In another thread, it was raised that the numbers GW gives us are completely disproportionate to what is conceivably practical. Specifically, that 1000 chapters of 1000 Space Marines is nowhere near enough to perform the apparent duties of the Space Marines as elite shock troops. The suggestion put forward was to bump Chapter size up to one million, for a total of one billion Space Marines. I'd like to try and expand this, if not to the rest of the Galaxy, to the more general aspects of the Imperium. Note that I am referring primarily to body count, not things like technology.
I'll begin by giving a baseline from which to start. According to Lexicanum, there are approximately 32,000 Hive Worlds in the Imperium, averaging out to about a trillion humans per world. This obviously does not represent every world in the Imperium, but it does represent a large chunk of the population; it's enough to tell us that we're dealing with a total population well into the tens of quadrillions. Let's say 50 quadrillion for simplicity's sake.
If we use the US Marines as an example from which to work , we can see that they come in at about 200,000, or .066% of the population of ~300 million. However, if we look at the corps when the nation was in a state of war (WWII, in this case), the peak number was nearly 500,000, or .35% of the population.
A large number of bald assertions and speculative estimates follow. You have been warned.
The Imperium is in a state of constant war, so I think we can safely double the Marine Participation Rate to .7% of the population. This gives us about 350 trillion Storm Troopers (as equivalents to US Marines) serving the Emperor extrapolating WWII data.
Going by 1945 again, the US Army had about 8 million in service, which ends up being around 6% of the population. If we double this to account for the constant warfare, we end up with 6 quadrillion Guardsmen.
Given the long training time, selectiveness of recruitment, scarcity of geneseed, and the fluff capitalizing on how rarely they are seen, it's clear that Space Marines make up a small, small, part of the forces of the Imperium. Even if we say that the Adeptus Astartes are a thousand times rarer than Storm Troopers, that leaves an expected 350 billion Marines running around the Imperium. Meeting this figure would require either increasing Chapter size to ~100 million--which seems too large, even by 40k standards--or increasing the number of Chapters to a hundred thousand, and cite the missing ones as the Administratum being the Administratum.
Thoughts on this? Any values you would like to add?
I just want to point out that 21 million military men died in the second world war. That war was not a conflict to take over the world, nor was that conflict a conflict of annihilation. That is also the lower estimate of military deaths. We can add civilian losses and the total sky rockets.
The amount who took part in the war would have been huge.
Now imagine we faced a war where if we lost we ALL DIED. According to GW fluff this is the case. Now imagine a galaxy where whole armies can vanish when traveling. Imagine fighting on a planetary scale. Imagine the huge amount of issues these huge galactic scale events bring with them too.
You are gonna need a lot of men for every conflict that takes place. I can't give you a number simply because there is no framework to build up on it. But I know 1 million Marines spread out across the empire is nothing. You mentioned the Marines of WW2, they didn't fight over much land mass and nor was their enemy very effective. The amount of Marines who died from combat was very small while the enemy they killed was incredibly high. However if those Marines had to fight in other theaters around the world their numbers would have been very small indeed. Thats why the Army was planned to invade Japan. Marines simply lacked a meaningful number of soldiers for the invasion of a country.
I guess the main issue is using the USA to base your numbers on. I think it would be better to take a nation that suffered an actual invasion, who attempted to fight off the invasion and then had to take it's land back. You will get a better idea of the losses and manpower involved in a conflict like that I think.
The USSR LOST 13% of it's people due to the more brutal nature of that huge conflict. China lost around 3% as did Japan, Germany around 8% and Poland around 13% also. When dealing with invasions and full scale conflict the numbers are astronomical. Imagine if the war in Russia was on a planetary scale. The devastation would be huge and that's not the impression I get from 40k fluff at all.
Thinking back from my Guard codex I can't even find anything of detail abut their conflicts aside from "X regiment suffers high losses here" or "Necrons lost here" etc. Simply because citing actual numbers would be incredibly difficult.
If you want to know how much 13% of the USSR is, it's 27 million people roughly. That is for just a fight over 1 area of the world with losses from only one side. According to online places the battle of Terra (being the earth) had only 10s of millions of dead across Terra... to me that is way out of scale and is how I think GW fluff is usually written.
I have always thought that the fluff should fall a bit more in line with itself and the game. From the HH series we see that space marines were the shock troops, but were deployed in mass, sometimes as many as a hundred thousand fighting one planet, or rare cases where several legions deployed at the same time, meaning MILLIONS of astartes in one area. I would be fine with Chapters getting boosted to 10,000 individuals, that would make them about the size of a Division and would make it a lot more reasonable for them to do some of the more extravagant things they are given credit for. How can it be possible for a squad of space marines to take over a planet when all it takes is 10 lucky lascannon/melta/plasma/rending shots to kill the lot of them? And then increase the number of chapters to 100,000. that gives you about 1billion marines.
Ghazkuul wrote: I have always thought that the fluff should fall a bit more in line with itself and the game. From the HH series we see that space marines were the shock troops, but were deployed in mass, sometimes as many as a hundred thousand fighting one planet, or rare cases where several legions deployed at the same time, meaning MILLIONS of astartes in one area. I would be fine with Chapters getting boosted to 10,000 individuals, that would make them about the size of a Division and would make it a lot more reasonable for them to do some of the more extravagant things they are given credit for. How can it be possible for a squad of space marines to take over a planet when all it takes is 10 lucky lascannon/melta/plasma/rending shots to kill the lot of them? And then increase the number of chapters to 100,000. that gives you about 1billion marines.
A billion Marines is still pretty small by Imperial standards, though chapters of 10,000 sounds appealing. Even by my rather conservative estimates, you would need 100 billion Marines total to meet demand.
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Swastakowey wrote: I just want to point out that 21 million military men died in the second world war. That war was not a conflict to take over the world, nor was that conflict a conflict of annihilation. That is also the lower estimate of military deaths. We can add civilian losses and the total sky rockets.
The amount who took part in the war would have been huge.
Now imagine we faced a war where if we lost we ALL DIED. According to GW fluff this is the case. Now imagine a galaxy where whole armies can vanish when traveling. Imagine fighting on a planetary scale. Imagine the huge amount of issues these huge galactic scale events bring with them too.
You are gonna need a lot of men for every conflict that takes place. I can't give you a number simply because there is no framework to build up on it. But I know 1 million Marines spread out across the empire is nothing. You mentioned the Marines of WW2, they didn't fight over much land mass and nor was their enemy very effective. The amount of Marines who died from combat was very small while the enemy they killed was incredibly high. However if those Marines had to fight in other theaters around the world their numbers would have been very small indeed. Thats why the Army was planned to invade Japan. Marines simply lacked a meaningful number of soldiers for the invasion of a country.
I guess the main issue is using the USA to base your numbers on. I think it would be better to take a nation that suffered an actual invasion, who attempted to fight off the invasion and then had to take it's land back. You will get a better idea of the losses and manpower involved in a conflict like that I think.
The USSR LOST 13% of it's people due to the more brutal nature of that huge conflict. China lost around 3% as did Japan, Germany around 8% and Poland around 13% also. When dealing with invasions and full scale conflict the numbers are astronomical. Imagine if the war in Russia was on a planetary scale. The devastation would be huge and that's not the impression I get from 40k fluff at all.
Thinking back from my Guard codex I can't even find anything of detail abut their conflicts aside from "X regiment suffers high losses here" or "Necrons lost here" etc. Simply because citing actual numbers would be incredibly difficult.
If you want to know how much 13% of the USSR is, it's 27 million people roughly. That is for just a fight over 1 area of the world with losses from only one side. According to online places the battle of Terra (being the earth) had only 10s of millions of dead across Terra... to me that is way out of scale and is how I think GW fluff is usually written.
Thank you for the feedback. What are your thoughts on my final estimate for Astartes in the Imperium being 100 billion? Too small?
Space marines are far more elite than US Marines, though. If Army=IG, then I'd say Marine Corps=Stormtroopers. I would think the numbers of Space Marines relative to the rest of the Imperial forces would be closer to SEALs, Green berets, or more likely Delta Force. I don't have numbers of SOF for you, since it's likely classified.
Yes, the Imperium is in a constant state of war, but I don't think the US in WW2 is a measuring stick in terms of manpower. The USSR may be closer since it was closer to "total war" where everything was geared towards fighting the Germans, but they relied on US industry and aid for support. 90% of the German casualties were on the eastern front. The size/scale of armies and casualties from the US standpoint is much smaller than what the USSR had. So, while some worlds may be like the Soviets and dedicate most of what they have towards the war, other worlds must be like the US, and send industrial and agricultural aid to the other worlds/IG regiments. Fighting a war of extinction requires lots of manpower. The Nazis spent much of their resources maintaining concentration/death camps and the Gestapo/death squads in occupied areas. Resources that could've been spent on the front.
As Swastakowey pointed to, it's extremely difficult to try to find numbers that would make it feasible. I'd argue the USSR wasn't in a "total war" state like the Imperium supposedly is, and even that wasn't feasible in the long-term. They lacked the industry, workers, and farmland to feed and equip their army while fighting the Germans, relying on the allies for aid. I'm sure some of these planets use servitors and automatons for these functions which frees up manpower, but I still don't think it's feasible.
Flanker wrote: Space marines are far more elite than US Marines, though. If Army=IG, then I'd say Marine Corps=Stormtroopers. I would think the numbers of Space Marines relative to the rest of the Imperial forces would be closer to SEALs, Green berets, or more likely Delta Force. I don't have numbers of SOF for you, since it's likely classified.
Yes, the Imperium is in a constant state of war, but I don't think the US in WW2 is a measuring stick in terms of manpower. The USSR may be closer since it was closer to "total war" where everything was geared towards fighting the Germans, but they relied on US industry and aid for support. 90% of the German casualties were on the eastern front. The size/scale of armies and casualties from the US standpoint is much smaller than what the USSR had. So, while some worlds may be like the Soviets and dedicate most of what they have towards the war, other worlds must be like the US, and send industrial and agricultural aid to the other worlds/IG regiments. Fighting a war of extinction requires lots of manpower. The Nazis spent much of their resources maintaining concentration/death camps and the Gestapo/death squads in occupied areas. Resources that could've been spent on the front.
As Swastakowey pointed to, it's extremely difficult to try to find numbers that would make it feasible. I'd argue the USSR wasn't in a "total war" state like the Imperium supposedly is, and even that wasn't feasible in the long-term. They lacked the industry, workers, and farmland to feed and equip their army while fighting the Germans, relying on the allies for aid. I'm sure some of these planets use servitors and automatons for these functions which frees up manpower, but I still don't think it's feasible.
I think he was using generalizations because he was comparing real life to a fictional universe. That aside I think that his numbers are closer to the truth. And as far as Space Marines being US Marines. IM ok with that Comparison We are more badarse then the navy/army/Airforce after all
I think he was using generalizations because he was comparing real life to a fictional universe. That aside I think that his numbers are closer to the truth. And as far as Space Marines being US Marines. IM ok with that Comparison We are more badarse then the navy/army/Airforce after all
More badass, absolutley. but utility? This ain't 40K, no bolter porn here. Air superiority wins overall.
I might be biased though. cough* Airforce cough* Big ups to what Marines do though.
As far as the initial question I absolutly believe that the numbers need to be upscaled 100-200 million SM might be more acceptable.
That being said any kind of fluff change to that degree will be met with friction. Look at the Newcrons lore.
Flanker wrote:Space marines are far more elite than US Marines, though. If Army=IG, then I'd say Marine Corps=Stormtroopers. I would think the numbers of Space Marines relative to the rest of the Imperial forces would be closer to SEALs, Green berets, or more likely Delta Force. I don't have numbers of SOF for you, since it's likely classified.
Yes, the Imperium is in a constant state of war, but I don't think the US in WW2 is a measuring stick in terms of manpower. The USSR may be closer since it was closer to "total war" where everything was geared towards fighting the Germans, but they relied on US industry and aid for support. 90% of the German casualties were on the eastern front. The size/scale of armies and casualties from the US standpoint is much smaller than what the USSR had. So, while some worlds may be like the Soviets and dedicate most of what they have towards the war, other worlds must be like the US, and send industrial and agricultural aid to the other worlds/IG regiments. Fighting a war of extinction requires lots of manpower. The Nazis spent much of their resources maintaining concentration/death camps and the Gestapo/death squads in occupied areas. Resources that could've been spent on the front.
As Swastakowey pointed to, it's extremely difficult to try to find numbers that would make it feasible. I'd argue the USSR wasn't in a "total war" state like the Imperium supposedly is, and even that wasn't feasible in the long-term. They lacked the industry, workers, and farmland to feed and equip their army while fighting the Germans, relying on the allies for aid. I'm sure some of these planets use servitors and automatons for these functions which frees up manpower, but I still don't think it's feasible.
That's actually what I did in the OP. I assumed US marines=Tempestus, then arbitrarily made Astartes a thousand times more rare than Tempestus forces.
I absolutely agree that the chapter size should be changed to 10,000. Of course, the fluff has hinted and outright said more than once that the 1,000 is often ignored. The Ultramarines are the extreme example of this. The 1,000 chapter size also does not take into account new but not complete marines, their supporting crew (regular humans who do all the mundane day-to-day maintenance, etc.), and servitors. I think if they moved the baseline to 10,000 then we could comfortably be looking at roughly 50,000 total strength of a standard chapter including their dependents and place the larger chapters that are stretching the restrictions at 100,000+.
Either way, I support the idea that the total size of the space marine force should be changed and the OP suggestion that you blame it on the failings of the administration would work perfectly fine. I have always though of it that way anyways.
Proper Scale railguns of the Tau would be shooting around the curvature of the Earth. You think it's bad now with how far away it can shoot? In real life it would be able to shoot from 220/354 miles/kilometers away and that's a first generation human railgun being built and going to be installed on ships in the near future. With enough force to pierce through and explode a Cruisers hull armor like it's made of tissue paper. Naturally once inside the hull a proximity detonator will explode because why not. With the accuracy to aim and hit a human on a small propeller boat. They expect to be able to hit humans heads in a few more generations of the targeting software (this is with capital ship sized weaponry on modern day vessels). Imagine what a space ship with quantum computers could do.
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A single Hammerhead would basically one shot kill every time it fires. It would be able to take down thousands of Leman Rus battle tanks without even breaking a sweat. Then in lore HH can speed around at several hundred miles per hour and skim around. The LE would never have a chance in hell to catch it. It's like sending 5000 T-34's against a few modern day Abrams tanks. Want to see what happens when a WW2 tank tried to fight a then modern Abrams tank? Lion of Babyolon tank. Google it.
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The LOB tank was made in the 1980's and was decimated by American tanks. It managed to damage a few here and there but that was it. Now imagine an WW2 tank? How gakky they would be tryinng to fight a Abrams. It would be like making the Bob Sempleton tank fight the Abrams. The Bob Sempleton would have been hard pressed to stop a mob with hunting rifles.
I think the chapter size should actually be 1,000,000 or even 10,000,000-100,000,000. Galaxies are huge. Weapons like titans or nukes or whatever Xenos have can kill 10K marines on accident. Dante being in charge of millions of BA and thousands of ships and tanks and vehicles makes a lot more sense than someone like him being in charge of basically a tree-house club.
US marines are maybe MAYBE comparable to IG veterans (how many US marines fought superhuman alien forces?)
A space marine, in scale, is equal not to even the most elite units, but the most elite individuals. The one in a few millions kind that no amount of training in the real world limits can replicate, people like freaking Simo Hayha, ranking kills in the hundreds with simple guns. And then you add superpowers.
These guys in fluff are walking tanks. The tactical value of modern jet fighters.
If you compare jet fighter per population, you might get a good estimate.
In the lore it says we can make a friggen manta every six ish or so months due automation revolution the Imperium could only hope to have.
A single Manta could easily kill a Titan which takes centuries to make if not more. If we lose a single Manta taking out even 1+ Titans it's a worth while effort for us to do it. Eventually our enemy is not going to have any more of their strongest weapon, and we can always make more Manta's. This only gets worse the more planets we conquer and set to the production of anything really. Now imagine how long range its guns are since they're so much larger and more powerful than the HH's.
All right, I've decided to redo my numbers using the USSR as a baseline.
The Red Army's peak size during WWII was 34 million. That's a whopping 17% of the population at the time, which was 196 million. This gives us an Imperial Guard size of 8 and a half quadrillion, which isn't far off from my first estimate, which called for doubling the relative size of US forces.
The Naval Infantry (US Marine equivalent) of the USSR was 350,000 strong during WWII. This ends up being .18% of the population, or only about half the relative size of the US Marines. Understandable, given that the Soviets were waging a primarily terrestrial war. The Milatarum Tempestus don't have that restriction, however, so I'll stick to using the US as a baseline for these. Once again, this gives us a Militarum Tempestus size of 350 trillion.
Because I based my Spess Mehreen calcualtions on Storm Troopers, this still calls for ~350 billion Astartes. I'll list some possible configurations below:
Chapters of 100,000, needing in excess of 3 million chapters to hit that number.
Chapters with a strength of 1 million, needing around 300,000 chapters to hit the predicted size
Chapters that number 10 million, needing 30,000 chapters to hit the extrapolated total.
All things considered, I prefer 300,000 chapters of a million. Each chapter is an army in its own right, but there are still few enough that each one can be distinct.
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BoomWolf wrote: Comparing space marines to US marines is absurd.
US marines are maybe MAYBE comparable to IG veterans (how many US marines fought superhuman alien forces?)
A space marine, in scale, is equal not to even the most elite units, but the most elite individuals. The one in a few millions kind that no amount of training in the real world limits can replicate, people like freaking Simo Hayha, ranking kills in the hundreds with simple guns. And then you add superpowers.
These guys in fluff are walking tanks. The tactical value of modern jet fighters.
If you compare jet fighter per population, you might get a good estimate.
As said before, I was comparing US marines to Militarum Tempestus. I calculated Astartes population by assuming Space Marines were 1,000 times less common than a Storm Trooper.
BoomWolf wrote: Comparing space marines to US marines is absurd.
US marines are maybe MAYBE comparable to IG veterans (how many US marines fought superhuman alien forces?)
A space marine, in scale, is equal not to even the most elite units, but the most elite individuals. The one in a few millions kind that no amount of training in the real world limits can replicate, people like freaking Simo Hayha, ranking kills in the hundreds with simple guns. And then you add superpowers.
These guys in fluff are walking tanks. The tactical value of modern jet fighters.
If you compare jet fighter per population, you might get a good estimate.
But the fluff is already absurd and to be ignored. In practice, the Eldar could exterminate 10 chapters a week with star cannons if we went by fluff numbers. There must be more than 1K marines per chapter. It is necessarily true due to the size of a galaxy. Asorel's numbers sound reasonable for a GALACTIC conflict.
Martel732 wrote: I think the chapter size should actually be 1,000,000 or even 10,000,000-100,000,000. Galaxies are huge. Weapons like titans or nukes or whatever Xenos have can kill 10K marines on accident. Dante being in charge of millions of BA and thousands of ships and tanks and vehicles makes a lot more sense than someone like him being in charge of basically a tree-house club.
That was part of my inspiration as well. Not just Dante, but all of the Chapter Masters. My personal canon right now is Chapters of 1-10 million, with the Legions pre-Heresy numbering in the billions.
BoomWolf wrote: Comparing space marines to US marines is absurd.
US marines are maybe MAYBE comparable to IG veterans (how many US marines fought superhuman alien forces?)
A space marine, in scale, is equal not to even the most elite units, but the most elite individuals. The one in a few millions kind that no amount of training in the real world limits can replicate, people like freaking Simo Hayha, ranking kills in the hundreds with simple guns. And then you add superpowers.
These guys in fluff are walking tanks. The tactical value of modern jet fighters.
If you compare jet fighter per population, you might get a good estimate.
But the fluff is already absurd and to be ignored. In practice, the Eldar could exterminate 10 chapters a week with star cannons if we went by fluff numbers. There must be more than 1K marines per chapter. It is necessarily true due to the size of a galaxy. Asorel's numbers sound reasonable for a GALACTIC conflict.
^ Well this is the problem of the fluff.
If you take fluff as an example a lone marine would be able to defeat a few thousand average humans. Originally the pre-horus legions numbered about 10,000, now it goes from 10,000 all the way to 250,000 for Ultramarines. Games workshop like usualy has it's fluff all over the place.
Now space marines being used is suppose to be quite rare, with most campaigns not even using entire chapters, with most using a few companies. The main problem is, even with the fluff as it is, as soon as they start facing armies in their millions they would struggle (never mind tens of millions). For any realistic number, for a lone campaign, they need companys with tens of thousands of space marines. Overall requiring a chapter of 100,000. However that would bring us to pre-horus numbers, which obviously causes issues.
Basically Games Workshop from the very beginning messed up the SM scale in fluff when creating the 40k universe.
Gamgee wrote: In the lore it says we can make a friggen manta every six ish or so months due automation revolution the Imperium could only hope to have.
A single Manta could easily kill a Titan which takes centuries to make if not more. If we lose a single Manta taking out even 1+ Titans it's a worth while effort for us to do it. Eventually our enemy is not going to have any more of their strongest weapon, and we can always make more Manta's. This only gets worse the more planets we conquer and set to the production of anything really. Now imagine how long range its guns are since they're so much larger and more powerful than the HH's.
Is this new fluff - previously Mantas and those Titans deployed against - mostly Warhounds - were an even match and until the deployment of new specialist aifcraft the only thing that the Tau could throw into the fray that would surivive agianst such war machines. Even when reluectantly deployed without air cover - several Warhounds and Astartes support shattered Tau forces on Taros - they had better range and almost unsailable protection. Of course the Tau did in fact empoy a very cool "Titan" Killer - sort of a super A10 but both that craft and the US aircraft must haev air superiroity in order to be effective........
If the Imperium could deploy a full Titan Legion with intergral support including anti-air defences there is little that could stand before it. But the Impeium can't and won't
Titans dont take that long to make as far as I am aware - although to be fair the fluff flutctuate on their rareity and difficulty of construction. So the entire industrial capacity of the Tau Empire can produce just one super heavy flyer every six months? Remember these also serve as the primary "fighter" cover and "attack craft" for Tau navy.......
Gamgee wrote: In the lore it says we can make a friggen manta every six ish or so months due automation revolution the Imperium could only hope to have.
A single Manta could easily kill a Titan which takes centuries to make if not more. If we lose a single Manta taking out even 1+ Titans it's a worth while effort for us to do it. Eventually our enemy is not going to have any more of their strongest weapon, and we can always make more Manta's. This only gets worse the more planets we conquer and set to the production of anything really. Now imagine how long range its guns are since they're so much larger and more powerful than the HH's.
Is this new fluff - previously Mantas and those Titans deployed against - mostly Warhounds - were an even match and until the deployment of new specialist aifcraft the only thing that the Tau could throw into the fray that would surivive agianst such war machines. Even when reluectantly deployed without air cover - several Warhounds and Astartes support shattered Tau forces on Taros - they had better range and almost unsailable protection. Of course the Tau did in fact empoy a very cool "Titan" Killer - sort of a super A10 but both that craft and the US aircraft must haev air superiroity in order to be effective........
If the Imperium could deploy a full Titan Legion with intergral support including anti-air defences there is little that could stand before it. But the Impeium can't and won't
Titans dont take that long to make as far as I am aware - although to be fair the fluff flutctuate on their rareity and difficulty of construction. So the entire industrial capacity of the Tau Empire can produce just one super heavy flyer every six months? Remember these also serve as the primary "fighter" cover and "attack craft" for Tau navy.......
My theory is that the Mechanicus greatly exaggerates the rarity and difficulty of manufacturing Titans (among other things). Didn't humanity 'nobly sacrifice' an Emperor-class battleship and a metric f*ckton of Titans when the Tyranids first showed up in Ultramar? If we assume the Imperial generals and admirals aren't completely stupid (yes, I know), it would seem to me that they wouldn't just throw away irreplaceable relics in this fashion.
Basically, most of the higher-ups are well aware of the true difficulty of manufacturing these, and the AdMech know they know, but they do it anyways to keep up appearances.
Indeed - during the Gothic War a Fereal world with sky temples in orbit was able to produce a fully operational Lunar class Crusier in 11 years! - given that this class can be prouduced quickly (several years) by industralised worlds - the production of maybe five or six Manta's by the entire Tau empire sounds less impressive
As it stands according to the fluff, the number of LRBT's vastly outnumber the space marines, which makes you think, about how effective would a legion really be in such small numbers when you can match each space marine against a tank, not even including all the other troops. I would totally agree with a much larger chapter size.
Mr Morden wrote: Indeed - during the Gothic War a Fereal world with sky temples in orbit was able to produce a fully operational Lunar class Crusier in 11 years! - given that this class can be prouduced quickly (several years) by industralised worlds - the production of maybe five or six Manta's by the entire Tau empire sounds less impressive
(Source - Battlefleet Gothic)
And in Battlefleet Gothic the Manta had a 4+ save and could be mass produced in the thousands? Depends on how many ground factories are assigned to it. We know that there are entire production planets in the Tau Empire, but all of their planets have at least one large production area assigned that spreads across the surface. It was basically our fighter craft. Quite capable of causing mayhem among larger ships and its relatively cheap to make. Also you don't seem to realize the Tau Empire probably has hundreds of thousands of worlds within it. I don't think you realize how big SPAAAACE is. Not to mention they can terraform an entire planet if need be. So a lot more of the worlds in their space will be usable. Where as in the Imperium only a few worlds will be true production worlds. Where as almost every Tau world has that capacity. Also a single factory when the Tau factories can spread across the entire planet alongside Earth Caste factories and science labs to further develop and test things.
Their space ships are built in orbit. The manta is easily built on the planet and fly up to dock with bigger vessels. So yes it is a marvel of efficiency. Imagine how fast they spit out their capital ships. Only a few years for the largest of them. Not to mention we can always improve out technology if need be.
UrsoerTheSquid wrote: As it stands according to the fluff, the number of LRBT's vastly outnumber the space marines, which makes you think, about how effective would a legion really be in such small numbers when you can match each space marine against a tank, not even including all the other troops. I would totally agree with a much larger chapter size.
You can't match SM against Russes.
The Marines can get where the tank can't, and much much faster.
I agree, the marines are much more adaptable,able to actually enter buildings and such, but with regards to numbers 1000 space marines seems a little low on the number scale when they can send in 10,000 russ' to attack a position. The numbers need to be much higher.
I do not agree with you logic at all, because we do not have military personnel that compares to the space marines. If you wanted to look at the space marines I would think of them maybe as the top .01 percent of the delta force or specialist seal teams... we are talking 1 in a billion, and you have to remember that 99% of the humans in the imperium are essentially living in third world conditions thus making it impossible to turn them into a space marine because of their baseline health.
Marines are pulled from feral and fuedal worlds, where the citizens live a harsh life, however, it is a life that promotes health... meaning that even though there are trillions of people really less than 5%-10% of them would even be in the pool of possible candidates to become a marine.
Thyhadras wrote: I do not agree with you logic at all, because we do not have military personnel that compares to the space marines. If you wanted to look at the space marines I would think of them maybe as the top .01 percent of the delta force or specialist seal teams... we are talking 1 in a billion, and you have to remember that 99% of the humans in the imperium are essentially living in third world conditions thus making it impossible to turn them into a space marine because of their baseline health.
Marines are pulled from feral and fuedal worlds, where the citizens live a harsh life, however, it is a life that promotes health... meaning that even though there are trillions of people really less than 5%-10% of them would even be in the pool of possible candidates to become a marine.
5% of several quadrillion is still an enormous number. I stand by the idea that there would have to be millions, or even billions of marines to be significant on a galactic scale. Functionally, they aren't that much better than humans in mass combat.
To be honest though they are not functional on a galactic scale, I mean really if they were functional and doing what you are making them out to be then there would be no strife.
Thyhadras wrote: To be honest though they are not functional on a galactic scale, I mean really if they were functional and doing what you are making them out to be then there would be no strife.
There would still be a TON of strife. Given how the firepower of Tau/Eldar for starters, marines would have to be replaced by the thousands each month.
Also, if they are not functional on a galactic scale, there's no reason to even keep them around.
Thyhadras wrote: I do not agree with you logic at all, because we do not have military personnel that compares to the space marines. If you wanted to look at the space marines I would think of them maybe as the top .01 percent of the delta force or specialist seal teams....
Except that's almost exactly what I did. My assumption was that an Astartes was 1000 times less common than a Storm Trooper, which is to say that elite force of the Imperial Guard. Technically that's 0.1 percent instead of 0.01 percent, but even if I use your estimate, we're still looking at 35+ billion Astartes.
Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...
First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.
furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...
Thyhadras wrote: Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...
First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.
furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...
I don't believe a demi company changes the outcome of a large battle at all. Especially ones with orbital bombardment, titans, and mantas. The GW writers don't understand anything about military history more than likely. They are their own fanbois.
Grumblewartz wrote: I absolutely agree that the chapter size should be changed to 10,000. Of course, the fluff has hinted and outright said more than once that the 1,000 is often ignored. The Ultramarines are the extreme example of this. The 1,000 chapter size also does not take into account new but not complete marines, their supporting crew (regular humans who do all the mundane day-to-day maintenance, etc.), and servitors. I think if they moved the baseline to 10,000 then we could comfortably be looking at roughly 50,000 total strength of a standard chapter including their dependents and place the larger chapters that are stretching the restrictions at 100,000+.
Either way, I support the idea that the total size of the space marine force should be changed and the OP suggestion that you blame it on the failings of the administration would work perfectly fine. I have always though of it that way anyways.
I would surmise, given that Chapters a) are in charge of their own recruitment, indoctrination, etc and b) they don't answer to anyone except the Emporer, that the 1,000 number was simply a statement from Ole' Rob about what would constitute a functional Chapter, not a limitation as to maximum size. That limitation is more realistically based on how fast a Chapter can recruit, geneseed and equip an Astartes. I expect that 10th companies are far larger, as they should contain at least 100 full-up scout marines to augment battle companies, a significant number of trained Astartes ready to fill shortages in the battle companies, plus a sizeable number of initiates (at least 1 per trained scout), and a full up training cadre, several times the size of a battle company hq; extra Apothecaries, Chaplains and Librarians to monitor the initiates' physical, spritual and psychic adjustment.
Battle and reserve companies as well could exceed that, with HQ and the 10 squads as the "first team", and a number of "on deck" replacements who've already been initiated into the company.
The 1st company could be huge, since becoming a veteran should be a matter of valorous deeds rather than waiting for a slot to open up. Given the indefinite lifespan of an Astartes if not killed in battle, if it hasn't gotten itself cornholed by a WAAAAGH or hive fleet or tomb world, the 1st could be the size of the battle companies combined. Further, there's good internal reason for this; if a chapter has one company go renegade, it should be able to squash it with it's own 1st company, quickly and decisively. Astartes fighting one-on-one isn't quick. Five-on-one, where the five get Land Raiders and TDA, is quick.
Any consensus on what Chapter size should be? The only real limitation is that it needs to be small enough to be under control of the Chapter Master and his advisers/Captains of companies. Geneseed purportedly increases mental acuity in addition to other characteristics, so the number can be larger to a certain extent than what a regular human could manage.
Also, keep in mind that the Legions would have to be even larger, by two(?) orders of magnitude. So a First Founding chapter of a million would have been 100 million strong pre-Heresy.
I'm sticking with a typical strength of 10 million for now, split into 10 Grand Battalions, which operate more or less autonomously. At some point down the chain of organization, there would be 1000-strong Divisions that are the equivalent of the canonical chapters, which are in turn split into the Companies with which we are familiar.
asorel wrote: Any consensus on what Chapter size should be? The only real limitation is that it needs to be small enough to be under control of the Chapter Master and his advisers/Captains of companies. Geneseed purportedly increases mental acuity in addition to other characteristics, so the number can be larger to a certain extent than what a regular human could manage.
Also, keep in mind that the Legions would have to be even larger, by two(?) orders of magnitude. So a First Founding chapter of a million would have been 100 million strong pre-Heresy.
I'm sticking with a typical strength of 10 million for now, split into 10 Grand Battalions, which operate more or less autonomously. At some point down the chain of organization, there would be 1000-strong Divisions that are the equivalent of the canonical chapters, which are in turn split into the Companies with which we are familiar.
Well that's certainly better than the current nonsensical claims of the books.
I personally prefer the small chapters, but I don't like how the number of chapters is so limited at 1000. Why not make it a million chapters? Or more? Leave plenty of room for practically unlimited unique chapters.
I do agree that there should be more but I'd refrain from getting too far. Space Marines don't conquer, that's the job of Astra Militarium. Space Marines provide military support as shock troops. They come in, kill key targets, hit key fortifications, or whatever is the hardest toughest job needed to be done, then they go. The rest is done by the meat grinding AM.
I think the size of a chapter is pretty much stuck as is, it's been 1000 marines for a very long time and it's not in any way ambiguous in the fluff
Number of chapters however is EXTREMELY ambiguous, we have no exact number of chapter, not even a list of every 2nd founding chapter... i think that is where we should increase scale
I can see a 1000 x 1000 marines being sufficient considering while there are plenty of planets not ALL of them are on fire at the same time. and that the majority of space is empty.
The majority of protection would come from the imperial navy and the planets own PDFs.
Realistically im sure marines are holding quite a bit more dudes then they let on and or they replace them pretty quickly with a big contingent of scouts.
Marines in theory should drop in get the job done and be back home in time for dinner. and let the guard clean up afterwards.
Edit: Basically besides a few special cases like EoT or some crazy area with a LOT of conflict. how often does revolts or bad guys pop up that need a swift boot to the head.
Yep, between needing only a handful realistically-as you don't need them in every damn firefight, and the fact they probably replace men quite quickly, it seems reasonable that only 1 million "full fledged" marines are out there, and about as many, if not more, are under "training"
The fact you don't like the numbers do not change them from what they are. marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game.
For an example, a terminator once got stomped by a titan. his only problem was that he got stuck in the concred, but wasn't actually harmed.
Fluff marine armors are flying rodent gak crazy, thier abilities are beyond any scope reality can match, and then you realize that the freaking terminators, are not even the second best soldier the IoM can throw at you-the grey knights are even a more elite version, and then the assassins make them look like a guardsmen in return.
You don't need many marines. you need only a few, at the right place, at the right time.
They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job. they just go in directly by podding to engage the general's bodyguards and take out the leader.
"marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game."
Except I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, they are as modeled on the table top. The GW fluff writers are awful.
"They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job"
Except if you read what they as supposed to have done, they could never have done that without millions of marines. Especially the battles against Tyranids, who would be able to assault multiple continents simultaneously.
Martel732 wrote: "marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game."
Except I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, they are as modeled on the table top. The GW fluff writers are awful.
"They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job"
Except if you read what they as supposed to have done, they could never have done that without millions of marines. Especially the battles against Tyranids, who would be able to assault multiple continents simultaneously.
Do you buy the fluff or do you not buy the fluff, Martel?
You are both disregarding it and using it as an argument.
Gamgee wrote: Also you don't seem to realize the Tau Empire probably has hundreds of thousands of worlds within it. I don't think you realize how big SPAAAACE is. Not to mention they can terraform an entire planet if need be. So a lot more of the worlds in their space will be usable. Where as in the Imperium only a few worlds will be true production worlds. Where as almost every Tau world has that capacity. Also a single factory when the Tau factories can spread across the entire planet alongside Earth Caste factories and science labs to further develop and test things.
You might need to turn down your fanboy-ism and re-read the fluff, because almost everything you're saying in this thread is ridiculous. Just to address these tidbits, for the sake of accuracy:
The Tau Empire numbers in the tens or maybe hundreds of systems at best, including sparsely populated colonies and non-Tau allied races. The number of fully settled systems (like the ones you're talking about who are well developed enough to crank out Mantas) is more or less known: the first sphere of expansion brought in 8 major systems, the second sphere brought in at least 7, and the third sphere brought in an unknown number but probably not significantly more. For every one of these major systems, there are at least a handful of sparsely inhabited systems too. Even growing exponentially, you're looking at hundreds of planets, not hundreds of thousands. Not to mention an unknown number of Tau systems are part of the Farsight Enclaves, which are actively hostile to the rest of the Tau race - they wouldn't count towards the Tau's strength except in the most dire of circumstances. So saying the Tau have hundreds of thousands of worlds is pretty far off the mark. Extremely far.
The Imperium, on the other hand, is acknowledged as controlling at least 1 million systems. The Imperium is well known for having factories that really do cover entire planets (what do you think Forge Worlds are?). In fact, although this is an impossible bet to settle conclusively, I can guarantee you the Imperium has more Forge Worlds than the Tau have planets of any kind.
The Tau are an absolutely insignificant race in the galactic sense. In fluff terms, they're a stand-in for the very many tiny, interesting, and incredibly advanced races the Imperium has met and subsequently crushed over 10,000 years. Maybe since the Imperium is dying, they'll get a chance to keep advancing - that is, if the Tyranids, Orks, Necrons, Dark Eldar, etc. don't wipe out their pitiful dozens of heavily populated planets first through sheer weight of numbers.
Martel732 wrote: "marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game."
Except I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, they are as modeled on the table top. The GW fluff writers are awful.
"They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job"
Except if you read what they as supposed to have done, they could never have done that without millions of marines. Especially the battles against Tyranids, who would be able to assault multiple continents simultaneously.
Do you buy the fluff or do you not buy the fluff, Martel?
You are both disregarding it and using it as an argument.
I don't really buy the fluff. My primary argument would be that space marines wouldn't exist in the first place, the story of the Emperor is stupid, and the setting is ridiculous. Some elements are less absurd than others, which explains the cherry picking.
GAdvance wrote: Then what the hell are you even in the conversation for, you literally refuse to accept the very BASIS of the storyline
Because the numbers that GW claim are so absurdly low and the gap between fluff marines and table top is so huge that someone needs to point this out. Everyone goes on about how great the setting is, but I think that GW writes terrible fiction.
Martel732 wrote: "marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game."
Except I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, they are as modeled on the table top. The GW fluff writers are awful.
"They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job"
Except if you read what they as supposed to have done, they could never have done that without millions of marines. Especially the battles against Tyranids, who would be able to assault multiple continents simultaneously.
Do you buy the fluff or do you not buy the fluff, Martel?
You are both disregarding it and using it as an argument.
I don't really buy the fluff. My primary argument would be that space marines wouldn't exist in the first place, the story of the Emperor is stupid, and the setting is ridiculous. Some elements are less absurd than others, which explains the cherry picking.
What you're doing is talking out of both sides of your mouth.
If you don't buy the fluff, that's fine, but then you complain that the Tyranids should have been able to assault multiple continents at once... if we are going by TT, then you're sending like 500 points of Bugs to each of 4 continents in a 2k points game... and 500 points of Bugs is Not At All Difficult to blow off the board in a turn or two with 500 points of Astartes.
" if we are going by TT, then you're sending like 500 points of Bugs to each of 4 continents in a 2k points game... and 500 points of Bugs is Not At All Difficult to blow off the board in a turn or two with 500 points of Astartes."
Fair enough. But it's still a galactic war. And the rate at which marines die on the tabletop would force there to be more than 1000 chapter for sure. 20 tablings X 50 marines per table = chapter eradicated. We could rate chapters in how many Wraithknights it would take to exterminate them since 90% of marine weapons are worthless against them.
I'd think rather than increase Chapters sizes (my fluff knowledge is a little creaky but weren't the HH Legions downsized after the HH to avoid it happening again ?) you just need to increase the number of Chapters, a 1000 Chapters of 1000 Marines was most likely something that sounded cool at the time but makes little sense in the modern fluff, plus given how huge the IoM is nobody really knows how many of what there is with information being up to Centuries late by the time it reaches Terra
Martel732 wrote: " if we are going by TT, then you're sending like 500 points of Bugs to each of 4 continents in a 2k points game... and 500 points of Bugs is Not At All Difficult to blow off the board in a turn or two with 500 points of Astartes."
Fair enough. But it's still a galactic war. And the rate at which marines die on the tabletop would force there to be more than 1000 chapter for sure. 20 tablings X 50 marines per table = chapter eradicated. We could rate chapters in how many Wraithknights it would take to exterminate them since 90% of marine weapons are worthless against them.
You wouldn't need Marines to defend a continent vs 500 points of bugs. 500 points of the cheapest of IG infantrymen blows them off the table as soon as they arrive...
... and that is actually how the Imperium functions. *Most* of the fighting, like, 99% of it, is done by the Guard. It's why it exists, it is its sole function. Fighting. Prosecuting the Emperor's wars across the void of space. Claiming new worlds in the name of the Emperor. Defending the Emperor's worlds from the encroachment of Xenos and Traitors.
Planet in rebellion? Send the Guard.
Weird Xeno world? Send the Guard.
Found a new planet and aren't sure what lives there? Send the Guard.
Pirate raiders? Send the Navy, carrying the Guard (in case the pirates have terrestrial holdings)
Thyhadras wrote: Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...
First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.
furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...
I don't believe a demi company changes the outcome of a large battle at all. Especially ones with orbital bombardment, titans, and mantas. The GW writers don't understand anything about military history more than likely. They are their own fanbois.
While I agree the GW authors understand very little about military history/actual combat, there are plenty of examples in history of small teams changing the tide of large battles. Also, just because you have tools like orbital bombardment and titans doesn't mean you can use them. Even using precision-guided munitions in today's war where a laser-guided bomb can accurately land within 3m of its target is tough during the heat of a firefight.
I think the closest we've seen of a top unit in action like the SM in real life is Black Hawk Down. If you see the Delta Force/Rangers as SM/Tempestus, it was 160 men against 4-6k Somalis, losing 18 and inflicting 1k+ casualties. Even though there's a massive gulf in the amount of discipline and training vs the militia (many were somewhat well-trained and veterans of combat despite the movie making them out to be a mob), I still think SM are meant to be way more elite.
I think that secretiveness and divided nature of the chapters should also be taken into account together with the lack of communication in the Emperium. The Dark Angels and Black Templar are prime examples of this. Dark Angels are so secretive that it will never be clear to the Imperium how many marine they have and the Black Templar extremely divided making it impossible to keep track of the numbers. And then there is the terrible communication, by the time someone figures out the numbers don't match it will have been a couple hundred year later.
Because of this I wouldn't be surprised if a large amount of chapters don't precisely consist of a 1000 marines.
Originally, only 20 SPARTAN-II's made it through the procedure, 3 after 2552 (John, Kelly, Kurt).
The first batch of SPARTAN-III's had less than ten survivors of 300.
There's about a 1000 SPARTAN III/IV's alive and on duty, and ONE of them, who had been asleep for 7 years and surviving atmospheric reentry single handedly killed the biggest threat humanity ever knew.
And ODST's (read:Tempestus) are proven to be around the same calibre.
Every race in Halo is more advanced than anything in 40k and one guy can kill legions of aliens 8ft tall, while Spess Mahreens have a hard time liberating a tiny world when they have access to more stuff while SPARTANS use anything they pick up.
To answer to Martel, I don't think one can link SM performance on the tabletop and what they can do in the fluff. If GW says a demi-company can turn the tide of battle, well, there's nothing you can do about this, and it's canon. Whether you think their fluff awful or not, if they say SM are awesome, that's what they are. Same points about titans, 15km long space cruisers and other stuff like this; from a military standpoint, their effectivness could be ... contested, at the very least. Now, GW is also a mini company and, even though their rules are unbalanced, they need to keep people playing their game. If marines could effetivly take out my whole IG army with two or three minis, I'll probably won't play against them and they would be really profitable for GW either. Same thing about Terminators, Land Raiders and other SM gear. You can't put the SM power on the same level in the fluff and in the tabletop but if you want to, either you give Primarch stats to each plastic tactical marine, either you retcon the whole fluff written for thirty years and you say SM chapters numbers are 1.000.000 or whatever.
Best way for GW to choose between these? Keep calm and sell minis. And let termies die to massed lasgun fire.
Thyhadras wrote: Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...
First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.
furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...
I don't believe a demi company changes the outcome of a large battle at all. Especially ones with orbital bombardment, titans, and mantas. The GW writers don't understand anything about military history more than likely. They are their own fanbois.
While I agree the GW authors understand very little about military history/actual combat, there are plenty of examples in history of small teams changing the tide of large battles. Also, just because you have tools like orbital bombardment and titans doesn't mean you can use them. Even using precision-guided munitions in today's war where a laser-guided bomb can accurately land within 3m of its target is tough during the heat of a firefight.
I think the closest we've seen of a top unit in action like the SM in real life is Black Hawk Down. If you see the Delta Force/Rangers as SM/Tempestus, it was 160 men against 4-6k Somalis, losing 18 and inflicting 1k+ casualties. Even though there's a massive gulf in the amount of discipline and training vs the militia (many were somewhat well-trained and veterans of combat despite the movie making them out to be a mob), I still think SM are meant to be way more elite.
The worlds most powerful military beating up a 3rd world militia isn't probably the best example of elite troops turning a battle around, in fact they didn't turn anything around, the mission went FUBAR and the Rangers/Delta were unable to turn that result into victory.
1940, Belguim, fort of Eben Emael. Around 80 elite Fallschirmjager capture a fortress garrisoned by 1200 Belgians and sustain 6 casualties in the process. This is an elite unit turning a battle around. Schwerpunkt relies on speed, and a huge fortress would have slowed the advance considerably. Germany's vaunted Panzers could have bashed their heads against this wall for weeks with no result. Both sides involved were first world nations possessing modern militaries.
Thyhadras wrote: Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...
First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.
furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...
I don't believe a demi company changes the outcome of a large battle at all. Especially ones with orbital bombardment, titans, and mantas. The GW writers don't understand anything about military history more than likely. They are their own fanbois.
While I agree the GW authors understand very little about military history/actual combat, there are plenty of examples in history of small teams changing the tide of large battles. Also, just because you have tools like orbital bombardment and titans doesn't mean you can use them. Even using precision-guided munitions in today's war where a laser-guided bomb can accurately land within 3m of its target is tough during the heat of a firefight.
I think the closest we've seen of a top unit in action like the SM in real life is Black Hawk Down. If you see the Delta Force/Rangers as SM/Tempestus, it was 160 men against 4-6k Somalis, losing 18 and inflicting 1k+ casualties. Even though there's a massive gulf in the amount of discipline and training vs the militia (many were somewhat well-trained and veterans of combat despite the movie making them out to be a mob), I still think SM are meant to be way more elite.
The worlds most powerful military beating up a 3rd world militia isn't probably the best example of elite troops turning a battle around, in fact they didn't turn anything around, the mission went FUBAR and the Rangers/Delta were unable to turn that result into victory.
1940, Belguim, fort of Eben Emael. Around 80 elite Fallschirmjager capture a fortress garrisoned by 1200 Belgians and sustain 6 casualties in the process. This is an elite unit turning a battle around. Schwerpunkt relies on speed, and a huge fortress would have slowed the advance considerably. Germany's vaunted Panzers could have bashed their heads against this wall for weeks with no result. Both sides involved were first world nations possessing modern militaries.
Oh, I wasn't trying to use that as an example of a small force turning the tide of a big battle. That was a change of subject. I was saying that's the closest we have to what the gulf between SM and everybody else is supposed to be like. The Eben Emael assault is a great example of a small unit making a big impact in the larger battle.
" there's nothing you can do about this, and it's canon."
I can reject GW's fiction. Which I do. They have no sense of scale and it shows in the garbage they write.
" if they say SM are awesome, that's what they are"
No, because that's not how they are mathematically modeled. If the game in no way reflects the fluff, which it never has, then the fluff is useless because the math affects me way more from a purchasing standpoint, etc.
" I don't think one can link SM performance on the tabletop and what they can do in the fluff. "
But you see, the fluff doesn't save me from my buddy's Eldar. So as far as I'm concerned, all the badass stories should be about scatterbike pilots. Because marines are lambs to the slaughter for those guys. I don't care about the fluff because that's not what they've modeled. They've modeled the marines as a turkey shoot for Eldar.
"and you say SM chapters numbers are 1.000.000 or whatever. "
This is necessarily true due to how big galaxies are anyway. Hell, even 1,000,000 could get bogged down on one continent of one world of one star system of one cluster. The scale is mind-blowing.
Martel732 wrote: " if we are going by TT, then you're sending like 500 points of Bugs to each of 4 continents in a 2k points game... and 500 points of Bugs is Not At All Difficult to blow off the board in a turn or two with 500 points of Astartes."
Fair enough. But it's still a galactic war. And the rate at which marines die on the tabletop would force there to be more than 1000 chapter for sure. 20 tablings X 50 marines per table = chapter eradicated. We could rate chapters in how many Wraithknights it would take to exterminate them since 90% of marine weapons are worthless against them.
You are assuming off table means dead.
I'm gonna guess a starcannon does't leave much behind.
Martel732 wrote: " if we are going by TT, then you're sending like 500 points of Bugs to each of 4 continents in a 2k points game... and 500 points of Bugs is Not At All Difficult to blow off the board in a turn or two with 500 points of Astartes."
Fair enough. But it's still a galactic war. And the rate at which marines die on the tabletop would force there to be more than 1000 chapter for sure. 20 tablings X 50 marines per table = chapter eradicated. We could rate chapters in how many Wraithknights it would take to exterminate them since 90% of marine weapons are worthless against them.
You are assuming off table means dead.
I'm gonna guess a starcannon does't leave much behind.
I'm assuming the Eldar aren't jelloheads and use starcannons and D weapons to eradicate space marines. In real wars, armies can use intelligence services to optimize for a given foe. Especially if there were only 1000 of each flavor. The task would basically be trivial for them.
The Eldar could send a few Wraithknights to stomp out the chapters with no grav centurions.
Martel732 wrote: I'm assuming the Eldar aren't jelloheads and use starcannons and D weapons to eradicate space marines. In real wars, armies can use intelligence services to optimize for a given foe. Especially if there were only 1000 of each flavor. The task would basically be trivial for them.
Assuming they use real war intelligence instead of there space magic. Eldar have a dumb way of not getting involved unless they need to. and will use as little force as possible to shift things into there favor. They use future sight to make decisions.
Martel732 wrote: I'm assuming the Eldar aren't jelloheads and use starcannons and D weapons to eradicate space marines. In real wars, armies can use intelligence services to optimize for a given foe. Especially if there were only 1000 of each flavor. The task would basically be trivial for them.
Assuming they use real war intelligence instead of there space magic. Eldar have a dumb way of not getting involved unless they need to. and will use as little force as possible to shift things into there favor. They use future sight to make decisions.
They dont use human logic in there tactics.
I suppose. Still, any chapter of 1K marines is likely going to be decimated after a single scrap with the Eldar. Or Tau for that matter. Yeah, the Empire is small by the fluffl, but still enormous compared to the marines at fluff numbers. 1K is an unfathomably tiny number even on a planetary scale.
I suppose. Still, any chapter of 1K marines is likely going to be decimated after a single scrap with the Eldar. 1K is an unfathomably tiny number even on a planetary scale.
A chapter is not really going to go full force ham and hold there own by them selves against an enemy.
The main war is fought by Guardsmen. lots of them
Space marines are only there to bolster the most critically strategic spots or destroy them to make winning easier for the guard.
It's because Space Marine are a sham. Fantasm of little boy lol.
Logically, the more a battlespace become complex and bigger, the less % of your army will be specialise, because you need to cover more ground. That has been seen many time as history unfold itself. It is usually in time of peace that you army will become more specialise, because you will have more budget for training and more time to train.
If we consider a battlespace as big as the one describe in the Warhammer universe, keeping small units of specialise units would become trivial, expansive and plainly unefficient. Mass training, mass production of equipment and vehicle and constant mobilisation of army is the only way for the imperium to actually win this war.
Cut the budget of the Space Marine, make them fall under the direction of whatever regiment and make them fight until they all die so we can stop hearing about them
Right now, if we are talking numbers, yes, there is not enough Space Marine for the Imperium, but please don't convince GW to add more lol.
I suppose. Still, any chapter of 1K marines is likely going to be decimated after a single scrap with the Eldar. 1K is an unfathomably tiny number even on a planetary scale.
A chapter is not really going to go full force ham and hold there own by them selves against an enemy.
The main war is fought by Guardsmen. lots of them
Space marines are only there to bolster the most critically strategic spots or destroy them to make winning easier for the guard.
Asides from the more embellished heroic stories.
But that assumes that the space marines are never targeted by sentient opponents. Or heck, by the tyranids for their superior biomass.
I suppose. Still, any chapter of 1K marines is likely going to be decimated after a single scrap with the Eldar. 1K is an unfathomably tiny number even on a planetary scale.
A chapter is not really going to go full force ham and hold there own by them selves against an enemy.
The main war is fought by Guardsmen. lots of them
Space marines are only there to bolster the most critically strategic spots or destroy them to make winning easier for the guard.
Asides from the more embellished heroic stories.
But that assumes that the space marines are never targeted by sentient opponents. Or heck, by the tyranids for their superior biomass.
"Superior Biomass?" Is that actually part of the fluff, because it makes little sense. Hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons, whether they come from a Space Marine or an Ork Gretchin.
I suppose. Still, any chapter of 1K marines is likely going to be decimated after a single scrap with the Eldar. 1K is an unfathomably tiny number even on a planetary scale.
A chapter is not really going to go full force ham and hold there own by them selves against an enemy.
The main war is fought by Guardsmen. lots of them
Space marines are only there to bolster the most critically strategic spots or destroy them to make winning easier for the guard.
Asides from the more embellished heroic stories.
But that assumes that the space marines are never targeted by sentient opponents. Or heck, by the tyranids for their superior biomass.
And them getting wiped out assumes that the enemy even has that kinda firepower and the tactical opportunity to wipe out the entire chapter outside of naval and army protection.
I suppose. Still, any chapter of 1K marines is likely going to be decimated after a single scrap with the Eldar. 1K is an unfathomably tiny number even on a planetary scale.
A chapter is not really going to go full force ham and hold there own by them selves against an enemy.
The main war is fought by Guardsmen. lots of them
Space marines are only there to bolster the most critically strategic spots or destroy them to make winning easier for the guard.
Asides from the more embellished heroic stories.
But that assumes that the space marines are never targeted by sentient opponents. Or heck, by the tyranids for their superior biomass.
"Superior Biomass?" Is that actually part of the fluff, because it makes little sense. Hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons, whether they come from a Space Marine or an Ork Gretchin.
I suppose. Still, any chapter of 1K marines is likely going to be decimated after a single scrap with the Eldar. 1K is an unfathomably tiny number even on a planetary scale.
A chapter is not really going to go full force ham and hold there own by them selves against an enemy.
The main war is fought by Guardsmen. lots of them
Space marines are only there to bolster the most critically strategic spots or destroy them to make winning easier for the guard.
Asides from the more embellished heroic stories.
But that assumes that the space marines are never targeted by sentient opponents. Or heck, by the tyranids for their superior biomass.
And them getting wiped out assumes that the enemy even has that kinda firepower and the tactical opportunity to wipe out the entire chapter outside of naval and army protection.
Codex Eldar makes it quite clear that they do have that kind of firepower. A few squadrons of war walkers would kill every tactical squad in a marine chapter. And that's not even getting into the nasty stuff. For DA, all they have to do is kill a rock in space.
.... unless those War-Walkers happen to run into Marines packing Meltas or Missile Launchers. Eldar space-vessels are fleet and agile... but they do not take hits at all well. If attacking The Rock, the Eldar will lose thousands of lives, and may still fail to destroy The Rock, because Eldar ships basically shatter once struck by an Imperial vessel of similar class.
The hard part, of course, is hitting them... but throw enough flak into the air, and you're going to hit *something*.
They just can't afford direct combat with pretty much anyone else, not to mention a grind war, that's practically auto-lose for them even against someone tiny as tau.
Superior soldiers and weaponry is the ONLY thing is favor of eldar.
Back to space marines needing to be in hundreds of millions to function-you come back to the silly assumption that marines do the main fighting.
That they do the SECONDARY fighting even.
They do not "fight" the enemy. they make surgical strikes. they don't take a front, they take care of a single operation in the larger war.
They dont get "bogged down in continents" because they at no point bother with taking over landmass-they take that one important building. they don't destroy enemy regiments in droves, they take out a single command center.
As others said, and you ignore-you don't need many marines because you got so many other guys around to do the main fighting job.
You got the cadians, catachans, iron guard, steel legion, death korps, elysian, the scions, the sisters, skitari, legio cybernetica, PDFs, titan legions, knight houses, ect,
They have so many seperate fighting forces that none of them has any need to ever be self-sufficient, none of them need to be able to wage a full planetary war in itself, and yet multiple of them CAN, multiple of them are big enough to fight across entire sectors on their own.
And none of them is EVER alone.
Seriously, Martel... are you just a troll or something? I have not seen a single positive post from you, and god help some one if they disagree with you.
Seriously, why are you here? You think warp travel is feasible? Hell, almost nothing in the 41st millenium is feasible by todays standards....
So basically you HATE the fluff, you HATE your army, you HATE GW... anything else? Do us all a favor and go play warmachine or something.
Furthermore, as far as marines being effective, they very much are, because if you look at the fluff, there are entire systems that go for centuries and never see conflict, and there may be a hundred years between major conflicts, granted there are some that are shorter (GW fluff writers do fail at timeline writing)
But for the most part there is not only war, just the constant threat of war. Furthermore, 2 space marine companies held off an entire tyranid hive fleet once on the planet. Further, in the ultramarine books uriel ventris and a squad of death watch changed the course of an entire planet wide battle field.
Space marines do not wage war, they go on missions the same as special forces do. Also, if you look at the casualty rate from OIF/OEF American soldiers were working on a kill ratio of something like 4000/1 (with a large number of our dead being from suicide). So the idea that a space marine being able to handle a few thousand or more is not completely ludicrous.
Also if you really wanted to play this game in a realistic setting then every army would be a scout squad a land speeder and a nuke... that would be it... would not make for a fun game. Seriously if you do not enjoy a single aspect of the game then why play?
Hell I will even make you a one time offer to buy your armies off of you so you can cut your losses and move onto a different game set in a more realistic setting like flames of war or bolt action
Thyhadras wrote: Furthermore, as far as marines being effective, they very much are, because if you look at the fluff, there are entire systems that go for centuries and never see conflict, and there may be a hundred years between major conflicts, granted there are some that are shorter (GW fluff writers do fail at timeline writing)
But for the most part there is not only war, just the constant threat of war. Furthermore, 2 space marine companies held off an entire tyranid hive fleet once on the planet. Further, in the ultramarine books uriel ventris and a squad of death watch changed the course of an entire planet wide battle field.
Except that if you read the fluff, Space Marines do very often wage full-scale war, lay siege to enemy fortifications or hold a defensive line rather than go on a specific strike mission. 40k writers truly have no sense of scale. Going of the numbers in Codex: Armageddon for example, the war on Armageddon, one of the biggest conflicts in the recent history of the Imperium, would be a minor skirmish on the Eastern Front of WW2. The Soviet Union lost 28 million in WW2, which would amount to 2800 IG regiments (going of the size of 10.000, which is relatively large for an IG regiment), over 10 times more than deployed in all three wars for Armageddon together. 40k writers seem to handle IG regiments like they are huge armies, while in truth they are just small divisions compared to rl formations. If one single planet in rl can raise more armies than the entire galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man, you know there is something seriously wrong with the writer's sense of scale. And as the OP states, one million Space Marines for the entire galaxy should be completely insignificant, even if one Marine is worth ten lesser warriors as is often stated.
"A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "
War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.
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Thyhadras wrote: Seriously, Martel... are you just a troll or something? I have not seen a single positive post from you, and god help some one if they disagree with you.
Seriously, why are you here? You think warp travel is feasible? Hell, almost nothing in the 41st millenium is feasible by todays standards....
So basically you HATE the fluff, you HATE your army, you HATE GW... anything else? Do us all a favor and go play warmachine or something.
The GTFO argument. I guess it has to come up once in a while...
Thyhadras wrote: Furthermore, as far as marines being effective, they very much are, because if you look at the fluff, there are entire systems that go for centuries and never see conflict, and there may be a hundred years between major conflicts, granted there are some that are shorter (GW fluff writers do fail at timeline writing)
But for the most part there is not only war, just the constant threat of war. Furthermore, 2 space marine companies held off an entire tyranid hive fleet once on the planet. Further, in the ultramarine books uriel ventris and a squad of death watch changed the course of an entire planet wide battle field.
Except that if you read the fluff, Space Marines do very often wage full-scale war, lay siege to enemy fortifications or hold a defensive line rather than go on a specific strike mission.
40k writers truly have no sense of scale. Going of the numbers in Codex: Armageddon for example, the war on Armageddon, one of the biggest conflicts in the recent history of the Imperium, would be a minor skirmish on the Eastern Front of WW2. The Soviet Union lost 28 million in WW2, which would amount to 2800 IG regiments (going of the size of 10.000, which is relatively large for an IG regiment), over 10 times more than deployed in all three wars for Armageddon together. 40k writers seem to handle IG regiments like they are huge armies, while in truth they are just small divisions compared to rl formations. If one single planet in rl can raise more armies than the entire galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man, you know there is something seriously wrong with the writer's sense of scale.
And as the OP states, one million Space Marines for the entire galaxy should be completely insignificant, even if one Marine is worth ten lesser warriors as is often stated.
Thyhadras wrote: No not the gtfo argument it is a real assessment of you do nothing but whine and complain and I am offering you an out. ..
I would appreciate it if you would stick to the argument and keep sophomoric insults to yourself. If you have an issue with Martel, then PM him about how negative his posts are, don't waste all of our time with petty insults.
BoomWolf wrote:Eldar has firepower, yes-but they lack numbers.
They just can't afford direct combat with pretty much anyone else, not to mention a grind war, that's practically auto-lose for them even against someone tiny as tau.
Superior soldiers and weaponry is the ONLY thing is favor of eldar.
Back to space marines needing to be in hundreds of millions to function-you come back to the silly assumption that marines do the main fighting.
That they do the SECONDARY fighting even.
They do not "fight" the enemy. they make surgical strikes. they don't take a front, they take care of a single operation in the larger war.
They dont get "bogged down in continents" because they at no point bother with taking over landmass-they take that one important building. they don't destroy enemy regiments in droves, they take out a single command center.
As others said, and you ignore-you don't need many marines because you got so many other guys around to do the main fighting job.
You got the cadians, catachans, iron guard, steel legion, death korps, elysian, the scions, the sisters, skitari, legio cybernetica, PDFs, titan legions, knight houses, ect,
They have so many seperate fighting forces that none of them has any need to ever be self-sufficient, none of them need to be able to wage a full planetary war in itself, and yet multiple of them CAN, multiple of them are big enough to fight across entire sectors on their own.
And none of them is EVER alone.
jhe90 wrote:A space marine is a special forces unit with a very tight target and mission, there a scalpal you use to cut a vital point.
A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war.
If you want Marines solo campaigns on grand scale, try 30k.
I'm not disputing that Marines are used primarily as elite shock troops. But, because the Imperium is so fething huge (1 million worlds, with a population of 50 quadrillion, spanning 67% of the Milky Way), even the best of the best of the best are going to be high in number. My numbers assumed Astartes were a thousand times rarer than Storm Troopers. That's pretty damn rare. Even if it was a hundred thousand, the number of Astartes would be well into the billions. I'm not saying they should be a main fighting force, but they still need to be more numerous even to fulfill their ostensive role.
In the third ed Eldar codex the iyanden craft world was decimated after losing a few thousand Eldar to the hive fleet. .. this gives the allusion that there but 10-20 thousand Eldar per craft world. ... I will say I do not think the game is representative of the fluff and the fact remains that because a model is wounded dies not mean it is dead just that they were put out of the fight.
So it would be reasonable to think that when gw places number of humans at trillions per hive it would be an exaggeration. Further more the only time that marines take part of major offensives they number as a chapter which legals means that in normal conflicts the armies we use are probably too large compared to whay marines are bringing
Also often times in the fluff s marine strike force will be no more than a couple squads. .. I do not think they are an effective fighting force but I also think there main reason is to fight chaos which should have roughly the same numbers
Thyhadras wrote: In the third ed Eldar codex the iyanden craft world was decimated after losing a few thousand Eldar to the hive fleet. .. this gives the allusion that there but 10-20 thousand Eldar per craft world. ... I will say I do not think the game is representative of the fluff and the fact remains that because a model is wounded dies not mean it is dead just that they were put out of the fight.
If I recall correctly that was changed to billions in the Iyanden supplement.
BoomWolf wrote: Eldar has firepower, yes-but they lack numbers.
They just can't afford direct combat with pretty much anyone else, not to mention a grind war, that's practically auto-lose for them even against someone tiny as tau.
Superior soldiers and weaponry is the ONLY thing is favor of eldar.
Back to space marines needing to be in hundreds of millions to function-you come back to the silly assumption that marines do the main fighting.
That they do the SECONDARY fighting even.
They do not "fight" the enemy. they make surgical strikes. they don't take a front, they take care of a single operation in the larger war.
They dont get "bogged down in continents" because they at no point bother with taking over landmass-they take that one important building. they don't destroy enemy regiments in droves, they take out a single command center.
As others said, and you ignore-you don't need many marines because you got so many other guys around to do the main fighting job.
You got the cadians, catachans, iron guard, steel legion, death korps, elysian, the scions, the sisters, skitari, legio cybernetica, PDFs, titan legions, knight houses, ect,
They have so many seperate fighting forces that none of them has any need to ever be self-sufficient, none of them need to be able to wage a full planetary war in itself, and yet multiple of them CAN, multiple of them are big enough to fight across entire sectors on their own.
And none of them is EVER alone.
Actually Eldar are perfectly fine when it comes to numbers. There's trillions of Dark Eldar going by the size of the Dark City and the fact that it's occupied, and each Craftworld contains populations in the billions.
The thing about the 40k universe though is that the fiction displayed on the tabletop is likely only a very tiny slice of the fiction in the universe. It's a skirmish game in a galaxy of colossal battles.
Space Marine forces are relatively small, because they likely get relatively little use compared to other forces. The majority of battles will be fought and won by the Imperial Guard, The Imperial Navy and the Titan Legions. The Space Marines will be in constant action, but only because in a universe of quadrillions, even their rare need will be constant, but the VAST majority of wars and battles will be fought and won in space or via orbital bombardment and the deployment of millions of guardsmen.
Comparing Space Marines to actual Marines used in WW2 is incorrect. WW2 was a largely symmetrical conflict of conquest and occupation. Space Marines are an asymmetrical force of annihilation. They're not like a WW2 platoon (who are more analogous to the Imperial Guard), they're like the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. They don't fight wars, they end them. Often in a matter of days, if not hours, then move on.
They have few problems with civillian casualties or diplomacy, and have no real rules of engagement to observe or worries about hearts and minds, leaving other forces to do the inital softening up and the occupation and rebuilding. A million marines is fine. You can't compare a grunt to a nuke.
You also forget their dwindling numbers is part of the grimdark nature too. They're difficult to produce and maintain, both in terms of geneseed and equipment. If there were billions, the galaxy would be locked down. The fact they are rare is one of the reasons the galaxy is so dangerous for mankind. Change that, and Imperium's outlook is far more optimistic.
Also, the argument that there should be more due to the size of the Imperium also makes a fundamental mistake - the Space Marines are not the police. The size of the Imperium is irrelevent, as they're very rarely fighting their own people.
" If there were billions, the galaxy would be locked down"
Hardly. Galaxies are very, very VERY big.
Marines aren't that great anyway. There's a LOT of AP 3 or better weapons out there; they'd die by the droves every time they are deployed. You'd need millions and millions to have any hope of accomplishing anything.
Martel732 wrote: " If there were billions, the galaxy would be locked down"
Hardly. Galaxies are very, very VERY big.
The number billion is also very big.
The Imperium supposedly has a million worlds. With a million space marines, that's 1 per planet. A billion is a thousand million, so a billion Marines is an entire Chapter per planet. Billions (plural) is a minimum of TWO chapters per planet. If the Imperium is the dominant force in the Galaxy currently, regardless of size, then multiplying their elite force by a factor of a minimum of 2000 would be utterly devastating to their enemies.
And while a Galaxy is large, most of it is empty space, and with warp travel, that's irrelevent. All that matters is the number of hostile worlds, which is much, much smaller. Even the sizes of the worlds don't matter as Space Marines are a surgical force.
If a decent sized deployment of Marines currently is a company, and that's enough to get the job done, then two billion Marines means 200 million companies available for battle at any one time. Even if the Imperium was fighting 200 million battles at once (which they aren't), there would be enough Marines to go around.
If that's not your definition of lockdown, I don't know what is.
Martel732 wrote: Marines aren't that great anyway. There's a LOT of AP 3 or better weapons out there; they'd die by the droves every time they are deployed. You'd need millions and millions to have any hope of accomplishing anything.
Crunch and fluff are not even close to being the same. This is the background forum. The values of dice rolls here are meaningless. Nobody rolls a dice in the novels, and Space Marines have been consistently portrayed as stronger in the fluff than on the table, as player balance doesn't need to be an issue in the story.
Martel732 wrote: "A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "
War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.
Maybe not an entire war, but there are plenty of examples over history of one squad/unit changing the outcome of a battle. The German fallschirmjagers at Eben Emael as already pointed out or Viktor Leonov's many actions in WW2 are all great examples. Eben Emael was considered the strongest point for Belgian defenses and its loss was unrecoverable for the Belgians. So, one small unit taking out the fortress did change the course of the war. It ended it for the Belgians and quickened it for the Germans, allowing them to move on.
The board game is not meant to be the same as the fluff. No SM chapter would be able to stay standing for very long if they lost squads' worth of men every engagement. For example: in terms of attrition, the 8th Air Force in WW2 figured it could withstand 1-2% casualties per mission in order to keep flying (I don't have the source on me, that was a figure I remember from my WW2 airpower course). That meant in those raids where the sent ~200 bombers up, they could lose 2-4 bombers of 10 men apiece with multiple raids launched daily. Any more than that, and they wouldn't be able to replace their losses with fresh trainees fast enough. A SM chapter has far fewer men than the 8th had bombers. Since it takes much longer to recruit and build an SM than it does to train bomber aircrew, I would think that they try to avoid situation where they would take heinous casualties. Outside of the mega fluff battles like Armageddon and the Tyranids going after Ultramar or Baal, SM would avoid large-scale engagements in order to preserve numbers.
Martel732 wrote: "A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "
War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.
Our wars dont, because we usually have more humanitarian concerns than Space Marines do, and don't go around assassinating civillian leaderships, or wiping out capitals like they do. If we did, our wars would be a lot shorter.
However, there's plenty of examples throughout history where things like that have happened, and they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. Just look at Hiroshima for example. Or medieval battles where the death of the King meant an end to the entire war.
Even if that wasn't true (which it is) we're not talking about reality anyway, so it's an asinine point. We're on a fluff forum, not a war forum. If it works in the fluff (as you agree) then it's a correct response for this discussion. Real wars don't have Daemons or Necrons either. Shocking, I know.
" there's nothing you can do about this, and it's canon."
I can reject GW's fiction. Which I do. They have no sense of scale and it shows in the garbage they write.
" if they say SM are awesome, that's what they are"
No, because that's not how they are mathematically modeled. If the game in no way reflects the fluff, which it never has, then the fluff is useless because the math affects me way more from a purchasing standpoint, etc.
" I don't think one can link SM performance on the tabletop and what they can do in the fluff. "
But you see, the fluff doesn't save me from my buddy's Eldar. So as far as I'm concerned, all the badass stories should be about scatterbike pilots. Because marines are lambs to the slaughter for those guys. I don't care about the fluff because that's not what they've modeled. They've modeled the marines as a turkey shoot for Eldar.
You reject GW fiction and you're still on the background forum? Do you feel better than everyone saying "lol I know my stuff about war, all of you people believethis stupid sh*t"? Everybody in here knows GW is not Forgeworld and does not have the military expertise to stick closely to something realistic. But you know what, they don't have to because they just have to write "this has happened like this" and no one will complain because you know... fantasy? Who cares about your "mathematicalmodels", seriously?
Hierophant and pretty much every Dakkanaut in this thread have destroyed your arguments and you're still whining about Eldar on the tabletop? Mate, if you're not happy with your SM army, learn to play or change faction, but stop BSing us on the background section.
Plus Marine can be credible, whether you like it or not, cause when they work in synergy with other imperial forces, they can bring utter destruction when it is critically needed. That's the way it is and your stupid attitude won't change that.
Even fantasy needs to have some basis in something that's believable.
" thread have destroyed your arguments"
No, not really.
" learn to play'
You just lost all credibility.
" The values of dice rolls here are meaningless"
Except they are not, because that's what most people spend their time doing.
Note that this thread originally not in background. It's a thread about scale, which is both mathematical and fluff-related. I never post in the background section because I hate GW's background. Retro-future grimdark is an extremely poor trope in my view.
That's not the best example of a ''they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. ''. The war was won before that, and it's a known fact written in history books all over the world. The display of power the Ally shown that day was purely politic, not much to do with the actual war. (Of course, politics and war are close relative, but I though we werre talking purely about war here)
I don't remember ever a case were a single target was decisive to win a war, but it's also not true that a single target can't change the 'Outcome' of a war. A single target can definitly tip the balance of power one side of the other, but you will always need more to win.
Ironic that someone brought up Hiroshima, because that is what Xenos would do to the handful marines that exist in 40K's fluff. I guess the bottom line is that I've lost most of my suspension of disbelief, and this setting really exacerbates it.
The pacific front of the war wasn't over before the bombs were dropped, Japan were still, no matter how much of a desperate situation they were in were being resistant to the allied forces. It could have, and quite scarily required land invasion on Japanese soil (73% forest and mountain terrain), and not to mention the Burma campaign.... Could have took years to accomplish potentially.
In that respect though, Vietnam probably wouldn't have happened though as the US would have realised then how much of a bad idea it is to try and fight wars in such terrain against enemies who are master of that terrain.
Vietnam had nothing to do with money (Vietnam doesn't and didn't have anything of value to us) and everything to do with our policies concerning the containment of the spread of Communism.
However, in 40k, we are told (and provided examples of) single events absolutely being the deciding factors in the prosecution of a war. The death of Horus was the end of the Siege of Terra and the end of the Horus Heresy, everything after that in the era was simply clean-up, to use one example. Ever since that time, it's been either separate Black Crusades (new wars behind an old ideology) or containment practices around the Eye of Terror.
Even fantasy needs to have some basis in something that's believable.
" thread have destroyed your arguments"
No, not really.
" learn to play'
You just lost all credibility.
" The values of dice rolls here are meaningless"
Except they are not, because that's what most people spend their time doing.
Note that this thread originally not in background. It's a thread about scale, which is both mathematical and fluff-related. I never post in the background section because I hate GW's background. Retro-future grimdark is an extremely poor trope in my view.
I'm gonna take a page outta your book to see if I can somehow understand why you're trying to maintain your untenable position...
"Even fantasy needs to have some basis in something that's believable. "
The Imperium of Man is based upon a hegemonic government lead by overzealous religious leaders with a poorly maintained dominance over the region they dwell in (late-era Imperial Rome, anyone?). Oh, yes, and it has a God-Emperor *cough* Egypt *cough* who is worshiped by virtually everyone in his Empire, though he has little direct influence over events *cough* Imperial Japan *cough*. Oh yes, and they have some really badass soldiers, who have most of their aspirants die during training *cough* French Foreign Legion *cough*. Did I forget to mention the fact that they like to drown their foes in bodies? *cough* Stalin-era Russian Army *cough*.
"You just lost all credibility"
No, he just made a foolish assumption that is surrounded by logical statements.
"Except their not, because that's what most people send most of their time doing."
That is completely fallacious. Most of the people on this forum love 40k specifically because of its poorly-written fluff, which GW happens to have struck poorly-mined gold with. If not for this glorious setting, the crappily written rules of Warhammer 40k never would have seen even a hint of the success it currently has. I, for one, don't even play the TT game anymore, and I stick to the many video games, novels, and arguing with people whose names I don't even know.
Psienesis wrote: Vietnam had nothing to do with money (Vietnam doesn't and didn't have anything of value to us) and everything to do with our policies concerning the containment of the spread of Communism.
However, in 40k, we are told (and provided examples of) single events absolutely being the deciding factors in the prosecution of a war. The death of Horus was the end of the Siege of Terra and the end of the Horus Heresy, everything after that in the era was simply clean-up, to use one example. Ever since that time, it's been either separate Black Crusades (new wars behind an old ideology) or containment practices around the Eye of Terror.
Vietnam had everything to do with money. Specifically, huge government contracts for huge corps like Boeing.
" why you're trying to maintain your untenable position... "
It's not untenable, just unpopular. I've had some people agree with me. Just not the majority. Good enough for me.
Martel732 wrote: "A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "
War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.
Our wars dont, because we usually have more humanitarian concerns than Space Marines do, and don't go around assassinating civillian leaderships, or wiping out capitals like they do. If we did, our wars would be a lot shorter.
However, there's plenty of examples throughout history where things like that have happened, and they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. Just look at Hiroshima for example. Or medieval battles where the death of the King meant an end to the entire war.
Even if that wasn't true (which it is) we're not talking about reality anyway, so it's an asinine point. We're on a fluff forum, not a war forum. If it works in the fluff (as you agree) then it's a correct response for this discussion. Real wars don't have Daemons or Necrons either. Shocking, I know.
Actually the main difference between 40k and real world examples is the fact in the 40k universe we are willing to exterminate entire planets. And even then for no reason other than to contain the enemy.
IRL even when you see cities sacked, it's mostly due to troops wanting their due spoils of war. Even with entire cities being wiped out it ended up being more practical to sell a notable portion as slaves or intergrate them into the conquerors society. Never mind the defender wiping out their own troops/citizens as you see in 40k, which you never really see IRL.
All in all it's not only humanitarian concerns, it's also economic and large scale cultural concerns. The impression I get from the Imperium is the fact it is willing to sacrifice billions to protect it's ideology over absolutely anything else, whatever what, which then again suggests the Imperial Cult is just as dangerous as the ruinous powers in making the Imperium of Man collapse imo.
My mate has a whole theory how the Imperial Cult was actually created by chaos to undermine the Emperor.
Hierophant wrote: The thing about the 40k universe though is that the fiction displayed on the tabletop is likely only a very tiny slice of the fiction in the universe. It's a skirmish game in a galaxy of colossal battles.
Space Marine forces are relatively small, because they likely get relatively little use compared to other forces. The majority of battles will be fought and won by the Imperial Guard, The Imperial Navy and the Titan Legions. The Space Marines will be in constant action, but only because in a universe of quadrillions, even their rare need will be constant, but the VAST majority of wars and battles will be fought and won in space or via orbital bombardment and the deployment of millions of guardsmen.
The Imperium almost never deploys millions of Guardsmen. They rarely send more than 5 regiments, which would amount to 50.000 men at most. Not enough to capture a small country, and most certainly not enough to capture an entire planet. Only the largest engagements such as Armageddon see the deployment of millions of Guardsmen, and even then the Imperial forces are laughably insignificant compared to RL military forces.
Hierophant wrote: Comparing Space Marines to actual Marines used in WW2 is incorrect. WW2 was a largely symmetrical conflict of conquest and occupation. Space Marines are an asymmetrical force of annihilation. They're not like a WW2 platoon (who are more analogous to the Imperial Guard), they're like the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. They don't fight wars, they end them. Often in a matter of days, if not hours, then move on.
Than why does almost every single piece of 40k fluff describe them in such a way? SM, unless they are Raven Guard or Alpha Legion, almost always fight in a very symmetrical way, fighting wars of attrition, conquering territory, holding defensive lines, laying sieges that last for years. SM do all of these things, even without IG support.
Also, there recently was an interesting discussion about this on OT, but the bomb on Hiroshima did not end the war. While it, along with many other factors played a role, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria along with increasing internal unrest were actually the decisive blows for the Japanese leadership. Wars never end with just a single stroke.
Hierophant wrote: They have few problems with civillian casualties or diplomacy, and have no real rules of engagement to observe or worries about hearts and minds, leaving other forces to do the inital softening up and the occupation and rebuilding. A million marines is fine. You can't compare a grunt to a nuke.
No force in a total war cares about civillian casualties (look at Dresden). SM often operate independently without support, so they can't always rely on the IG to do those things. SM are not like nukes (the Imperium has actual nukes for that), they are just like the IG, only with 10 times more awesome and grimdark. Oh yes, and they can operate indepently, which given the Imperial bureacracy actually is their biggest advantage.
Hierophant wrote: You also forget their dwindling numbers is part of the grimdark nature too. They're difficult to produce and maintain, both in terms of geneseed and equipment. If there were billions, the galaxy would be locked down. The fact they are rare is one of the reasons the galaxy is so dangerous for mankind. Change that, and Imperium's outlook is far more optimistic.
Also, the argument that there should be more due to the size of the Imperium also makes a fundamental mistake - the Space Marines are not the police. The size of the Imperium is irrelevent, as they're very rarely fighting their own people.
The millions of heretical cults in the Imperium beg to differ. About half of the fluff about SM has them fighting renegade Imperial forces, so yes, they do often fight their own people. The galaxy is a huge place. A billion Space Marines would still be extremely rare as to be almost non-existent. Modern earth alone has 7 billion people on it.
Also, regarding the size of the Imperium 'a million worlds' should be taken with a grain of salt. The Imperium is constantly gaining and losing worlds, and it is clear that the Administratum has no idea how many worlds exactly there are in the Imperium. It is likely intended as a poetic figure of speech to indicate the Emperor ''is the master of a huge lots of worlds but no one has ever really bothered to count all of them which also would be an almost impossible task due to the sheer distances, horrible communication, dangers and unreliability of travel in the Imperium''.
Martel732 wrote: "A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "
War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.
Our wars dont, because we usually have more humanitarian concerns than Space Marines do, and don't go around assassinating civillian leaderships, or wiping out capitals like they do. If we did, our wars would be a lot shorter.
However, there's plenty of examples throughout history where things like that have happened, and they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. Just look at Hiroshima for example. Or medieval battles where the death of the King meant an end to the entire war.
Even if that wasn't true (which it is) we're not talking about reality anyway, so it's an asinine point. We're on a fluff forum, not a war forum. If it works in the fluff (as you agree) then it's a correct response for this discussion. Real wars don't have Daemons or Necrons either. Shocking, I know.
Wars have never ended with a single stroke. Well, some medieval ones did, but that was tied in to the feudal system. Back then, there were no set countries or states, only the personal domains of feudal lords. If the king was dead and had no heir, that was an end to his claim and thus to the casus belli for the war.
The Imperium, while being feudal in many aspects, does not work in such a way.
Actually the main difference between 40k and real world examples is the fact in the 40k universe we are willing to exterminate entire planets. And even then for no reason other than to contain the enemy.
IRL even when you see cities sacked, it's mostly due to troops wanting their due spoils of war. Even with entire cities being wiped out it ended up being more practical to sell a notable portion as slaves or intergrate them into the conquerors society. Never mind the defender wiping out their own troops/citizens as you see in 40k, which you never really see IRL.
We can't exterminate planets, as we only got one, but we are perfectly fine with next best thing, which is exterminating entire cities or even nations for relatively trivial reasons (look at WW2) There are no humanitarian concerns in total war, and the own population and infrastructure is fair game in a scorched earth strategy or when armies have to live of the land.
Back then, there were no set countries or states, only the personal domains of feudal lords. If the king was dead and had no heir, that was an end to his claim and thus to the casus belli for the war.
Um... no? That's... not how feudalism worked. At all. Nations and countries most certainly existed. Almost every part of Europe bears the national names they have had since the fall of Rome, and in many cases even before then.
I think what you're trying to say is that, if the king died in battle, his kingdom would be conquered or annexed or in some other way taken over by the king of the victorious country... which is true (to some extent), which is why most of the various nobles of Europe (including those still living, even if they no longer wield political power) are all related to one another. In modern times, when the invaders kill the head of state, they replace them with a puppet government or completely annex the defeated nation, thus ending its existence as a state.
It gets even crazier when you realize that many of the major nations of Europe have had sitting monarchs of entirely different nationalities at several points in their history.
Of course, "suing for peace" was an option available even then, not to mention the influence and involvement of the Church to ensure that things did not get too out of hand. Don't underestimate the power of the real-world Ecclesiarchy.
Everyone seems to be arguing in circles, so I'll just summarize my views on the subject here.
There don't need to be many Marines because they are 1337 special forces
The Imperium is big. Insanely big. Even a hundred billion Astartes are a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population. Furthermore, these worlds are spread very thinly across the Galaxy.
It's just fantasy
That's not an excuse to throw basic common sense out the window. Fantasy titles still have rules of their own, and are assumed to only deviate from reality where explicitly stated. An Imperial citizen spontaneously combusting every time he saw a vase for no explained reason, for instance, wouldn't be appreciable story telling, even if explained away as "It's fantasy, deal with it, nerd."
Can we, at the very least, agree that a million Marines is too small a number, no matter how good each Astartes may be, for the simple reason that most Astartes can't be in two places at once?
That's not an excuse to throw basic common sense out the window. Fantasy titles still have rules of their own, and are assumed to only deviate from reality where explicitly stated. An Imperial citizen spontaneously combusting every time he saw a vase for no explained reason, for instance, wouldn't be appreciable story telling, even if explained away as "It's fantasy, deal with it, nerd."
Which can happen in this setting, because Chaos can work like that.
Can we, at the very least, agree that a million Marines is too small a number, no matter how good each Astartes may be, for the simple reason that most Astartes can't be in two places at once?
Whether it is or isn't too few, it's the number we're given. A thousand Chapters of a thousand Marines, one Marine for every planet in the Imperium.
Feel free to make up whatever number you want, the setting allows you to be that open with it, but if you're going to seriously discuss the background and fluff of the setting, you have to separate "what I think" from "what GW/BL said".
Vietnam had everything to do with money. Specifically, huge government contracts for huge corps like Boeing.
Vietnam had to do with the spread of Communism. When the French were in there in the 50s, they wanted to leave because it was terrible place to fight a war. We pressured them to stay and footed the bill. America poured millions of dollars in the last few years of French occupation to keep them fighting there and the French still left. We then went in to stop the spread of Communism, aka the "domino theory". It's up for debate whether our intervention actually caused the spread into Laos and Cambodia, but I digress. Vietnam wasn't about "the military-industrial mega complex" that so many people harp on about in the wars today. We went in there to stop the Communists, who we saw as the greatest threat to our way of life. We wanted a democratically-friendly (or at least American friendly) country as a buffer strategically located on the border with China.
I respectfully disagree. I don't think the powers that be cared if a bunch of rice farmers were communists or not. I was about the military industrial complex. They were already in charge.
" but if you're going to seriously discuss the background and fluff of the setting,"
asorel wrote: Everyone seems to be arguing in circles, so I'll just summarize my views on the subject here.
There don't need to be many Marines because they are 1337 special forces
The Imperium is big. Insanely big. Even a hundred billion Astartes are a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population. Furthermore, these worlds are spread very thinly across the Galaxy.
It's just fantasy
That's not an excuse to throw basic common sense out the window. Fantasy titles still have rules of their own, and are assumed to only deviate from reality where explicitly stated. An Imperial citizen spontaneously combusting every time he saw a vase for no explained reason, for instance, wouldn't be appreciable story telling, even if explained away as "It's fantasy, deal with it, nerd."
Can we, at the very least, agree that a million Marines is too small a number, no matter how good each Astartes may be, for the simple reason that most Astartes can't be in two places at once?
Martel732 wrote: "Vietnam had to do with the spread of Communism."
I respectfully disagree. I don't think the powers that be cared if a bunch of rice farmers were communists or not. I was about the military industrial complex. They were already in charge.
If you have sources, please cite them, I would like to check them out. I think calling Vietnam "a bunch of rice farmers" is ignorant, considering their geographic position in the South China Sea and their resources.
From America's Longest War, 5th ed. by George Herring: "By early 1950, American policymakers had come to view Vietnam as the key to keeping Southeast Asia out of Communist hands, an importance it would retain for nearly a quarter of a century....Indochina was in 'the most immediate danger', the State Department warned and was therefore 'the most strategically important area of Southeast Asia'...Indochina was considered intrinsically important for its raw materials, rice, and naval bases, but it was deemed far more significant for the presumed effect its loss would have on other areas." (quote taken from a memo from the Secretary of State at the time, Dean Rusk, to the Pentagon) p.22
The fear of the spread of Communism was real to the US and its government. The Soviets overrunning of Eastern Europe and creation of the Eastern Bloc post-WW2 and the Korean War cemented this view in the eye of American politicians that the Communists wanted to overrun the world.
Iron_Captain wrote: We can't exterminate planets, as we only got one, but we are perfectly fine with next best thing, which is exterminating entire cities or even nations for relatively trivial reasons (look at WW2) There are no humanitarian concerns in total war, and the own population and infrastructure is fair game in a scorched earth strategy or when armies have to live of the land.
We don't even exterminate entire cities or nations (Ancient examples of destroying cities that is, modern examples A) Still don't wipe them out and B) are in the context of a war containing millions and we now lack city states).
Even using WW2 as an extreme example, the closest you got was the holocaust, mostly due to the fact they where a minority (basically how mutants were treated), useful minorities such as scientists etc where kept. Even concerning the USSR they never planned on wiping the entire country or culture. Mostly because they needed the manpower and living space. The main point in all current and previous warfare was generally to increase manpower. When they do need to stop attackers, it is slightly different, but once they gain the upper hand, gaining resources, land and manpower eventually becomes the goal.
In the 40k universe the imperium arguably needs neither requires more manpower or resources.
Reducing the outbreak of the Vietnam War to a matter of money is either a sign of utter ignorance or deliberate partisanism. The famous "iron triangle" seeing foreign policy and military acquisition to a mere bargain between isolated state elites was quite popular in the sixties, especially in antimilitaristic groups but in the end, social science in general dissmissed it as a monocausal explication for such outcomes. Demonstrating how military industry can seldom capture democratic decision has been a major contribution to political science but if you use this only tool to make up your mind about Vietnam, your analysis will be very poor.
Anyway, the way you're claiming your outdated positions, like you got the ultimate truth and everybody else is dumb, really irritate me. At least, your historical interpretations and your tone quickly show there is zero interest in arguing with yo, especially if your arr as expert in 40k background as in history.
Well, after this absolutely out of topic post, I will stop posimg there, since everybody is arguing im circle, just like a fellow just said earlier.
Feel free to make up whatever number you want, the setting allows you to be that open with it, but if you're going to seriously discuss the background and fluff of the setting, you have to separate "what I think" from "what GW/BL said".
So Proper Scale was the subject... or is?
In WH 40.000 , we have some nice and useful Maps of the Galaxy and pretty useless ones of Planets.
In WH 40.000 , we have some half decent and entertaining stories with acceptable scale and some pretty whacky ones.
In WH 40.000, the "standard size" of the TT game is a dozen to one hundred models per side, so maybe a fight over a bridge / small settlement / etc . Not very impressive if you aim for decisive battles of a war ( in your narrative, you are supposed to forge )
In WH 40.000, the "army" we put on the TT would rather look like a company of the IG or a special ops team, but GW deemed it more epic to add almost everything you can find on the battlefield to the "catalogue" you pick your army from..
In Wh 40.000, the background to support the game and to build the theme of your army on , has no "canon" and thus sources who are incompatible or just of so different times and teams, its hard to reach a consesus of the "proper" scale.
If you treat all of the numbers from GW as gospel, you are stuck in the corner where GW has already painted themselves.
WH40k works fine if you consider the TT as a snapshot of what is going on. A small window into a greater conflict maybe, so unique characters are justified to be there.
The Background however, cannot "end" at the borders of this small window.
GW once said : IoM = 1 Mio worlds. These got a Type attached and listed to them, i know we had this in the 3rd ed Rulebook. Basically the size of one faction should be known.
So if we had a planetary population of 3-4 Million shown there, and we know who would be part of the pool of possible recruts, the possible output of PDF and IG is just maths.
But then, people can't agree if this is a Planet at a war footing and would gather troops like we do in real life, or if this is purely GW sci-fantasy and moar grimdarker and moar epic and has to have bazillions of this and that.
We are stuck between personal takes on 40k = scifi = 19th/20th century sizes and 40k = fantasy = RPG / ancient / medieval sizes.
Its GW. so most likely both at the same time....
Consider one of the many sources of GW ( disclaimer: yes, all their ideas are new and never used before and obviously nothing inspired them ) , the Roman Empire.
It controlled a good portion of land an sea. It had Legions of ~ 5000 Legionairies and ~ 20 of them sometimes.
Now go and tell those people on the internets to conquer the same area with the same amount of troops. Not enough of them to achieve that goal nowadays?
Maybe GW started with the idea of Legions and 5-10.000 combatants and realized years later the environment of the era where some thousand were enough isn't what their own background goes for.
A SM Legion was 10k once. Now we are at 250k. Actually.
Why?
Because without control, without some overall idea of the surroundings, GW moved on from "some minis and their story" to epic epicness of epichood where everything is bigger.
Take Armageddon for example. The set up of the opposing forces is ok. Almost equal if you consider size and quality as factors. But it seemed to small, because just 7 main settlements are the whole planet and the forces of 3 mio per side didn't feel like Armageddon had more people than modern earth.
You could just enlarge the forces. Or decrease the numbers GW listed as population.
But the first thing we need IMHO, is to sort out the mix of "modern" and " back in the day of the stone axe" .
The settlements and civilian population cannot be at 1 Hive and billions of Humans as is, because thats silly. The surface of a planet is going to make even the largest hive like a extremly small dot. The only way to get things sorted is to change the Maps.
Using Earth here to get the scale iamginable: They want one Hive City at the north american continent? Ok, let it dwarf the rocky mountains. If this is a small Hive...
A Planet of 10 billion Humans? PDF is 10% of the populace? ...so china would provide 100 million Troopers... I don't think they do?
A Fortress world contributing 50 mio to the IG per anno. IG is 10% of the PDF usually but maybe thats different here.? If it was the 10%, the planet would have 500 mio PDF. At 1% mobilization this is 50000000000 Humans. Maybe rather 10% mobilization cause its a fortress world already. Still a lot of Humans. How do you assault such a fortress if the background limits you to a few thousand?
Thats why I think we can't have barely imaginable numbers of Humans and small easy to swallow numbers of members of a force of the IoM without changing the sizes if we want a scale we can believe in.
I admit my point is we should shrink something to get things back into imaginable country.
Our Earth is, in sci fi terms, a Home-world of a species.
Would it be wrong of Terra as the center of the IoM still got the endless hordes there ,but we also decrease Hive World n° 7538 to something that isn't 100 billions ?
Armageddon and its ash wastes could have 300 million people, 3 million fighting over it and the 1% of combatants would fit nicely into 10 people backing up 1 to fight scheme.
Or maybe if thats "too smal" for your taste, just stay with 3 billion Humans and move the forces up to 30 million. But you have to do something about the less numerous forces then. Re-scale by cutting the overall numbers 10:1 and adding to specific sizes by 1x10 ?
Additionally, the base for the comparisons made is important.
"Britannia rules the waves". Heard of it? Did they fill the 7 oceans with hundreds of thousands of ships?
Ships of the Line were expensive.
In wh40k, Knight houses got knight worlds, forge worlds got a Titan legion etc. Both expensive and take some time to build.
If a conflict is settled with dozens of capital vessels, another conflict in another universe with dozens of god-machines is believable too.
Flanker wrote: Space marines are far more elite than US Marines, though. If Army=IG, then I'd say Marine Corps=Stormtroopers. I would think the numbers of Space Marines relative to the rest of the Imperial forces would be closer to SEALs, Green berets, or more likely Delta Force. I don't have numbers of SOF for you, since it's likely classified.
Yes, the Imperium is in a constant state of war, but I don't think the US in WW2 is a measuring stick in terms of manpower. The USSR may be closer since it was closer to "total war" where everything was geared towards fighting the Germans, but they relied on US industry and aid for support. 90% of the German casualties were on the eastern front. The size/scale of armies and casualties from the US standpoint is much smaller than what the USSR had. So, while some worlds may be like the Soviets and dedicate most of what they have towards the war, other worlds must be like the US, and send industrial and agricultural aid to the other worlds/IG regiments. Fighting a war of extinction requires lots of manpower. The Nazis spent much of their resources maintaining concentration/death camps and the Gestapo/death squads in occupied areas. Resources that could've been spent on the front.
As Swastakowey pointed to, it's extremely difficult to try to find numbers that would make it feasible. I'd argue the USSR wasn't in a "total war" state like the Imperium supposedly is, and even that wasn't feasible in the long-term. They lacked the industry, workers, and farmland to feed and equip their army while fighting the Germans, relying on the allies for aid. I'm sure some of these planets use servitors and automatons for these functions which frees up manpower, but I still don't think it's feasible.
I think he was using generalizations because he was comparing real life to a fictional universe. That aside I think that his numbers are closer to the truth. And as far as Space Marines being US Marines. IM ok with that Comparison We are more badarse then the navy/army/Airforce after all
Ghaz I never knew you were a Marine, always liked something about you. Explans it.
Does anyone else remember way back when - I don't remember precisely - GW stated that the models were representative of much larger numbers? It was something like a guardsman actually represented 100, a gaunt was something like that as well, an Ork was 50ish, etc. but 1 space marine equaled 1 space marine. That always seemed like an acceptable solution, albeit an imperfect one.
Thoughts on this? Any values you would like to add?
You've given this some thought, as I have with other issues in other sci-fi universes. I've found similar inconsistencies and rather than try to fix or justify them, I just say "hey, it's a work of fiction -it's going to be inconsistent!, and that's ok."
Other issues that spring to mind:
A star destroyers shield generators can repell turblaser grade firepower, yet the generators themselves, oddly, don't benefit from this shield an can be blown up by laser fire from a one man fighter...
Have enough firepower on a space marine battle barge to annihilate 90% of enemies on a planet, instead choose to go down and swing swords in their faces...
Where are a thunderwolves balls? They're certainly nowhere visible on the model. I guess GW decided that illustrating that animals do indeed have privates is inappropriate to their younger audiences...but grinding a chainsword through someone's skull isn't
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Grumblewartz wrote: Does anyone else remember way back when - I don't remember precisely - GW stated that the models were representative of much larger numbers? It was something like a guardsman actually represented 100, a gaunt was something like that as well, an Ork was 50ish, etc. but 1 space marine equaled 1 space marine. That always seemed like an acceptable solution, albeit an imperfect one.
I remember reading that in a WFB ruleset. Whicherver edition came with the Brettonian + Lizardmen set. "1 elf can represent 10 or 100 or whatever you please" or something worded to that effect.
Have enough firepower on a space marine battle barge to annihilate 90% of enemies on a planet, instead choose to go down and swing swords in their faces...
Just because they have the firepower doesn't mean they should use it. If you want to seize a city or assets or pacify an area, you'll need to send in troops to seize it instead of blowing it and its population to bits.
Just because they have the firepower doesn't mean they should use it. If you want to seize a city or assets or pacify an area, you'll need to send in troops to seize it instead of blowing it and its population to bits.
That may be the case much of the time, but there have been plenty of silly instances where collateral damage isn't an issue and a space marine captain sends his company toe to toe with an enemy, receiving considerable casualties, when he could have been winked out with a nicely placed macro-cannon bombardment. A more entertaining read to be sure, but doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
We are more badarse then the navy/army/Airforce after all 
You think it's bad now with how far away it can shoot? In real life it would be able to shoot from 220/354 miles/kilometers away and that's a first generation human railgun being built and going to be installed on ships in the near future. With enough force to pierce through and explode a Cruisers hull armor like it's made of tissue paper. Naturally once inside the hull a proximity detonator will explode because why not. With the accuracy to aim and hit a human on a small propeller boat. They expect to be able to hit humans heads in a few more generations of the targeting software (this is with capital ship sized weaponry on modern day vessels). Imagine what a space ship with quantum computers could do.
