Ok, Space Marine sizes have been something of a strange bit of fluff. People I talk to say the size of a marine is anywhere between six and twelve feet tall. I'm pretty sure that both Games Workshop and the fandom have been pretty inconsistent about the average Space Marine height, so I'd like to compile a list of references, along with the sizes that they each claim a Space Marine to be.

Please add any references you can find that tell us how tall Space Marines are. I'm going to be looking through my old books and see if I can find references there as well.

Here are the sources for Space Marine height we've gathered so far:



210 cm - (a little over 6'10" or 7 foot exactly if you use a 1 inch=2.5 cm conversion) Games Workshop competition (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Competition?_requestid=15836007) probably the most recent reference (February 2015)

2.1m and 7' Image to go along with the competition- clearly showing that 7ft is exactly the same as 2.1 meters (in the grim darkness of the far future, math is simple).

7 foot tall - White Dwarf 300, p134 "Space Marines in the Movies"

"half as tall again as the man in front of him" - Paul Kearny, The Last Detail, p94- calculates at a little under 9 ft. tall depending on the height of the man in question.

7' tall- 6th edition Chaos Codex, p36

Barely under 8' tall - Black Library Weekender scale picture: http://i.imgur.com/6jjsiar.jpg

7 feet -Jess Goodwin's picture of a 1/1 scale space marine The head is at 8 feet, ground is at 1 foot.

Two and a half meters tall and taller or 8'2"+ -Dan Abnett, Horus Rising- description of Gavriel Loken and two other marines who are taller

"...well over two metres tall..." ie. above 6'7" - Xenos, page 171, Dan Abnett; from a description of The Emperor's Children Chaos Marine, Mandragore.

7'-7'6"- Jess Goodwin, Design Philosophy IV

210 cm - DeathWatch RPG, p28

Over 7'4"- Dan Abnett, Ravenor- compiled from several references to a 7'4" woman who is described as being nearly Astartes height

Approaching 3 Meters Tall/ Close to 3 Meters Tall- Aaron Dembski-Bowden Night Lords Omnibus pp 459, 494

"...a general increase in the size of the recipient's skeleton."- White Dwarf 98, February 1988 description of effects of Ossmodula. Possibly the first reference to size increase in Astartes.

No suggestion of increased height in Space Marine Physique- Rick Priestly and Andy Chambers, "The Physique of a Space Marine" Codex Imperialis 1993 p18. (the Ossmodula merely increases bone strength in this version).

7'2" Promotional material for THQ's video game: "Space Marine."

Human Sized- can be shorter as shown in artwork Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader p226 Contrast that against THQ's presentation in Space Marine


"Larger in girth and mightier of arm than even Leman Russ" (2nd ed Codex Space Wolves p. 67). A studio converted mini for Ranulf was featured in White Dwarf (#185, pg. 56- sculpt by Kim Syberg) Entry for Wolf Guard Ranulf- a Wolf Guard Leader with a less than impressive statline (he wasn't killing any greater daemons anytime soon). It should be noted that this predates fluff turning the primarchs into giants.

The Shortest Space Marine He'd Ever Seen proving that at least one space marine is below average astartes height Deathwatch p.72


Primarch Size References

The Primarchs seem to have grown even more than the Space Marines over time. Let's get some size references for them:


Leman Russ was considered large, but he was not the largest of the Space Wolves (2nd ed Codex Space Wolves p. 67)
I think it is noteworthy that the statblock for a larger than Russ wolfguard is very unimpressive by 2nd ed standards..


Roboute Guilliman can use the same power fists as normal marines 2nd ed Codex: Ultramarines, 72 and Guantlets of Ultramar Wargear card.

A cast of Sanguinius's face can be worn by marines, indicating that they're about the same size- - 2nd ed Codex Angels of DeathDeath, Mask of Sanguinius wargear card


Night Haunter could conceal his identity among normal humans 2nd ed Codex Chaos as well as later references to Night Huanter- a detail that seems to contradict his status as a giant.

Space Marine models have never been properly-scaled to the rest of the range. They've always been short, so I wouldn't take any measurement of a basic marine to be a proper 28mm "scale" height.

I can't give you a citation, but I've always seen references of 7+ feet tall.

The short lived Design Philosophy podcast number 4 says 7' to 7'6"
http://podbay.fm/show/287635672/e/1228233600

At around 30 minutes in.

 Eilif wrote:
Space Marine models have never been properly-scaled to the rest of the range.

Actually, I would disagree. SM look fine alongside Eldar, Tau, Crons and Nids, it's only really Guardsmen with their ape-like proportions that throws the look off. If IG minis were closer to True-scale (like the FW ranges) then the issue would be far less prominent.

Not attacking your post by the way, just offering an alternate explanation

I've always seen the ballpark figures of 7' for the space marine and 8' in armor.

 warboss wrote:
I've always seen the ballpark figures of 7' for the space marine and 8' in armor.

I think I've heard that one too, but I'm not sure where it comes from.

That doesn't seem to match the minis either (at least mark 1-8 power armor doesn't have epic elevator boots, and the helmets aren't adding that much height either, since we've got so many examples of marines without helmets).

Terminator armor is probably adding a whole foot to the height, though.



On a side note, I just went through my old 2nd ed "Codex Imperialis" and it didn't have any reference to Space Marine height. Doesn't even claim that they're tall. It does say that they can spit corrosive poison and have fused rib cages, though.


My 2nd ed Space Wolves codex states that they are "Huge, Burly Warriors" in comparison to normal Fenrisian citizens, but it doesn't give a number.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Ok, Space Marine sizes have been something of a strange bit of fluff. People I talk to site the size of a marine anywhere between six and twelve feet tall. I'm pretty sure that both Games Workshop and the fandom have been pretty inconsistent about the average Space Marine height, so I'd like to compile a list of references, along with the sizes that they each claim a Space Marine to be.

Please add any references you can find that tell us how tall Space Marines are. I'm going to be looking through my old books and see if I can find references there as well.



210 cm - (about 6'10") Games Workshop competition (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Competition?_requestid=15836007) probably the most recent reference (February 2015)

7 foot tall - White Dwarf 300, p134 "Space Marines in the Movies"

AAAAAAAAH

first of all. You have to change your post. 210cm IS seven feet. Just know some math.

Secondly, these competition rules are exactly what I was going to post when I saw this thread. Space Marines are 210cm tall, that is, seven feet.

I haven't read any more of the thread, I'm not going to read any more of the thread.

I'm going to edit a screen cap in to this post in a few minutes.

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Competition

Seven feet! that's it!

pelicaniforce wrote:


first of all. You have to change your post. 210cm IS seven feet. Just know some math.

"Some math" as in an extremely outdated system most of the world doesn't give a damn about.

Hey, he's got a point. And he knew the current reference right away (honestly, it was the one that got me thinking about it).

Truth be told, I didn't do some math, I let the internet do it for me.

My conversion came from Google, which I figured would be more precise. I let it convert each step one at a time, so here's a breakdown of my process:

210 cm in inches is 82.6772 inches, or 6.88892 feet, or 6 foot, 10.667 inches.

I'm guessing that you used a simple 1 inche=2.5 cm instead of 1 inch=2.54cm (which is clearly what Google uses). In that case you get 210 cm= 84 inches=7 feet. Less precise conversion, but simpler math that gives you nice, round numbers on both ends. Since we're talking about fluff for our fantasy universe, I doubt that GW think that precision is really necessary.

I'll go ahead and make a note of that in my original post.

As with humans usually, the height varies greatly.

Some marines have been near primarch-size, and others merely just as tall as tall humans.

But as a mediocre, I'd say about 2,5m/8ft.

I see it like this,

A short marine would be 6.5 ft. Average is 7-7.5. 8 would be exceptionally tall.

Power armor only adds a couple inches so its negligible. Terminator armor will add a considerable amount of height so they're going to be minimum of 8ft in the armor.

The biggest feature of marines is not their increased height over normal humans, its well within the possibility for normal humans, but rather how broad they are. That will give the illusion of them being taller than they actually are.

Anybody have references for those?

I found one in the 2nd ed Space Wolf codex- the tallest Space Wolf was as big (or bigger) than Leman Russ. But it didn't give any numbers there either (and I've never found any specific references to Primarch height).

Does anyone have any of the novels that give space marine heights? I've heard Guant's Ghosts have them.

I honestly want to know where the variety of different ideas on marine height come from- clearly there are some very different ideas on marine height.

warboss wrote:I've always seen the ballpark figures of 7' for the space marine and 8' in armor.

They don't wear heels. Armour won't add a foot to their height.

Finlandiaperkele wrote:As with humans usually, the height varies greatly.

Some marines have been near primarch-size, and others merely just as tall as tall humans.

But as a mediocre, I'd say about 2,5m/8ft.

The designers/writers stated seven to seven and a half feet. As far as definitive proof, that's pretty much it, eight to eight and a half is ridiculous.

odinsgrandson wrote:Anybody have references for those?

I found one in the 2nd ed Space Wolf codex- the tallest Space Wolf was as big (or bigger) than Leman Russ. But it didn't give any numbers there either (and I've never found any specific references to Primarch height).

Does anyone have any of the novels that give space marine heights? I've heard Guant's Ghosts have them.

I honestly want to know where the variety of different ideas on marine height come from- clearly there are some very different ideas on marine height.

References above from the writers themselves. Can't get more definitive than that on the subject. The codex aldo states seven foot. The novels are questionable at best, especially with the likes of cs goto being involved... I think the tallest primarch was Magnus at sonething less than three metres, iirc.

Eight+ foot space marines is simply a fan created urban legend that has never gone away.

It's one of the most often discussed things in 40k...
and you will find a great deal of authors/artists who want to make them bigger and bigger, which is silly because they would be easily "outsmarted" by someone who build only narrow and small doors/ tunnels...

The figures are nothing to go by, because they are in heroic scale. The proportions are totally skewed (not just for marines... just look at the fat cadian models) No human would ever look like that. Forgeworld's DKoK and Elysians have more realistic body proportions

Pg 94 The Last Detail wrote:It’ll be dark soon,’ the boy’s father said. ‘We should perhaps stay here another night and then set off at dawn.’ ‘No time,’ the Astartes said. Now that he was upright he seemed even huger, half as tall again as the man in front of him, his hands as big as shovels, his chest as wide as a dining table. ‘I see in the dark. You can follow me.

I've always preferred to go with this book as its descriptions generally make the most sense.

In this case, the 'man before him' is just below 6 feet.

So the Marine, outside of armour, is just below 9'.

Armour won't add more than a few inches though. So at, or about, 9'.

 Ashiraya wrote:

Pg 94 The Last Detail wrote:It’ll be dark soon,’ the boy’s father said. ‘We should perhaps stay here another night and then set off at dawn.’ ‘No time,’ the Astartes said. Now that he was upright he seemed even huger, half as tall again as the man in front of him, his hands as big as shovels, his chest as wide as a dining table. ‘I see in the dark. You can follow me.

I've always preferred to go with this book as its descriptions generally make the most sense.

In this case, the 'man before him' is just below 6 feet.

So the Marine, outside of armour, is just below 9'.

Armour won't add more than a few inches though. So at, or about, 9'.

So you say that a marine with hands as big as shovels has a bolter that fits in his hands (gigantic) but fires (in relation) only toothpick sized little bolts (0.75") is making sense ? No it doesnt make any sense and it contradicts several statements. 9" is wishfull thinking of fanboys/girls who think bigger = always better

 Keep wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

Pg 94 The Last Detail wrote:It’ll be dark soon,’ the boy’s father said. ‘We should perhaps stay here another night and then set off at dawn.’ ‘No time,’ the Astartes said. Now that he was upright he seemed even huger, half as tall again as the man in front of him, his hands as big as shovels, his chest as wide as a dining table. ‘I see in the dark. You can follow me.

I've always preferred to go with this book as its descriptions generally make the most sense.

In this case, the 'man before him' is just below 6 feet.

So the Marine, outside of armour, is just below 9'.

Armour won't add more than a few inches though. So at, or about, 9'.

So you say that a marine with hands as big as shovels has a bolter that fits in his hands (gigantic) but fires (in relation) only toothpick sized little bolts (0.75") is making sense ? No it doesnt make any sense and it contradicts several statements. 9" is wishfull thinking of fanboys/girls who think bigger = always better

And 7' is only the realm of IGhammer fanboys who hate the idea of anything more powerful than a stormtrooper, and do everything they can do mitigate those things.

Your brush is as wide as a Leman Russ.

Consider using something smaller to paint other people with.

No, 0,75 doesn't make all that much sense fwiw - seems like far too meek firepower to use for your buff supersoldiers.

But then, they should all use plasma guns really if their armaments did make sense. With flamers as backup weapons. It's not like they couldn't afford it when those weapons are given to darn guardsmen.

Current Chaos Marine Codex says marines (and it is talking about normal. non-chaos marines) are seven feet. Studio has been really consistent with this over the years: Marines are about seven feet tall. Some BL books might sometimes portray them as larger, but even those tend to be pretty damn vague, just like Ashirya's quote earlier (anything that uses descriptions like 'hands as big as shovels' is not a mathematically accurate description.)

7 feet tall

well then i guess you owe an explanation why this vague section makes the most sense compared to explicit and precise statements in several sources (including from the designer of the modern Marine image itself) and other stuff.
Beeing a bigger target is worse, not fitting through areas/structures designed for smaller races (that is - most we know off, apart from orks and orgrins...) is a giant handicap.

So yes, i'll stick with "painting " everyone a fanboy who thinks bigger=always better whích believe in the 9"+ myth.

 Crimson wrote:
Current Chaos Marine Codex says marines (and it is talking about normal. non-chaos marines) are seven feet. Studio has been really consistent with this over the years: Marines are about seven feet tall. Some BL books might sometimes portray them as larger, but even those tend to be pretty damn vague, just like Ashirya's quote earlier (anything that uses descriptions like 'hands as big as shovels' is not a mathematically accurate description.)

The GW studio is amazingly inconsistent, contradicting themselves almost every other description and often in the same book.

Much more common than the 'Marines are 7 feet' statement is the 'Marines are giants/larger than humans/bigger than any mortal man/' et cetera ad nauseam that you will find every bloody where. This directly disproves the 7' notion, since if they had been 7' in armour they would not have been much taller than 6' outside of armour once you subtract the big footsoles and the top of the helmet (especially the big footsoles).

Just above 6' is not superhuman, gigantic, or even particularly big. It's not even far above average.

Which is it?

 Crimson wrote:
Current Chaos Marine Codex says marines (and it is talking about normal. non-chaos marines) are seven feet. Studio has been really consistent with this over the years: Marines are about seven feet tall. Some BL books might sometimes portray them as larger, but even those tend to be pretty damn vague, just like Ashirya's quote earlier (anything that uses descriptions like 'hands as big as shovels' is not a mathematically accurate description.)

Thanks for the reference. Don't happen to have a page number as well, do you?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Current Chaos Marine Codex says marines (and it is talking about normal. non-chaos marines) are seven feet. Studio has been really consistent with this over the years: Marines are about seven feet tall. Some BL books might sometimes portray them as larger, but even those tend to be pretty damn vague, just like Ashirya's quote earlier (anything that uses descriptions like 'hands as big as shovels' is not a mathematically accurate description.)

The GW studio is amazingly inconsistent, contradicting themselves almost every other description and often in the same book.

Much more common than the 'Marines are 7 feet' statement is the 'Marines are giants/larger than humans/bigger than any mortal man/' et cetera ad nauseam that you will find every bloody where. This directly disproves the 7' notion, since if they had been 7' in armour they would not have been much taller than 6' outside of armour once you subtract the big footsoles and the top of the helmet (especially the big footsoles).

Just above 6' is not superhuman, gigantic, or even particularly big. It's not even far above average.

Which is it?

Most people aren't six feet tall either for a start. Historically, the average was five feet. I can imagine with the extremely harsh standards of life in the 40kiverse, that would be more common than not...

They're quite consistent on the seven to seven and a half foot thing.

So he wears six inch heels and a helmet that adds six inches to the top if his head. Think about it for a moment. It's Ridiculous.Yeah, bogus.

And 7' is only the realm of IGhammer fanboys who hate the idea of anything more powerful than a stormtrooper, and do everything they can do mitigate those things.

No, not really. No hate here. Just an honest appraisal of the ridiculousness of six inch heels and six inch armour on the top if a helmet of a marine. Oh and yeah, accepting the official word, as stated by the writers of the game.

 Ashiraya wrote:

The GW studio is amazingly inconsistent, contradicting themselves almost every other description and often in the same book.

Not really. You're probably thinking BL.

Much more common than the 'Marines are 7 feet' statement is the 'Marines are giants/larger than humans/bigger than any mortal man/' et cetera ad nauseam that you will find every bloody where.

No you don't. Yes, it is often said they're really big, which seven feet certainly is. I've never seen it being stated that they're bigger than any mortal man.

This directly disproves the 7' notion, since if they had been 7' in armour they would not have been much taller than 6' outside of armour once you subtract the big footsoles and the top of the helmet (especially the big footsoles).

Armour adds couple of inches, and it is not really relevant whether they're about seven in or out of their armour. They're roughly seven feet anyway.

If you look at the classic Jess Goodwin picture the Marine is 7' tall, standing with his feet slightly apart. Assuming he gets slightly taller when standing straight up (but loses and inch or two in combined boots and helmet thickness), they're probably somewhere between 7'3" and 7'6".

Terminator armor adding a considerable amount of height has always sounded silly. The same sized Space Marine has to fit in it. So unless it has platform soles, I don't see how it would do that. The Marine might be bulkier, but he's not going to be more than a couple inches taller, even if you include the top of the cowling.

Mira from Space Marine is 1.80m (same as her male comrades). The marines are 2.2m with armor (the plateau shoes add only very little heigth), so exactly in the middle of jes goodwins measurement.

Nice picture reference there.

By the way, does anyone have the Deathwatch books? It seems like most RPGs are very precise about these kinds of number, and I'd like to hear their opinion.

Deadnight wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Current Chaos Marine Codex says marines (and it is talking about normal. non-chaos marines) are seven feet. Studio has been really consistent with this over the years: Marines are about seven feet tall. Some BL books might sometimes portray them as larger, but even those tend to be pretty damn vague, just like Ashirya's quote earlier (anything that uses descriptions like 'hands as big as shovels' is not a mathematically accurate description.)

The GW studio is amazingly inconsistent, contradicting themselves almost every other description and often in the same book.

Much more common than the 'Marines are 7 feet' statement is the 'Marines are giants/larger than humans/bigger than any mortal man/' et cetera ad nauseam that you will find every bloody where. This directly disproves the 7' notion, since if they had been 7' in armour they would not have been much taller than 6' outside of armour once you subtract the big footsoles and the top of the helmet (especially the big footsoles).

Just above 6' is not superhuman, gigantic, or even particularly big. It's not even far above average.

Which is it?

They're quite consistent on the seven to seven and a half foot thing.

So he wears six inch heels and a helmet that adds six inches to the top if his head. Think about it for a moment. It's Ridiculous.Yeah, bogus.

I did not say it reduces him by a full foot.

But look at those soles, they are huge.

When you add the top of the helmet, he is not far above 6'.

Which is basically human average height, plus a couple of inches. Nothing special or out of the ordinary with that. Which contradicts every single statement about Space Marines that has ever been made and that does not involve numbers.

It'd be like writing everywhere that a boltgun is capable of extreme armour penetration and then listing its armour penetrating ability as up to 0,005 mm of steel when you feel like actually giving a number.

It doesn't add up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Keep wrote:
Mira from Space Marine is 1.80m (same as her male comrades).

In Space Marine I can kill thousands of Orks alone (including nobs, tankbustas, skarboyz and 'ard boyz) outside of single player (so I'm only playing a standard assault marine), without dying. With no weapons other than chainsword and bolt pistol.

Games are reliable.

 Ashiraya wrote:

I did not say it reduces him by a full foot.

But look at those soles, they are huge.

When you add the top of the helmet, he is not far above 6'.

Which is basically human average height, plus a couple of inches. Nothing special or out of the ordinary with that. Which contradicts every single statement about Space Marines that has ever been made and that does not involve numbers.

You kinda did though..

since if they had been 7' in armour they would not have been much taller than 6' outside of armour once you subtract the big footsoles and the top of the helmet (especially the big footsoles). unless I'm reading it wrong?

Twelve inches with heels and helmets? Six inches though fir heels? They didn't even wear those in the 70s! Can't see a space marine doing a disco stu, can you?

And again, get a helmet off an infantryman or soldier. It doesn't add six inches to your head height. Last thing a marine wants is to be a bigger target. It's simply impractical nonsensical design.

And average human height is a fair bit less than six foot. Especially for females. And historically, the average height decreased significantly, during the middle ages, it was about five feet. I can imagine in the horrible conditions of the 40kiverse, they're not really breeding excellent physical specimens of humanity all that often...

 Ashiraya wrote:

But look at those soles, they are huge.
When you add the top of the helmet, he is not far above 6'.
Which is basically human average height, plus a couple of inches. Nothing special or out of the ordinary with that. Which contradicts every single statement about Space Marines that has ever been made and that does not involve numbers.

"just a couple of inches"... 12-18" if you assume a large human. And at least double if not triple their shoulder width and at least 4times the mass. Yeah, right, i'm not sure with who'm you hang out with, but that is not ordinary and outright massive.

In Space Marine I can kill thousands of Orks alone, outside of single player (so I'm only playing a standard assault marine), without dying. With no weapons other than chainsword and bolt pistol.

So what? This is in no way different to many BL novels.... also, gameplay has nothing to do with the art work. Games make it that easy so you feel powerfull and mighty... Not because they couldnt think of better ideas how to make your life harder.

Also, what makes you think people in the imperium are as tall as people are today? IoM is rhich with desease and famine. They dont have fast food around every corner where they can binge on fatty food and meat whenever they want. Lack of quality food (in particulary access to meat) reduces the maximum heigth people grow to. Japanese have been way smaller in their past. Now they are almost comparable to europeans in average heigth because they have easy access to meat. The same will happen in China as well. During a famine in romania the children during that period where way smaller then everybody the ones before and after them, because of lack of meat and other food.

And average human height is a fair bit less than six foot. Especially for females. And historically, the average height decreased significantly, during the middle ages, it was about five feet. I can imagine in the horrible conditions of the 40kiverse, they're not really breeding excellent physical specimens of humanity all that often...

exactly. Lack of meat, diseases, etc.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Current Chaos Marine Codex says marines (and it is talking about normal. non-chaos marines) are seven feet. Studio has been really consistent with this over the years: Marines are about seven feet tall. Some BL books might sometimes portray them as larger, but even those tend to be pretty damn vague, just like Ashirya's quote earlier (anything that uses descriptions like 'hands as big as shovels' is not a mathematically accurate description.)

Thanks for the reference. Don't happen to have a page number as well, do you?

Page 36: "the Space Marines stand seven feet tall..."

Thanks

 Keep wrote:

Also, what makes you think people in the imperium are as tall as people are today?

Well, Catachans...

But I see your point. I think the average male height in North America is 5'9" but it is much lower in South America.

I'd expect the "Average" person in the 40k universe to be similar to people from current Nottinghamshire.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Keep wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

Pg 94 The Last Detail wrote:It’ll be dark soon,’ the boy’s father said. ‘We should perhaps stay here another night and then set off at dawn.’ ‘No time,’ the Astartes said. Now that he was upright he seemed even huger, half as tall again as the man in front of him, his hands as big as shovels, his chest as wide as a dining table. ‘I see in the dark. You can follow me.

I've always preferred to go with this book as its descriptions generally make the most sense.

In this case, the 'man before him' is just below 6 feet.

So the Marine, outside of armour, is just below 9'.

Armour won't add more than a few inches though. So at, or about, 9'.

So you say that a marine with hands as big as shovels has a bolter that fits in his hands (gigantic) but fires (in relation) only toothpick sized little bolts (0.75") is making sense ? No it doesnt make any sense and it contradicts several statements. 9" is wishfull thinking of fanboys/girls who think bigger = always better

And 7' is only the realm of IGhammer fanboys who hate the idea of anything more powerful than a stormtrooper, and do everything they can do mitigate those things.

Your brush is as wide as a Leman Russ.

Consider using something smaller to paint other people with.

No, 0,75 doesn't make all that much sense fwiw - seems like far too meek firepower to use for your buff supersoldiers.

But then, they should all use plasma guns really if their armaments did make sense. With flamers as backup weapons. It's not like they couldn't afford it when those weapons are given to darn guardsmen.

.75/20mm is more then enough for your supersoldiers. Just for an example, somebody trying to shoulder and fire a browning or one of those Cartel assault rifles that fire .50 would likely break their shoulder. The only way a human can even physically fire .75/20mm rounds is either with a mounted bipod dug into the ground, a pintle mounted turret, or holding it at the hip and dropping it when the recoil hits.

.75 caliber is an autocannon round in real life that does very, very nasty things to people trying to fire a bolt action rifle chambering such rounds. Let alone an automatic .75/20mm rifle. That would just destroy anything not made of muscle or wearing reinforced armor suits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Keep wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

But look at those soles, they are huge.
When you add the top of the helmet, he is not far above 6'.
Which is basically human average height, plus a couple of inches. Nothing special or out of the ordinary with that. Which contradicts every single statement about Space Marines that has ever been made and that does not involve numbers.

"just a couple of inches"... 12-18" if you assume a large human. And at least double if not triple their shoulder width and at least 4times the mass. Yeah, right, i'm not sure with who'm you hang out with, but that is not ordinary and outright massive.

In Space Marine I can kill thousands of Orks alone, outside of single player (so I'm only playing a standard assault marine), without dying. With no weapons other than chainsword and bolt pistol.

So what? This is in no way different to many BL novels.... also, gameplay has nothing to do with the art work. Games make it that easy so you feel powerfull and mighty... Not because they couldnt think of better ideas how to make your life harder.

Also, what makes you think people in the imperium are as tall as people are today? IoM is rhich with desease and famine. They dont have fast food around every corner where they can binge on fatty food and meat whenever they want. Lack of quality food (in particulary access to meat) reduces the maximum heigth people grow to. Japanese have been way smaller in their past. Now they are almost comparable to europeans in average heigth because they have easy access to meat. The same will happen in China as well. During a famine in romania the children during that period where way smaller then everybody the ones before and after them, because of lack of meat and other food.

And average human height is a fair bit less than six foot. Especially for females. And historically, the average height decreased significantly, during the middle ages, it was about five feet. I can imagine in the horrible conditions of the 40kiverse, they're not really breeding excellent physical specimens of humanity all that often...

exactly. Lack of meat, diseases, etc.

The Imperium doesn't suffer from famine. Though it's not pleasant, the common gruel is nutrient paste, and Guardsmen such as Cadians should be six foot tall uber-men similar to the modern American military. Bred the best, raised the best, fed the best. The only population you'd likely find to be consistently malnourished and short in stature are underhivers and other populations living in the very bottom tier of Imperial society.

Even the Movie Marines are described as 7'

Black Library had them at 8' in a line up not long ago.

A 6'6 marine only makes sense if you've spent all your time indoor's inventing war games. If you've played any type of contact sport, No, soccer doesn't count. Its kind of tiny for a super soldier.

I personally know a few squads worth of people that are bigger than marines.

What's dumber is making them wider than most doorway's in existence.

My estimation puts them at 7'6" average, with a variance of 6 inch either way - without armour. I don't recall exact references of what I've read, sorry; so my thought on height is probably more opinion.

In my mind, space marines are dramatically different than regular humans, both in proportion and height... I think its more consistent with warhammer sized methodology this way too. Here's an interesting photo on proportions, to put some perspective on what I'm talking about....

the ancient wrote:
Black Library had them at 8' in a line up not long ago.

Cool- is that still around? I'd love to add it to the citations.

I've always pictured them from 7' to 8', with the majority resting somewhere in between those two. The fluff seems to paint that picture, because while it doesn't explicitly state their height all the time, it does go on and on about how they "tower over mortal men" and such. The Primarchs are described as being as tall to Space Marines as they are to humans (with the exception of outliers like Alpharius and Magnus). Considering most of them are at least 9 to 10 feet tall, some even moreso, I think 7 to 8 feet is probably reasonable.

Hey- do you have any references on those Primarch heights? I found one about how Leman Russ was pretty tall in comparison to other Space Wolves, but that's all the references I could find.

A 7'6" person definitely towers over most people. That's almost two feet taller than the average Chinese man, and more than a foot and a half taller than the average US or UK man.

I don't know how many times some of you have stood next to someone even six to eight inches taller than you, but a 7-7.5 footer with another half a person's width on them is a big, big dude.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
A 7'6" person definitely towers over most people. That's almost two feet taller than the average Chinese man, and more than a foot and a half taller than the average US or UK man.

I don't know how many times some of you have stood next to someone even six to eight inches taller than you, but a 7-7.5 footer with another half a person's width on them is a big, big dude.

Itd be like standing next to a bear

kveldulf wrote:
My estimation puts them at 7'6" average, with a variance of 6 inch either way - without armour. I don't recall exact references of what I've read, sorry; so my thought on height is probably more opinion.

In my mind, space marines are dramatically different than regular humans, both in proportion and height... I think its more consistent with warhammer sized methodology this way too. Here's an interesting photo on proportions, to put some perspective on what I'm talking about....

That pic is notorious for not making any damn sense because of how thin that makes the power armor. Astartes just look like buffed up tall human males, not freakishly thick elephant men.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

the ancient wrote:
Black Library had them at 8' in a line up not long ago.

Cool- is that still around? I'd love to add it to the citations.

It wasn't actually 8', the scale laughably started at 2'

 Wyzilla wrote:

kveldulf wrote:
My estimation puts them at 7'6" average, with a variance of 6 inch either way - without armour. I don't recall exact references of what I've read, sorry; so my thought on height is probably more opinion.

In my mind, space marines are dramatically different than regular humans, both in proportion and height... I think its more consistent with warhammer sized methodology this way too. Here's an interesting photo on proportions, to put some perspective on what I'm talking about....

That pic is notorious for not making any damn sense because of how thin that makes the power armor. Astartes just look like buffed up tall human males, not freakishly thick elephant men.

I don't know how you get that its depicting 'thin' armour (or what you mean by thin). Much of the bulk from space marine armour does not come from the power armour (recalling some HH novels supporting that). The overall thickness of power armour seems like it shouldn't more than .25" thick, at most (including sub system doodads and standoff). - opinion mind you

Also, something to consider, there are a lot of extra bits that marines have implanted; the physiology required to suit it would need to change things like proportions, even if it is just a bit. Though things like a secondary heart are not a small thing to accommodate i wager.

kveldulf wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

kveldulf wrote:
My estimation puts them at 7'6" average, with a variance of 6 inch either way - without armour. I don't recall exact references of what I've read, sorry; so my thought on height is probably more opinion.

In my mind, space marines are dramatically different than regular humans, both in proportion and height... I think its more consistent with warhammer sized methodology this way too. Here's an interesting photo on proportions, to put some perspective on what I'm talking about....

That pic is notorious for not making any damn sense because of how thin that makes the power armor. Astartes just look like buffed up tall human males, not freakishly thick elephant men.

I don't know how you get that its depicting 'thin' armour (or what you mean by thin). Much of the bulk from space marine armour does not come from the power armour (recalling some HH novels supporting that). The overall thickness of power armour seems like it shouldn't more than .25" thick, at most (including sub system doodads and standoff). - opinion mind you

Also, something to consider, there are a lot of extra bits that marines have implanted; the physiology required to suit it would need to change things like proportions, even if it is just a bit. Though things like a secondary heart are not a small thing to accommodate i wager.

Power armor is made of a first layer of various medical equipment, including life support, stims, stored food, drugs, water, and feedback cables that plug into the Astartes' body. Around/above that is a set of synthetic muscles and nanotech guts that allow the suit to move in the first place. Then there's the soft armor that goes over some parts such as the joints and neck. Next is the armor player, which begins with a mixture of plasteel, durasteel, and sometimes adamantium, followed up by a final ablative layer of ceramite for heat absorption and protection from energy weapons.

It is incredibly thick. This has always been one of the few consistent things about Power Armor, dating all the way back to rogue trader. Thickness would probably be close to around MBT armor, at least two inches. Also, Sibbering's picture you posted is non-canon fanart made for Sibbering's alternate 40k fan verse that he works on. Or did you even bother to read the source?



This is power armor.

 Wyzilla wrote:


Power armor is made of a first layer of various medical equipment, including life support, stims, stored food, drugs, water, and feedback cables that plug into the Astartes' body. Around/above that is a set of synthetic muscles and nanotech guts that allow the suit to move in the first place. Then there's the soft armor that goes over some parts such as the joints and neck. Next is the armor player, which begins with a mixture of plasteel, durasteel, and sometimes adamantium, followed up by a final ablative layer of ceramite for heat absorption and protection from energy weapons.

It is incredibly thick. This has always been one of the few consistent things about Power Armor, dating all the way back to rogue trader. Thickness would probably be close to around MBT armor, at least two inches. Also, Sibbering's picture you posted is non-canon fanart made for Sibbering's alternate 40k fan verse that he works on. Or did you even bother to read the source?

This is power armor.

You know looking at that diagram I again, and I wonder if its hovering close to the 2" mark. Regardless, I really don't see how you would need 2" inches to accommodate all of these things; sounds like too much of a modern perspective than 'futuristic' one (even warhammer size). To elaborate, I would argue that you are making these layers sound way bigger than they need to be. 'Synthetic muscles' surely wouldn't need so much space to operate. Medical systems could be nothing more than small capillaries...

I've been playing since the 90's and it would be news to me that power armour must be 2" thick (I guess I may have missed that). Maybe at the pauldrons where it is connected to second plate its much thicker, but the rest, in place like the smooth areas of the vambrace, rerebrace, cuisses then no, surely it would not. Even the couter wouldn't be composed so uniformly with each layer necessarily.

Brothers of the Snake lists them as 8', I believe.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:

the ancient wrote:
Black Library had them at 8' in a line up not long ago.

Cool- is that still around? I'd love to add it to the citations.

It wasn't actually 8', the scale laughably started at 2'

Last years weekender email that did the rounds.

Grey Templar is a little confused, he's thinking of the Jes Goodwin height chart, which is even more misleading A) it starts at 1 instead of 0, and B) it has Jes sitting down to make the Marine look bigger.

As for Ashirayas' quote about the 9' tall Space Marine, that is from the perspective of a small child, whose angle of view will make the Marine look even taller than he really is when compared to a 6' tall man standing between the two.

A strong wind looks big next to Jes in that pic.

Going by the competition they've got going, a Marine is the height of a offensive lineman, (which we all know was to limit what they give away) and twice as wide. In 10 years they will be bigger than a marine.

They're not feed growth hormone's, roid's and whatever since they were 10-12.

Wasn't there a space wolf that needed modified terminator armour to fit him?

I think of marine's at 7.5' average. A head and shoulders over mortal men. A primarch, a head and shoulders over a marine, putting them at 10' tall and plasma proof.

 Furyou Miko wrote:


As for Ashirayas' quote about the 9' tall Space Marine, that is from the perspective of a small child, whose angle of view will make the Marine look even taller than he really is when compared to a 6' tall man standing between the two.

No, it was from the perspective of an omniscient narrator.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's simple really. 7' is 16% taller than 6'. The man in the story was well-built and tall - no basketball player, but certainly in the 6' ballpark. 'Half again' is 50%. 50% is not 16%.

9' (ish, it could be 9'1" or 8'11" or something around there) is canon. Of course, 7' is also canon. But dismissing either as false is false in itself.

At 9' ish they would be this tall

(Taking into account SM isn't standing straight)

Which makes perfect sense to me. Looks suitably heroic/mythic without going OTT. Let the QQ begin.

 Wyzilla wrote:

.75/20mm is more then enough for your supersoldiers. Just for an example, somebody trying to shoulder and fire a browning or one of those Cartel assault rifles that fire .50 would likely break their shoulder. The only way a human can even physically fire .75/20mm rounds is either with a mounted bipod dug into the ground, a pintle mounted turret, or holding it at the hip and dropping it when the recoil hits.

.75 caliber is an autocannon round in real life that does very, very nasty things to people trying to fire a bolt action rifle chambering such rounds. Let alone an automatic .75/20mm rifle. That would just destroy anything not made of muscle or wearing reinforced armor suits.

.75 caliber is .75 caliber. It doesnt give away its power or recoil. I don't see them having problems with firing 25mm from their shoulder. And that's an ordinary round opposed to boltrounds that are selfpropelled projectiles. Bolt rounds are enough for mansized enemies, yes. But their guns would fire ridiculously small rounds for their size, if the marines that are holding them would be 9 feets tall.

9' (ish, it could be 9'1" or 8'11" or something around there) is canon

Source for 9' ? "The" book doesnt give an explicit number, you made that number up.

Which makes perfect sense to me. Looks suitably heroic/mythic without going OTT

So "looking heroic" is the only criterium you go by for a size to make sense for a supersoldier?

 Keep wrote:

Source for 9' ? "The" book doesnt give an explicit number, you made that number up.

Take 6'. Take half again that. Add it together. Is it really that difficult?

As said, it does not have to end up exactly 9'. It can be 8'11", it can be 9'1". But 50% is not 16% even if you and Crimson really really really want it to be.

I realise it may be tough, but you gotta understand that there's others than you here who can be right.

Sometimes, you'll have to make do with that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Keep wrote:
So "looking heroic" is the only criterium you go by for a size to make sense for a supersoldier?

The entire setting runs on the rule of cool.

Are you going to start complaining on Titans not making sense next?

Hell, even at 12', Marines would make more sense than mountain-sized Warlord Titans.

The entire setting runs on the rule of cool.
Are you going to start complaining on Titans not making sense next?

No because titans dont operate in confined spaces that where build for smaller living beeings... Which Marines are supposed to do. How do they conduct boarding operations against eldar or TAU if they can't even duck through their bulkheads? You can't blow everything away. Beeing double the size not only means that they can't fit through tunnels, doors, etc, it also means they can be shot from extreme distance easier, they cant find cover easily, they are hard to conceal in case they need to conceal themself for surprise attacks. Their weight could easily crash them through buildings or destroy unstable environments (rocks/mountains) and render them unfit for combat, or deny them their objective.

Hell, even at 12', Marines would make more sense than mountain-sized Warlord Titans.

They are not as tall as the artwork. The largest are not taller then 50m.

 Keep wrote:

The entire setting runs on the rule of cool.
Are you going to start complaining on Titans not making sense next?

No because titans dont operate in confined spaces that where build for smaller living beeings... Which Marines are supposed to do. How do they conduct boarding operations against eldar or TAU if they can't even duck through their bulkheads? You can't blow everything away. Beeing double the size not only means that they can't fit through tunnels, doors, etc, it also means they can be shot from extreme distance easier, they cant find cover easily, they are hard to conceal in case they need to conceal themself for surprise attacks. Their weight could easily crash them through buildings or destroy unstable environments (rocks/mountains) and render them unfit for combat, or deny them their objective.

Hell, even at 12', Marines would make more sense than mountain-sized Warlord Titans.

They are not as tall as the artwork. The largest are not taller then 50m.

A shame, because the artwork is canon.

I am calling bogus on any argument that says Marines can't work in confined spaces (why are you sending them into confined spaces?) while the Imperium simultaneously employs vehicles that would break apart at the hip the moment they left the assembly line.

The Titan is a far far far worse design than any Marine, no matter which source size you use. There is a word for what you are doing and it is called 'cherrypicking'.

Cherrypicking is actually fine in 40k as it's what the setting is designed for, it's why there's contradictions all over the damn place, but don't pretend you're not doing it to assume some kind of moral high ground.

I am calling bogus on any argument that says Marines can't work in confined spaces (why are you sending them into confined spaces?) while the Imperium simultaneously employs vehicles that would break apart at the hip the moment they left the assembly line.

That a 2.7m tall at least 1.5m wide giant can't fit through spaces that are only 2m tall and 0.7-1m wide (average human doors), is bogus because what?
Because you have conducted a finite element analysis of titans hipjoints? Or what makes you think that titans must break apart if they would exist in real life? Your engineering degree?

why are you sending them into confined spaces?

Because... they are supposed to fight the enemy? What use is a super soldier if the only defense you need is tunnels/entries to fortifications/ship bridges/rooms no higher then 2.0m and 0.8m width. ? You dont even need doors in that case, the doorway is enough. If your infantry is unable to do the stuff that infantry is good for, it's useless as infantry and you need a replacement.

 Keep wrote:
Because you have conducted a finite element analysis of titans hipjoints? Or what makes you think that titans must break apart if they would exist in real life? Your engineering degree?

No, not my engineering degree. The square-cube law.

Because... they are supposed to fight the enemy? What use is a super soldier if the only defense you need is tunnels/entries to fortifications/ship bridges/rooms no higher then 2.0m and 0.8m width. ? You dont even need doors in that case, the doorway is enough. If your infantry is unable to do the stuff that infantry is good for, it's useless as infantry and you need a replacement.

You have Tempestus Scions for that.

You could make the same argument for Dreadnoughts, that they can't fit anywhere meaningful. But they're still used (instead of just using Devastators in their place).

Everything in 40K is so oversized so it's pretty much never going to be a problem to fit in even at 2,78m. Believe it or not, most corridors are not claustrophobic spaces where you can only walk one person in a row.

 Ashiraya wrote:
No, not my engineering degree. The square-cube law.

omg this law describes the relation of somethings volume to its surface area when it is scaled up. This has nothing to do with forces or things breaking apart.

Everything in 40K is so oversized so it's pretty much never going to be a problem to fit in even at 2,78m. Believe it or not, most corridors are not claustrophobic spaces where you can only walk one person in a row.

That's a factory. It is not a bunker/fortification system, or the interior of a battleship. Now think hard about where marines will actually fight most likely most of the time, when you count interior battles only....

Ok, we aren't really talking about the practicality of creating giant robots, are we? Ok, I'm going to invoke the "Giant Robot Paradox." It goes like this:


"If you have the technology to create a giant combat robot, you can spend fewer resources to create a tank that is better than your giant robot."

We love titans, and indeed all kinds of mechs, because they're cool. But realistic, they aren't.

 Ashiraya wrote:

9' (ish, it could be 9'1" or 8'11" or something around there) is canon. Of course, 7' is also canon. But dismissing either as false is false in itself.

This is the truth, here. Sure, we can argue whether Wolverine had bone claws, but in the end, the fluff is not consistently making the same statements.

I know a lot of people argue that the Black Library stuff isn't cannon, but it is at least official Warhammer 40,000. I find it funny that the Movie Marines put them at 7' tall, because the stated purpose behind those rules was to create a rules set that represented the Black Library books.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Brothers of the Snake lists them as 8', I believe.

Ooh, can you find that reference so that I can add it to the list?

Horus Rising description of Gavriel Loken, a Luna Wolf wrote:
His helm, with its lateral horsebrush crest, was off, hung at his waist. He was a giant, two and a half metres tall.

So this is Horus Rising, and this is Loken. So 30k. Maybe they were bigger then. But 2.5 meters is over 8 feet tall.

I will try to find a page number for you later tonight. Until then, have a look at this if you are interested in gathering data - there's a lot more than just heights, but it's a series of interesting quotes.

http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/40k-source-and-feats-thread.235176/#post-8614291

"If you have the technology to create a giant combat robot, you can spend fewer resources to create a tank that is better than your giant robot."

What magic technology do you need to create a combat walker (they are crewed, not AI controlled)? Other then good energy supply it only requires a controll pattern that can keeps it stable and thats it. Once solved there is no additional prerequisite that is not already available. Bipedal walking has advantages and dissadvantages over tracks. Advantages are it doesnt care so much about terrain obstacles. There's always 2 sides to a coin, tracks do not make walkers obsolete, same as tracks didnt make wheels obsolete.

 Keep wrote:

"If you have the technology to create a giant combat robot, you can spend fewer resources to create a tank that is better than your giant robot."

What magic technology do you need to create a combat walker (they are crewed, not AI controlled)? Other then good energy supply it only requires a controll pattern that can keeps it stable and thats it. Once solved there is no additional prerequisite that is not already available. Bipedal walking has advantages and dissadvantages over tracks. Advantages are it doesnt care so much about terrain obstacles. There's always 2 sides to a coin, tracks do not make walkers obsolete, same as tracks didnt make wheels obsolete.

Unfortunately, this is not true.

The advantage of terrain becomes a lot less relevant when you are operating on a Titan scale, and even when you are not the drawbacks of a walker are significant - loss of a stability and thus can carry less armour and weaponry, a hit to a leg can topple and thus make a walker useless whereas a hit to a tread will just immobilise a tank, the walker is a lot harder to repair, a higher profile makes it far easier to hit for its mass... Hell, wheeled and tracked vehicles are also faster.

Do you think 30k marines were bigger than 40k marines?

 Icculus wrote:
Do you think 30k marines were bigger than 40k marines?

One of the Fallen Dark Angels, Attias the Untamed is said to dwarf a power armoured marine and be closer to terminators in height.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Keep wrote:

"If you have the technology to create a giant combat robot, you can spend fewer resources to create a tank that is better than your giant robot."

What magic technology do you need to create a combat walker (they are crewed, not AI controlled)? Other then good energy supply it only requires a controll pattern that can keeps it stable and thats it. Once solved there is no additional prerequisite that is not already available. Bipedal walking has advantages and dissadvantages over tracks. Advantages are it doesnt care so much about terrain obstacles. There's always 2 sides to a coin, tracks do not make walkers obsolete, same as tracks didnt make wheels obsolete.

Unfortunately, this is not true.

The advantage of terrain becomes a lot less relevant when you are operating on a Titan scale, and even when you are not the drawbacks of a walker are significant - loss of a stability and thus can carry less armour and weaponry, a hit to a leg can topple and thus make a walker useless whereas a hit to a tread will just immobilise a tank, the walker is a lot harder to repair, a higher profile makes it far easier to hit for its mass... Hell, wheeled and tracked vehicles are also faster.

Why does it become less relevant ? It's of the same relevance as on smaller scale. A titan can step over walls/ ditches that are not too high. Tanks have way lower ditch crossing/step climbing ability for obvious reasons. Also, you cant operate large tanks in mountainous terrain. They also have hard limits on maximum slope they can climb. Tanks get stuck. And you need at least 1-2 other tanks to pull it free. That means they have to operate together all the time. Titans also have way longer reach because they are higher. A superweapon with gazillions of kilometer is of no use if you mount it on something that's just 10m large. Because the surface of a planet isnt shaped like a pizza. There's a maximum range for weapons that require LOS for example lasers) by planet curvature. 1km high titans are silly, yes. But their size has been given consistently as ~45m for warlords and so on. Artworks have always have been inconsistent. Size figures not.

i'm still waiting for a explicit proof of 9' marines, that hasnt been a vague quote and an explanation why it would make more sense to have marines that big to justify having them considerably larger then the "between 7 and 8 foot" mark given by so many sources. So far all the sources repeat the goodwin figure, apart from individual space marines who are said to be taller then their brethren.

Well my quote earlier in the thread puts a marine at 8.2' tall. So not quite 9 but definitely over 8.

 Icculus wrote:
Well my quote earlier in the thread puts a marine at 8.2' tall. So not quite 9 but definitely over 8.

Saying "Two and a half" is often vague, just as "half something" is. The former would be fitting for a size between 2.3 and 2.7 meters, because "two and a half" is closer then "two meter" and "three meter" in both cases. Therefore it is not a definite that he is over 8'. 8' would be 2.44m ... mathematically rounded 2.5m

 Keep wrote:

i'm still waiting for a explicit proof of 9' marines, that hasnt been a vague quote and an explanation why it would make more sense to have marines that big to justify having them considerably larger then the "between 7 and 8 foot" mark given by so many sources.

To be fair, the number given by the largest number of sources right now is "Marines are 7 feet tall" and not "between 7 and 8 feet tall." That would imply that a 7 foot marine is the average, not that a seven and a half foot marine is average.

However, most people on this thread seem to think that a seven and a half average is better (and clearly some of the minis are larger than others). I'm actually not sure why that is (there seem to be no references putting them at seven and a half feet).

So far, it does look like the Black Library has marines at a larger scale than the other fluff sources as well (I've no doubt that our preferences depend a bit on where we prefer to get our fluff).

Most of the more reliable sources say 7 feet. Any larger than that and it just becomes silly and extremely impractical. If they're bigger than that then all you need to halt a marine crusade is a reinforced door frame.

There's many drawbacks to creating huge soldiers and not many advantages. They were most likely created big just for psychological reasons, not practical reasons. Or just "rule of cool"

 Gargantuan wrote:
rule of cool

Isn't this the reason we have Marines to begin with? It's the same reason you would put a cathedral on the back of your battle titan.

I mean, you can counter them easily by having a guardsman on a nuke kill-switch.

 Gargantuan wrote:
Most of the more reliable sources say 7 feet. Any larger than that and it just becomes silly and extremely impractical. If they're bigger than that then all you need to halt a marine crusade is a reinforced door frame.

There's many drawbacks to creating huge soldiers and not many advantages. They were most likely created big just for psychological reasons, not practical reasons. Or just "rule of cool"

"Why have you stopped battle-brother?"

"I can't get in the bloody door!"

 Keep wrote:

Saying "Two and a half" is often vague, just as "half something" is. The former would be fitting for a size between 2.3 and 2.7 meters, because "two and a half" is closer then "two meter" and "three meter" in both cases. Therefore it is not a definite that he is over 8'. 8' would be 2.44m ... mathematically rounded 2.5m

I think you're overanalysing. When they write two and a half, I think it's pretty likely they mean two and a half, and not two and a third.

 Keep wrote:

 Icculus wrote:
Well my quote earlier in the thread puts a marine at 8.2' tall. So not quite 9 but definitely over 8.

Saying "Two and a half" is often vague, just as "half something" is. The former would be fitting for a size between 2.3 and 2.7 meters, because "two and a half" is closer then "two meter" and "three meter" in both cases. Therefore it is not a definite that he is over 8'. 8' would be 2.44m ... mathematically rounded 2.5m

Hey, it is a legit reference that gives us a precise number. It is as precise as most of the other numbers given here, and deserves to be represented in the list.

A quick question- is there any reason to believe that the 2.5 meter marine was exceptional?

In the books he is in, Loken is not at any point described as special in size compared to his fellow Astartes.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
"Why have you stopped battle-brother?"

"I can't get in the bloody door!"

Let's be honest, it's not like the IoM really builds anything on a small scale lol. I really don't think doorways would be a problem!

 Ashiraya wrote:
I think you're overanalysing. When they write two and a half, I think it's pretty likely they mean two and a half, and not two and a third.

Its equally likely they wrote two and a half because blody nobody writes two and a third or two and a fifth, or two and eleven twentyfifths ( = 8').
Please show me where a BL wrote that a marine/human is something else then either full meters or half meters without giving the precise number (2.4 for example)

Let's be honest, it's not like the IoM really builds anything on a small scale lol. I really don't think doorways would be a problem!

not everything is a church or huge in 40k. It doesnt make sense to build fortifications that have 4m tall rooms and huge doorways. You want them as small as possible and thick as possible to reduce hitting propability. And large doors are harder to defend then smaller doors where just one human can enter. Just look at WW2 bunker designs. They are all cramped and small for reasons.

Horus Rising wrote:
"Vipus shrugged. He was a little taller than Loken, and his shrug made the heavy ribbing and plates of his armour clunk together."

So Vipus is taller than Loken. Then later in the book, when the best of the Luna Wolves meetup, the 4 top dogs, Abaddon included, we get this passage.

Horus Rising wrote:"The trio stepped forward into the water to face Loken. Tarik Torgaddon was the tallest of them, his trickster grin never leaving his face."

So just in the first several chapters of the book we have Loken at "Two and a half metres tall" and already two other marines are states as being taller than him. But again, this is all from one author, and this is pre-heresy 30k.

Icculus wrote:

Horus Rising wrote:"The trio stepped forward into the water to face Loken. Tarik Torgaddon was the tallest of them, his trickster grin never leaving his face."

So just in the first several chapters of the book we have Loken at "Two and a half metres tall" and already two other marines are states as being taller than him. But again, this is all from one author, and this is pre-heresy 30k.

The 4 of them are pretty special though, dont you think? They are the highest ranks, apart from horus, in their legion. They are not the average marine from their skills, and strength. So its not unlikely that their size is exceptional as well. Aren't they even described as beeing closest to their primarch? I remember that note, that one almost looks like a clone. So it would not be surprising if the extreme similarity also had a slight effect on heigth. It's been a while since i read it though.

Well Vipus wasn't exceptional. He was one of the standard guys.

ok then i remembered it wrong... i was thinking of horus advisory trio and later quartett

 Keep wrote:
ok then i remembered it wrong... i was thinking of horus advisory trio and later quartett

Well the first passage was not the horus advisory group.

The second passage is though. The first passage is just Vipus, another member of Loken's tenth company. Torgaddon is one of the Mournival though, a long with little Horus, Loken, and Abaddon.

The 'Sons of Horus' are not described as being special in height. They are described as being facially similar to their Primarch but nothing else.

It just comes back to weedy young guys making a mind game. 7' is huge. If your the size of jes.

You've got 2 line ups, both from gw. Which is probably as good as it's going to get, otherwise its he said, she said.
Though gav thorpe might eat 2 marines for breakfast now.

Though it is possible 30k marines were bigger than 40k, Like the thunder warriors

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

"Why have you stopped battle-brother?"

"I can't get in the bloody door!"

Someone is playing Space Hulk.

the ancient wrote:


Though it is possible 30k marines were bigger than 40k, Like the thunder warriors

Unlikely. We've never seen anything implying this.

On the contrary, 30k Marines were mass-produced compared to the slow and careful Marine creation of 40k.

kveldulf wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


Power armor is made of a first layer of various medical equipment, including life support, stims, stored food, drugs, water, and feedback cables that plug into the Astartes' body. Around/above that is a set of synthetic muscles and nanotech guts that allow the suit to move in the first place. Then there's the soft armor that goes over some parts such as the joints and neck. Next is the armor player, which begins with a mixture of plasteel, durasteel, and sometimes adamantium, followed up by a final ablative layer of ceramite for heat absorption and protection from energy weapons.

It is incredibly thick. This has always been one of the few consistent things about Power Armor, dating all the way back to rogue trader. Thickness would probably be close to around MBT armor, at least two inches. Also, Sibbering's picture you posted is non-canon fanart made for Sibbering's alternate 40k fan verse that he works on. Or did you even bother to read the source?

This is power armor.

You know looking at that diagram I again, and I wonder if its hovering close to the 2" mark. Regardless, I really don't see how you would need 2" inches to accommodate all of these things; sounds like too much of a modern perspective than 'futuristic' one (even warhammer size). To elaborate, I would argue that you are making these layers sound way bigger than they need to be. 'Synthetic muscles' surely wouldn't need so much space to operate. Medical systems could be nothing more than small capillaries...

I've been playing since the 90's and it would be news to me that power armour must be 2" thick (I guess I may have missed that). Maybe at the pauldrons where it is connected to second plate its much thicker, but the rest, in place like the smooth areas of the vambrace, rerebrace, cuisses then no, surely it would not. Even the couter wouldn't be composed so uniformly with each layer necessarily.

Then source it where it was stated. Power armor has never been described as thin, it's always been portaryed as thick, incredibly heavy armor to the point that humans couldn't even lift the suit. In armor Astartes weigh an imperial ton, and that weight doesn't come from hilariously thin armor. Not to mention that Sibberin's picture is FAN FICTION and not actual canon material produced for GW.


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 Keep wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

.75/20mm is more then enough for your supersoldiers. Just for an example, somebody trying to shoulder and fire a browning or one of those Cartel assault rifles that fire .50 would likely break their shoulder. The only way a human can even physically fire .75/20mm rounds is either with a mounted bipod dug into the ground, a pintle mounted turret, or holding it at the hip and dropping it when the recoil hits.

.75 caliber is an autocannon round in real life that does very, very nasty things to people trying to fire a bolt action rifle chambering such rounds. Let alone an automatic .75/20mm rifle. That would just destroy anything not made of muscle or wearing reinforced armor suits.

.75 caliber is .75 caliber. It doesnt give away its power or recoil. I don't see them having problems with firing 25mm from their shoulder. And that's an ordinary round opposed to boltrounds that are selfpropelled projectiles. Bolt rounds are enough for mansized enemies, yes. But their guns would fire ridiculously small rounds for their size, if the marines that are holding them would be 9 feets tall.

9' (ish, it could be 9'1" or 8'11" or something around there) is canon

Source for 9' ? "The" book doesnt give an explicit number, you made that number up.

Which makes perfect sense to me. Looks suitably heroic/mythic without going OTT

So "looking heroic" is the only criterium you go by for a size to make sense for a supersoldier?

I'm talking about something able to chamber actual gunpowder and rocket fuel. .75/20mm long, similar to the rounds used in anti tank rifles in WWII or anti aircraft autocannons. Or the crazy (South American Cartels are Orks!) Brazilian .50 BMG assault rifles they picked off some Cartel dudes.


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 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Gargantuan wrote:
Most of the more reliable sources say 7 feet. Any larger than that and it just becomes silly and extremely impractical. If they're bigger than that then all you need to halt a marine crusade is a reinforced door frame.

There's many drawbacks to creating huge soldiers and not many advantages. They were most likely created big just for psychological reasons, not practical reasons. Or just "rule of cool"

"Why have you stopped battle-brother?"

"I can't get in the bloody door!"

Well, you can always bring a meltagun. You don't need a door when you can just slag the wall down.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
The 'Sons of Horus' are not described as being special in height. They are described as being facially similar to their Primarch but nothing else.

Ehhh. Abadon was renowned for being so bloody tall and overall huge in size that people were spreading rumors of him being a Primarch.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Keep wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Keep wrote:

"If you have the technology to create a giant combat robot, you can spend fewer resources to create a tank that is better than your giant robot."

What magic technology do you need to create a combat walker (they are crewed, not AI controlled)? Other then good energy supply it only requires a controll pattern that can keeps it stable and thats it. Once solved there is no additional prerequisite that is not already available. Bipedal walking has advantages and dissadvantages over tracks. Advantages are it doesnt care so much about terrain obstacles. There's always 2 sides to a coin, tracks do not make walkers obsolete, same as tracks didnt make wheels obsolete.

Unfortunately, this is not true.

The advantage of terrain becomes a lot less relevant when you are operating on a Titan scale, and even when you are not the drawbacks of a walker are significant - loss of a stability and thus can carry less armour and weaponry, a hit to a leg can topple and thus make a walker useless whereas a hit to a tread will just immobilise a tank, the walker is a lot harder to repair, a higher profile makes it far easier to hit for its mass... Hell, wheeled and tracked vehicles are also faster.

Why does it become less relevant ? It's of the same relevance as on smaller scale. A titan can step over walls/ ditches that are not too high. Tanks have way lower ditch crossing/step climbing ability for obvious reasons. Also, you cant operate large tanks in mountainous terrain. They also have hard limits on maximum slope they can climb. Tanks get stuck. And you need at least 1-2 other tanks to pull it free. That means they have to operate together all the time. Titans also have way longer reach because they are higher. A superweapon with gazillions of kilometer is of no use if you mount it on something that's just 10m large. Because the surface of a planet isnt shaped like a pizza. There's a maximum range for weapons that require LOS for example lasers) by planet curvature. 1km high titans are silly, yes. But their size has been given consistently as ~45m for warlords and so on. Artworks have always have been inconsistent. Size figures not.

i'm still waiting for a explicit proof of 9' marines, that hasnt been a vague quote and an explanation why it would make more sense to have marines that big to justify having them considerably larger then the "between 7 and 8 foot" mark given by so many sources. So far all the sources repeat the goodwin figure, apart from individual space marines who are said to be taller then their brethren.

Dude. Titans are insane. The square cube law alone would probably kill one, let alone the power generation to make one move, coupled with the resources to build it and how it will just die if it falls over. Then you've got to get over other hurdles, like it being so large it's simply ICBM bait. The second that thing shows its ugly mug, it's going to be blown away by a nuclear arsenal until the void shield folds. Unless you live on a low-grav world, giant robots are one of the downright dumbest things you can possibly build, especially when you already have ships in orbit that should be able to sort the entire battle out with precision lance strikes.

Titans are one of the major things in 40k you should never think about rationally, otherwise your mind will break when you realize how nonsensical they are.

Abaddon was a special case and there is no evidence of his height being linked to his status as being a Son.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Abaddon was a special case and there is no evidence of his height being linked to his status as being a Son.

Unless he as a child suffered from giantism, I would generally put the blame of becoming a giant among giants on the genetic engineering he underwent that hijacked his puberty.

Abaddon was known for his overall size, but we have a quote from Horus Rising describing Torgaddon as the tallest of the Mournival. So I think in Abaddon's case his extraordinary size may have been mostly in reference to bulk.

 Keep wrote:

The 4 of them are pretty special though, dont you think? They are the highest ranks, apart from horus, in their legion. They are not the average marine from their skills, and strength. So its not unlikely that their size is exceptional as well...

You know, for a second I wanted to say, "Hey, they aren't Orks- they don't promote based on height, to they?"

Then I remembered all of the special characters I've painted over the years. It seems like most races DO often promote based on size.

The Ork fluff is probably meant as satire of the whole thing (like when ork scale creep was canonized).

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Abaddon was a special case and there is no evidence of his height being linked to his status as being a Son.

Unless he as a child suffered from giantism, I would generally put the blame of becoming a giant among giants on the genetic engineering he underwent that hijacked his puberty.

You misunderstand.

It's obvious that he is large because of his Marine status, but it has nothing to do with him being a Son of Horus (That is, the Luna Wolf name for those who looked a lot like their Primarch facially).

 odinsgrandson wrote:


I find it funny that the Movie Marines put them at 7' tall, because the stated purpose behind those rules was to create a rules set that represented the Black Library books.

No, its meant to represent what would happen if SM were the protagonist of a silly action movie, nothing more.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:


I find it funny that the Movie Marines put them at 7' tall, because the stated purpose behind those rules was to create a rules set that represented the Black Library books.

No, its meant to represent what would happen if SM were the protagonist of a silly action movie, nothing more.

The article goes like this:

We get at lot of letters from people who read our fluff and say "A space marine is super powerful in the fiction. Why doesn't your game represent them properly?"

Well, there's game balance to consider. But we think that exaggeration is fun, and we think that fiction is a good place for that sort of thing- heck, Hollywood has been doing it for years.

So, we imagine our books are like films shown in the Imperium. So here are the rules to represent space marines this way.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
So, we imagine our books are like films shown in the Imperium.

This is canon saying that Space Marines performance in BL books are over-the-top, and that actual marines are to BL marines what Expendable soldiers are to real U.S. soldiers! Interesting.

Also, Ashiraya, were you not explaining to me a few days ago that a 7" marine was an outlier? That is was on the same level as you interpretating bad prose into saying a marine run faster than the speed of sound? Ah !

This still argued to this day.

I will weigh in and say it varies chapter to chapter and marine to marine.

IN terms of how tall marines are. They are usually 7 foot tall.

But considering how each author has a different picture of a space marine. It is hard to pinpint.

(Also inb4 there is no canon)

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:
So, we imagine our books are like films shown in the Imperium.

This is canon saying that Space Marines performance in BL books are over-the-top, and that actual marines are to BL marines what Expendable soldiers are to real U.S. soldiers! Interesting.

Also, Ashiraya, were you not explaining to me a few days ago that a 7" marine was an outlier? That is was on the same level as you interpretating bad prose into saying a marine run faster than the speed of sound? Ah !

Well, the article had a massive "CHAPTER UNAPPROVED" stamp on it, so...

Marines are 7.5 - 9 feet tall. They have .75 cal assault rifles with explosive rounds - their punch is as deadly as their .75 cal rifle. I've read these accounts from so many different sources it would be hard to site it.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Marines are 7.5 - 9 feet tall. They have .75 cal assault rifles with explosive rounds - their punch is as deadly as their .75 cal rifle. I've read these accounts from so many different sources it would be hard to site it.

Can you find any of those sources? I'd love to add them to the list.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:
So, we imagine our books are like films shown in the Imperium.

This is canon saying that Space Marines performance in BL books are over-the-top, and that actual marines are to BL marines what Expendable soldiers are to real U.S. soldiers! Interesting.

Also, Ashiraya, were you not explaining to me a few days ago that a 7" marine was an outlier? That is was on the same level as you interpretating bad prose into saying a marine run faster than the speed of sound? Ah !

In my opinion, yes!


Btw, I am pretty sure I read that the Night Lords in ADB's books are 3 meters (9'10"). That is another page I shall have to look up for you, Odin.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Well, you can always bring a meltagun. You don't need a door when you can just slag the wall down.

If a doorway happens to be concrete you have bad luck... because concrete doesnt burn... And if its a reinforced doorway of a fortification they wont be able to smash through it, nor will they be able to blow a big hole in it, unless they use a gigantic explosive load

Btw, I am pretty sure I read that the Night Lords in ADB's books are 3 meters (9'10"). That is another page I shall have to look up for you, Odin.

With bat wings and horns or without it ?

 odinsgrandson wrote:
You know, for a second I wanted to say, "Hey, they aren't Orks- they don't promote based on height, to they?"

As far as logic is concerned, no it is absolutely not necessary. But apparently writers/ designers think that it is what it takes to satisfy the needs of bolterporn enthusiasts. Because many of them leaders are indeed way larger. The bigger the more badass, so they think. That's why 9' "enhanced human soldiers" are a thing in peoples minds. Not because it gives definite battlefield advantages. No, because it looks more "heroic" and "awesome". I find that silly and one dimensional.

i guess "growing along with your tasks" is a literal thing in 40k ? In 40k, your progress to great warrior status can be measured with a ruler.

 Ashiraya wrote:
In my opinion, yes!

You have a very… personal definition of what an outlier is .

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Keep wrote:

"If you have the technology to create a giant combat robot, you can spend fewer resources to create a tank that is better than your giant robot."

What magic technology do you need to create a combat walker (they are crewed, not AI controlled)? Other then good energy supply it only requires a controll pattern that can keeps it stable and thats it. Once solved there is no additional prerequisite that is not already available. Bipedal walking has advantages and dissadvantages over tracks. Advantages are it doesnt care so much about terrain obstacles. There's always 2 sides to a coin, tracks do not make walkers obsolete, same as tracks didnt make wheels obsolete.

Unfortunately, this is not true.

The advantage of terrain becomes a lot less relevant when you are operating on a Titan scale, and even when you are not the drawbacks of a walker are significant - loss of a stability and thus can carry less armour and weaponry, a hit to a leg can topple and thus make a walker useless whereas a hit to a tread will just immobilise a tank, the walker is a lot harder to repair, a higher profile makes it far easier to hit for its mass... Hell, wheeled and tracked vehicles are also faster.

Something to consider, titans are made for siege warfare or protection of cities - as I see it; there is a huge advantage they have that you have failed to mention in regard to this: Height. Assaulting positions at higher elevation within a city, grants some major advantages in terms of firing solutions. Even outside of hive cities, there are firing angles that ground level tanks and artillery are going to be having issues hitting that a titan could target.

Also, regarding titans having treads, in an urban environment its going to have issues either getting stuck or simply unable to navigate around spires/buildings and streets.

Heck, now that I think of it, having huge scale bipedal meat shields in open field engagements (that are emitting void fields that mitigate damage) would be advantageous. Essentially such a tall thing would obstruct a lot of damage to things behind the titan, plus, the freaking void fields regenerate! In a large scale situation, where fortitude is key, this would be handy. I could probably come up with more reasons as to why a tall, bipedal walker could work.

As a tangent, I am one of those who would argue that warlords are ~100 stories tall; I think its fitting that the 41st millenia should have something so mind boggling titanic.... and them called titans. It should be as tall as the empire statebuilding because.... that's titanic - in my mind. I own a titan, granted a warhound, but at least I admit it isn't the scale it should be rather than shrinking everyone elses ideas of titans to justify my $$$ spent on it




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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:
So, we imagine our books are like films shown in the Imperium.

This is canon saying that Space Marines performance in BL books are over-the-top, and that actual marines are to BL marines what Expendable soldiers are to real U.S. soldiers! Interesting.

Also, Ashiraya, were you not explaining to me a few days ago that a 7" marine was an outlier? That is was on the same level as you interpretating bad prose into saying a marine run faster than the speed of sound? Ah !

Meh. The crowd that waves off SM fiction as just exaggerative propaganda are usually warhammer players that like their version of warhammer, than what its in canon. You know, that's okay if you want to believe that but think about this:

You (being a veteran SM recruiter... which is an astronomically improbable feat - that you will come to find out later) are charged to go find a few dudes from a pool of a thousand, who need to sleep for a few decades in a very expensive medical thing (with expensive apothecary medicine/services over these years)..... to find out if expensive implants have taken or not. Then they must be trained (probably expensively - cost of warp gas etc) as a scout, before they can wear very expensive armour, with very expensive weapons, expensive ammo, expensive wax for the expensive flame proof litany paper and .... expensive everything..... on an expensive spaceship with other ... yep.... expensive things. There are some things money can't buy, for everything else, there's Astartes Mastercard....

Now lets think about 40k tabletop and how the above is portrayed.... take a run of the mill lasgun or pea shooter, that needs a 33% chance to wound, and the SM has a 66% chance to save against it...... one shot from this weapon has a ~ 21% chance of killing a space marine.
So, this begs the most obvious question: why even bother fielding space marines in the imperium if there is that level of impractical replenishment. Propaganda? That's beyond that, and in the realm of mentally handicapped.

5 Peons that took 8 weeks to train (if that) have over a 100% chance to kill a space marine - if they hit. Assuming averages to hit (so I can be a bit unbiased here), it would take ~10 guard to kill a space marine in one turn. Then if they don't kill him in one turn, even attacking back, then his subsequent rounds survival rate is still crap. Oh sure, one could say, that realistically you would have a squad of marines, with support meh meh blah bleh blah. You're right. We are talking about ratios in the lore though..... where Mr. point value should probably hang out.

BL SM lore is at least consistent. GW on the other hand has had lore consistency issues with SMs since rogue trader.

 Keep wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Well, you can always bring a meltagun. You don't need a door when you can just slag the wall down.

If a doorway happens to be concrete you have bad luck... because concrete doesnt burn... And if its a reinforced doorway of a fortification they wont be able to smash through it, nor will they be able to blow a big hole in it, unless they use a gigantic explosive load

Btw, I am pretty sure I read that the Night Lords in ADB's books are 3 meters (9'10"). That is another page I shall have to look up for you, Odin.

With bat wings and horns or without it ?

 odinsgrandson wrote:
You know, for a second I wanted to say, "Hey, they aren't Orks- they don't promote based on height, to they?"

As far as logic is concerned, no it is absolutely not necessary. But apparently writers/ designers think that it is what it takes to satisfy the needs of bolterporn enthusiasts. Because many of them leaders are indeed way larger. The bigger the more badass, so they think. That's why 9' "enhanced human soldiers" are a thing in peoples minds. Not because it gives definite battlefield advantages. No, because it looks more "heroic" and "awesome". I find that silly and one dimensional.

i guess "growing along with your tasks" is a literal thing in 40k ? In 40k, your progress to great warrior status can be measured with a ruler.

It doesn't matter if concrete doesn't burn. Twenty million degrees Fahrenheit doesn't discriminate the material, it all gets vaporized.

Power armor, concrete walls, tanks, safes, Inquisitors, it doesn't matter. If you shoot a meltagun at it, it ceases to be.

Unless you're Huron. He tanked a melta shot in IA - what wounded him so badly was not the shot, but rather the fact that his archeotech Lightning Claw, the Ghost Razors, exploded on his hand. Ow.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Unless you're Huron. He tanked a melta shot in IA - what wounded him so badly was not the shot, but rather the fact that his archeotech Lightning Claw, the Ghost Razors, exploded on his hand. Ow.

He "tanked" a shot in that the majority of his torso was vaporized by a glancing melta shot that now requires constant treatment by a large team of Apothecaries 24/7 even after his biometrics were installed, and is surviving on pure will.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Unless you're Huron. He tanked a melta shot in IA - what wounded him so badly was not the shot, but rather the fact that his archeotech Lightning Claw, the Ghost Razors, exploded on his hand. Ow.

He "tanked" a shot in that the majority of his torso was vaporized by a glancing melta shot that now requires constant treatment by a large team of Apothecaries 24/7 even after his biometrics were installed, and is surviving on pure will.

No. A common misconception.

Have you read the IA in question? The melta shot did not do the damage. The Ghost Razors explosion did.

But then, the melta shot in question was a near miss, which might be related. x)

It doesn't matter if concrete doesn't burn. Twenty million degrees Fahrenheit doesn't discriminate the material, it all gets vaporized.

That doesn't work. Heat expands in all directions, not just one. That means the shooter would also be vaporized by your gazillions of degrees of heat.
Also, you don't vaporize a big block of granite or concrete by putting a fraction of a second of extreme high temperature on its surface.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Well, you can always bring a meltagun. You don't need a door when you can just slag the wall down.

So if a group of space marines enters a large underground bunker with 20 doorways, then the guy armed with a meltagun has to fire said valuable gun twenty times or so before they can proceed any further into the structure?

That seems like poor efficiency to me, and very time-consuming too for that matter.

Why are you sending your Space Marines into a large underground bunker?

Because it'a filled with demons?

Or it's a space hulk.

In the former case, you'd probably rather want to drop some melta warheads on that bunker.

Why are you entering a space hulk?

Why would a bunker or space hulk be a hindrance to 9 foot marines? 7-8 foot marines seem to move around in them well enough to do their jobs even in terminator armour, so why is 9 feet somehow completely ridiculous? Ork Nobs are even bigger than marines and more numerous as well, nobody really complains about their size being unrealistic.

That is a very good point. Nobs and Warriors are considerably larger than Space Marines and get around just fine. Especially the former - I have never seen a case of a Nob being shut out from entering something Boyz can.

kveldulf wrote:
You know, that's okay if you want to believe that but think about this:

You (being a veteran SM recruiter... which is an astronomically improbable feat - that you will come to find out later) are charged to go find a few dudes from a pool of a thousand, who need to sleep for a few decades in a very expensive medical thing (with expensive apothecary medicine/services over these years)..... to find out if expensive implants have taken or not. Then they must be trained (probably expensively - cost of warp gas etc) as a scout, before they can wear very expensive armour, with very expensive weapons, expensive ammo, expensive wax for the expensive flame proof litany paper and .... expensive everything..... on an expensive spaceship with other ... yep.... expensive things. There are some things money can't buy, for everything else, there's Astartes Mastercard....

Now lets think about 40k tabletop and how the above is portrayed.... take a run of the mill lasgun or pea shooter, that needs a 33% chance to wound, and the SM has a 66% chance to save against it...... one shot from this weapon has a ~ 21% chance of killing a space marine.
So, this begs the most obvious question: why even bother fielding space marines in the imperium if there is that level of impractical replenishment.

Have you seen what army I play? The armed branch of the most wasteful organization of the Imperium. How much is it going to cost to build a many kilometers high statue of an imperial saint? A lot. How much is it going to bring? Nothing.
At least the marine has it uses.

kveldulf wrote:
Peons that took 8 weeks to train (if that) […]10 guard

No. Guards are not peons. PDF are usually considered peons. Guards are bad-ass. Some regiment, for instance, are famous for fighting orks in the jungle, favoring close-combat. Yeah. Close combat. Againsts orks. In the jungle. And they scalp the orks. And they collect the skulls. How is that for being a peon?
Also do not forget that dead on the tabletop does not mean dead, just at least incapacitated.

kveldulf wrote:
BL SM lore is at least consistent.

.
Happy to know that Ciaphas Cain being way better at close combat than Khorne berserkers, and 10 Khorne berserkers being beaten by a bunch of civilians Slaaneshi cultists is consistent with the portrayal of marines in the rest of BL's stories.
Also, back-flipping terminators.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Why are you entering a space hulk?

Because you want to fight the genestealers inside! Because it makes for a cool game.

 Bobthehero wrote:


Even the Movie Marines are described as 7'

I recognize that picture from White Dwarf 300, which came out in 2005.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Why are you sending your Space Marines into a large underground bunker?

To go after the enemy’s HQ, obviously. Common sense dictates that you place your centers of command in places where they are hard to locate and reach, preferably somewhere deep below the ground where they’re shielded from bombardment: ergo an underground bunker.

 Ashiraya wrote:
In the former case, you'd probably rather want to drop some melta warheads on that bunker.

Why are you entering a space hulk?

To collect valuable DAoT tech, to procure a priceless artifact, ect.


I should clarify, that I think even 8' marines would have trouble. 9' is about the maximum I will believe. Anything larger than that is so large as to be pointlessly large, with many downsides. I'v always imagined space marine height to generally be between 7' and 7'6". Still pretty damn big, but small enough to generally operate effectively in human-sized spaces.Not only that, it makes them a smaller target than 9'ers.

 Redcruisair wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Why are you sending your Space Marines into a large underground bunker?

To go after the enemy’s HQ, obviously. Common sense dictates that you place your centers of command in places where they are hard to locate and reach, preferably somewhere deep below the ground where they’re shielded from bombardment: ergo an underground bunker.

They would have to be veeeeeery deep underground to resist melta warheads, though.

You know, sometime you might not want to kill everybody. There may be important hostages, plans that will allow you to defeat the enemy, any number of things.

Gee Dubz says 7'. So they're 7' tall.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Gee Dubz says 7'. So they're 7' tall.

We're collecting statements that are from official sources, and they do not always agree with one another.

They also do not always agree with the fandom (which is apparent here).

Oh, well, there goes me not reading gak again. Appologies.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Oh, well, there goes me not reading gak again. Appologies.

No need to apologize. But if you have any other references of where GW said that, please post them, and I'll add them to the list.

 Ashiraya wrote:
They would have to be veeeeeery deep underground to resist melta warheads, though.

Ugh... remind me again why the Imperium even bothers with space marines?

 Redcruisair wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
They would have to be veeeeeery deep underground to resist melta warheads, though.

Ugh... remind me again why the Imperium even bothers with space marines?

Because Ashi-sis and I need something to argue about.

 Redcruisair wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
They would have to be veeeeeery deep underground to resist melta warheads, though.

Ugh... remind me again why the Imperium even bothers with space marines?

Tradition mostly. It is by the Emperor's will that his most proud sons were created and continue to exist. To dismantle the most holy institution of the Adpetus Astartes would be undoing the Emperor's most holy works. Such is Heresy in the extreme.

Btw why exactly are superhumongously large marines considered "more heroic" then 7' marines?
Isnt it more heroic if a 7' marine wins against big orks or against gazillions of foot soldies, compared a superhumongiant marine where everything looks like a baby in comparison to him? Is it more heroic to club enemies that are children sized in relation, as opposed to fighting opponents of their own or even bigger size?

Plans? In the hands of the enemy?! Those heretical texts are better off destroyed!

And the prisoners... If they are not tainted by the foul enemy's presence (an enemy so foul as to warrant Astartes instead of, say, Scions), then they will have to make the ultimate sacrifice. The situations when it is someone truly important (Lord Generals and similar) are going to be exceedingly rare.

Yeah... at this point you are just making stuff up.

 Redcruisair wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
They would have to be veeeeeery deep underground to resist melta warheads, though.

Ugh... remind me again why the Imperium even bothers with space marines?

Rule of cool.

To beat enemies that are too lethal and scary for IG and Scions to handle, and are not hiding inside the tiniest tunnels they could possibly find.


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 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yeah... at this point you are just making stuff up.

Not really. This is the Imperium we're talking about. Unless you're an Inquisitor, xenophobia is going to have a massive effect on your decisions.

It's also pretty rare to have so high rank prisoners to rescue that they are beyond sacrificing, and have them in a place too small to enter.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Yeah... at this point you are just making stuff up.

Not really. This is the Imperium we're talking about. Unless you're an Inquisitor, xenophobia is going to have a massive effect on your decisions.

It's also pretty rare to have so high rank prisoners to rescue that they are beyond sacrificing, and have them in a place too small to enter.

And who says they have to be aliens? Could be heavly armed, armored, and entrenched humans. there is PA that is human sized you know.

Also, the prisoners would be in the bunker. And why sacrifce them when you could save them, with very little losses.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:


And who says they have to be aliens? Could be heavly armed, armored, and entrenched humans. there is PA that is human sized you know.

Heavily armed, PA-equipped humans considered threatening enough to send in Space Marines?

Has that even happened since the Interex in the Great Crusade?

Also, the prisoners would be in the bunker. And why sacrifce them when you could save them, with very little losses.

Just send in the Scions? PA-equipped humans are perfect targets for their hotshots.

You need Astartes against Nobz, Tyranid Warriors, Crisis Battlesuits and similar. Note that they, too, are too big to fit into said bunker.

So... you agree that 9' marines would be limited in small spaces.

I have yet to find any case of Space Marines encountering spaces that small. Surely, if they are so common and problematic you could find examples?

It appears that those tiny claustrophobic corridors filled with high-value targets simply are not a realistic situation here.

You don't force cubes into round holes when you have cylinders (Scions) around.

They don't encounter them because, "Battle-brother Leviticus sighed and muttered 'throne-forsaken doors' as he saw the heritc round the bend of the corridor he couldn't fit down." makes a really boring story.

Or.

They don't encounter these problems because they aren't 9' tall! Who would have thought it!* Human sized building should (for the most part) be able to fit a 7' tall SM.


*Me

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
They don't encounter them because, "Battle-brother Leviticus sighed and muttered 'throne-forsaken doors' as he saw the heritc round the bend of the corridor he couldn't fit down." makes a really boring story.

Or.

They don't encounter these problems because they aren't 9' tall! Who would have thought it!* Human sized building should (for the most part) be able to fit a 7' tall SM.


*Me

No, I referred to encountering buildings that would not fit them at 9', even crouching.

I am not convinced that this is a plausible Space Marine operation zone. Orks need space to fit their Nobz. Eldar hate cramped spaces as it deprives them of their greatest advantage - mobility and evasion. CSM hate it for the same reason SM do. And so on.

Who would you find hiding in this incredibly cramped space? Rebel PDF? Do you really need Space Marines to deal with rebel PDF?

Is someone infiltrating your cramped underhive? Oh no! Send the Scions. Oh, the infiltrators were Lictors and tore apart the Scions? Well, Lictors are significantly larger than Marines, so in they go.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Redcruisair wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
They would have to be veeeeeery deep underground to resist melta warheads, though.

Ugh... remind me again why the Imperium even bothers with space marines?

Rule of cool.

What’s so cool about a super soldier, who failed to reach his target cause he couldn’t fit through a simple manhole? What you and I define as “Cool” is highly different.

 Ashiraya wrote:
To beat enemies that are too lethal and scary for IG and Scions to handle, and are not hiding inside the tiniest tunnels they could possibly find.

Enemies too lethal for the IG and Scions to handle? Did GW release a new 9th none-imperial army without my noticing it?

 Redcruisair wrote:
What’s so cool about a super soldier, who failed to reach his target cause he couldn’t fit through a simple manhole? What you and I define as “Cool” is highly different.

The setting as a whole runs on the rule of cool. It prevents Titans from breaking apart at the hip. It completely discards the problems of the Leman Russ' lack of suspension. It prevents situations of SM failing to get through doors.

Besides, I dunno about you, but I can bend/kneel/crouch down pretty far. The SM has armour, but he is also more agile than I am. If they absolutely have to squeeze themselves in, they can. It won't look pretty, but it won't make their bolts less likely to explode you. The entire issue seems overblown.

If we assume the bunker is 7'6" or so to its roof (which it needs to be if those 7'-7'6" Marines of yours are so unhindered by it as you say) then they barely need to kneel, and not even entirely, to fit in.

 Redcruisair wrote:

Enemies too lethal for the IG and Scions to handle? Did GW release a new 9th none-imperial army without my noticing it?

Consider this amendment then;

Enemies too lethal for IG and Scions to effectively handle.

Daemons who make less brainwashed, hypno-indoctrinated, psycho-conditioned warriors insane.

Eldar who run faster than a normal human's sword-arm can follow.

And so on.

Imperial structures are huge. Just look at the doors on your average Imperial terrain kit and compare it to a Guardsman. They must be like 10 feet tall.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Imperial structures are huge. Just look at the doors on your average Imperial terrain kit and compare it to a Guardsman. They must be like 10 feet tall.

GW also said that the tabletop is out of scale, specifically that the Guardsmen are too large.

Considering those structures are a cathedral and a factory, I don't think that counts . Yes, there are a lot of giant structures, but not all structures. Height would be the biggest issues. especially since cutting the height of a building is an easy way to cut costs.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Considering those structures are a cathedral and a factory, I don't think that counts . Yes, there are a lot of giant structures, but not all structures. Height would be the biggest issues. especially since cutting the height of a building is an easy way to cut costs.

Not only that, actually.

It's also a 'Basilica Administratum' and a 'Sanctum Imperialis'.

You know what those are right? A fancy bureaucratic building, and what amounts to another cathedral. I doubt the entire imperium is rich enough to all live in buildings of that proportion (or, if they are, the imperium is lot better of then I thought ).

Well, their bunkers have similarly massive doors too so... that tells me that the Imperium has some seriously huge doors and corridors. At least for it's state made structures, anyway.

Actual stuff made by the main imperium, I'd say yes. Municipal stuff,or xenos stuff, not necessarily.

Everything is oversized in the Imperium outside of underhives. We see this everywhere. It's part of its sci-fi-gothic design.

Besides, I dunno about you, but I can bend/kneel/crouch down pretty far. The SM has armour, but he is also more agile than I am. If they absolutely have to squeeze themselves in, they can. It won't look pretty, but it won't make their bolts less likely to explode you. The entire issue seems overblown.

Agility doesnt give you the ability to fit through openings that are smaller then you! It's obvious you have never worn body armor with equipment i ncluding a backpack... You cant reduce your heigth and shoulder width at the same time.
And even if you can, you can't fight in such a stance. If one guy dies in that stance he blocks the way for all others.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Is someone infiltrating your cramped underhive? Oh no! Send the Scions. Oh, the infiltrators were Lictors and tore apart the Scions? Well, Lictors are significantly larger than Marines, so in they go.

Except lictors, genestealers and termagants, raveners, etc are alot more flexible then marines. You know, something that is dangerous does not always have to be something that is enormous or breathing...Is sizethe only thing you connect with dangerous? If that's a case id say you have a distinct lack of imagination or knowledge of 40k

I have yet to find any case of Space Marines encountering spaces that small. Surely, if they are so common and problematic you could find examples?

Because they are not 9' tall in the first place, for exactly this reason - as stated in overwhelmingly many sources with yet one explicit source to name 9'.

 Keep wrote:
Agility doesnt give you the ability to fit through openings that are smaller then you!

Luckily Space Marines won't have to fight in your made-up environments because, well, you've made them up.

Otherwise I agree there would be a problem.

Actually, XV15 and XV25 stealth suits are not much bigger than normal tau. And they are pretty damn strong, with armour as good as PA, but lighter. Not as tough though, they are still just normal tau underneath.

 Keep wrote:
Is sizethe only thing you connect with dangerous? If that's a case id say you have a distinct lack of imagination or knowledge of 40k

There is no need to be patronising. Do not take my arguments as an invitation to make unpleasant implications.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Actually, XV15 and XV25 stealth suits are not much bigger than normal tau. And they are pretty damn strong, with armour as good as PA, but lighter. Not as tough though, they are still just normal tau underneath.

Aren't XV15 outdated and replaced by XV25 by now?

XV25 is actually pretty big. Not as big as Marines mind, but not much smaller either.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Imperial structures are huge. Just look at the doors on your average Imperial terrain kit and compare it to a Guardsman. They must be like 10 feet tall.

GW also said that the tabletop is out of scale, specifically that the Guardsmen are too large.

Ooh, ooh, ooh! Really!?!

I would absolutely love getting a source for that one.

GW main line is too large, or so it is said. Don't remember who said it. But I've seen it before.

FW line is a lot better as far as scale goes.

I'd like to see how the marines would react if they were to teleport termies in an underground bunker that's about 5' high. And deep enough to not get slagged from orbit.

"Mmmff mfff mff mff!" "Mfff mfff mfff!" "MFFFFF!"

 Bobthehero wrote:
GW main line is too large, or so it is said. Don't remember who said it. But I've seen it before.

FW line is a lot better as far as scale goes.

I know I've heard that as well (also that the vehicles are all out of scale). But I've never of any source for it- especially one from GW.

I have read GW sculptors talk about "heroic" proportions, and having to reel them in when working in larger scales, but that's not quite the same thing.

 Bobthehero wrote:
I'd like to see how the marines would react if they were to teleport termies in an underground bunker that's about 5' high. And deep enough to not get slagged from orbit.

To be fair, that issue would not be unique to 9' Marines...

 Keep wrote:

It doesn't matter if concrete doesn't burn. Twenty million degrees Fahrenheit doesn't discriminate the material, it all gets vaporized.

That doesn't work. Heat expands in all directions, not just one. That means the shooter would also be vaporized by your gazillions of degrees of heat.
Also, you don't vaporize a big block of granite or concrete by putting a fraction of a second of extreme high temperature on its surface.

Well it's not an instant beam, Meltaguns shoot pure fusion energy/superheated gas at temperatures beyond even plasma guns, which burn at twenty million degrees. So it'd probably be higher actually, greater then the temperature of Sol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bobthehero wrote:
GW main line is too large, or so it is said. Don't remember who said it. But I've seen it before.

FW line is a lot better as far as scale goes.

I'd like to see how the marines would react if they were to teleport termies in an underground bunker that's about 5' high. And deep enough to not get slagged from orbit.

They'd die instantly. Would be a teleporter mishap that would cause their upper torsos and heads to become fused into the ceiling.

This is part of the reason why I'd always walk in 40k.

Wyzilla wrote:
This is part of the reason why I'd always walk in 40k.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:
This is part of the reason why I'd always walk in 40k.

Teleporter accidents are some of the most grisly nightmare fuel in all of sci fi.

Man I'll never forget that scene in Gav's Dark Angels books where a Deathwing terminator teleported into a wall. Yikes.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Well it's not an instant beam, Meltaguns shoot pure fusion energy/superheated gas at temperatures beyond even plasma guns, which burn at twenty million degrees. So it'd probably be higher actually, greater then the temperature of Sol.

An extreme energy potential will cause extreme quick dissipation of it to its surrounding. In all directions, as soon as its exists. Physics.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:
This is part of the reason why I'd always walk in 40k.

Hail skroob

Armoured height of 7ft

 b1soul wrote:
Armoured height of 7ft

Your opinion is noted, but OP is asking for references.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 b1soul wrote:
Armoured height of 7ft

Your opinion is noted, but OP is asking for references.

Try the GW sales promotion? "Win a Space Marine's height in products" and a picture of an armored marine with 7' as the stated height. If that's not official I don't know what is. ;-)

OP already has that one in the list.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 b1soul wrote:
Armoured height of 7ft

Your opinion is noted, but OP is asking for references.

Be polite, motyak
Who actually noted it? Can I see the note? And how do you know that it was noted? Is it a set of minutes or special just for this post.

pelicaniforce wrote:


I haven't read any more of the thread, I'm not going to read any more of the thread.

I'm going to edit a screen cap in to this post in a few minutes.

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Competition

Seven feet! that's it!

Be polite, motyak

I am here to save the thread.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Hey- do you have any references on those Primarch heights? I found one about how Leman Russ was pretty tall in comparison to other Space Wolves, but that's all the references I could find.

I do.

In Descent of Angels an unarmoured Lion El'Jonson is said to be slightly over three meters tall, and towering over armoured Marines. So we have a Primarch never said to be particularly tall or short standing at about ten feet tall.

In Battle for the Fang, Magnus the Red (who was explicitly taking on the same form he took during the Great Crusade) is said to be five meters tall. So a fething massive height of nearly seventeen feet. He was said to be a giant even among his brothers.

Anyway, for another reference to Space Marine height, there's this thread I made:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/567966.page

I found this finding most interesting because of Abnett's reputation for having Marines be truly gigantic.

In the Deathwatch RPG, Marines are said to be over 210 cm on average, so about seven feet.

Battle of the Fang has some references on Marine height as well, but I can't really recall them. I think a Marine in Terminator armour was nearly three meters, but this novel went with the common "Terminator armour makes you really tall" idea, which I've never really been able to stomach.

How does terminator armor make a person tall if they literally cannot stand completely upright?

Khonsu wrote:
How does terminator armor make a person tall if they literally cannot stand completely upright?

Because the armor itself extends a good foot above where the person would be normally. Ignoring the obvious impossibility of anyone actually contorting the way the terminator model would require.

Marines are probably good contortionists, but it seems silly to require that just to wear armour.

Terminator armor definitely makes the minis taller. As I understand it, almost no one accepts the miniatures as a legitimate source of fluff when a question arises.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
I am here to save the thread.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Hey- do you have any references on those Primarch heights? I found one about how Leman Russ was pretty tall in comparison to other Space Wolves, but that's all the references I could find.

I do.

In Descent of Angels an unarmoured Lion El'Jonson is said to be slightly over three meters tall, and towering over armoured Marines. So we have a Primarch never said to be particularly tall or short standing at about ten feet tall.

In Battle for the Fang, Magnus the Red (who was explicitly taking on the same form he took during the Great Crusade) is said to be five meters tall. So a fething massive height of nearly seventeen feet. He was said to be a giant even among his brothers.

Anyway, for another reference to Space Marine height, there's this thread I made:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/567966.page

I found this finding most interesting because of Abnett's reputation for having Marines be truly gigantic.

In the Deathwatch RPG, Marines are said to be over 210 cm on average, so about seven feet.

Battle of the Fang has some references on Marine height as well, but I can't really recall them. I think a Marine in Terminator armour was nearly three meters, but this novel went with the common "Terminator armour makes you really tall" idea, which I've never really been able to stomach.

We'll need to add those to the list.

Any page numbers on those? I'd especially like on from the Deathwatch book (as it is the second one to give the 210cm height).

 odinsgrandson wrote:

We'll need to add those to the list.

Any page numbers on those? I'd especially like on from the Deathwatch book (as it is the second one to give the 210cm height).

For Deathwatch, page 28.

I might look through Ravenor later. Not Lion in Descent of Angels. Battle of the Fang is literally on the first page. Literally.

I don't think there are any Space Marines in Ravenor. >>

Oh! But Librarian Bryntnoth in Eisenhorn is said to have a "Pinky finger the approximately the size of an Arbite's truncheon".

Noted, amusingly, because said Space Marine was sticking said pinky out while sipping a cup of tea.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I don't think there are any Space Marines in Ravenor. >>

Oh! But Librarian Bryntnoth in Eisenhorn is said to have a "Pinky finger the approximately the size of an Arbite's truncheon".

Noted, amusingly, because said Space Marine was sticking said pinky out while sipping a cup of tea.

Yep, and with this information we can finally calculate the true height of the Astartes. I'm pretty exactly six feet tall and my pinky finger is a bit over two inches long. So if we conservatively estimate the Aribite's truncheon to be about a half metre long, we realise that a Space Marine must be ten times as tall as me. So here it is: Space Marines are 60 feet (that is over 18 metres) tall!

Also, considering how Astartes are sometimes described as having massive "paws", it's likely the augmentation increases the size of their hands. Would certainly make man-handling traitor guard and ripping them apart Mortal Kombat style a lot easier.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Also, considering how Astartes are sometimes described as having massive "paws", it's likely the augmentation increases the size of their hands...

I was thinking this when we first saw the reference that included the "Hands like shovels" description.

I felt it was a dig on the older Heroic asthetics that Space Marines had (the 2nd ed marines all had massive hands). They took the size of the marine hands down with the 3rd edition (after the guys in charge of the BloodQuest cartoon pointed out the massive size of marine hands- the film didn't get finished, but we have smaller marine hands as their legacy).

'Hands like shovels' says little in practice as shovels vary a lot in size, although even smaller ones are way bigger than a hand. Same for 'Dining table'.

Yeah, it isn't accurate, and it isn't going to tell us what size the characters are (not adding any of the hand or finger references to the list). I still think the description might have come from someone considering what happens when you scale up those minis.



I mean, his hands get to be HUGE. Imagine him at full size- even if he were only six foot, or a little taller, you'd think he had elephantitis.

Armoured bulk, back then. what was worse was the regular guardmens that were just as big, with no armour
Marines always did look a bit equine.
spose you could carry this on with the primarchs cover., seeing as Alpharius was around about the height of a marine, thats if its him.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I don't think there are any Space Marines in Ravenor. >>

Oh! But Librarian Bryntnoth in Eisenhorn is said to have a "Pinky finger the approximately the size of an Arbite's truncheon".

Noted, amusingly, because said Space Marine was sticking said pinky out while sipping a cup of tea.

Narrative hyperbole exists, especially when the story is told in first-person like Eisenhorn.

Maybe Arbites have really small truncheons.

If you know what I mean, huehuehuehue.

It causes them no shortage of self-confidence issues.

 Void__Dragon wrote:


Narrative hyperbole exists, especially when the story is told in first-person like Eisenhorn.

Ssh, Don't explain the joke.

Still gathering? Found this:
http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/touts/2015-01-30/Homepage/Header_carousel/SpaceMarinePromoENG_Slot2.jpg

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Narrative hyperbole exists, especially when the story is told in first-person like Eisenhorn.

Nah, Ashiraya explained to me how we must take seriously and literally comments about Astartes moving “too fast for the eye to follow”, and therefore at supersonic speed .

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Still gathering? Found this:
http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/touts/2015-01-30/Homepage/Header_carousel/SpaceMarinePromoENG_Slot2.jpg

Meh, that shouldn't be taken seriously. Why would they choose a 5'4 male to compare sizes to a space marine if it wasn't for effect; its to show just how BIG your prize is. The guy is probably 6'2 but Photoshopped

kveldulf wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Still gathering? Found this:
http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/touts/2015-01-30/Homepage/Header_carousel/SpaceMarinePromoENG_Slot2.jpg

Meh, that shouldn't be taken seriously. Why would they choose a 5'4 male to compare sizes to a space marine if it wasn't for effect; its to show just how BIG your prize is. The guy is probably 6'2 but Photoshopped

You didn't happen to notice the height marks?

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Still gathering? Found this:
http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/touts/2015-01-30/Homepage/Header_carousel/SpaceMarinePromoENG_Slot2.jpg

Yup, still 'debating' it!

I go with this one:



Seems very Official and Totes Legit.

And since BL write the most about Space Marines, they've got the preponderance of evidence on their side!

Kind of.

He doesn't actually stand straight on that picture. I wonder how many inches it'd add?

Probably just nudge him over 8', but good point!

 Alpharius wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
Still gathering? Found this:
http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/touts/2015-01-30/Homepage/Header_carousel/SpaceMarinePromoENG_Slot2.jpg

Yup, still 'debating' it!

I go with this one:



Seems very Official and Totes Legit.

And since BL write the most about Space Marines, they've got the preponderance of evidence on their side!

Kind of.

Eight feet does seem to be the best height.

Actually here's an idea, why not just average the collective recorded heights?

Average would be something above 7', might hit 8', but I doubt it would be higher, especially if you count primarches out and stick to actual numbers rather than figure of speech.

Just checked, average of all the numbers is ~2.34 meters. Or around seven feet and six inches.

Marines aren't cookie cutter; individual biology and geneseed quirks play a major role. Some space marines an be undersized, barely larger then an average human; others are so large that they need armor modified using scrap terminator parts!

I'd say they stand anywhere from 7ft to 7.5ft on average. I'd say their boots add about 2 inches (pretty thick boot soles). I'd say the armor maybe adds another inch or two not counting the spartan mohawk thing they got going on with helmets. Though I imagine like most people the size of the space marines can vary quite a bit. It might not be unheard of to see an 8ft+ marine. It just wouldn't be common. You might even see marines under the 7ft mark too, but again probably not very common. I imagine their augmentations regulate their growth to a certain degree making a more constant 7ft mark, but there would still be exceptions and anomilies.

As a conclusion, I'd say:

from 7ft to 8ft. More or less. Some marines are said to be near primarch size, and other just merely taller than tall humans.

Depends on;
- What source you (want to) believe.
- The marine. Human height varies, so why not Astartes?

7.5ft as a median.

Deadnight wrote:

warboss wrote:I've always seen the ballpark figures of 7' for the space marine and 8' in armor.

They don't wear heels. Armour won't add a foot to their height.

You forget the backpack, at least 3in over unhelmeted marines sometimes.

And 3" under a unhelmeted marine sometimes. Depending on whos doing the art work.
Armour might add 6-12" overall. My work boots have a 2" sole. Theyre not armoured, dont have magnetics or spikes or what ever extras pa might have, and dont have to support 750 odd kg.

Finlandiaperkele wrote:
- The marine. Human height varies, so why not Astartes?

Well, I have minis, you know, and their heights do not vary. Except based on rank- which is to say that, like Orks, the Astartes do tend to promote based on height.

Actually, the trouble with "varying heights" is that the fans never seem to think it varies downward. If an average marine is 7 foot tall (probably the most cited number, especially in contexts that give an average marine height) and a tall marine is close to 8 foot tall, that's all good. But then a short marine should be 6 foot tall, right?

GW have given the 7 foot number as an average (marine height without specifying the marine). But we want to say that they vary, and that the 'average' marine is the shortest possible marine.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

Finlandiaperkele wrote:
- The marine. Human height varies, so why not Astartes?

Well, I have minis, you know, and their heights do not vary. Except based on rank- which is to say that, like Orks, the Astartes do tend to promote based on height.

Actually, the trouble with "varying heights" is that the fans never seem to think it varies downward. If an average marine is 7 foot tall (probably the most cited number, especially in contexts that give an average marine height) and a tall marine is close to 8 foot tall, that's all good. But then a short marine should be 6 foot tall, right?

GW have given the 7 foot number as an average (marine height without specifying the marine). But we want to say that they vary, and that the 'average' marine is the shortest possible marine.

That's not how it works. You average all data collected to get the average, not take one number as average. GW may state one thing, then immediately publish another and stamp it as A-OK for publishing.

Also-



Did you seriously just suggest the miniatures are any example of accurate size? That anyone should even take them seriously for a second? That they aren't worthless as a source of information and horribly out of scale with godawful proportions?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Maybe Arbites have really small truncheons.

Don't tell them that.

They have bigger ones back at the Arbite cave.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Terminator armor definitely makes the minis taller. As I understand it, almost no one accepts the miniatures as a legitimate source of fluff when a question arises.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
I am here to save the thread.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Hey- do you have any references on those Primarch heights? I found one about how Leman Russ was pretty tall in comparison to other Space Wolves, but that's all the references I could find.

I do.

In Descent of Angels an unarmoured Lion El'Jonson is said to be slightly over three meters tall, and towering over armoured Marines. So we have a Primarch never said to be particularly tall or short standing at about ten feet tall.

In Battle for the Fang, Magnus the Red (who was explicitly taking on the same form he took during the Great Crusade) is said to be five meters tall. So a fething massive height of nearly seventeen feet. He was said to be a giant even among his brothers.

Anyway, for another reference to Space Marine height, there's this thread I made:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/567966.page

I found this finding most interesting because of Abnett's reputation for having Marines be truly gigantic.

In the Deathwatch RPG, Marines are said to be over 210 cm on average, so about seven feet.

Battle of the Fang has some references on Marine height as well, but I can't really recall them. I think a Marine in Terminator armour was nearly three meters, but this novel went with the common "Terminator armour makes you really tall" idea, which I've never really been able to stomach.

We'll need to add those to the list.

Any page numbers on those? I'd especially like on from the Deathwatch book (as it is the second one to give the 210cm height).

I wouldn't use Magnus's height as anything to go by. He was full on Daemon Prince at that point so he could be whatever size he wanted.

He explicitly chose to take the form he took during the Great Crusade.

 Wyzilla wrote:



Did you seriously just suggest the miniatures are any example of accurate size? That anyone should even take them seriously for a second? That they aren't worthless as a source of information and horribly out of scale with godawful proportions?

Not seriously. I mean, everyone just assumes that the minis are wrong whenever there's an inconsistency.

I think that the minis are a source of fluff- as are the rules of the game, the artwork, the history, the videogames and novels. They are all objects that tell us a story- and the stories aren't all the same. I don't see what's so much different about the minis being off scale in comparison to the books or history- they're just one more bit of fluff. Sure, there are inconsistencies and mistakes on them, but how is that different from the books/pictures/videogames/histories/rules?

The miniatures do tell us a story- just not one that most of us accept, because the story is that the 41st millenium is inhabited by heroically proportioned, large people who are subject to an evolving scale creep. And that's a little silly, so we have all agreed to dismiss it.

I thought it was hilarious when they made the scale creep of the orks into cannonized fluff in the history sections.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:



Did you seriously just suggest the miniatures are any example of accurate size? That anyone should even take them seriously for a second? That they aren't worthless as a source of information and horribly out of scale with godawful proportions?

Not seriously. I mean, everyone just assumes that the minis are wrong whenever there's an inconsistency.

I think that the minis are a source of fluff- as are the rules of the game, the artwork, the history, the videogames and novels. They are all objects that tell us a story- and the stories aren't all the same. I don't see what's so much different about the minis being off scale in comparison to the books or history- they're just one more bit of fluff. Sure, there are inconsistencies and mistakes on them, but how is that different from the books/pictures/videogames/histories/rules?

The miniatures do tell us a story- just not one that most of us accept, because the story is that the 41st millenium is inhabited by heroically proportioned, large people who are subject to an evolving scale creep. And that's a little silly, so we have all agreed to dismiss it.

I thought it was hilarious when they made the scale creep of the orks into cannonized fluff in the history sections.

The miniatures are for a game, seperate entirely from the "actual" reality of 40K, along with the rules. Not to mention that heroic scale doesn't make a shred of sense- everything is wrong, from the size of the tanks to the size of titans. Not to mention the proportions are godawfully designed.



Along with the TT being completely dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up with a full purge of uncessary rules, it could also use a change in the model department. I believe the new Blood Angels are slightly better these days, but good god my CSM's still use this body design.

 Wyzilla wrote:

The miniatures are for a game, seperate entirely from the "actual" reality of 40K, along with the rules...

I feel like you've sort of put your argument into a strange place here. Clearly, none of that which we call 40k has any kind of 'reality.'

I mean, ultimately, we're talking about Wolverine's bone claws -every answer is just as right, and they contradict one another, so we simply have to choose which one we'd like to accept. Then we fight about it when someone else thinks a different source is the right one.

And on top of that, it seems like all of our sources for 40k fluff is suspect, because all of it is very stylized (from the minis proportions, the Blanchian grit on the canvass, or the exaggerations of the novels and even the perspectives of the history-style fluff).

I just think it is odd that no one thinks the minis are the one that is 'right.'

Though this thread is a few months old, it seems like a really useful collection of sources. I have read some more books since I last visited this thread and, hoping that the moderators will not be too wroth, I figured I'd add some more data. (Restarting the thread seems unnecessary).


Night Lords Omnibus, Blood Reaver, page 459:

Uzas charged, devoid of grace, fighting without finesse. He swung the axe wide, arcing down with heavy chops, while stabbing and carving with the gladius in the other hand. His thrashing would have been ludicrous had it not been performed by a warrior approaching three metres in height whose weapons tore the wraith apart.

Page 494:

True stealth had never been a viable option for the assault's first phase. The battle armour of a Legiones Astartes warrior hardly allowed for one to become a consummate, untraceable assassin, not while it growled as loud as loud as an idling engine, rendering him close to three metres in height, and bled a power signature detectable to even the crudest auspex readers.

The first quote describes Uzas, the second Talos; both Night Lords, neither described at any point as extraordinary in height by Astartes standards.

In addition, Horus Heresy - Massacre by Forge World describes Castellax-class battle automata as being the height of three men. Do we have pictures of Castellax next to Astartes, or descriptions? There's pictures in the books (in which the Castellax are about twice as tall as the Astartes, supporting both my first quote ITT and the above quotes) but they are of the models, and we know that model scale is wack.

Close to 3m could pretty much be anything from 2.5-3m, so 8-10 feet. I go with the 8 feet, gigantic, but not quite into the stupid.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Close to 3m could pretty much be anything from 2.5-3m, so 8-10 feet. I go with the 8 feet, gigantic, but not quite into the stupid.

Arguably 9-10 feet - If 2.5, it'd be as close to 2 as 3 metres, so 'close to 3' would make little sense.

9 is 2.78ish metres, which is close to 3 metres in this context, so it's viable. I continue to go with 9.

I mean, I have finished Void Stalker and I am over halfway through Blood Reaver, and thus far the almost-3m-Marines make just perfect sense. Hell, there's specialised boarding Ogryns around (boarding actions is a speciality of the Ogryn Charonite squads, from the FW books), and if you can fit those giants then you can probably fit a 9' Marine too.

Meh, I guess. I tend to go for shorter marines because it makes hem easier to operate within human society. 9 feet is within the realm of getting t being to operate effectively, IMO, but still small enough to operate with no major downsides (unlike 11-12ft marines)

Yeah 11-12ft is ridiculous. 9' is just right to me. Neither too big nor too small.

That seems about right. Now it's time for me to get back to guessing how big crisis suits are.

I am going to assume they are a little bit bigger than SM (so that a Tau can fit in with all systems and mechanisms) but not extremely so.

You'll have to make a separate topic for that though!

 Ashiraya wrote:
Yeah 11-12ft is ridiculous. 9' is just right to me. Neither too big nor too small.

Obviously personal tastes vary. That 9' marine looks completely ridiculous to me.
7- 7.5" seems right to me.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Yeah 11-12ft is ridiculous. 9' is just right to me. Neither too big nor too small.

Spoiler:

The problem with this picture is that your reference is a human, but so are those:

So that does not tell us that much about how big the marine is.

I think it's assuming 6 foot human/

Co'tor Shas is correct. See the background - each box represents 1'.

Less than 9 feet then, considering the bold line stops at high than the marine head.

He is not standing straight. The DKoK is.

Also for using humans in books as a ruler for height, while we don't know the average height of humanity in M30 onwards, the average male in the modern day is 5'8. Standard should start around there for 40k humans.

^True.

But it is possible over generations that humans have decreased in height as they are in more warlike settings so their bodies will adjust over generations.

Just like to point out that Ashiraya made that picture and is only claiming that it fits the scale of her headcanon marines.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Just like to point out that Ashiraya made that picture and is only claiming that it fits the scale of her headcanon marines.

What the height of marines has been between 8 to 9 feet tall. They have been described as taller but I think older marines past a few centuries continue to grow in size. Such as Terminators.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Just like to point out that Ashiraya made that picture and is only claiming that it fits the scale of her headcanon marines.

I am not entirely sure of how fair it is to call it headcanon, in truth, given that there is material supporting it and 40k has its canonicity...

There is also canon that states that a space marines stands 7' tall. Your mileage and opinion may vary.

But the 7' canon is just as canon. Same level of canonicity.

All I meant was to point out that the image isn't usable as a source of anything other than what you believe, because there is no REAL scale similarity between the two pictures, only what you created when you made the image.

Oh yes, the picture is one I assembled from the data.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
All I meant was to point out that the image isn't usable as a source of anything other than what you believe, because there is no REAL scale similarity between the two pictures, only what you created when you made the image.

Stop using Peregrine's argument.

That is data from the codex and cannot be disputed.

Headcanon only happens if you involve your own fan fiction.

Asherian... You do know I assembled that picture, right?

The Space Marine is from Deathwatch and the DKoK from the FW books.

These space marine size threads never get old!

Lets ignore the fact that shorter marines are actually more impressive in terms of their performance as warriors since it means all that power is packed into a smaller package.

I believe they're described as being anywhere from 8-9 feet tall in the fluff, although i'm not sure where it's described.

 PhillyT wrote:
These space marine size threads never get old!

Lets ignore the fact that shorter marines are actually more impressive in terms of their performance as warriors since it means all that power is packed into a smaller package.

That would be a sound argument if having Marines as powerful as possible is something I would want.

I don't really know anyone who does.


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War Kitten wrote:
I believe they're described as being anywhere from 8-9 feet tall in the fluff, although i'm not sure where it's described.

We have everything between 6' ish (models) and almost 10' (some books).

I believe they're described as being anywhere from 8-9 feet tall in the fluff, although i'm not sure where it's described.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Asherian... You do know I assembled that picture, right?

The Space Marine is from Deathwatch and the DKoK from the FW books.

No I was attacking the statement headcanon, we know of the sizes there just never been an equal size measurement, you making a size comparison is technically not headcanon.

And yeah i know they are But it is not headcanon that a space marine is over 8 feet tall.

There are parts of HH novels that describe normal human women only coming up to just higher than an Astartes' waist.

Make of that what you will. Personally 9ft seems a little big. 7ft5 seems ok as they are often described as being head and shoulders above human. With Terminators being a head taller and their Primarchs being head and shoulders above those.

It's all about the head and shoulders.

Clean hair is a must in the 41st millennium.

Uh... Why would TDA add a head?

Anyone have any exact ratio on what the typical waist to true height is for a human male regarding the above information?

Also going by a generous fraction of 6/10 for waist height, and assuming female height is still just 5'4 on average in M30, that ends up with 2.6 Meter Marines.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Uh... Why would TDA add a head?

What do you mean?

See the post above mine. It was asserted that TDA adds a head in height. I dispute this claim. TDA is thick, yes, but it does not have 1' thick bootsoles.

 Ashiraya wrote:
See the post above mine. It was asserted that TDA adds a head in height. I dispute this claim. TDA is thick, yes, but it does not have 1' thick bootsoles.

No its more on the lines of that the AStartes within the suit is usually taller so is the suit. If terminator armor was the same size in the lore it wouldn't be describe as being more definitive or larger.

Its bulkier but as marine ages they also grow in height.

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
See the post above mine. It was asserted that TDA adds a head in height. I dispute this claim. TDA is thick, yes, but it does not have 1' thick bootsoles.

No its more on the lines of that the AStartes within the suit is usually taller so is the suit. If terminator armor was the same size in the lore it wouldn't be describe as being more definitive or larger.

Its bulkier but as marine ages they also grow in height.

Apparently if terminators grow in height their mass remains the same. Have you noticed how ridiculously scrawny a terminator's thigh is now on the models?

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
See the post above mine. It was asserted that TDA adds a head in height. I dispute this claim. TDA is thick, yes, but it does not have 1' thick bootsoles.

No its more on the lines of that the AStartes within the suit is usually taller so is the suit. If terminator armor was the same size in the lore it wouldn't be describe as being more definitive or larger.

Its bulkier but as marine ages they also grow in height.

There is no source that says they do.

The only page that says they do is Sibbering's homepage, but that is all literally fanfiction.


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 amanita wrote:


Apparently if terminators grow in height their mass remains the same. Have you noticed how ridiculously scrawny a terminator's thigh is now on the models?

Have you seen the thighs on CSM?

 Asherian Command wrote:
Its bulkier but as marine ages they also grow in height.

Unless things have changed recently I always understood this to be an invention of Phil Sibbering and not something that was part of the lore created by Games Workshop. I know he goes into great deal about this concept but it does seem somewhat unnecessary.


EDIT: Ninja'd