since it is IG and IG can't do wrong.
Oh, and the Ultramarines movie is awful and takes a dump on so much 40K lore so I won't use it so prove anything.
'Outfighting IG and SoB' is not wrong in itself at all. I need specifics!
StarTrotter wrote: There's also some captions, I believe, of something like a small unit of Space Marines slaughtering hundreds, or was it a thousand DE with relative ease.
Brothers of the Snake? Have not read it tbh, heard it's reeeeeeeally wierd.
Honestly I can willingly say I don't care enough on the lasguns to really say either way. They could be very effecient in pinning the armor or they could just be more likely to than most firearms.
It's still silly on a planet that is being overrun by daemons that go on to describe how the planet was covered in daemons. Anyways, it's not really that bad. Especially in comparison to Draigo and everything he does or a new marine killing a prince with a knife.
Wait command squads are 2 marines with an occasional Inquisitor joining for a ride? You forget slaughtering hordes of orks and a warboss solo, paving your way through armies of cultists, chaos space marines, drones, psykers, and dozens of bloodletters. Then there is you kicking the ass of a daemon prince with a chainsword within the warp or whatever the heck it was without a lick of corruption or insanity. You also had an actual ultramarine that used it as a guideline. As a final note, he just charges through hordes upon hordes or orks and many a nob and ork psyker. And how many marines does he lose? One. It was a bloody fun game, but it operated on the SM being god mode and all enemies being utterly incompetent. Still a very entertaining game that was worth every dollar I spent.
Gosh that Space Marine film was absolutely horrid. It wasn't good for beginners or current fans. As per Yarrick, I actually honestly like him. I'm rather fine with a couple guys having some silly fluff. Also it's more of the underdog story for him and what he generally represents to me of the guardsman at large (even if logically he should be crushed and log dead). It's like blood of asaheim. The thing is rife with flaws from being a small force of SW that manage to slaughter there way through all of their foes, washed in cultists aplenty that are all mutated by nurgle and then killing several plague marine champions of nurgle, humerously having more trouble with one with a plague weapon than a power weapon. None of them die. The IG and SoB prepare a defensive fortification with flamers and entrenchment. A far lesser force of chaos overwhelms them and the sisters die fighting in their cathedral. Granted, this book was terrible to SoB in general from the SW insulting them, them foolishly letting an infected in to give the SW an excuse to criticize them more, to revealing secret info to them after being quiet, and for having Sisters that lost faith and regain it by watching the filthy heretic mutants that do not believe that the emperor is god and also have murdered sisters and ecclesiarchy before. Yeah, Wolves restored a Sisters faith (and if memory serves me it was a new cannonesse.
YEAH! That was the name. Tip, it's best to not read it.
Space Marine is entirely reasonable except for the CMarines and possibly the Daemon Prince. You kill a small Ork horde yourself, but you must remember that you do not fight them all at once. Only in small portions.
A Captain killing a Warboss is nothing weird at all.
The whole DP sequence was weird, no comments on that.
The primary reason the CSM died so much in that game is that the AI made them fight like vegetables. If they had used tactics, offense and movement like the player, they would have been a lore-accurate challenge.
The two Marines and Titus is his command squad. A small one, but still a command squad. At least according to the game itself.
You could actually die surprisingly easy in Space Marine. At least if you play on Hard. I consider Hard the 'fluff' choice since Normal and Easy both were pathetically easy.
Ashiraya wrote: Space Marine is entirely reasonable except for the CMarines and possibly the Daemon Prince. You kill a small Ork horde yourself, but you must remember that you do not fight them all at once. Only in small portions.
A Captain killing a Warboss is nothing weird at all.
The whole DP sequence was weird, no comments on that.
The primary reason the CSM died so much in that game is that the AI made them fight like vegetables. If they had used tactics, offense and movement like the player, they would have been a lore-accurate challenge.
The two Marines and Titus is his command squad. A small one, but still a command squad. At least according to the game itself.
You could actually die surprisingly easy in Space Marine. At least if you play on Hard. I consider Hard the 'fluff' choice since Normal and Easy both were pathetically easy.
No comments on the books I have not read.
Eh, some places swarm you with orks. Also, you are forgetting the warboss+hordes of orks and gretchins that you had to fight. If it were just the warboss, I'd agree with you. The problem is it wasn't. Also, the way it worked was rather gamy giving you a way to replenish health. Finally, you forgot the hordes of bloodletters that you slaughter despite their fluff describing them as everything and then some.
Spoiler:
To be fair your companions don't use cover either and don't die but that's just how they made it work
Bobthehero wrote: The Hotshot Volley Gun is also said to be the perfect tool to kill renegade Marines.
I would assume for loyalists the lasers would bounce harmlessly off their plot armor.
Yes, let's ignore the plot-armoured IG (E.g Cain, Gaunt) in favour of assuming that the plot armour always lies with SM to such a great degree that the plot armour of other races are negligible.
If you are going to base your arguments on cherrypicking at least say you are doing so instead of presenting it as some kind of objective absolute statement a lá
Bobthehero wrote:The new Scion codex mentions the Hellgun being able to punch through Ceramite, therefore it can punch through PA.
And I thought the SM fans were the ones who were supposed to be doing the fanboying around here?
Seems not.
By all means, use your codex as a supposedly flawless source when you happily dismiss arguments taken from the SM codex as 'codex bias'.
The hypocrisy is so blatant it's almost sickening.
It was a joke. The statement was that the volleygun was suitable against "Renegade" astartes instead of astartes in general. So, I made a joke that the reason the lasers didn't work against regular space marines because of their terminator grade plot armor.
I never dismissed any arguments from the C:CSM or C:SM codex. Or even presented any arguments from a guard codex. Personally, I do think Gaunt and his band of merry men are a pack of walking plot armor which is why I don't approve of the series despite being a guard fan. I also love Space Marines too. I own part of a Horus Heresy Ultramarine army, a Blood Angelish army and I am interested in Chaos Space Marines. I love their lore, their look and the idea of them. I just dislike it when they are bandied about as the most invincible guys ever because it makes their heroic actions look cheap. Space Marines shouldn't be able to defeat 100 GEQ with a single tac squad because their weapons can't do gak to them. They should be able to because of their battlefield expertise, skill at arms and a little bit of genetic engineering. But I guess that's different interpretations of the army.
Unless you were talking to Bob. Then forget all of this.
PLEASE STOP SAYING THAT CSM DO NOT HAVE EXPERIENCE BECAUSE THE HERESY WAS VERY RECENT TO THEM DUE TO THE WARP MAKING TIME TRAVEL DIFFERENTLY.
Seriously if you are going to use this argument please cite a source, as it is just as likely to happen in the complete opposite direction, therefore the argument is null.
herpguy wrote: PLEASE STOP SAYING THAT CSM DO NOT HAVE EXPERIENCE BECAUSE THE HERESY WAS VERY RECENT TO THEM DUE TO THE WARP MAKING TIME TRAVEL DIFFERENTLY.
Seriously if you are going to use this argument please cite a source, as it is just as likely to happen in the complete opposite direction, therefore the argument is null.
Bobthehero wrote: The Hotshot Volley Gun is also said to be the perfect tool to kill renegade Marines.
I would assume for loyalists the lasers would bounce harmlessly off their plot armor.
Yes, let's ignore the plot-armoured IG (E.g Cain, Gaunt) in favour of assuming that the plot armour always lies with SM to such a great degree that the plot armour of other races are negligible.
If you are going to base your arguments on cherrypicking at least say you are doing so instead of presenting it as some kind of objective absolute statement a lá
Bobthehero wrote:The new Scion codex mentions the Hellgun being able to punch through Ceramite, therefore it can punch through PA.
And I thought the SM fans were the ones who were supposed to be doing the fanboying around here?
Seems not.
By all means, use your codex as a supposedly flawless source when you happily dismiss arguments taken from the SM codex as 'codex bias'.
The hypocrisy is so blatant it's almost sickening.
It was a joke. The statement was that the volleygun was suitable against "Renegade" astartes instead of astartes in general. So, I made a joke that the reason the lasers didn't work against regular space marines because of their terminator grade plot armor.
I never dismissed any arguments from the C:CSM or C:SM codex. Or even presented any arguments from a guard codex. Personally, I do think Gaunt and his band of merry men are a pack of walking plot armor which is why I don't approve of the series despite being a guard fan. I also love Space Marines too. I own part of a Horus Heresy Ultramarine army, a Blood Angelish army and I am interested in Chaos Space Marines. I love their lore, their look and the idea of them. I just dislike it when they are bandied about as the most invincible guys ever because it makes their heroic actions look cheap. Space Marines shouldn't be able to defeat 100 GEQ with a single tac squad because their weapons can't do gak to them. They should be able to because of their battlefield expertise, skill at arms and a little bit of genetic engineering. But I guess that's different interpretations of the army.
Unless you were talking to Bob. Then forget all of this.
Lol yes, not even a plasma cannon could kill a SM there is no sense of honour among SM's, all they do is win in cheap scenerios. I'm not mocking any fans of SM's, I know y'all just like the army but GW and their stupid ideas make everybody look bad. For a SM chapter to win a battle against a CSM warband they have to be prepared to sacrifice, such is demanded in the fight.
I'm just laughing at the fanboyism of all you guys
(note, I don't even play Blood Ravens, I just love this image)
The reasons for and against SMs and CMSs being equal/not equal have been rehashed so many times in this thread, but no one (on either side really) is listening to anything anyone else has to say.
Just like every other army-peen measuring contest really.
Inky wrote: I'm just laughing at the fanboyism of all you guys
(note, I don't even play Blood Ravens, I just love this image)
The reasons for and against SMs and CMSs being equal/not equal have been rehashed so many times in this thread, but no one (on either side really) is listening to anything anyone else has to say.
Just like every other army-peen measuring contest really.
I largely like to stick the the idea that CSM often have less reliable weapons, or use them in a more hazardous way leading to increased deterioration often giving the advantage of tech to SM whilst CSM have a slight edge in battle experience thus making the two relatively equal.
Inky wrote: I'm just laughing at the fanboyism of all you guys
(note, I don't even play Blood Ravens, I just love this image)
The reasons for and against SMs and CMSs being equal/not equal have been rehashed so many times in this thread, but no one (on either side really) is listening to anything anyone else has to say.
Just like every other army-peen measuring contest really.
I largely like to stick the the idea that CSM often have less reliable weapons, or use them in a more hazardous way leading to increased deterioration often giving the advantage of tech to SM whilst CSM have a slight edge in battle experience thus making the two relatively equal.
Depends. The Warsmiths are numerous enough and have sufficient means to supply the Chaos Space Marine warbands well. Plus, if we are talking the not-negligible amount of VotlW left, then the edge in battle experience is not so slight.
Inky wrote: I'm just laughing at the fanboyism of all you guys
(note, I don't even play Blood Ravens, I just love this image)
The reasons for and against SMs and CMSs being equal/not equal have been rehashed so many times in this thread, but no one (on either side really) is listening to anything anyone else has to say.
Just like every other army-peen measuring contest really.
I largely like to stick the the idea that CSM often have less reliable weapons, or use them in a more hazardous way leading to increased deterioration often giving the advantage of tech to SM whilst CSM have a slight edge in battle experience thus making the two relatively equal.
Depends. The Warsmiths are numerous enough and have sufficient means to supply the Chaos Space Marine warbands well. Plus, if we are talking the not-negligible amount of VotlW left, then the edge in battle experience is not so slight.
Plus the warp does funny things to weapons, like weapons that have gone years without repair still firing because 'because', or your weapon mutates along with yourself and now fires pus filled bolts that inflict the plague.
Inky wrote: I'm just laughing at the fanboyism of all you guys
(note, I don't even play Blood Ravens, I just love this image)
The reasons for and against SMs and CMSs being equal/not equal have been rehashed so many times in this thread, but no one (on either side really) is listening to anything anyone else has to say.
Just like every other army-peen measuring contest really.
I largely like to stick the the idea that CSM often have less reliable weapons, or use them in a more hazardous way leading to increased deterioration often giving the advantage of tech to SM whilst CSM have a slight edge in battle experience thus making the two relatively equal.
Depends. The Warsmiths are numerous enough and have sufficient means to supply the Chaos Space Marine warbands well. Plus, if we are talking the not-negligible amount of VotlW left, then the edge in battle experience is not so slight.
Eh, I think I was more opting for the old plasma for chaos appeal. I don't disagree with you though, the warp does odd things. As per VoTLW. Isn't Huron als a VoTLW model? So it's not quite saying ancient as all heck. Along with that, I'd say living in a malestorm can really mean some training (especially against not running from monsters. Oh wait nevermind )
) should make you more powerful, because a) grimdark! b) else why do that in the first place ?
)
Cain. Realistically it is absurd he lasted with that berzerker. Cain can most likely easily dispatch a dozen humans in 
