Alright, so whenever I read the Imperial lore, I come across bits about entire Chapters or a freaking company pacifying entire planets. To me, that's just ludacris. The amount of resources needed to pacify an entire planet is unfathomable. Consider our own world, the various countries, armies, and cities. all that non-sense. No way Space Marines could pacify an entire planet... Perhaps through fear but even then, there's too much ground to cover.
So with my little rant over and done with, I'm wondering how the various races would go about invading an entire planet. Lets set aside the lore and try to touch down on the details.
We all know how Orks do it, it's fairly simple: just keep throwin' boyz at da wall n'til dat wall rollz ova.
Arch Warhammer had some good video's on the Imperial Guard and Tyranid invasions but I'm curious as to how others might perform it.
How would Dark Eldar achieve an entire planetary raid? Would there be months, if not years of prep work of subterfuge, soft raids, and espinoage before even attempting it? Raiding an entire planet, again, seems barely fathomable. Do they target certain, vaguely populated worlds, and even then, which worlds are considered and how do transport that man power needed to preform such a task? I don't doubt they have enough Half-Born's to fudge up a planet yet transporting them all without notice... Ehh, that's a tad too conspicuous.
Any information on Necron Tomb Worlds awakening process is greatly appreciate. I assume a Necron Invasion would essentially be a Scorched Earth while taking oodles of slave labor. My head canon says Necron's take humans to toss them in furnaces, thus, the oodles of scarabs... But that's just me.
Besides the Dark Eldar and Necron, any information regarding planetary invasions by the various races, in a believable sense, would be dearly loved.
Thanks for humoring me and I look forward to your replies.
(( Topic may divert but any subject revolving around an outside force attacking a planet is the key point. ))
I imagine Dark Eldar don't really need to pacify a whole planet, the aren't planning on keeping the territory. They would probably only be concerned about the soft targets, agri-worlds, civilized worlds. Places where there are a high number of civilians and relatively low, or ill equipped number of soldiers to protect them. This scouting could be done by outcast eldar from craftworlds or sneaky fleets of Dark eldar in real space.
After that step it's just a matter of drumming up enough support amongst the various cabals to mount the raid properly. An attack on a lonely Listening Post on an outlying asteroid might only take a few hundred Warriors, but attacking a large planet might need the cooperation of multiple cabals working together. Then they just need to find the closest webway portal and zoom there while trying to avoid Imperial Navy patrols.
Yeah that fits with my concept of Dark Eldar planetary raiding to me. Also bear in mind that the Dark Eldar have a better mastery of the webway than the CWE. While the CWE must find an extant gate to deploy through in the majority of instances, portable webway gates are commonplace enough in the Dark Eldar to develop a strategy around.
Even if you can only drop a single Raider through each one, if each Kabal has a few and you have hundreds of Kabals co-operating then you can raid somewhere that has no dedicated webway portal but still passes close enough to the webway to jump through the walls. I would expect there to be a hell of a lot of prep work to a large-scale raid like that. The DEldar love combat, and love slaughter, but they still won't charge headlong into an enemy they have no hope of beating.
I do also believe that they go for harder targets to crack occasionally, simply for the sheer thrill of it. A lot of the actual drive to participate in a raid is because for a Dark Eldar it's really, really fun. While they can nourish themselves on the brutality of the arenas, nothing quite compares to experiencing a raid in the flesh. It's all about exhilaration and the thrill of the fight. Not a great deal of thrill if there's no risk in it for you
Oh, and I'm 100% with you on the utter mind-bending ridiculousness of even a full 1000-1500 strong chapter of Marines invading a world, superhuman or not. It's simply a gross misunderstanding of the scale involved in planetary warfare.
For me, there are two things that mollify that. The first is the headcanon that the Imperium hasn't the foggiest idea how many Space Marines it actually has. Either each chapter is significantly larger than the 1000 men stated, there are hundreds of thousands more chapters than we're told, or a combination of both. The second thing is the idea that there are actually significantly forces of chapter serfs/auxilia/IG regiments/general hangers-on that accompany them everywhere but never make the history books for the same reason you never hear about the ~900 Helots that accompanied the Spartans in their last stand at Thermopylae.
That's my favourite one loads of modelling opportunities...
Okay, stop you right there, I want to quickly point out that I highly... No; am certain there wouldn't be any Imperial patrols near the targets you listed. I am almost positive any meaningful Navy patrols cover perhaps 5% of the Imperium, and that's being generous. Those patrolled worlds are probably priority roles. Other then that, I like to believe a large Dark Eldar raiding fleet would maul and molest those tiny gun-boats cruising the system.
No insult intended, I work under the notion the Imperium is the rustic bureaucratic machine constantly implied in the lore. Part of me wonders how they even counter Dark Eldar raids, besides good ole lady luck... But she's probably in bed with the Emperor. ANYWAY!
Back on topic, do you think there'd be a certain goal the raiding party would need to reach? Yea, if the raiders are there for a month, I'd say they're safe from a counter-offensive but any longer... Well, not even the Imperium procrastinates that much. I'd assume there be a contingent of Space Marines inbound at that point, if there's any near by.
Now, I want to talk a bit abut logistics: Do you think the hired outcast could be trusted to provide the specific logistics for targets? I'm just assuming the raiders would target large concentrations of people. So, geography, urban terrain, all the nitty-gritty. Given they're type of Eldar, I'm assuming (I know I know, I'm assuming too much) there's a meticulous side to them. Every bit of information that hastens the raid while maximizing take is just gravy.
Oh, and to correct myself up top; I said the Imperium would begin mobilizing an offensive in a month because it's a Xeno incursion. From what I read, no Xeno's goes uncheck. I'd wager you'd have Naval and Guard contingents who get the message and race on over. Screw the grinding politics, they're xeno's.
OH! Another question: Would the Dark Eldar target the Astropath's or do they even know about them?
Ynneadwraith: So Dark Eldar have a better mastery of the Webway? I feel like a pleeb just finding this out. They're my third favorite faction just below Iron Warriors and Necron. Still, that does help clear up a bit of confusion considering how they transport the forces. But for a moment, do you mind elaborating as to how the Dark Eldar know the Webway better than their Craftworld cousins? I always believed it was the other way around.
That's interesting... The only thing that actually brings those psycho's together is the thrill of the kill type of scenario. I read it in the codex's but reading the reason as you conveyed paints a clearer picture.
My current idea of lightning raids is challenged, however. Do you believe they'd still operate with absolute efficiency, taking as much as quick as possible or would they willingly risk enemy reinforcements arriving?
Even then, taking entire worlds or pacifying them seems like a lengthy, resource consuming process. My head canon is similar to yours as IG accompany them. As for the time it takes, Space Marines have a terrible ego problem and a bad habit for embellishing.
I think that worlds are much more densely populated than we realize. A hive world may have a population of several million, but that'll be concentrated to a small handful of tiered cities that a single SM chapter could easily pacify one at a time. Other worlds probably have at least half of their population focused around the star ports (where the jobs are) so a securing the ports and pointing guns at the rest probably gets the job done.
Another is consider is that, in the fluff, there is no such thing as completely 'pacified'. The Imperium reports that the Orks are purged, the cultists dead to a man, the tau removed, Three months later they inevitably find out that survivors from the outer territories are stirring up trouble again and the endless war starts up again. Armageddon is a textbook example. It's constantly being reported as pacified. The Imperium is one it's what? 900th or so total victory?
ChargerIIC wrote: I think that worlds are much more densely populated than we realize. A hive world may have a population of several million, but that'll be concentrated to a small handful of tiered cities that a single SM chapter could easily pacify one at a time. Other worlds probably have at least half of their population focused around the star ports (where the jobs are) so a securing the ports and pointing guns at the rest probably gets the job done.
Another is consider is that, in the fluff, there is no such thing as completely 'pacified'. The Imperium reports that the Orks are purged, the cultists dead to a man, the tau removed, Three months later they inevitably find out that survivors from the outer territories are stirring up trouble again and the endless war starts up again. Armageddon is a textbook example. It's constantly being reported as pacified. The Imperium is one it's what? 900th or so total victory?
(( I really need to get into the habit of quoting people. I keep forgetting that button is there. ))
But considering the sheer size of a Hive City? Even though Space Marines can operate without rest or resupply (Murdering with their bare hands) I still can't believe they can comb through a Hive City in a month or two. These are mega-cities stacked upon mega-cities. Say they do miss a few targets, this is still an entire hive that told the Imperium to go feth-themselves. In the cultists situation, I'm not going to debate you for a second!
And I burst out laughing reading '900th or so total victory'. Good sir, I needed that.
Fat Necron wrote: Okay, stop you right there, I want to quickly point out that I highly... No; am certain there wouldn't be any Imperial patrols near the targets you listed. I am almost positive any meaningful Navy patrols cover perhaps 5% of the Imperium, and that's being generous. Those patrolled worlds are probably priority roles. Other then that, I like to believe a large Dark Eldar raiding fleet would maul and molest those tiny gun-boats cruising the system.
No insult intended, I work under the notion the Imperium is the rustic bureaucratic machine constantly implied in the lore. Part of me wonders how they even counter Dark Eldar raids, besides good ole lady luck... But she's probably in bed with the Emperor. ANYWAY!
Back on topic, do you think there'd be a certain goal the raiding party would need to reach? Yea, if the raiders are there for a month, I'd say they're safe from a counter-offensive but any longer... Well, not even the Imperium procrastinates that much. I'd assume there be a contingent of Space Marines inbound at that point, if there's any near by.
Now, I want to talk a bit abut logistics: Do you think the hired outcast could be trusted to provide the specific logistics for targets? I'm just assuming the raiders would target large concentrations of people. So, geography, urban terrain, all the nitty-gritty. Given they're type of Eldar, I'm assuming (I know I know, I'm assuming too much) there's a meticulous side to them. Every bit of information that hastens the raid while maximizing take is just gravy.
Oh, and to correct myself up top; I said the Imperium would begin mobilizing an offensive in a month because it's a Xeno incursion. From what I read, no Xeno's goes uncheck. I'd wager you'd have Naval and Guard contingents who get the message and race on over. Screw the grinding politics, they're xeno's.
OH! Another question: Would the Dark Eldar target the Astropath's or do they even know about them?
Perhaps what he meant was less Navy patrols and more the patrols of the local PDF forces (which can include voidships). In most of the fluff for the DEldar, their raids are depicted as close-proximity swarms of small skimmers that dart in, grab their prize and get out before bigger fish come to play. Depending on the ambitiousness of the Raid, that might be a single settlement or an entire planet.
In the spirit of the IoM being basically a feudalistic society in space, I'd say that a large proportion of their military forces are local private armies of planetary governors, which in a significant number of cases are probably perfectly capable of defending themselves. Sort of like a local lord's armies as opposed to the campaigning king's forces of the IG.
I would however think that Dark Eldar would be highly unlikely to pick a world that could genuinely defend itself. Put up a decent fight yeah, but not really potentially win, so the above is probably moot in that case.
Eldar have been depicted as having eidetic memories so I expect the sort of detailed scouting information you're talking about would be easy to procure in that respect. On the other hand, it's massively hazardous for an Eldar to be wandering around your average xeno-burning Imperial world even when camouflaged. They'd probably pass for human in the vastly expanded meaning of the word in the 41st millennium,but the price for being caught would be extreme. Still, I'd expect detailed scouting of any sort to be commonplace.
Mobilisation of forces to respond to the threat would probably be entirely dependent on the value of the world in distress and the proximity of forces. The whole xenophobia thing strikes me as a dogma instilled in the public to ensure they don't go cavorting with xenos. The higher-ups, while still thoroughly xenophobic, likely don't exhibit the same sort of frothing maniacal fervour required to indiscriminately send fleets to combat xenos threats simply because they're xenos. Especially when it might simply be more cost-effective to let the inhabitants die and then ship over a fresh load of colonists afterwards.
Oh, and I doubt DEldar would be interested in astropaths much. Certainly not for bringing back to Commorragh as there's a blanket ban on psykers there (although I'd anticipate some sort of black market supplying...refined...tastes).
However, they could well be good fun for torturing into transmitting the psychic death-screams of a planet to all nearby systems. That sounds like the sort of thing the Dark Eldar would find most amusing
But considering the sheer size of a Hive City? Even though Space Marines can operate without rest or resupply (Murdering with their bare hands) I still can't believe they can comb through a Hive City in a month or two. These are mega-cities stacked upon mega-cities. Say they do miss a few targets, this is still an entire hive that told the Imperium to go feth-themselves. In the cultists situation, I'm not going to debate you for a second!
And I burst out laughing reading '900th or so total victory'. Good sir, I needed that.
Not simply how large hive cities are, but how heavily armed the populace is. If we take Necromunda as an example then there are a massive number of gangs running around with anything ranging from stub pistols (not very effective) to lascannons (that's more like it). I suspect 1000 Marines would experience pretty much terminal casualties attempting to storm a single level of a hive as militarised as Necromunda.
Here is how Space Marines, including just a single company of ~100, would pacify a planet like Earth.
First off, they would have a couple warships with them. They would have orbital superiority, and orbital bombardment capability.
If there were a few dozen individual countries on this hypothetical planet, what would happen is an ultimatum would be given. If they didn't surrender, the Space Marines would then conduct a series of lightning strike missions.
The Company might do a large scale drop pod assault against the leader's of a specific country with the goal of assassinating or capturing them. With a quick evacuation afterwards. They would then keep conducting lightning attacks against any leadership that emerges using drop pods till surrender is achieved. Assuming the initial shock of being attacked by super humans from space isn't enough the first time.
Grey Templar wrote: Here is how Space Marines, including just a single company of ~100, would pacify a planet like Earth.
First off, they would have a couple warships with them. They would have orbital superiority, and orbital bombardment capability.
If there were a few dozen individual countries on this hypothetical planet, what would happen is an ultimatum would be given. If they didn't surrender, the Space Marines would then conduct a series of lightning strike missions.
The Company might do a large scale drop pod assault against the leader's of a specific country with the goal of assassinating or capturing them. With a quick evacuation afterwards. They would then keep conducting lightning attacks against any leadership that emerges using drop pods till surrender is achieved. Assuming the initial shock of being attacked by super humans from space isn't enough the first time.
Rinse and repeat for all resisting factions.
The difficulty with pacification via bombardment and surgical strikes against leadership is it's a terrible, terrible way of pacifying a population. It's basically been the US strategy in the middle-east for quite some time now and has proven remarkably ineffective. Effective against states I'm sure. Against a massive population of violent armed gangers with no ties to the state (i.e. the majority of the 40k human population) it would be pretty much completely ineffective.
Perhaps what he meant was less Navy patrols and more the patrols of the local PDF forces (which can include voidships). In most of the fluff for the DEldar, their raids are depicted as close-proximity swarms of small skimmers that dart in, grab their prize and get out before bigger fish come to play. Depending on the ambitiousness of the Raid, that might be a single settlement or an entire planet.
In the spirit of the IoM being basically a feudalistic society in space, I'd say that a large proportion of their military forces are local private armies of planetary governors, which in a significant number of cases are probably perfectly capable of defending themselves. Sort of like a local lord's armies as opposed to the campaigning king's forces of the IG.
I would however think that Dark Eldar would be highly unlikely to pick a world that could genuinely defend itself. Put up a decent fight yeah, but not really potentially win, so the above is probably moot in that case.
Eldar have been depicted as having eidetic memories so I expect the sort of detailed scouting information you're talking about would be easy to procure in that respect. On the other hand, it's massively hazardous for an Eldar to be wandering around your average xeno-burning Imperial world even when camouflaged. They'd probably pass for human in the vastly expanded meaning of the word in the 41st millennium,but the price for being caught would be extreme. Still, I'd expect detailed scouting of any sort to be commonplace.
Mobilisation of forces to respond to the threat would probably be entirely dependent on the value of the world in distress and the proximity of forces. The whole xenophobia thing strikes me as a dogma instilled in the public to ensure they don't go cavorting with xenos. The higher-ups, while still thoroughly xenophobic, likely don't exhibit the same sort of frothing maniacal fervour required to indiscriminately send fleets to combat xenos threats simply because they're xenos. Especially when it might simply be more cost-effective to let the inhabitants die and then ship over a fresh load of colonists afterwards.
Oh, and I doubt DEldar would be interested in astropaths much. Certainly not for bringing back to Commorragh as there's a blanket ban on psykers there (although I'd anticipate some sort of black market supplying...refined...tastes).
However, they could well be good fun for torturing into transmitting the psychic death-screams of a planet to all nearby systems. That sounds like the sort of thing the Dark Eldar would find most amusing
Part of me hopes you one day get hired by Geedubs to make a book of sense, clearing up all these oversights. I know the IG and IN are separate entities but I forgot the PDF aren't under those restrictions. So a planetary governor, or even a few having their own void faring vessels isn't out of the question. Even then, you're not wrong, they wouldn't target a planet that could possibly defeat them, even in the unlikeliest of ways.
Feel free to tar and feather me but I'd wager the Dark Eldar have operatives beyond their own species. We already established Outcasts could be utilized, why not other types of brigands? Human pirates, possibly even rogue traders wouldn't be entirely out of the question. The Dark Eldar could easily threaten them but part of me believes they're above that. All the trinkets they undoubtedly come across would easily bribe a Rogue Trader dynasty, even a lowly ship captain. So under the right direction, it seems more likely they'd have human elements to acquire such information. Like you said, trotting along the peasantry with pointed ears and funky eyes would earn quite the lynching. I don't think the Eldar would be considered a xeno's, more so a mutant.
Astropaths can send out warnings and messages. While I agree there's a special place for them in Commorragh, there might be caution if a choir, or even one is discovered. The idea of death cries is always fun but the more maluable ones... Hmm, I can see an Archon breaking and manipulating one for future gains. You know, sending out misinformation.
Grey Templar wrote: Here is how Space Marines, including just a single company of ~100, would pacify a planet like Earth.
First off, they would have a couple warships with them. They would have orbital superiority, and orbital bombardment capability.
If there were a few dozen individual countries on this hypothetical planet, what would happen is an ultimatum would be given. If they didn't surrender, the Space Marines would then conduct a series of lightning strike missions.
The Company might do a large scale drop pod assault against the leader's of a specific country with the goal of assassinating or capturing them. With a quick evacuation afterwards. They would then keep conducting lightning attacks against any leadership that emerges using drop pods till surrender is achieved. Assuming the initial shock of being attacked by super humans from space isn't enough the first time.
Rinse and repeat for all resisting factions.
From too many sources all over the Lexiconam(Spelling?) Hives cities are equipped with void shields, so orbital bombardment is out of the question.
After the first drop pods, and even if they succeeded, it doesn't mean victory. Sure, you've disorganized the rebels but that's why there's tiers of command and there's only so many drop pods. That tactic may only work once cause contrary to popular belief, bad guys can adapt.
If it's a whole world rebelling, yea, threats work. You couldn't rebel if the cities without shields are bombed. Also, don't forget how tedious performing said bombardment is. The notion sounds simple enough but the preparation to preform it is mind numbing. It's usually easier to make examples but that goes back to threats.
Hive Cities and taking them are entirely different ball games. Not only are they labyrinths but like Ynnead said, some hives are ridiculously armed to the teeth. Simply sending in a hundred Space Marines is basically throwing away a hundred Space Marines.
I don't mind OTT silliness with the grimdark stuff, but I do like the idea that if you drill down into the nitty gritty it actually makes a reasonable amount of sense. Enough to prove that you've done your homework at least
I like the idea of Dark Eldar using xenos (to them) operatives. I've read a number of times that Commorragh is actually relatively multicultural as far as places in the 40k universe go. Sure everyone's beneath the Dark Eldar, but there are populations of xenos living as mercs and slaves all over. And you're right, they'd wind up with a massive amount of worthless (to them) trinkets with which to barter intelligence with humans. That's not to mention simply the offer of annihilating one's enemies and leaving you be, however untrustworthy that bargain might be.
Oh, and just to say that while the idea of lightning strikes to destabilise leadership would probably be completely ineffectual against a hive...it is the absolute perfect tactic against Orks. Their social structure basically dictates that if a powerful warboss is killed and another isn't readily apparent as the next biggest git, they'll basically start krumpin' each other until another warboss emerges from the top of the melee.
1000-man Astartes Chapters: terrible against humans. Great against Orks.
Grey Templar wrote: Here is how Space Marines, including just a single company of ~100, would pacify a planet like Earth.
First off, they would have a couple warships with them. They would have orbital superiority, and orbital bombardment capability.
If there were a few dozen individual countries on this hypothetical planet, what would happen is an ultimatum would be given. If they didn't surrender, the Space Marines would then conduct a series of lightning strike missions.
The Company might do a large scale drop pod assault against the leader's of a specific country with the goal of assassinating or capturing them. With a quick evacuation afterwards. They would then keep conducting lightning attacks against any leadership that emerges using drop pods till surrender is achieved. Assuming the initial shock of being attacked by super humans from space isn't enough the first time.
Rinse and repeat for all resisting factions.
The difficulty with pacification via bombardment and surgical strikes against leadership is it's a terrible, terrible way of pacifying a population. It's basically been the US strategy in the middle-east for quite some time now and has proven remarkably ineffective. Effective against states I'm sure. Against a massive population of violent armed gangers with no ties to the state (i.e. the majority of the 40k human population) it would be pretty much completely ineffective.
Sure, but the US army isn't made up of Super Humans who arrive in what basically amounts to meteors. Also, it's incorrect that most of the 40k population is Hive Gangers. Most will actually be fairly normal people.
In terms of comparative technological advancement the US army might as well be. Still not a taxtic that has met with any form of success.
I'll agree that the majority of the human population of 40k probably aren't gangers. What passes for an economy in 40k would collapse. However, the main population centres are hives, which will have a similar level of gang activity to necromumda. Still not looking great for Marines.
So what we end up in is the situation where a marine chapter is incapable of pacifying a hive where their superhuman abilities might actually be required, but are more than capable of pacifying your average agri-world where their superhuman abilities are completely wasted.
Just to make it clear, i actually have no real issue with te idea that marine chapters are 1000-strong and mainly conduct surgical strikes and other special forces stuff. I only really find it unlikely that 1000-strong chapters are able to pacify worlds by themselves without the backup of large numbers of unnamed serfs and/or IG regiments accompanying them.
I don't mind OTT silliness with the grimdark stuff, but I do like the idea that if you drill down into the nitty gritty it actually makes a reasonable amount of sense. Enough to prove that you've done your homework at least
I like the idea of Dark Eldar using xenos (to them) operatives. I've read a number of times that Commorragh is actually relatively multicultural as far as places in the 40k universe go. Sure everyone's beneath the Dark Eldar, but there are populations of xenos living as mercs and slaves all over. And you're right, they'd wind up with a massive amount of worthless (to them) trinkets with which to barter intelligence with humans. That's not to mention simply the offer of annihilating one's enemies and leaving you be, however untrustworthy that bargain might be.
Oh, and just to say that while the idea of lightning strikes to destabilise leadership would probably be completely ineffectual against a hive...it is the absolute perfect tactic against Orks. Their social structure basically dictates that if a powerful warboss is killed and another isn't readily apparent as the next biggest git, they'll basically start krumpin' each other until another warboss emerges from the top of the melee.
1000-man Astartes Chapters: terrible against humans. Great against Orks.
I've shamelessly dedicated part of my life wholly to Warhammer. It's these topics that further ingrain me into the universe. At first glance, humans and DE working together is ludacris but when you observe the finer details, it becomes more believable. Gods knows I'd take a treasure chest full of rubies, diamonds, and a pretty tiara in exchange for giving them information at the planets local library. I'm human, God-Emperor dammit, would you expect any less?
Further elaborating, if you're a Rogue Trader, after the DE have finished raping and pillaging the populace, there's quite a few gains. They could arrive as a relief effort, helping those poor few who escaped... While doing a bit of off the record looting. Further credence on why a human would easily betray their own.
I've actually been debating on whether or not Orks, Humans, possibly even Hereteks operate in Commorragh or the outside region... Damn, I forget what it's called. It's a neat idea, anyway. Imagine what the already Grimdark Mechanicus could do with DE technology. Makes me shiver a bit.
Frazzled wrote: The marine scenario seems to assume that the leadership will all gather in a few easily identifiable locations, and just sit there, waiting to die.
They also don't account for the depth of penetration for the drop pods. Hive cities are remarkably dense regions. (I'm calling it a region cause, well, it's a man-made mountain). Say you do use the drop pods and a wall of titanium is slap dab in it's way. Well, the pod is turned into a burning rubble of plasteel and Gene-Seed. There's just too many variables with drop pods on Hive Cities. To me, the notion is far too dangerous.
Oh, and don't forget that you're also leaving the Space Marines stranded in an incredibly hostile environment. It's the usual deal but unlike Orks, humans are a touch more organized. So while killing the warboss works, killing a key figure or two doesn't do the trick. Yea, they completed their objective but how in the hell do you get them out, or rather, the gene-seed out? Cause as we've discussed, it's essentially a one way trip.
100 marines (or insert marine number here) + 10 million guardsmen (most likely, much, much more) + Imperial navy support... = planet taken and then the propaganda saying;
Going off the assumption a Tomb World has, lets say 40-60 Billion Infantry elements (Considering it's a freaking entire planet-sized stasis chamber!) and various vehicles; what do you guys think the awakening might look like? Would it be a sudden but ponderous storm of silent, mechanical men slaying millions or would there be stages before taking the world?
Ynneadwraith wrote: I would however think that Dark Eldar would be highly unlikely to pick a world that could genuinely defend itself. Put up a decent fight yeah, but not really potentially win, so the above is probably moot in that case.
The swarms of Raiders swooping in to get their targets then get out again is often just that - lightning strikes before the PDF even has time to react. The Dark Eldar don't usually start anything looking like a war because they'll be walking home if anyone with a weapon better than a lasgun gets a chance to shoot at their transports. Whoever gathered and "commands" the raid wants to get out with as much potential gain as possible in order to increase his status and wealth. That requires him to get as many crews as possible out, as heavily loaded as they can be and still fly. The double-dealing nature of the race will ofc still see occasions where someone fed false info to another so he'd take needless losses and lose face. They like spreading fear, they like loot and slaves, they do not like taking losses (though a competing Archon getting blown out of the sky IS hilarious).
Slaughtering guards that get in the way, no problem. Taking out a local communications post before it broadcasts a call for help, makes sense. Attacking a heavily defended position for no gain other than a fight? Probably not.
I think part of the issue is that you're giving the people on an average planet too much credit.
Many people in the Imperium have never left the city they were born in, much less the planet, and will never see a Space Marine. Heck, many people consider them myths, tales of legends from long ago of incredible beings. You compare them to US military when a better comparison would be to Olympian Gods; beings of such power and authority that they can (and do) wipe entire planets from existence without the planet ever knowing that they did it. They just live their lives harvesting or working for the authority, who in a lot of cases may be the only group aware of the existence of the Imperium as more than a figurative narrative or fictional story.
There's a comic in one of the 40K books where a tribe elder is telling a story around a fireplace of a ancient battle that took place long ago. A great group of demons rose from the ground and began to attack the people, defeated only at the end by a group of angels that descended from above and used the wrath of the heavens to save the world. The comic ends with the group chanting prayers and pointing to the night sky, the crater from the Exterminatus and wreckage of the Necron Monolith surrounding them.
I really loved that comic because it shows how the average Imperial citizen is nothing, NOTHING in the grand scheme of things. This Hive World or whatever it was got knocked back into the stone age after the Necron/SM battle, all of it's technology and power lost and it's history now nothing more than myth and legend.
Yeaah absolutely on the greediness of humans front from a realpolitik angle they wouldn't need all of the massive dogma behind 'cavort with xenos and you're dead meat' if it wasn't a common enough occurance to require it. Faith, zeal and propaganda are tools with which regimes enforce their rule, not traits of individuals. They are cultivated for a reason...
I like the idea of a particularly radical Rogue Trader carving a trade from providing the Dark Eldar with target and then offering their services as humanitarian aid after. It's basically Hero Syndrome, but as a business venture
Absolutely agree with you both Otto and Necron that marines are only every effective as support for larger IG forces, and likely the reason we only hear about Marines is because of their other main purpose: their usefulness as inspirational propaganda icons to galvanise the populace into action.
The thing that springs to mind is still that a company of 100 Marines is utterly pointless even of they are as backup to billions of guardsmen. It's just an utterly insignificant number on a war of that scale, regardless of how they're used or how superhuman they are. They'd get wiped out by the opening volley of a fraction of the opposing army even if they were armed with lasguns, let alone some of the weaponry in 40k that's perfectly capable of killing a Marine stone-dead in one shot...
100,000 per company makes a little more sense for a planetary-scale war, given that each company tends to operate independently. I suspect one of the reasons 100 was chosen is probably some idea that you could feasibly collect a whole company's worth of models, which is a neat enough idea
Mortarion's Herald wrote: I think part of the issue is that you're giving the people on an average planet too much credit.
Many people in the Imperium have never left the city they were born in, much less the planet, and will never see a Space Marine. Heck, many people consider them myths, tales of legends from long ago of incredible beings. You compare them to US military when a better comparison would be to Olympian Gods; beings of such power and authority that they can (and do) wipe entire planets from existence without the planet ever knowing that they did it. They just live their lives harvesting or working for the authority, who in a lot of cases may be the only group aware of the existence of the Imperium as more than a figurative narrative or fictional story.
There's a comic in one of the 40K books where a tribe elder is telling a story around a fireplace of a ancient battle that took place long ago. A great group of demons rose from the ground and began to attack the people, defeated only at the end by a group of angels that descended from above and used the wrath of the heavens to save the world. The comic ends with the group chanting prayers and pointing to the night sky, the crater from the Exterminatus and wreckage of the Necron Monolith surrounding them.
I really loved that comic because it shows how the average Imperial citizen is nothing, NOTHING in the grand scheme of things. This Hive World or whatever it was got knocked back into the stone age after the Necron/SM battle, all of it's technology and power lost and it's history now nothing more than myth and legend.
Firstly, hail Apostle of Nurgle, Herald of the Plague Prince, and Minister of Decay!
Formalities out of the way, we're referring to an average Imperial World that's technologically advanced and relatively educated. While you're not wrong, I'd rather not treat the average PDF as bumbling morons who never held a gun. We're giving them credit cause they're still soldiers, who are trained to, well, kill. There's a certain fear when those very myths of Space Marines step are plummeting from the sky, there's still a hundred or a thousand of them and a hundred times more of you. Simply put, those marines aren't surviving the road ahead. It'll take a few weeks, possibly months but facts are facts.
Please, for Warp sake, tell me what this comic was!
Ynneadwraith wrote: I would however think that Dark Eldar would be highly unlikely to pick a world that could genuinely defend itself. Put up a decent fight yeah, but not really potentially win, so the above is probably moot in that case.
The swarms of Raiders swooping in to get their targets then get out again is often just that - lightning strikes before the PDF even has time to react. The Dark Eldar don't usually start anything looking like a war because they'll be walking home if anyone with a weapon better than a lasgun gets a chance to shoot at their transports. Whoever gathered and "commands" the raid wants to get out with as much potential gain as possible in order to increase his status and wealth. That requires him to get as many crews as possible out, as heavily loaded as they can be and still fly. The double-dealing nature of the race will ofc still see occasions where someone fed false info to another so he'd take needless losses and lose face. They like spreading fear, they like loot and slaves, they do not like taking losses (though a competing Archon getting blown out of the sky IS hilarious).
Slaughtering guards that get in the way, no problem. Taking out a local communications post before it broadcasts a call for help, makes sense. Attacking a heavily defended position for no gain other than a fight? Probably not.
Absolutely
The way i justify tabletop battles against equal opponents is that they're only ever a diversionary force sent to draw away the defenders while the real raid is taking place elsewhere
Mortarion's Herald wrote: I think part of the issue is that you're giving the people on an average planet too much credit.
Many people in the Imperium have never left the city they were born in, much less the planet, and will never see a Space Marine. Heck, many people consider them myths, tales of legends from long ago of incredible beings. You compare them to US military when a better comparison would be to Olympian Gods; beings of such power and authority that they can (and do) wipe entire planets from existence without the planet ever knowing that they did it. They just live their lives harvesting or working for the authority, who in a lot of cases may be the only group aware of the existence of the Imperium as more than a figurative narrative or fictional story.
There's a comic in one of the 40K books where a tribe elder is telling a story around a fireplace of a ancient battle that took place long ago. A great group of demons rose from the ground and began to attack the people, defeated only at the end by a group of angels that descended from above and used the wrath of the heavens to save the world. The comic ends with the group chanting prayers and pointing to the night sky, the crater from the Exterminatus and wreckage of the Necron Monolith surrounding them.
I really loved that comic because it shows how the average Imperial citizen is nothing, NOTHING in the grand scheme of things. This Hive World or whatever it was got knocked back into the stone age after the Necron/SM battle, all of it's technology and power lost and it's history now nothing more than myth and legend.
Agreed actually i too love the notion that the majority of the human population of the galaxy is basically absolutely nothing. So far below the realms of Space Marines as to not even be comparable.
However, the thing is that Marines would never in a million years be sent to pacify such a world if they were truly in as short a supply as suggested. Catastrophic waste of resources when the Imperium can just sod the lowlife inhabitants and ship colonists in later when the Guard have mopped up.
Marines would only be required where the Guard are not capable of defeating the threat, such as in a hive chock full of armed gangers (which is also a significant proportion of the Imperium's population). It's precisely this threat that 100 Marines is woefully inadequate to respond to.
So, for pacifying planets Marines are next to useless. The ones they can pacify are not worth the effort, and the ones that are will result in 100 Marines quite promptly being filled with holes.
Next option is to use them for genuine warfare. Here they're better suited where their surgical strikes could actually disrupt command, but again their numbers are too few for them to have an effect in a planetary scale conflict.
Also, seconded in wanting to know where that comic can be found. Sounds sweet!
Taking over a planet doesn't need to be that hard actually. It gets more difficult if the planet is divided in different states, but if it has one, unified leadership then it is a simple matter of using a few targeted strikes to take that out. Install a new leadership and done.
Apart from the Imperial Guard, Orks and Tyranids who swarm a planet with numbers, all other factions do it like this. Surgical strikes to cut off the head, and then the body will die.
Frazzled wrote: The marine scenario seems to assume that the leadership will all gather in a few easily identifiable locations, and just sit there, waiting to die.
Spoiler:
Actually, gathering in a few easily identifiable locations is exactly what leaderships tend to do... And when they see that drop pod coming in from space or that web way portal opening above their heads it is already far too late to run...
Marines would only be required where the Guard are not capable of defeating the threat, such as in a hive chock full of armed gangers (which is also a significant proportion of the Imperium's population). It's precisely this threat that 100 Marines is woefully inadequate to respond to.
The hive scenario would actually be excellent for Marines. The gangers aren't unified, do not possess much in the way of actually dangerous weapons (not to Marines at least) and in the hive's narrow corridors their numbers advantage would be meaningless. The Marines would be able to to purge the hive corridor by corridor without much resistance (though it would take a huge amount of time). It is also important to consider morale in this. What is a lowly ganger going to do when being confronted by a force of legendary demi-gods of war? Is he going to fight them and die a certain death? Of course not, he will panick and try to flee. Now if all the gangers were heroes and would all attack the Marines without fear, they'd stand a chance. But all the gangers think only about saving their own skin, not about the fact that if half of them were to sacrifice themselves in battle, then the other half might be able to take down the Marines.
In battle, morale is much more important than numbers or equipment. Small, ill-equipped forces can easily defeat much larger much better equipped opponents if their organisation is better and their morale is higher. Real-life examples are the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and recently the ISIS conquest of much of Iraq and Syria. Human psychology works such that once you get one enemy or group of enemies to panick and rout (which isn't hard if you get the drop on them and their morale is low), the rest of the army will follow them. That is why a good organisation and leaders are so important. They can rally the troops. If such a leader is not there, the army basically collapses.
Funny you mention Iraq and Syria as those are textbook examples of why it doesn't work to wipe out a government, install your own and call it a day.
ISIS is also a textbook example of why 'cut off the head and the body will die' is simply fantasy when it comes to pacifying populations in their native lands.
For the tl;dr crowd it basically boils down to if you indescriminately bomb a civilian-heavy environment and run around killing leadership figures, all you end up doing is radicalising the next generation who surprise suprise utterly hate the people who bombed their families and shot their friends. Hence the cyclical nature of terrorist organisations and violent intervention by the west in the middle east, although there are some really interesting points made about how the idea that terrorist cells are led by charismatic individuals and will dissolve if they're killed has not been borne out at all in practice.
Then again, cyclical rebellion and brutal retaliation by the state sounds exactly like something the IoM would do, so perhaps you're right about that all along
I still thing 100 Marines would be hopelessly outgunned by even one floor of gangers though. Lets say a hive has an even billion people living in it. Lets be generous and say that 1% of that population are violent gangers. That's still 10,000,000 violent gangers. Again, lets be generous to the Marines and say that 1% of those gangers possess weapons like plasma pistols and melta guns that are frighteningly efficient at killing Marines (the actual figures judging by Necromunda fluff is more like 1 in 6). So, we have 100 Marines staring down the barrels of 100,000 plasma pistols and melta guns. One hundred Marines against one hundred thousand weapons specifically designed for killing Marines, wielded by people who although (mostly) not genetically augmented have been using them regularly since a young age, in a place that they know intimately and is unfamiliar to the Marines, which they have been fighting for their entire lives to defend. Not to mention the other 900,000 gangers who are armed with autoguns which will kill a Marine under weight of fire.
Oh, and do you want to be the ganger who can brag to his mates that you killed an Astartes? Hell yeah you do.
Not a chance in hell the Marines are walking out of that one. Simply due to scale.
But now you are bringing the Ganger Lore up against Marine Lore, where in the Lore Marines can be shot with a Plasma Gun and keep going. Even then you still have the issue that not all of those 100,000 Marine Killing Weapons can be brought to bear on the Marines at any given time.
The gangers know that Hive yeah, but that hive is likely just one of many a Marine in a Battle Company will have fought in, they have the experience, the equipment and the augmentics to keep fighting. They will get to chose their fights, and flush the gangers where they want them to go. Bottleneck them, use their numbers against them.
Gangers, unlike the Terrorists you mention, wont be completely dedicated to dying for what ever the cause is. Their cause is different from the Hundreds of other gangs roving the hive, its also gonna fluctuate person to person in those gangs, which are inherently less unified in goal than a terror cell.
Those other gangs will have their own reasons for fighting and hell they might even just see this as a great way to remove their rivals, and what better way then to help the Marines. They will be showing loyalty to the Emperor after all, why would his angels destroy them?
Ynneadwraith wrote: Funny you mention Iraq and Syria as those are textbook examples of why it doesn't work to wipe out a government, install your own and call it a day.
ISIS is also a textbook example of why 'cut off the head and the body will die' is simply fantasy when it comes to pacifying populations in their native lands.
In 40K fluff's defense, planetary intervention by marines is often only to eliminate or punish certain leadership, for not paying tithes for example, or putting down a specific (rebellion/chaos/Genestealer/other xenos) cult. The body is fine, its the head that needs to be removed or chastised back into line.
Additionally many of the worlds visited are not hive or other major worlds but small colonies on worlds barely habitable (think the colony in Aliens for example, or a colony from Star Trek where the population is less than a million).
In my personal view, when an entire major planet revolts, if the marines are involved, they are only the lead element to take out hard points like planetary defense stations and silos, letting the main IG invasion a clear route in (think Gereon invasion here).but then again, in my personal "fluff" actual chapters are not limited to 1,000, but older legion sized of 10,000 - 100,000. My $.02 only, and thats depreciated in value over the last few years.
Also, one big differerence between the Imperium and the US military is.....err....rules of engagement?
Compare to the roman legions, who also occupied a huge territory and kept the natives suppressed.
The US, for example, does "cut off the head and the body will die". And....it doesnt. The imperial military will happily exterminate the entirety of a world's ruling nobility - or even entire population - in pretty brutal ways.
Of couse, once you start ruling by brutality, you kind of have to keep doing that, but brutality is not something the imperium is short of.
With those sorts of numbers, it doesn't really matter if all of those plasma weapons can be vrought to bare at once. It doesn't really matter if a Marine can take two plasma shots and keep going. It's a drop in the ocean of scale that needs to be grasped.
Ok, lets be really brutal to the gamgers here.
Half run away or are killed before they even get a shot off. This is not an eventuality i see as being likely when a group of people is under attack by a foreign power in their own homes. However, i'll humour it for the sake of driving home how scale works.
Lets be over the top on Marine toughness as well and say that they can tank 10 plasma hits before they die. Again, utterly unrealistic, but we'll roll with it for the moment.
In this unrealistic situation, each Marine will have to get lucky 50 times to survive. Against plasma guns alone.
Lets change thigs up slightly with a bit of a weapons mix. We'll have to change to measuring to number of weapons, but it should help to paint a picture.
Using the above calculation each Marine is facing 500 plasma guns.
Lets be cruel and say that one in twenty gangers has some form of heavy weapon (lets average that to a heavy bolter), rather than a more realistic higher figure. So, each marine is facing 500 plasma guns and 250 heavy bolters.
Lets be even crueller and say that of the remaining regular gangers, only half have an autogun. The rest fighting with their teeth or a spoon or something. So each marine is facing 500 plasma guns, 250 heavy bolters and 2500 autoguns.
Each marine.
That's the best case scenario with an enemy force where 50% runs away.
Lets say that the Marines have an advantage due to the home field (which i don't believe they do in the slightest, given the gangers have fought in this hive their whole life and the marines have never set foot here) and/or bottlenecking. Lets say that that advantage averages out to an extreme 25% more gangers who never get a shot off. So, the Marines are able to neutralise fully 75% of their opposing forces without them ever being able to get a shot off.
Each marine is still facing 250 plasma guns, 125 heavy bolters and 1250 autoguns.
Each marine.
That's the level of scale they're against. It's simply not possible for our understanding of what Marines are capable of, even when you blow that understanding out of all proportion.
Apologies if i'm banging on about this but it's actually really tricky to grasp scale (and it was only by being on the opposing end of a similar breakdown that i got how ineffective 100 marines are as a fighting force in a planetary war).
Another way of looking at it, lets say that after all of the possible factors have been accounted for, only 10% of gangers ever fire a single shot that hits a marine. Each marine has to endure 100 plasma hits, 50 heavy bolter hits and 250 autogun rounds.
I don't know of anywhere where someone suggests that a marine can endure 100 hits from a plasma gun during a single conflict. And that's one of the less well armed hives where 90% of the gangers are cowards or incompetent.
It's not that gangers are tough, or brave, or well trained (although all of those points are arguable). It's not that marines are weak. It's simply that hives are HUGE, and marine forces in the fluff are unrealistically small in order to facilitate easy construction of narratives around a relatable number of dudes
Ynneadwraith wrote: Funny you mention Iraq and Syria as those are textbook examples of why it doesn't work to wipe out a government, install your own and call it a day.
ISIS is also a textbook example of why 'cut off the head and the body will die' is simply fantasy when it comes to pacifying populations in their native lands.
In 40K fluff's defense, planetary intervention by marines is often only to eliminate or punish certain leadership, for not paying tithes for example, or putting down a specific (rebellion/chaos/Genestealer/other xenos) cult. The body is fine, its the head that needs to be removed or chastised back into line.
Additionally many of the worlds visited are not hive or other major worlds but small colonies on worlds barely habitable (think the colony in Aliens for example, or a colony from Star Trek where the population is less than a million).
In my personal view, when an entire major planet revolts, if the marines are involved, they are only the lead element to take out hard points like planetary defense stations and silos, letting the main IG invasion a clear route in (think Gereon invasion here).but then again, in my personal "fluff" actual chapters are not limited to 1,000, but older legion sized of 10,000 - 100,000. My $.02 only, and thats depreciated in value over the last few years.
Yeah those two headcanon changes make all the difference when it comes to Marines being actually of any use whatsoever on a planetary scale war
With those two, the maths evens out to a much more favourable number
The other big thing is that this scale doesn't just apply in the single instance of hive gangers. It applies to each and every single time marines are portrayed as the sole fighting force against an army invading a planet.
It's just not really believable at all...
Two small changes though and it's fixed. Companies are 10-100,000 strong. Wherever Marines go they're acconpanied by serfs, native troops and/or IG regiments that fight alongside but never get recorded in history just like the helots amd thespians at the battle of thermopylae
Fixed!
As an aside, if the above is true...the Legions during the heresy must have been absolutely colossal. A terrifying sight to behold!
You don't need to shoot everyone on a planet.
Hive worlds especially will be vulnerable to strikes on infrastructure. Knock out a ventilation system and watch as they suffocate on toxic fumes, turn off the power and see how long they can last in the dark, destroy the space port and see how well they can shoot at you after a few weeks without food.
Bobthehero wrote: That's assuming there's no redundant system, no food stockpiles, that you have enough Marines to constantly target systems.
Well of course you'd have to destroy the back ups. How much food could you possible stockpile for an entire hive? The Governor's men or however will probably be well fed, but all those Gangers you're worrying about won't be. And you don't need to constantly target anything you just need to pick your targets carefully.
With those sorts of numbers, it doesn't really matter if all of those plasma weapons can be vrought to bare at once. It doesn't really matter if a Marine can take two plasma shots and keep going. It's a drop in the ocean of scale that needs to be grasped.
Ok, lets be really brutal to the gamgers here.
Half run away or are killed before they even get a shot off. This is not an eventuality i see as being likely when a group of people is under attack by a foreign power in their own homes. However, i'll humour it for the sake of driving home how scale works.
Lets be over the top on Marine toughness as well and say that they can tank 10 plasma hits before they die. Again, utterly unrealistic, but we'll roll with it for the moment.
In this unrealistic situation, each Marine will have to get lucky 50 times to survive. Against plasma guns alone.
Lets change thigs up slightly with a bit of a weapons mix. We'll have to change to measuring to number of weapons, but it should help to paint a picture.
Using the above calculation each Marine is facing 500 plasma guns.
Lets be cruel and say that one in twenty gangers has some form of heavy weapon (lets average that to a heavy bolter), rather than a more realistic higher figure. So, each marine is facing 500 plasma guns and 250 heavy bolters.
Lets be even crueller and say that of the remaining regular gangers, only half have an autogun. The rest fighting with their teeth or a spoon or something. So each marine is facing 500 plasma guns, 250 heavy bolters and 2500 autoguns.
Each marine.
That's the best case scenario with an enemy force where 50% runs away.
Lets say that the Marines have an advantage due to the home field (which i don't believe they do in the slightest, given the gangers have fought in this hive their whole life and the marines have never set foot here) and/or bottlenecking. Lets say that that advantage averages out to an extreme 25% more gangers who never get a shot off. So, the Marines are able to neutralise fully 75% of their opposing forces without them ever being able to get a shot off.
Each marine is still facing 250 plasma guns, 125 heavy bolters and 1250 autoguns.
Each marine.
That's the level of scale they're against. It's simply not possible for our understanding of what Marines are capable of, even when you blow that understanding out of all proportion.
Apologies if i'm banging on about this but it's actually really tricky to grasp scale (and it was only by being on the opposing end of a similar breakdown that i got how ineffective 100 marines are as a fighting force in a planetary war).
Another way of looking at it, lets say that after all of the possible factors have been accounted for, only 10% of gangers ever fire a single shot that hits a marine. Each marine has to endure 100 plasma hits, 50 heavy bolter hits and 250 autogun rounds.
I don't know of anywhere where someone suggests that a marine can endure 100 hits from a plasma gun during a single conflict. And that's one of the less well armed hives where 90% of the gangers are cowards or incompetent.
It's not that gangers are tough, or brave, or well trained (although all of those points are arguable). It's not that marines are weak. It's simply that hives are HUGE, and marine forces in the fluff are unrealistically small in order to facilitate easy construction of narratives around a relatable number of dudes
Ynneadwraith wrote: Funny you mention Iraq and Syria as those are textbook examples of why it doesn't work to wipe out a government, install your own and call it a day.
ISIS is also a textbook example of why 'cut off the head and the body will die' is simply fantasy when it comes to pacifying populations in their native lands.
In 40K fluff's defense, planetary intervention by marines is often only to eliminate or punish certain leadership, for not paying tithes for example, or putting down a specific (rebellion/chaos/Genestealer/other xenos) cult. The body is fine, its the head that needs to be removed or chastised back into line.
Additionally many of the worlds visited are not hive or other major worlds but small colonies on worlds barely habitable (think the colony in Aliens for example, or a colony from Star Trek where the population is less than a million).
In my personal view, when an entire major planet revolts, if the marines are involved, they are only the lead element to take out hard points like planetary defense stations and silos, letting the main IG invasion a clear route in (think Gereon invasion here).but then again, in my personal "fluff" actual chapters are not limited to 1,000, but older legion sized of 10,000 - 100,000. My $.02 only, and thats depreciated in value over the last few years.
Yeah those two headcanon changes make all the difference when it comes to Marines being actually of any use whatsoever on a planetary scale war
With those two, the maths evens out to a much more favourable number
The other big thing is that this scale doesn't just apply in the single instance of hive gangers. It applies to each and every single time marines are portrayed as the sole fighting force against an army invading a planet.
It's just not really believable at all...
Two small changes though and it's fixed. Companies are 10-100,000 strong. Wherever Marines go they're acconpanied by serfs, native troops and/or IG regiments that fight alongside but never get recorded in history just like the helots amd thespians at the battle of thermopylae
Fixed!
As an aside, if the above is true...the Legions during the heresy must have been absolutely colossal. A terrifying sight to behold!
You are also still assuming that every Gang is united against the Marines, they wouldnt be. Even if they were all against the Marines, they'd all be against one another as well.
You're also assuming the Marines will just walk in there, or hold a position, or that it will just be Marines. They have their own fire support, tanks, arty, aircraft, orbital guns. You think they are gonna care about the state of the Hive when its done? If the Astartes are deployed the time for worrying what comes next is done.
If 100 Marines realize that they are now up against 10,000,000 Unified Gangers, the time for worrying about what comes next is done. A strike team disables the Generators for the Void Shields before the massively difficult to handle horde can respond, do to leadership issues, squabbling gang leaders and general distrust. The Astartes dig in, call in Orbital Strikes, Airstrikes, what ever they have on hand. Its now an Astartes version of a Broken Arrow, and when hell is done being rained down, the Marines mop up.
Protracted Conflicts arent the Astartes Forte, they are a mobile strike force, they will out maneuver the unwieldy numbers.
Animus wrote: You don't need to shoot everyone on a planet.
Hive worlds especially will be vulnerable to strikes on infrastructure. Knock out a ventilation system and watch as they suffocate on toxic fumes, turn off the power and see how long they can last in the dark, destroy the space port and see how well they can shoot at you after a few weeks without food.
Now you're thinking smart that's the way a small strike squad might just be able to bring a hive to its knees.
Provided the inhabitants of the hive don't know how to fix stuff (which admittedly is a possibility in the 41st millennium)
Animus wrote: You don't need to shoot everyone on a planet.
Hive worlds especially will be vulnerable to strikes on infrastructure. Knock out a ventilation system and watch as they suffocate on toxic fumes, turn off the power and see how long they can last in the dark, destroy the space port and see how well they can shoot at you after a few weeks without food.
Now you're thinking smart that's the way a small strike squad might just be able to bring a hive to its knees.
Provided the inhabitants of the hive don't know how to fix stuff (which admittedly is a possibility in the 41st millennium)
Indeed, hard to fix certain key components if marines have melted them to slag.
With those sorts of numbers, it doesn't really matter if all of those plasma weapons can be vrought to bare at once. It doesn't really matter if a Marine can take two plasma shots and keep going. It's a drop in the ocean of scale that needs to be grasped.
Ok, lets be really brutal to the gamgers here.
Half run away or are killed before they even get a shot off. This is not an eventuality i see as being likely when a group of people is under attack by a foreign power in their own homes. However, i'll humour it for the sake of driving home how scale works.
Lets be over the top on Marine toughness as well and say that they can tank 10 plasma hits before they die. Again, utterly unrealistic, but we'll roll with it for the moment.
In this unrealistic situation, each Marine will have to get lucky 50 times to survive. Against plasma guns alone.
Lets change thigs up slightly with a bit of a weapons mix. We'll have to change to measuring to number of weapons, but it should help to paint a picture.
Using the above calculation each Marine is facing 500 plasma guns.
Lets be cruel and say that one in twenty gangers has some form of heavy weapon (lets average that to a heavy bolter), rather than a more realistic higher figure. So, each marine is facing 500 plasma guns and 250 heavy bolters.
Lets be even crueller and say that of the remaining regular gangers, only half have an autogun. The rest fighting with their teeth or a spoon or something. So each marine is facing 500 plasma guns, 250 heavy bolters and 2500 autoguns.
Each marine.
That's the best case scenario with an enemy force where 50% runs away.
Lets say that the Marines have an advantage due to the home field (which i don't believe they do in the slightest, given the gangers have fought in this hive their whole life and the marines have never set foot here) and/or bottlenecking. Lets say that that advantage averages out to an extreme 25% more gangers who never get a shot off. So, the Marines are able to neutralise fully 75% of their opposing forces without them ever being able to get a shot off.
Each marine is still facing 250 plasma guns, 125 heavy bolters and 1250 autoguns.
Each marine.
That's the level of scale they're against. It's simply not possible for our understanding of what Marines are capable of, even when you blow that understanding out of all proportion.
Apologies if i'm banging on about this but it's actually really tricky to grasp scale (and it was only by being on the opposing end of a similar breakdown that i got how ineffective 100 marines are as a fighting force in a planetary war).
Another way of looking at it, lets say that after all of the possible factors have been accounted for, only 10% of gangers ever fire a single shot that hits a marine. Each marine has to endure 100 plasma hits, 50 heavy bolter hits and 250 autogun rounds.
I don't know of anywhere where someone suggests that a marine can endure 100 hits from a plasma gun during a single conflict. And that's one of the less well armed hives where 90% of the gangers are cowards or incompetent.
It's not that gangers are tough, or brave, or well trained (although all of those points are arguable). It's not that marines are weak. It's simply that hives are HUGE, and marine forces in the fluff are unrealistically small in order to facilitate easy construction of narratives around a relatable number of dudes
Ynneadwraith wrote: Funny you mention Iraq and Syria as those are textbook examples of why it doesn't work to wipe out a government, install your own and call it a day.
ISIS is also a textbook example of why 'cut off the head and the body will die' is simply fantasy when it comes to pacifying populations in their native lands.
In 40K fluff's defense, planetary intervention by marines is often only to eliminate or punish certain leadership, for not paying tithes for example, or putting down a specific (rebellion/chaos/Genestealer/other xenos) cult. The body is fine, its the head that needs to be removed or chastised back into line.
Additionally many of the worlds visited are not hive or other major worlds but small colonies on worlds barely habitable (think the colony in Aliens for example, or a colony from Star Trek where the population is less than a million).
In my personal view, when an entire major planet revolts, if the marines are involved, they are only the lead element to take out hard points like planetary defense stations and silos, letting the main IG invasion a clear route in (think Gereon invasion here).but then again, in my personal "fluff" actual chapters are not limited to 1,000, but older legion sized of 10,000 - 100,000. My $.02 only, and thats depreciated in value over the last few years.
Yeah those two headcanon changes make all the difference when it comes to Marines being actually of any use whatsoever on a planetary scale war
With those two, the maths evens out to a much more favourable number
The other big thing is that this scale doesn't just apply in the single instance of hive gangers. It applies to each and every single time marines are portrayed as the sole fighting force against an army invading a planet.
It's just not really believable at all...
Two small changes though and it's fixed. Companies are 10-100,000 strong. Wherever Marines go they're acconpanied by serfs, native troops and/or IG regiments that fight alongside but never get recorded in history just like the helots amd thespians at the battle of thermopylae
Fixed!
As an aside, if the above is true...the Legions during the heresy must have been absolutely colossal. A terrifying sight to behold!
You are also still assuming that every Gang is united against the Marines, they wouldnt be. Even if they were all against the Marines, they'd all be against one another as well.
You're also assuming the Marines will just walk in there, or hold a position, or that it will just be Marines. They have their own fire support, tanks, arty, aircraft, orbital guns. You think they are gonna care about the state of the Hive when its done? If the Astartes are deployed the time for worrying what comes next is done.
If 100 Marines realize that they are now up against 10,000,000 Unified Gangers, the time for worrying about what comes next is done. A strike team disables the Generators for the Void Shields before the massively difficult to handle horde can respond, do to leadership issues, squabbling gang leaders and general distrust. The Astartes dig in, call in Orbital Strikes, Airstrikes, what ever they have on hand. Its now an Astartes version of a Broken Arrow, and when hell is done being rained down, the Marines mop up.
I'm not assuming every gang is united against the marines. I'm assuming that only 10% of the entire population of gangers gets one stray shot off that hits a marine while the other 90% of them run away, get shot by a marine before they can take a shot, shoot each other in opportunistic gang violence or sinply sit there picking their respective bums.
That was the final scenario, which includes a ludicrously understrength, unarmed, cowardly and disorganised gamger population.
I made it the single most beneficial scenario for the marines involved i could think of in the realms of possibility and the marines still get slaughtered to a man.
Bear in mind, these gangers are 1% of the total (again low estimate) of a hive population.
100 Marines is not enough to take a hive by force. Not by a number of orders of magnitude.
The only possible way they could be effective is to covertly disable some vital system.
This is exactly the same scenario played out on any battlefield ever mentioned in the fluff where a marine company is fighting alone. It's not even close to believable.
Frazzled wrote: Now that you mention it, a siege might be a useful strategy, of course, what then? What happens after the radio says "we surrender?"
Thats when the survivors in the Hiove better pray to the God Emperor that the chapter sieging them is the Salamanders and not the Marines Malevolent. obvioudly it'll vary from chapter to chapter. I suspect in a lot of cases once that infastructure has been wrecked, key leadership people have bee killed, the Marines will let the Imperial Guard dig in outside, and proably move on.
of course the records will indicate the planet was pacified by the actions of the space marines
And then they better pray further that the regiment coming in to siege them isn't the Death Korps
Also what are SM's going to do if the systems they need to target are deep inside the Hive, where pods can't really land. Or the Hive has a large AA/surface to space weapons?
Bobthehero wrote: Also what are SM's going to do if the systems they need to target are deep inside the Hive, where pods can't really land. Or the Hive has a large AA/surface to space weapons?
As I understand it, a teleportarium and five Terminators should be a decent answer to dealing with such well-protected systems.
With those sorts of numbers, it doesn't really matter if all of those plasma weapons can be vrought to bare at once. It doesn't really matter if a Marine can take two plasma shots and keep going. It's a drop in the ocean of scale that needs to be grasped.
Ok, lets be really brutal to the gamgers here.
Half run away or are killed before they even get a shot off. This is not an eventuality i see as being likely when a group of people is under attack by a foreign power in their own homes. However, i'll humour it for the sake of driving home how scale works.
Lets be over the top on Marine toughness as well and say that they can tank 10 plasma hits before they die. Again, utterly unrealistic, but we'll roll with it for the moment.
In this unrealistic situation, each Marine will have to get lucky 50 times to survive. Against plasma guns alone.
Lets change thigs up slightly with a bit of a weapons mix. We'll have to change to measuring to number of weapons, but it should help to paint a picture.
Using the above calculation each Marine is facing 500 plasma guns.
Lets be cruel and say that one in twenty gangers has some form of heavy weapon (lets average that to a heavy bolter), rather than a more realistic higher figure. So, each marine is facing 500 plasma guns and 250 heavy bolters.
Lets be even crueller and say that of the remaining regular gangers, only half have an autogun. The rest fighting with their teeth or a spoon or something. So each marine is facing 500 plasma guns, 250 heavy bolters and 2500 autoguns.
Each marine.
That's the best case scenario with an enemy force where 50% runs away.
Lets say that the Marines have an advantage due to the home field (which i don't believe they do in the slightest, given the gangers have fought in this hive their whole life and the marines have never set foot here) and/or bottlenecking. Lets say that that advantage averages out to an extreme 25% more gangers who never get a shot off. So, the Marines are able to neutralise fully 75% of their opposing forces without them ever being able to get a shot off.
Each marine is still facing 250 plasma guns, 125 heavy bolters and 1250 autoguns.
Each marine.
That's the level of scale they're against. It's simply not possible for our understanding of what Marines are capable of, even when you blow that understanding out of all proportion.
Apologies if i'm banging on about this but it's actually really tricky to grasp scale (and it was only by being on the opposing end of a similar breakdown that i got how ineffective 100 marines are as a fighting force in a planetary war).
Another way of looking at it, lets say that after all of the possible factors have been accounted for, only 10% of gangers ever fire a single shot that hits a marine. Each marine has to endure 100 plasma hits, 50 heavy bolter hits and 250 autogun rounds.
I don't know of anywhere where someone suggests that a marine can endure 100 hits from a plasma gun during a single conflict. And that's one of the less well armed hives where 90% of the gangers are cowards or incompetent.
It's not that gangers are tough, or brave, or well trained (although all of those points are arguable). It's not that marines are weak. It's simply that hives are HUGE, and marine forces in the fluff are unrealistically small in order to facilitate easy construction of narratives around a relatable number of dudes
Ynneadwraith wrote: Funny you mention Iraq and Syria as those are textbook examples of why it doesn't work to wipe out a government, install your own and call it a day.
ISIS is also a textbook example of why 'cut off the head and the body will die' is simply fantasy when it comes to pacifying populations in their native lands.
In 40K fluff's defense, planetary intervention by marines is often only to eliminate or punish certain leadership, for not paying tithes for example, or putting down a specific (rebellion/chaos/Genestealer/other xenos) cult. The body is fine, its the head that needs to be removed or chastised back into line.
Additionally many of the worlds visited are not hive or other major worlds but small colonies on worlds barely habitable (think the colony in Aliens for example, or a colony from Star Trek where the population is less than a million).
In my personal view, when an entire major planet revolts, if the marines are involved, they are only the lead element to take out hard points like planetary defense stations and silos, letting the main IG invasion a clear route in (think Gereon invasion here).but then again, in my personal "fluff" actual chapters are not limited to 1,000, but older legion sized of 10,000 - 100,000. My $.02 only, and thats depreciated in value over the last few years.
Yeah those two headcanon changes make all the difference when it comes to Marines being actually of any use whatsoever on a planetary scale war
With those two, the maths evens out to a much more favourable number
The other big thing is that this scale doesn't just apply in the single instance of hive gangers. It applies to each and every single time marines are portrayed as the sole fighting force against an army invading a planet.
It's just not really believable at all...
Two small changes though and it's fixed. Companies are 10-100,000 strong. Wherever Marines go they're acconpanied by serfs, native troops and/or IG regiments that fight alongside but never get recorded in history just like the helots amd thespians at the battle of thermopylae
Fixed!
As an aside, if the above is true...the Legions during the heresy must have been absolutely colossal. A terrifying sight to behold!
You are also still assuming that every Gang is united against the Marines, they wouldnt be. Even if they were all against the Marines, they'd all be against one another as well.
You're also assuming the Marines will just walk in there, or hold a position, or that it will just be Marines. They have their own fire support, tanks, arty, aircraft, orbital guns. You think they are gonna care about the state of the Hive when its done? If the Astartes are deployed the time for worrying what comes next is done.
If 100 Marines realize that they are now up against 10,000,000 Unified Gangers, the time for worrying about what comes next is done. A strike team disables the Generators for the Void Shields before the massively difficult to handle horde can respond, do to leadership issues, squabbling gang leaders and general distrust. The Astartes dig in, call in Orbital Strikes, Airstrikes, what ever they have on hand. Its now an Astartes version of a Broken Arrow, and when hell is done being rained down, the Marines mop up.
I'm not assuming every gang is united against the marines. I'm assuming that only 10% of the entire population of gangers gets one stray shot off that hits a marine while the other 90% of them run away, get shot by a marine before they can take a shot, shoot each other in opportunistic gang violence or sinply sit there picking their respective bums.
That was the final scenario, which includes a ludicrously understrength, unarmed, cowardly and disorganised gamger population.
I made it the single most beneficial scenario for the marines involved i could think of in the realms of possibility and the marines still get slaughtered to a man.
Bear in mind, these gangers are 1% of the total (again low estimate) of a hive population.
100 Marines is not enough to take a hive by force. Not by a number of orders of magnitude.
The only possible way they could be effective is to covertly disable some vital system.
This is exactly the same scenario played out on any battlefield ever mentioned in the fluff where a marine company is fighting alone. It's not even close to believable.
I guess I just don't understand the point you are trying to make. Because we both said the Marines wouldn't be fighting a straight up fight
Bobthehero wrote: Also what are SM's going to do if the systems they need to target are deep inside the Hive, where pods can't really land. Or the Hive has a large AA/surface to space weapons?
As I understand it, a teleportarium and five Terminators should be a decent answer to dealing with such well-protected systems.
They would know where to teleport, have enough room to drop in terminators, do they even have teleportarium on the (is that standard on every SM ship, by the way?) do they have terminators on board.
Bobthehero wrote: And then they better pray further that the regiment coming in to siege them isn't the Death Korps
Also what are SM's going to do if the systems they need to target are deep inside the Hive, where pods can't really land. Or the Hive has a large AA/surface to space weapons?
Animus wrote: Insertion some distance from the hive, walk up and enter.
Sounds like a good way to get shot before you even reach the hive
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: I guess I just don't understand the point you are trying to make. Because we both said the Marines wouldn't be fighting a straight up fight
Well I guess you're right! A lot of waffle from me and not a particularly clear statement of what I'm after especially seeing as we definitely agree that a head-on assault just wouldn't be how Marines would actually do something in 40k
I suppose there are a couple of points I'm making all merged into one:
I suppose my point is that 100 Marine-strong companies are basically useless at any other fighting on a planetary scale other than covert rapid insertion special-forces type missions, given how massively heavily outnumbered they are in any given conflict.
So if you want to square Marines having a role of frontline shock troops as well as commandos then a good way of doing that is with 10,000-100,000 strong chapters and/or they're supported by a vast number of additional troops that won't be named despite the fact that the Marines were largely inconsequential in the outcome of the war
Fat Necron wrote: Ynneadwraith: So Dark Eldar have a better mastery of the Webway? I feel like a pleeb just finding this out. They're my third favorite faction just below Iron Warriors and Necron. Still, that does help clear up a bit of confusion considering how they transport the forces. But for a moment, do you mind elaborating as to how the Dark Eldar know the Webway better than their Craftworld cousins? I always believed it was the other way around.
That's interesting... The only thing that actually brings those psycho's together is the thrill of the kill type of scenario. I read it in the codex's but reading the reason as you conveyed paints a clearer picture.
My current idea of lightning raids is challenged, however. Do you believe they'd still operate with absolute efficiency, taking as much as quick as possible or would they willingly risk enemy reinforcements arriving?
Even then, taking entire worlds or pacifying them seems like a lengthy, resource consuming process. My head canon is similar to yours as IG accompany them. As for the time it takes, Space Marines have a terrible ego problem and a bad habit for embellishing.
Just spotted this edit sorry! Nice choices by the way love me some Iron Warriors too. Bonus points if it's Oldcrons as well
Yeah I think a lot of people assume that the CWE are the more technologically advanced society given the usual stereotypes between High Elves and Dark Elves, but it's absolutely the Dark Eldar who are ahead technologically. Furthermore, the Dark Eldar actually live within the webway, being descendants of the inhabitants of the pre-fall webway realms that were a bit of a seat for lawless debauchery.
While it's stated that the Harlequins know more webway passages than any othe eldar faction, I'd place a sure bet that the Dark Eldar have the greatest knowledge of how you manipulate it. In the game that was borne out (in 7th at least) by wargear like the webway portal that allowed you to perfectly deep strike out of a portable webway portal. In the fluff, it's borne out by the fact that they're able to manipulate, create and shut off separate realms within the webway.
Their knowledge isn't perfect, and the webway itself is fairly broken, but of all the factions there is evidence that the Dark Eldar are the best at manipulating it as far as I can tell The CWE use it for transport. The Dark Eldar and Harlequins live there.
Part of the reason I like the way GW provide background in the codices is that you sort of have to piece stuff together yourself, which is part of what prompts all the great debate here
I do believe that there are sound reasons for the DEldar to co-operate in raids. Basically, the income of slaves and the torture they endure is what keeps the Dark Eldar going as a civilisation. Otherwise Slaanesh would leech away their souls faster than they can replace them. Psychotic and hedonistic they might be, but they certainly aren't stupid. Raids might be some of the few times they can truly let loose, but I'm not certain they'd go around risking their lives for the sake of a little more enjoyment (although I expect mistakes have certainly been made on that front, lingering too long because you're enjoying yourself so much and ending up staring down the barrel of a bolter). That is of course if they haven't got a backup plan with a haemonculus and you can afford to die chasing that next hit because for you death holds no real permanence
Animus wrote: Insertion some distance from the hive, walk up and enter.
Sounds like a good way to get shot before you even reach the hive
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: I guess I just don't understand the point you are trying to make. Because we both said the Marines wouldn't be fighting a straight up fight
Well I guess you're right! A lot of waffle from me and not a particularly clear statement of what I'm after especially seeing as we definitely agree that a head-on assault just wouldn't be how Marines would actually do something in 40k
I suppose there are a couple of points I'm making all merged into one:
I suppose my point is that 100 Marine-strong companies are basically useless at any other fighting on a planetary scale other than covert rapid insertion special-forces type missions, given how massively heavily outnumbered they are in any given conflict.
So if you want to square Marines having a role of frontline shock troops as well as commandos then a good way of doing that is with 10,000-100,000 strong chapters and/or they're supported by a vast number of additional troops that won't be named despite the fact that the Marines were largely inconsequential in the outcome of the war
Fat Necron wrote: Ynneadwraith: So Dark Eldar have a better mastery of the Webway? I feel like a pleeb just finding this out. They're my third favorite faction just below Iron Warriors and Necron. Still, that does help clear up a bit of confusion considering how they transport the forces. But for a moment, do you mind elaborating as to how the Dark Eldar know the Webway better than their Craftworld cousins? I always believed it was the other way around.
That's interesting... The only thing that actually brings those psycho's together is the thrill of the kill type of scenario. I read it in the codex's but reading the reason as you conveyed paints a clearer picture.
My current idea of lightning raids is challenged, however. Do you believe they'd still operate with absolute efficiency, taking as much as quick as possible or would they willingly risk enemy reinforcements arriving?
Even then, taking entire worlds or pacifying them seems like a lengthy, resource consuming process. My head canon is similar to yours as IG accompany them. As for the time it takes, Space Marines have a terrible ego problem and a bad habit for embellishing.
Just spotted this edit sorry! Nice choices by the way love me some Iron Warriors too. Bonus points if it's Oldcrons as well
Yeah I think a lot of people assume that the CWE are the more technologically advanced society given the usual stereotypes between High Elves and Dark Elves, but it's absolutely the Dark Eldar who are ahead technologically. Furthermore, the Dark Eldar actually live within the webway, being descendants of the inhabitants of the pre-fall webway realms that were a bit of a seat for lawless debauchery.
While it's stated that the Harlequins know more webway passages than any othe eldar faction, I'd place a sure bet that the Dark Eldar have the greatest knowledge of how you manipulate it. In the game that was borne out (in 7th at least) by wargear like the webway portal that allowed you to perfectly deep strike out of a portable webway portal. In the fluff, it's borne out by the fact that they're able to manipulate, create and shut off separate realms within the webway.
Their knowledge isn't perfect, and the webway itself is fairly broken, but of all the factions there is evidence that the Dark Eldar are the best at manipulating it as far as I can tell The CWE use it for transport. The Dark Eldar and Harlequins live there.
Part of the reason I like the way GW provide background in the codices is that you sort of have to piece stuff together yourself, which is part of what prompts all the great debate here
I do believe that there are sound reasons for the DEldar to co-operate in raids. Basically, the income of slaves and the torture they endure is what keeps the Dark Eldar going as a civilisation. Otherwise Slaanesh would leech away their souls faster than they can replace them. Psychotic and hedonistic they might be, but they certainly aren't stupid. Raids might be some of the few times they can truly let loose, but I'm not certain they'd go around risking their lives for the sake of a little more enjoyment (although I expect mistakes have certainly been made on that front, lingering too long because you're enjoying yourself so much and ending up staring down the barrel of a bolter). That is of course if they haven't got a backup plan with a haemonculus and you can afford to die chasing that next hit because for you death holds no real permanence
Sounds like a great bunch of scenarios to try out gamewise.
A ton of things to consider, but on the face of it, I absolutely agree. The idea of a 1,000 marine Chapter is ludicrous and really just a victim of geeky-gamer design back int he 80's, early-90's. Even a full chapter is closer to 2,500 all included, it's a comically small amount of marines. I had more kids in my high school than that (tipped the scales around 3,300).
If we're honest, even in the Horus Heresy era - the numbers were woefully insufficient. Even 100,000 Space Marines would not be a reasonable number to fight an entire planet (particularly when several of the novels indicate that some of these species were capable of killing plenty of Space Marines on a pretty even basis). It's just bad math, so there's a necessary suspension of disbelief to even approach the subject.
Realistically how would it happen? A siege, or threat of planetary bombardment. That, or in the days of Horus Heresy perhaps an indirect religious event (i.e. they show up like conquistadors to Central/South America are treated as gods so the whole population bends knee).
Now, admittedly in our own history we've had massive countries take over other countries with relatively little military power/engagement. There have been large land grabs effected by only a handful of battles - but that was a different time in our history where the distant king or ruler of your "land" was less relevant so someone just galloped into down and said "Hey guys, the new King is named Bill. You owe him some taxes." and people just spit and paid up some taxes.
We can also consider, however, it's possible some of these planets could be half the size of the Earth, and perhaps may have only a million people (a tiny percentage of which would be their armed forces). Or, it's possible the planet is stone-age and they're throwing rocks at Terminators. The more logical idea is that they simply can't, and it's a joke to assume it (short of gathering a couple of chapters together and hurling them all at a small planet). This is why you have the Imperial Navy and Imperial Army.
Almost any other army could probably actually effect a real genuine planetary assault (at least on a small-ish world) through normal military might. Just not the Altoids.
A marine assault wouldn't be against the entire hive , you're average ganger probably doesn't know or care who the governor is and are definitely not going to fight for them , the marine assault would be a decapitation strike on the leadership with a new more reliable governor installed the only change to the average hive citizen would be the face on the currency changing
Look how the current leadership controls the hive big boss at top the actual military go down spire and it's subcontracted gangs and enforcers , marine would never have to fight through everybody the only you would fight the entire hive population
Is if it's turned to chaos or full infection by genestealers and that's when the guard comes in.
Elbows wrote: A ton of things to consider, but on the face of it, I absolutely agree. The idea of a 1,000 marine Chapter is ludicrous and really just a victim of geeky-gamer design back int he 80's, early-90's. Even a full chapter is closer to 2,500 all included, it's a comically small amount of marines. I had more kids in my high school than that (tipped the scales around 3,300).
If we're honest, even in the Horus Heresy era - the numbers were woefully insufficient. Even 100,000 Space Marines would not be a reasonable number to fight an entire planet (particularly when several of the novels indicate that some of these species were capable of killing plenty of Space Marines on a pretty even basis). It's just bad math, so there's a necessary suspension of disbelief to even approach the subject.
Realistically how would it happen? A siege, or threat of planetary bombardment. That, or in the days of Horus Heresy perhaps an indirect religious event (i.e. they show up like conquistadors to Central/South America are treated as gods so the whole population bends knee).
Now, admittedly in our own history we've had massive countries take over other countries with relatively little military power/engagement. There have been large land grabs effected by only a handful of battles - but that was a different time in our history where the distant king or ruler of your "land" was less relevant so someone just galloped into down and said "Hey guys, the new King is named Bill. You owe him some taxes." and people just spit and paid up some taxes.
We can also consider, however, it's possible some of these planets could be half the size of the Earth, and perhaps may have only a million people (a tiny percentage of which would be their armed forces). Or, it's possible the planet is stone-age and they're throwing rocks at Terminators. The more logical idea is that they simply can't, and it's a joke to assume it (short of gathering a couple of chapters together and hurling them all at a small planet). This is why you have the Imperial Navy and Imperial Army.
Almost any other army could probably actually effect a real genuine planetary assault (at least on a small-ish world) through normal military might. Just not the Altoids.
Absolutely agreed.
I can see why they did it. People have real difficulty relating to large numbers, stemming from the size of social connections that were required when we were evolving (about 200 people). 100 Marines is a relatable figure that makes things feel personal. 100,000 Marines is just a number that people have difficulty imagining.
dekinrie wrote: A marine assault wouldn't be against the entire hive , you're average ganger probably doesn't know or care who the governor is and are definitely not going to fight for them , the marine assault would be a decapitation strike on the leadership with a new more reliable governor installed the only change to the average hive citizen would be the face on the currency changing
Look how the current leadership controls the hive big boss at top the actual military go down spire and it's subcontracted gangs and enforcers , marine would never have to fight through everybody the only you would fight the entire hive population
Is if it's turned to chaos or full infection by genestealers and that's when the guard comes in.
You're getting bogged down in specifics.
The gangers were just an example of what Marines would have to face on a regular basis were they actually used as line soldiers or lone planetary pacification forces. The gangers in the example above are 10%...of 1% of the hive population (so 0.1% of the population actually gets a single shot at the Marines). So, we're not anywhere near assuming that there's a sort of unified resistance to the Marines. It could be a relatively small bunch of radicals in a hive and it would still be enough to slaughter 100 Marines over and over.
It doesn't have to be gangers. It could be a planetary governer's guards. Or the worshippers of a particular cult. The Marines forces are so hopelessly outnumbered that the only way they would be able to affect a surgical strike is if they caught the planetary governer completely unawares. If he knew what was coming for him he'd have the resources to deal with 100 Marines as if it were trivial. Especially seeing as the Marines would be slaughtered by 0.1% of a single hive, and any planet worth fighting for tends to have more than one hive.
The example holds true in actual warfare as well, which is another example where we hear of chapters actually fighting forces that should by all rights steamroller them without noticing because 100 men is irrelevant when it comes to even continent-scale conflict, let alone a true planetary war. The scale's even worse for that, given that we would assume that there is some form of unified resistance.
I take the position that Marines achieve their goals as much by causing fear via slaughtering select targets, or via destroying or controlling vital infrastructure such as air/water filters or power systems. It has always been pretty apparent that they would be overwhelmed by sheer attrition if they actually had to physically fight a whole planet's worth of insurgents.
If the Marines ever had to deal with an underhive of gangers, I would imagine they would target one gang at a time and make bloody examples of them to intimidate the others, and make them fear they could be the next ones. The gangs are not unified so it is likely few would be willing to help a gang under attack, and assuming they could even respond in time before it is all over. Underhive gangs are criminal gangs more than ideological terrorist insurgents, so after a few slaughtered gangs, they might find it better to submit (or at least make pretend to do so until the Marines have left).
However, as others have stated, the nature of many Imperial societies means the rulers rarely matter to the people at the bottom. Whether it is Lord A or Lord B ruling from the top of the hive, matters little to the gangers at the bottom. If it is a run of the mill ruler replacement, the Marines just kill the top, and install one of the rival nobles as ruler, who promises to run things as before and pay their tithes to the Imperium. The gangers at the bottom may never even notice that there was an assault on the hive spire, let alone care who got replaced.
Ynneadwraith wrote: Funny you mention Iraq and Syria as those are textbook examples of why it doesn't work to wipe out a government, install your own and call it a day.
ISIS is also a textbook example of why 'cut off the head and the body will die' is simply fantasy when it comes to pacifying populations in their native lands.
For the tl;dr crowd it basically boils down to if you indescriminately bomb a civilian-heavy environment and run around killing leadership figures, all you end up doing is radicalising the next generation who surprise suprise utterly hate the people who bombed their families and shot their friends. Hence the cyclical nature of terrorist organisations and violent intervention by the west in the middle east, although there are some really interesting points made about how the idea that terrorist cells are led by charismatic individuals and will dissolve if they're killed has not been borne out at all in practice.
Then again, cyclical rebellion and brutal retaliation by the state sounds exactly like something the IoM would do, so perhaps you're right about that all along
"The people" (as in civilians, not soldiers) will only fight if there is something they care deeply about. This is 40k. The people are controlled by fear and ignorance. They will be utterly apathetic about their leadership, and way too afraid to rise up against any invading Imperial force, let alone against the angels (Marines) of the Emperor Himself. The common people won't care if their leadership is killed and replaced. They most likely won't even know who their leadership is in the first place! 40k is a feudal system. For the peasant, it does not matter who lords it over him. It just means paying taxes to a different guy. Life remains exactly the same. In 40k, only way you will get an entire population to fight invaders is if those invaders are heretics or xenos (and their religion will inspire them to fanaticism) or when they feel the invaders threaten their religion (like if it is some cult).
Ynneadwraith wrote: I still thing 100 Marines would be hopelessly outgunned by even one floor of gangers though. Lets say a hive has an even billion people living in it. Lets be generous and say that 1% of that population are violent gangers. That's still 10,000,000 violent gangers. Again, lets be generous to the Marines and say that 1% of those gangers possess weapons like plasma pistols and melta guns that are frighteningly efficient at killing Marines (the actual figures judging by Necromunda fluff is more like 1 in 6). So, we have 100 Marines staring down the barrels of 100,000 plasma pistols and melta guns. One hundred Marines against one hundred thousand weapons specifically designed for killing Marines, wielded by people who although (mostly) not genetically augmented have been using them regularly since a young age, in a place that they know intimately and is unfamiliar to the Marines, which they have been fighting for their entire lives to defend. Not to mention the other 900,000 gangers who are armed with autoguns which will kill a Marine under weight of fire.
And that is 10,000,000 ganger who are all spread out over a huge area, belong to a myriad rival gangs that hate each other much more than the Astartes, have no way of knowing that they actually outnumber the Astartes by so much, possess no way or desire to effectively coordinate military operations with each other and have no real desire to fight Astartes. The Marines meanwhile can bring all of their force to bear at once and have perfect coordination. They will take out the gangers group by group. Once a couple of gangs have been offed in this way, word will spread that the Space Marines have come to purge all gangs, and all of the remaining gangers are going to run and hide. A conflict like this would be a cakewalk for the Astartes. A small, well-drilled and coordinated force with high morale can always beat any force that is uncoordinated, ill-disciplined and has low morale, no matter its size.
Look at the Battle of Mogadishu for example, where a group of about 150 US soldiers got into an entire hostile city filled with thousands of insurgents and came out on top, fulfilled their mission and left hundreds of dead insurgents in their wake while suffering only a few casualties themselves. Now imagine the US soldiers are Space Marines and the insurgents may be with many more, but they are not unified and not motivated by a radical religious ideology. It would be a total bloodbath.
Ynneadwraith wrote: Oh, and do you want to be the ganger who can brag to his mates that you killed an Astartes? Hell yeah you do.
No, you want to be the ganger that actually lives to brag about killing an astartes. Actually killing an astartes is not needed for that, surviving however is...
ChargerIIC wrote: I think that worlds are much more densely populated than we realize. A hive world may have a population of several million,
You're off by several orders of magnitude there. A "typical" hive world such as Armageddon or Necromunda houses billions of people in each hive. Armageddon seems to be fairly sparsely populated by comparison to Necromunda - I would expect the population of the latter to be in the trillions (10^12). But then, if the Imperium needed to replace house Helmawr, they don't need to fight a trillion angry hive gangers (most of whom don't care or even know who the planetary rulers are). Just the top levels of Hive Primus.
ChargerIIC wrote: I think that worlds are much more densely populated than we realize. A hive world may have a population of several million,
You're off by several orders of magnitude there. A "typical" hive world such as Armageddon or Necromunda houses billions of people in each hive. Armageddon seems to be fairly sparsely populated by comparison to Necromunda - I would expect the population of the latter to be in the trillions (10^12). But then, if the Imperium needed to replace house Helmawr, they don't need to fight a trillion angry hive gangers (most of whom don't care or even know who the planetary rulers are). Just the top levels of Hive Primus.
Not trillions. The Hive Worlds of the Imperium are classed as having upper limit population of 500 billion (3rd edition 40K rulebook, p. 114). However the density should be incredible especially in the termite mound style hives (with toxic wasteland in between) that seem to be what Armageddon and Necromunda have. All the artwork that GW depicts for hive cities is nowhere near dense enough and there is too much open space. There shouldn't be much room for vast cathedral-like spaces for the masses with that kind of population density.
The alternative arrangement of "solar" style hives, i.e. the city radiates outward and envelops the surface of the world, is IMO more preferable and likely over the stacked termite mound style, as it leads to more manageable population density.
So this thread quickly pigeon holed itself, didn't it? I only made a quip about the Space Marines cause, well, it's simply too far-fetched to believe. Everyone forgets about the local PDF forces which I frankly believe aren't a rabbling band of morons. These are still trained soldiers defending their Hive against a force threatening to disable the life support. Whether or not they're Astarte's, millions, possibly even billions will perish as a result. Myths and legends be damned, that genocide can't happen. So in those circumstances, there's the additional worry of PDF... BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THIS!
I propose we all agree to disagree on the topic even though I suspect the thread has died. I mainly put down this thread to discuss Planetary Invasions primarily by Xeno's factions. By going off what we've discussed here, we're all quite familiar how the Imperium invades (Spear tip and bury the enemy in bodies) but I'm more curious about the others. Isn't anyone else even mildly curious about the deeper logistical know-how and reasons that might prompt a Xeno's faction to invade/burn/fondle another planet?
For instance, in the lore, there have been cases where Necron's will attack entire worlds and enslave/murder their populations. These are extraterrestrial far beyond our own understanding or comprehension. Our own moral values and logic might appear completely appalling to them. Where we're basically night and day in almost, if not all, aspect compared to the Necron's. That said, our methods to planetary invasion could be considered counter-productive to their own. In all technicality, these are ancient immortal beings who's own history could be considered a tapestry with ours a footnote.
Let me propose an example: The Imperium will immediately establish naval superiority or at least equality. That could be mind boggling when proposed to a Necron. How Necron's traverse immense gulfs of space far quicker than the Imperium, I'd assume they'd easily be more organized, better prepared. I'd imagine there'd be scouting measures in these scenario's but not blatant ones. Personally, their mastery over technology and those Crypteks, it wouldn't go beyond reasoning a simple meteor could be that very scout. Not even the Mechanicus can fathom their technology, so it's within reason an invasion by Necron's would be a swift blow. They gather the Imperium's ship coordinates, arrange ridiculous algorythms for potential manuevers a thousand times over, and wipe any fleet opposition out with cold precision.
Perhaps I'm a tad biased (very) but I highly doubt nor consider any prolonged naval engagements. Their fleet would appear with a sudden, each strategically place for maximum effieciency and cripple the Imperial/Other fleet in moments. (That's assuming each fleet is equal.) An real defense or resistance would have to be endured on ground, which again, isn't favorable yet humans/orks/other races have a knack for survival.
All my predictions for a planned and coordinated Necron Planetary Invasion, I'm not exactly sure how the ground war would play out. We have accounts of Overlords using a Space Marine Monestary as gauntlet for his courts entertainment. Other encounters have a lone Necron Lord herding oodles of Flayed Ones into populated area's for a new city wide butchery. (Mystery meat is on special.) We can assume once the trivial matter of orbital engagement is resolved, efficiency might fly right out the door. The defenders can't flee, their resources are easily recycled in mass, so what becomes of the ground war? (If the hypothetical naval engagement played out as I've described. Feel free to challenge the naval exchange for the sake of debate.)
Granted, this all entirely comes down to which particular Dynasty is attacking but I'd rather leave that up for debate. I favor the notion we expand on this by creating scenario's between an eccentric Dynasty, a ruthless Dynasty, and tactical Dynasty. Each one is broad enough for a blanket summary of what could or could not happen... Probably not the eccentric Dynasty but that's for those who want to have fun.
Ynneadwraith
Kinda Oldcrons kinda not. I've been working on my own lesser pantheon of C'tan for my devoted Necron's. While the new lore does open doors for character in the dynasties, I'm still leaning towards the killer robots in space. Technically speaking, when they were ordered into stasis, they were technically still at war. To me, I'm wondering why awakening Tomb Worlds aren't just continuing this war. You got the Eldar and friends, Orks, which are Old One creations. So they should immediately be mauling them cause, well, those are probably their most recent/fondest memories. The Imperium, Chaos, and Tyranids (possibly) could be chalked up as Old One creations.
It nags at me, as you can tell, but that's why we have head canon and ignore bits of fluff we don't like. I personally hope once the Silent King returns, a lot of Necron will bend the knee to the last Triarch and finished what was started so long ago. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.
Perhaps I worded that wrong, what I meant to say was the CWE might have a more intimate relation with the webway. A huge difference between them and their sadomasochist cousins is their use of Wraithbone Constructs and psychic abilities. CWE are famed for ridiculous levels of psychic power, which as we know, is drawn from the Warp. Where the webway is located inside the warp and their constant references of reliance on said webway, it's easy to assume they traverse it quite often. The Seers and referenced reliance implies a deeper depth of knowledge.
As for the Dark Eldar, I'd easily say they're more technologically advanced. They've plucked stars from the galaxy just to light Commorragh. Where they don't have Wraithbone, they've managed to craft equivalent armor. Because they've turned away the psychic gifts, other, perhaps more ingenious methods were found. And before you mention it, if you do, I'm aware Craftworlds are possibly the equal to Eldar-made planets but that was a long time ago. The methods and gifts used to create such behemoths might not even be available yet here we have, and I say again, their cousins pulling freaking SUN! out of the galaxy. The feat alone is unimaginable...
Oh shoot, I don't know why I went on that long tangent thinking we were in disagreement. After I read your reply, I went to gander the codex's just to emphasize the point and yet I somehow started babbling on. Eh, maybe someone will enjoy it.
Beyond torture and sodomy, the slaves may prove a more crucial role in Commorragh. When I read about the Thorn Keep (I think that's the name) mere humans couldn't sustain it's infrastructure due to poisons. The Archon needed hardier slaves, thus, kidnapped a bunch of Orks. That suggests a more menial role for slaves, as a whole instead of just targets for javelin practice. One Archon's power could grow to such a height that risking a raid on a Hive City might become necessary. However, I do believe he'd gather considerable allies in such a venture, especially witches. Underhives are notorious for breeding some badass's. While the scuffle might be a bit dragged on, I'm sure the Wych cults would appreciate the offering... Plus, bagging a few Space Marines could be considered gravy.
What's that, a half-born wanna-be Archon was bisected from the crotch up? Oh my, his retinue was vaporized by a Plasma cannon?... Oh joy, dibs on the raiders!
I should stop now before I start derailing myself further. Whenever I get the chance to talk in-depth about 40K Xeno's lore, my mind wanders everywhere.
locarno24 wrote: Also, one big differerence between the Imperium and the US military is.....err....rules of engagement?
Compare to the roman legions, who also occupied a huge territory and kept the natives suppressed.
The US, for example, does "cut off the head and the body will die". And....it doesnt. The imperial military will happily exterminate the entirety of a world's ruling nobility - or even entire population - in pretty brutal ways.
Of couse, once you start ruling by brutality, you kind of have to keep doing that, but brutality is not something the imperium is short of.
This requires you to know where the head is. Imagine if you flew into earth orbit on a spaceship, and looked down on our planet. Where are you going to send your drop pods with (lets be generous) a total number of a thousand marines?
From orbit we don't have borders. There's no stars on capitals. Some countries have hundreds of miles of urban and semi-urban area just melted together. You're not going to be able to poke Washington DC on an orbital picture and say "that's it, that's the rebel base. And I'm sure skywalker is with them." And even if you do, that's just one of a couple hundred nations! Even if you pacify the leaders, there's no guarantee they were well liked. . .maybe the constituent parts tear themselves up in civil war after you "chop off the head." Brutality only works if people know about it. If you drop pod into London, and butcher the population, how is the rest of the world going to get that communicated?
Space Marines really do seem like a textbook point of spear unit, that would really only work against existing imperial territory that has rebelled. Someplace you speak the local language, know who the leaders are, and have enough of a cultural heritage with for the average man on the street to get his ass back in line when he hears what happened to Governor Jerkface and the entire governing cabinet. Not that he probably was out of line anyway, since the average hive worlder has zero say in how his government operates.
You identify the largest population centres, and neutralise them FIRST with orbital strikes. Sure, you won't kill them all, but it WILL galvanise the "capitols" into action. Those can be found by monitoring local communications for that area.
(If they can travel here from other worlds, they should be able to eavesdrop on communications from a fair distance out. Our over-reliance on the "nationalism" thing is plainly obvious from our broadcasting detritus).
Marines are used for precision assaults where you want that patch of ground. You don't assault with a squad or section at a time (neither do marines). If they have access to assassins, then infiltration and disruption are also tools at their disposal. Guard are usually used to hold it, but the orbital strikes/marine shock assaults will take them. You don't throw them into a meatgrinder (that's the guard's job).
Especially when you can also teleport forces into the beach-head.
Military bases tend towards large and sprawling (in order to contain the masses of hardware and personnel required to maintain them).
Any resistance we can offer to an orbital attack is minimal at best (we have chemical fuelled rockets with nukes. They have shields - and the fact that nukes don't work as well in vacuum).
That said, GW have never been good at "scale of conflict" (or scale in general) and their numbers in the game don't work in a "realism" sense.
An empire of a million worlds, and only a thousand chapters (of a nominal thousand men-under-arms each) is pitifully small for the empire of its size.
I like oldcrons more, but I feel either way a planetary invasion from them would be cold, methodical, and overwhelming. Say they appear in orbit for whatever reason, perhaps billions of years ago that planet was a weapons/robots cache, or what have you. The necrons suddenly appear in orbit, local system cutters and patrol ships rush in to try and defend or evacuate the governor. The necrons ships take a peppering of Lance fire and then the cutters are destroyed in beams of green energy.
The attention of the commanding necron lord is drawn planet-ward. What's this? Billions of life forms are crawling over this planet that used to belong to the Necrons? They are arming orbital defense platforms and mobilizing troops? They must be cleaned and this planet made pure again before we move on.
As for the nuts and bolts, I see the invasion on the ground proceeding much like the planetary invasion in "The Chrosicles of Riddick". A vastly more numerous and uncaring foe descends. A PDF gun crew gets of some lucky shots inside their hardened defense laser silo, suddenly there is a bright flash and the rooms of the bunker are filled with skeletal robots taking aim with eldrich weapons. Tanks and troops that are mobilizing are suddenly being strafed by necron flying croissants, as monoliths appear around them disgorging Warriors directly into the fray. Necrons don't care how many of them are disabled in the attack, they just slowly, methodically, soullessly reap a bloody harvest on the inhabitants. When they are done, everything is teleported back up and they move on. It was just another calculated task fufilled.
"The people" (as in civilians, not soldiers) will only fight if there is something they care deeply about. This is 40k. The people are controlled by fear and ignorance. They will be utterly apathetic about their leadership, and way too afraid to rise up against any invading Imperial force, let alone against the angels (Marines) of the Emperor Himself. The common people won't care if their leadership is killed and replaced. They most likely won't even know who their leadership is in the first place!
40k is a feudal system. For the peasant, it does not matter who lords it over him. It just means paying taxes to a different guy. Life remains exactly the same. In 40k, only way you will get an entire population to fight invaders is if those invaders are heretics or xenos (and their religion will inspire them to fanaticism) or when they feel the invaders threaten their religion (like if it is some cult).
You're getting bogged down in specifics. It doesn't matter if it's gangers, or a cult, or the personal guard of a planetary governer. It doesn't matter who on earth on a planet has been persuaded to rebel, 100 Marines is utterly insufficient to pacify even a single hive.
If the Marines are called in, we're assuming that the situation is too difficult for the Guard or PDF to resolve. This implies a significant amount of anti-Imperial feeling, so whoever it is will almost certainly be opposed to the Marines even if they're also opposed to each other (such as the examples you've posited about cults and suchlike).
The point I was making in the example is 99.9% of the population of a single hive could shoot themselves in the head as soon as the Marines arrive and the remaining 0.1% of the population would still pose an insurmountable threat to the Marines even if they weren't organised in the slightest.
Of a single hive. Not even a planet. A single hive. Most planets worth a damn have multiple.
And that is 10,000,000 ganger who are all spread out over a huge area, belong to a myriad rival gangs that hate each other much more than the Astartes, have no way of knowing that they actually outnumber the Astartes by so much, possess no way or desire to effectively coordinate military operations with each other and have no real desire to fight Astartes. The Marines meanwhile can bring all of their force to bear at once and have perfect coordination. They will take out the gangers group by group. Once a couple of gangs have been offed in this way, word will spread that the Space Marines have come to purge all gangs, and all of the remaining gangers are going to run and hide. A conflict like this would be a cakewalk for the Astartes.
A small, well-drilled and coordinated force with high morale can always beat any force that is uncoordinated, ill-disciplined and has low morale, no matter its size.
The point of scale is that it flat-out doesn't matter if the gangers are organised or even motivated to fight the Marines beyond taking the occasional pot-shot at them (which come on, some are bound to do if they come muscling into their turf).
We accounted for all of this cowardice, lack of organisation, infighting, lack of motivation by assuming that measly 10% of the entire population of gangers only get a single shot at the Marines. Not 'each of those 10% get into a firefight with the Marines', it's 'get a single shot'. 90% of the gangers could shoot themselves in the head instantly, and then 10% of the gangers could shoot a Marine and then shoot themselves in the head afterwards and they would still emerge triumphant quite easily.
The reason I'm positing this ridiculous situation isn't because I think it's realistic, but more to display just how hopelessly outgunned the Marines are so it doesn't even matter what other advantages they have it simply isn't enough.
If you want justification as to why the gangers might shoot at the Marines, I'd wager it's because they don't know who they are. Marines are legends and myths to most of the 40k population. If a ganger sees a heavily armed and armoured mob of dudes come through their territory their first instinct is going to be that it's another gang muscling in on their turf.
Look at the Battle of Mogadishu for example, where a group of about 150 US soldiers got into an entire hostile city filled with thousands of insurgents and came out on top, fulfilled their mission and left hundreds of dead insurgents in their wake while suffering only a few casualties themselves. Now imagine the US soldiers are Space Marines and the insurgents may be with many more, but they are not unified and not motivated by a radical religious ideology. It would be a total bloodbath.
Mogadishu is an interesting example as it's probably pretty close to what an actual Marine raid would be like.
The thing is, the First Battle of Mogadishu (which I assume is the one you're talking about) was a clusterfeth that rapidly spiralled out of control and ended up with a failed mission. It was intended to be a quick smash-and-grab lighting strike to capture enemy leadership with overwhelming force in a localised area. 160 Marines, 19 aircraft and 12 vehicles. Precisely what Marines' tactics are and roughly the same supporting vehicles.
What actually happened is shortly into the operation two of the Marines' helicopters were shot down by RPGs. The mission quickly evolved into a stalemate between the Marines and Somali militants when they became trapped within the city, with what was intended to be a 1 hour mission developing into an extended firefight overnight. The next day, a far larger relief force consisting of some 100 vehicles was dispatched on a rescue mission which was successful in evacuating one of the crash sites (the other had been overrun during the night). US casualties were 19 deaths, 73 wounded and one captured. The militant leader was not captured.
The Somali militia suffered heavy casualties (although not enough to actually dent their forces a great deal). The US suffered over 50% casualties, failed their mission and had to be bailed out by a far larger force.
Ynneadwraith wrote: Oh, and do you want to be the ganger who can brag to his mates that you killed an Astartes? Hell yeah you do.
No, you want to be the ganger that actually lives to brag about killing an astartes. Actually killing an astartes is not needed for that, surviving however is...
Which is pretty easy when you have the capability of killing the Marines hundreds of times over even if only 10% of you ever land a shot on them. They're completely and totally outmatched.
chromedog wrote: You identify the largest population centres, and neutralise them FIRST with orbital strikes. Sure, you won't kill them all, but it WILL galvanise the "capitols" into action. Those can be found by monitoring local communications for that area.
(If they can travel here from other worlds, they should be able to eavesdrop on communications from a fair distance out. Our over-reliance on the "nationalism" thing is plainly obvious from our broadcasting detritus).
Marines are used for precision assaults where you want that patch of ground. You don't assault with a squad or section at a time (neither do marines). If they have access to assassins, then infiltration and disruption are also tools at their disposal. Guard are usually used to hold it, but the orbital strikes/marine shock assaults will take them. You don't throw them into a meatgrinder (that's the guard's job).
Especially when you can also teleport forces into the beach-head.
Military bases tend towards large and sprawling (in order to contain the masses of hardware and personnel required to maintain them).
Any resistance we can offer to an orbital attack is minimal at best (we have chemical fuelled rockets with nukes. They have shields - and the fact that nukes don't work as well in vacuum).
That said, GW have never been good at "scale of conflict" (or scale in general) and their numbers in the game don't work in a "realism" sense.
An empire of a million worlds, and only a thousand chapters (of a nominal thousand men-under-arms each) is pitifully small for the empire of its size.
You're absolutely right here with how they'd pacify us, and it would probably work.
The issue you do point out is that we are not a target the Imperium would ever send a Marine force to pacify. Marines are a very finite resource as you say, and wouldn't be wasted on a backwater like us that could be pacified by a naval frigate from orbit.
So we're back to the situation that 100 (or even a 1000) Marines are only capable of pacifying planets that they are wasted on, and are completely incapable of pacifying planets that they are required to pacify.
Fat Necron wrote: So this thread quickly pigeon holed itself, didn't it? I only made a quip about the Space Marines cause, well, it's simply too far-fetched to believe. Everyone forgets about the local PDF forces which I frankly believe aren't a rabbling band of morons. These are still trained soldiers defending their Hive against a force threatening to disable the life support. Whether or not they're Astarte's, millions, possibly even billions will perish as a result. Myths and legends be damned, that genocide can't happen. So in those circumstances, there's the additional worry of PDF... BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THIS!
Haha welcome to dakka still, I don't really mind when topics meander away from their initial premise (provided they're still relatively relevant and discussing an interesting topic). I've been on forums where they're really hot on shooting down topics that go even slightly off topic and people just stop talking to each other.
I'm more curious about the others. Isn't anyone else even mildly curious about the deeper logistical know-how and reasons that might prompt a Xeno's faction to invade/burn/fondle another planet?
For instance, in the lore, there have been cases where Necron's will attack entire worlds and enslave/murder their populations. These are extraterrestrial far beyond our own understanding or comprehension. Our own moral values and logic might appear completely appalling to them. Where we're basically night and day in almost, if not all, aspect compared to the Necron's. That said, our methods to planetary invasion could be considered counter-productive to their own. In all technicality, these are ancient immortal beings who's own history could be considered a tapestry with ours a footnote.
Let me propose an example: The Imperium will immediately establish naval superiority or at least equality. That could be mind boggling when proposed to a Necron. How Necron's traverse immense gulfs of space far quicker than the Imperium, I'd assume they'd easily be more organized, better prepared. I'd imagine there'd be scouting measures in these scenario's but not blatant ones. Personally, their mastery over technology and those Crypteks, it wouldn't go beyond reasoning a simple meteor could be that very scout. Not even the Mechanicus can fathom their technology, so it's within reason an invasion by Necron's would be a swift blow. They gather the Imperium's ship coordinates, arrange ridiculous algorythms for potential manuevers a thousand times over, and wipe any fleet opposition out with cold precision.
Perhaps I'm a tad biased (very) but I highly doubt nor consider any prolonged naval engagements. Their fleet would appear with a sudden, each strategically place for maximum effieciency and cripple the Imperial/Other fleet in moments. (That's assuming each fleet is equal.) An real defense or resistance would have to be endured on ground, which again, isn't favorable yet humans/orks/other races have a knack for survival.
All my predictions for a planned and coordinated Necron Planetary Invasion, I'm not exactly sure how the ground war would play out. We have accounts of Overlords using a Space Marine Monestary as gauntlet for his courts entertainment. Other encounters have a lone Necron Lord herding oodles of Flayed Ones into populated area's for a new city wide butchery. (Mystery meat is on special.) We can assume once the trivial matter of orbital engagement is resolved, efficiency might fly right out the door. The defenders can't flee, their resources are easily recycled in mass, so what becomes of the ground war? (If the hypothetical naval engagement played out as I've described. Feel free to challenge the naval exchange for the sake of debate.)
Granted, this all entirely comes down to which particular Dynasty is attacking but I'd rather leave that up for debate. I favor the notion we expand on this by creating scenario's between an eccentric Dynasty, a ruthless Dynasty, and tactical Dynasty. Each one is broad enough for a blanket summary of what could or could not happen... Probably not the eccentric Dynasty but that's for those who want to have fun.
This is probably pretty accurate to how Newcrons would invade, and also exemplifies just how OP the Newcron fluff has made them. It's a case of Ward applying his 'Ultramarines are the bestest and doesn't afraid of anything' to a whole faction.
It's evocative, but offers no real scope for them to ever be defeated. Not just defeated in the long term (as it's doubtful the Chaos Gods or Tyranids can be defeated, dpending on their size), but even in individual battles.
Unless, I suppose, you use tactics that their algorithms can't predict. Namely, scrying the future via psychic powers. The Necrons have been stated to have zero understanding of how the warp actually works. They have excellent knowledge of how it interacts with realspace, but no real way of finding out more about it. So, predicting the future via war powers would be something that could scupper all of their algorithms as it sets off a whole chain of events that they couldn't predict. They can react, but that massive advantage is nullified.
Explains why they hate the Eldar so much it's also supported by the fluff of the War in Heaven which stated that the Old Ones had to resort to weaponising the warp to gain an advantage over the C'Tan and the Necrons. Also fits with the Eldar being one of said weapons.
Kinda Oldcrons kinda not. I've been working on my own lesser pantheon of C'tan for my devoted Necron's. While the new lore does open doors for character in the dynasties, I'm still leaning towards the killer robots in space. Technically speaking, when they were ordered into stasis, they were technically still at war. To me, I'm wondering why awakening Tomb Worlds aren't just continuing this war. You got the Eldar and friends, Orks, which are Old One creations. So they should immediately be mauling them cause, well, those are probably their most recent/fondest memories. The Imperium, Chaos, and Tyranids (possibly) could be chalked up as Old One creations.
It nags at me, as you can tell, but that's why we have head canon and ignore bits of fluff we don't like. I personally hope once the Silent King returns, a lot of Necron will bend the knee to the last Triarch and finished what was started so long ago. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.
Good man I definitely see the benefits of more characterisation of Necrons. I just feel it was done in an overly hammy way for the 5th ed. Newcrons (I gather it's got significantly better in later releases).
Agree with you completely that they should really be continuing to persecute the war they were fighting when they went to sleep. All of this squabbling over territory seems to me to be something that the puny mortals do, building sandcastles that will only crumble over time. Pointless.
I also like the idea that they could drop subtle hints that other races were meddled with by the Old Ones (specifically Mankind) by having the Necrons persecute them as well. Personally I'd leave the Tyranids out of it, but that's because I like the fact that they're something completely alien. Otherwise it seems a little like everything in the universe is rooted in the milky way. Like how everything on TV happens in the USA
There could also be some really neat little connections if they start to persecute the followers of the Chaos Gods...
Perhaps the Gods are actually remnants of the Old Ones. Perhaps they themselves were weapons unleashed by them. Perhaps none of that and they're only persecuting them because their followers are human. Neat!
Perhaps I worded that wrong, what I meant to say was the CWE might have a more intimate relation with the webway. A huge difference between them and their sadomasochist cousins is their use of Wraithbone Constructs and psychic abilities. CWE are famed for ridiculous levels of psychic power, which as we know, is drawn from the Warp. Where the webway is located inside the warp and their constant references of reliance on said webway, it's easy to assume they traverse it quite often. The Seers and referenced reliance implies a deeper depth of knowledge.
As for the Dark Eldar, I'd easily say they're more technologically advanced. They've plucked stars from the galaxy just to light Commorragh. Where they don't have Wraithbone, they've managed to craft equivalent armor. Because they've turned away the psychic gifts, other, perhaps more ingenious methods were found. And before you mention it, if you do, I'm aware Craftworlds are possibly the equal to Eldar-made planets but that was a long time ago. The methods and gifts used to create such behemoths might not even be available yet here we have, and I say again, their cousins pulling freaking SUN! out of the galaxy. The feat alone is unimaginable...
Oh shoot, I don't know why I went on that long tangent thinking we were in disagreement. After I read your reply, I went to gander the codex's just to emphasize the point and yet I somehow started babbling on. Eh, maybe someone will enjoy it.
Hah, I do that all the time
I'm with you that the CWE would have an advantage in understanding the webway due to their psychic potential. I sort of have the headcanon that the webway itself is somehow alive. It's a construct of the Old Ones, and the Old Ones had a penchant for creating living beings to do their bidding (Eldar/Orks). So, there's a possibility that their tech actually blends technology and biology to the point that it's all technically alive somehow. Similar to the border between a brain and AI, but on the other side of the journey. When an AI becomes so advanced that it's approaching the point where it's indistinguishable from something biological.
Also agree with you that both the CWE and DE are shadows of what they were before technologically speaking. They've both gone through cataclysms that make the Horus Heresy look like child's play (and at the same time, no doubt). They're in exactly the same boat as the Imperium, scrabbling away in the technological ruins of their forebears.
Beyond torture and sodomy, the slaves may prove a more crucial role in Commorragh. When I read about the Thorn Keep (I think that's the name) mere humans couldn't sustain it's infrastructure due to poisons. The Archon needed hardier slaves, thus, kidnapped a bunch of Orks. That suggests a more menial role for slaves, as a whole instead of just targets for javelin practice. One Archon's power could grow to such a height that risking a raid on a Hive City might become necessary. However, I do believe he'd gather considerable allies in such a venture, especially witches. Underhives are notorious for breeding some badass's. While the scuffle might be a bit dragged on, I'm sure the Wych cults would appreciate the offering... Plus, bagging a few Space Marines could be considered gravy.
What's that, a half-born wanna-be Archon was bisected from the crotch up? Oh my, his retinue was vaporized by a Plasma cannon?... Oh joy, dibs on the raiders!
I should stop now before I start derailing myself further. Whenever I get the chance to talk in-depth about 40K Xeno's lore, my mind wanders everywhere.
From what I've read a lot of Commorragh's industry is built upon slaves so you're right there's a massive reliance on them beyond sustenance.
You're also right to assume that large-scale realspace raids aren't usually the doing of a single kabal. From what I understand it's usually one kabal announces an opportunity they've spotted and then goes about spreading the word to other kabals, hiring wych cults, currying favour with haemonculus covens etc. etc. Petty small-scale raids I'm sure they could enact themselves, but for something a juicy as a hive I'd expect a lot more politicking.
agurus1 wrote: I like oldcrons more, but I feel either way a planetary invasion from them would be cold, methodical, and overwhelming. Say they appear in orbit for whatever reason, perhaps billions of years ago that planet was a weapons/robots cache, or what have you. The necrons suddenly appear in orbit, local system cutters and patrol ships rush in to try and defend or evacuate the governor. The necrons ships take a peppering of Lance fire and then the cutters are destroyed in beams of green energy.
The attention of the commanding necron lord is drawn planet-ward. What's this? Billions of life forms are crawling over this planet that used to belong to the Necrons? They are arming orbital defense platforms and mobilizing troops? They must be cleaned and this planet made pure again before we move on.
As for the nuts and bolts, I see the invasion on the ground proceeding much like the planetary invasion in "The Chrosicles of Riddick". A vastly more numerous and uncaring foe descends. A PDF gun crew gets of some lucky shots inside their hardened defense laser silo, suddenly there is a bright flash and the rooms of the bunker are filled with skeletal robots taking aim with eldrich weapons. Tanks and troops that are mobilizing are suddenly being strafed by necron flying croissants, as monoliths appear around them disgorging Warriors directly into the fray. Necrons don't care how many of them are disabled in the attack, they just slowly, methodically, soullessly reap a bloody harvest on the inhabitants. When they are done, everything is teleported back up and they move on. It was just another calculated task fufilled.
Yeah this seems pretty accurate
Another thing is that the planet probably wouldn't see it coming. The vast majority of potential threats travel via the warp, so warning systems would likely be looking out for telltale bow-waves within the warp for incoming vessels. The Necrons travel via an alcubierre drive, which as far as I can tell is unique in the 40k universe. The poor planet wouldn't know they were coming until they hit the system.
Similar thing with the Eldar too I suppose (of any variety). Webway travel would probably mean that they'd pop out planetside or in close orbit with very little forewarning.
CWE I expect would rarely undertake a true planetary invasion. I'd expect targeted strikes seemingly at random because their main goal is to tip events in the present that will butterfly-effect into positive futures for them. The only time they'd mount a proper invasion is recapturing maiden worlds which they defend jealously. To be honest, I can see why the Imperium at large doesn't really distinguish between the types of Eldar. Both of the main factions conduct targeted strikes seemingly at random dropping out of webway portals without warning. Both of them rarely conduct a proper invasion, but when they do it likely follows the same pattern of bogies dropping in planetside without warning. The only real difference in the Imperial experience is that one lot has spikes on and the other doesn't...
Orks have some interesting quirks too. Seeing as their principle reason for war is to have fun, I'd espect that they'd favour planetary engagements even when they could conceivably bombard from orbit. Unless of course their love of dakka extends to colossal spaceship guns. A frequent tactic for Orks is actually to crash a Rok (basically an inhabited asteroid fitted with stardrives) into the surface of a planet and then disgorging the Ork population for a good scrap. So basically Ork invasions would be pretty brutal. You basically have to withstand an asteroid strike before the actual warfare has even started.
Oh, and just for completeness, Space Marine's tactics of rapid strikes against leadership and orbital bombardment would work rather nicely I expect provided they had the numbers (or IG/serf backup) to actually match the scale of the enemies they'd be facing. Tactics are sound. Just need more men.
The Imperium has some tricks up their sleeve too regarding planetary invasion. Massive orbital bombardment from a naval presence that you could only even hope to outnumber locally (and even then, if it's a bona fide crusade then that's thoroughly unlikely) followed by a quite literal pink tide of Imperial Guard. There's a reason the Imperium has clung on for this long despite the horrors they're facing. Their tactics and technology might be crude, but it's the scale thing again. In the vast majority of offensive conflicts, they're the gangers in the example I gave.
I would however think that Dark Eldar would be highly unlikely to pick a world that could genuinely defend itself. Put up a decent fight yeah, but not really potentially win, so the above is probably moot in that case.
The DE mantra is 'smash and grab.' It depends on what they are looking for, but if it is easily availible on lightly defended planets that is probably where they are going to get it. Some of the things they want only exist on worlds that are highly defended. If it was worth enough, they would raid Terra. I believe they stole something from Mars.
But they aren't going to pacify a planet, they are just going to distract its defenses, land a small force that is locally overwheling, take what they want and then leave.
OH! Another question: Would the Dark Eldar target the Astropath's or do they even know about them?
They know what they are but have no need for them. Might be one of the things they kill at the outset of the raid or it might be something they manipulate to further their gains. Use a call for help to lure hard military elements away from their real target.
Necrons as far as I know follow no standard plan of invasion, each dynasty have a prefered method of engaging their enemy.
Fall of Orpheus, Dark Creed (Word Bearer trilogy features a necron invasion) and Fall of Damnos are prime examples of how necrons invade.
"The people" (as in civilians, not soldiers) will only fight if there is something they care deeply about. This is 40k. The people are controlled by fear and ignorance. They will be utterly apathetic about their leadership, and way too afraid to rise up against any invading Imperial force, let alone against the angels (Marines) of the Emperor Himself. The common people won't care if their leadership is killed and replaced. They most likely won't even know who their leadership is in the first place!
40k is a feudal system. For the peasant, it does not matter who lords it over him. It just means paying taxes to a different guy. Life remains exactly the same. In 40k, only way you will get an entire population to fight invaders is if those invaders are heretics or xenos (and their religion will inspire them to fanaticism) or when they feel the invaders threaten their religion (like if it is some cult).
You're getting bogged down in specifics. It doesn't matter if it's gangers, or a cult, or the personal guard of a planetary governer. It doesn't matter who on earth on a planet has been persuaded to rebel, 100 Marines is utterly insufficient to pacify even a single hive.
Yes. It doesn't matter if its gangers, cult or a personal guard. Even though, they may outnumber the Marines by a million to one, they are never all going to be in the same place. The Marines will be. Though their opponents will have a lot more force than the Marines have, the Marines can focus their force much better, which is why they win. The Marines aren't going to be standing around in the open field waiting for all enemy forces to mobilise and surround them. They will go in, strike, and get out before the enemy can react, coordinate and bring his superior force to bear. By the point that happens the Marines have already moved on to the next objective, where the pattern repeats.
Scale is not always relevant. Or rather, the balance can be different on different levels. When the Marines are attacking a certain district in a Hive city, it doesn't matter if I have billions of soldiers spread out across all the other districts and the other hives of the planet. All those soldiers are far away and can't contribute. The only ones who matter are those few soldiers in the direct area of the Marines. The Marines (and this is true for other 'first strike forces' like the DE as well), have the advantage of being able to pick their fights. They can plan their attacks in such a way that they will have superior local force, even if the enemy has a much more superior force on a larger scale.
Two small changes though and it's fixed. Companies are 10-100,000 strong. Wherever Marines go they're acconpanied by serfs, native troops and/or IG regiments that fight alongside but never get recorded in history just like the helots amd thespians at the battle of thermopylae
I quite like that idea. The glory-hound Space Marines are well-known for the victory that was really won with the endless sacrifice of Serfs who are forgotten to history.
Two small changes though and it's fixed. Companies are 10-100,000 strong. Wherever Marines go they're acconpanied by serfs, native troops and/or IG regiments that fight alongside but never get recorded in history just like the helots amd thespians at the battle of thermopylae
I quite like that idea. The glory-hound Space Marines are well-known for the victory that was really won with the endless sacrifice of Serfs who are forgotten to history.
Yeah it's definitely a favourite of mine
Plus, you get kickass conversion opportunities like these Black Templar serfs:
My bad if my replies are a tad delayed. I'm one of those nyanderthals who don't spend too much time online. I have this innate fear of becoming one of those people with their faces glued to their phone.
Well you're not wrong about them being OP. I think this boils down to the fact there isn't exactly too too many of them bumping around. I wholly believe in the theory only 3% of them have truly awoken. Given how expansive the Imperium is and their military prowess (Numerically) I don't think it's feasible for the Necrons to be as aggressive as they'd like. Algorithms or not, simply put, a handful of Tomb Worlds making big waves wouldn't last very wrong.
I say this because I'm theorizing that these same algorithms play against them. From their perspective, it could be assumed they could amass a fleet and overrun them. However they don't truly comprehend how fractured the Imperium actually is. Between that and their grinding bureaucratic system, the response fleet the Necron's could potentially encounter deters them from action. In reality, this possible response fleet would only be a fraction. Whether or not their technology far surpasses the Imperium's own, and arguably other contending races, when a Crusade-sized fleet is bombing their Tomb World into dust there's no real counter. That's just the fleet size, I'm not even going to bother getting into the infantry numbers. It's a well known fact the Imperium drowns their opponents with bodies. The Necron's have probably observed their tactics to such an extent to know every possible doctrine and reaction. However, at the end of the day, only so much can be done to a superior force one-hundred times their own size.
So while at first glance it may appear the Necron's are OP at first glance, I believe the finer details tidy up that thought. If they themselves were a bit more unified (Come on Silent King) they'd pose a critical threat. I'd even wager the Tyranids would target a large, unified Necron faction as they might be considered another predator, of sorts. Though not organic it goes without question a unified Necron Empire might blast all the tasty snacks away.
I do agree with you entirely in regards to the Scrying powers, I just feel compelled to explain (Perhaps debate, if you'd like) that other variables exist beyond Warp-shenanigans.
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The whole ham-fisted newcrons feels like an attempt to make them weaker while appealing to another audience. Think about it, how are loyalist Space Marines and other good guys suppose to contend with star devouring gods and swarms of millions, if not billions of marching killer-robots? They can't, especially when you dive into the logistics. So they balance this by fracturing them and rationalizing by adding more character. While I do agree with this in some respects, it nags at me (As you can tell, I'm incredibly biased). Some of the new lore is quite intriguing. There's a blurb where a single Necron lord leads a horde of flayed ones for great flesh harvests. We can debate how exactly these flayed-ones follow him/her/it but we'll never know why or how. The whole scenario is completely alien to us as it goes against basic morals.
On the other hand, I believe the changes to the Necrons were to make them a touch more human, if that makes any sense. Building Empires and muffing up all the chicken is kinda what we've been doing for centuries. So why not give them the same aspect. Turn them into conquerors, give them underlings, and reinvent the Tomb Kings. From personal experience, I only started collecting models to write my own lore about them which you can't do with soulless killing machines. Their C'Tan masters were set in stone, so you just sorta collected them... But now that's been corrected, which might not be the right word but it's a step forward to progress... Okay, I need to stop ranting and get back on topic. We can continue this over the PM's if you want to discuss this topic more.
My own head-canon goes against the whole 'Warp Gods being Weapons' idea. I rather enjoy them being representations of how gakky every existing race is. On that topic, it'd be interesting how they target particular gods. For conversation sake, lets say the Necrons understand what they are and out of pure bitterness, target them. Nurgle's daemon worlds would be purified via pillars and sudden diseases, depriving him of his filth and connection to his beloved followers. Necron Warriors would march against Khorne followers in prolonged, bloodless engagements-- just a few examples.
Essentially, deprive the gods via material connection and practitioners of said deity.
I'll PM you later regarding the Nids theory. I've gone off topic so many times already, I'm feeling a tad loony.
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When I read about the Webway, it feels like a living, breathing entity. The Emperor himself couldn't caress it back into existence as he would a broken toaster; therefore I believe it's a breathing entity beyond our scope of imagination. To elaborate, there are synthetic life-forms/AI kinda like the Geth. I hypothesize the Webway is similar in that regard... Unfortunately, it's caught a nasty case of STWD.
At some point, when more information is given, I wouldn't mind discussing idea's as to how the Dark Eldar might thwart the advancing daemons trashing their dungeons and opium dens.
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Real-space Raids possibly go beyond just kabals existing in Commorragh. Where we discussed mass slave labor, would it be stretching lore to say those slaves may accompany them? They've been tortured and beaten by these alien tortures to extents that far exceed our own methods, which is an achievement in and of itself. I'm proposing those slaves could be planted into prospective raiding sites as spies. Under the threat of death, perhaps freedom, even wealth, these broken slaves would do their best to destabilize the cities and hives they've been planted in.
Subterfuge does seem like a likely tactic for the Dark Eldar.
Aha! Brilliant thanks for offering a way to square the OP-ness of Necrons tech-wise with their seeming lack of ability to roflstomp all over the galaxy.
They may have algorithms that can work out in infinitely fine detail how conflicts will progress. However, those algorithms are hopelessly out of date. The last foes they fought were the Old Ones, Krork, way-pre-Fall Eldar and whatever other horrors the Old Ones unleashed. They haven't the foggiest idea of the capabilities of any of the current factions from an individual right up to a civilisation level. Hence why they capture people and chop them up it's all study...
I also forget that after the loss of Pariah's from the fluff the Necrons have no way of making new Necrons. Once a Tomb World is destroyed and its warriors ground to dust...there's no way to replace them. In a war of attrition they're woefully ill-equipped to deal with losses. For a race as far-sighted as the Necrons that would absolutely be a consideration.
I like the slight humanisation of the Necrons from a 'your dudes' perspective, but I think it's completely wrong that a bunch of pre-historic undead alien killer robots feels more human than the actual humans in the galaxy. It just doesn't feel like they've got the balance right...
I'm with you on the warp-gods being reflections of the gakky galaxy. I've got a bit of headcanon that they all started off as relatively benevolent deities such as a fertility god (Nurgle), god of learning and knowledge (Tzeentch), god of honour and protection (Khorne) and pleasure (Slaanesh).
It was just another interesting possibility that someone else might like to add to their headcanon I like my 40k background to have multiple possibilities, none of which are stated to be true but all of which just might be...
Also, Khorne must absolutely hate fighting Necrons. They don't bleed, and their guns flay his followers at an atomic level meaning no blood and no skulls. The only thing he'd get is the skulls of fallen Necrons and even they tend to phase out. Most dissatisfying...
Interesting about the webway being some sort of Geth-like conscious collection of code. I'd more imagined it to be a colossal single entity. Sort of like a massive galaxy-spanning beast of burden. Either way, I do like the idea that it's conscious in some way
Yeah I'm waiting for more info to come out about the dysjunction too. From what I gather they've dealt with them before by sealing off the realm where the breach occurred, condemning those within but trapping the daemons. Tricky when the rift occurs right in the heart of the place. Perhaps we'll see a fracturing of Commorragh into smaller satellite realms which Vect has to re-unify.
Love the idea that Dark Eldar raids are sort of presaged by a load of sleeper agents being placed from their slave stock. I'd certainly say that the promise of freedom would be a hell of a motivator for a slave of the DEldar, although I suspect that death would probably be desirable for the exact same reason...
This requires you to know where the head is. Imagine if you flew into earth orbit on a spaceship, and looked down on our planet. Where are you going to send your drop pods with (lets be generous) a total number of a thousand marines?
From orbit we don't have borders. There's no stars on capitals. Some countries have hundreds of miles of urban and semi-urban area just melted together. You're not going to be able to poke Washington DC on an orbital picture and say "that's it, that's the rebel base. And I'm sure skywalker is with them." And even if you do, that's just one of a couple hundred nations! Even if you pacify the leaders, there's no guarantee they were well liked. . .maybe the constituent parts tear themselves up in civil war after you "chop off the head." Brutality only works if people know about it. If you drop pod into London, and butcher the population, how is the rest of the world going to get that communicated?
They could look up the location of governments by connecting to the internet and checking wikipedia. This is not a joke, earth broadcasts so much information you'd be crazy to think that assimilation of information wouldn't be a key part of an invasion.
As for the threat of brutal annihilation, I think doctrinally they make demonstration of power another key habit. They do it in a way that either can be covered by news feeds, or they just take over communications networks and broadcast themselves. A lot of the troubles we might think they would have could potentially be overcome with technology that might come standard on their ships.
Space Marines really do seem like a textbook point of spear unit, that would really only work against existing imperial territory that has rebelled. Someplace you speak the local language, know who the leaders are, and have enough of a cultural heritage with for the average man on the street to get his ass back in line when he hears what happened to Governor Jerkface and the entire governing cabinet. Not that he probably was out of line anyway, since the average hive worlder has zero say in how his government operates.
Very much agree with this. A lot of what they do is respond to "crisis of management" of worlds historically part of the Imperial fold.
The way I understand it, Space Marines don't really "pacify" a world. They have one job, kill that worlds soldiers. The IG come behind them to consolidate the ground the SM took. At that point they also roll in bureaucrats to launch a huge propaganda campaign to start turning the population in the right direction mentally, which could take a couple of generations. It's more of a combined effort by the Imperium.
But! Gonna play devil's advocate and try to rationalize how a single SM chapter can conquer (not pacify) a planet by themselves.
As far as how can a chapter of SM kill off a worlds armies? I'd say its a combination of factors.
For one, they are better trained and equipped than a worlds standard PDF.
Fluff wise, SM are just hard as hell to kill. You have to have something that will penetrate PA, with enough power left, and in a critical enough spot to actually put them down. Outside of a worlds HB, AC, LC, etc., it'll take a massive amount of shots to bring down a single marine, fluff wise. If the SM gets into close combat its usually a slaughter since it would take a massive amount of bodies to bring one down. Which could work except that it'll be hard to get that many bodies in one place. Like a hive city. They can be sectioned off to easily to ever do it so that their numbers can matter. Force concentration, choke points, etc. are vital in military campaigns. History has countless battles where a vastly numerical army was beaten or, at the very least, held at bay by a better trained and equipped force. I mean, we've all seen 300. This goes to the next point, PDF.
In numerous books the PDF, while soldiers, are often depicted as more of a national guard unit. This doesn't necessarily mean they can't fight, but throw in the fact that many of them have never actually fired a shot in anger. So now you have an under equipped army with no combat experience fighting an entire SM chapter which would also include their armor, battle barges, flyers, etc. Not to mention you'd have to throw in the fact that most humans in the 40k universe have an ingrained fear of Astartes. Like, hard to be in their presence without shaking for the average citizen fear.
This doesn't even account for things like terminators or centurions where, in the fluff, they'd be hard to bring down with anything other than a direct shot from a lascannon or stronger weapon which I doubt will be in abundance and most chapters have about 100 terminators.
Now, add in a SM chapter isn't going to deploy piece meal across the planet. That's the concentration of force. They'll pick targets they know they can beat, rapidly deploy, destroy it, then redeploy. They'll do things like take out key communications facilities and leadership. Now that under equipped, poorly trained (by comparison) PDF unit likely wont be able to communicate or have the leadership to coordinate a massed attack where their number would show.
Also, not every city would need to be taken. The SM could just kill the whole city from orbit. That in itself would be a huge shock to any citizens and kill their moral. I mean, they can obliterate a city while you are literally helpless to stop it.
Enemy aircraft. They could be an issue but I don't see why the SM battle barge wouldn't just destroy the majority of it in the opening salvos of an orbital bombarment.
Finally, with communications and leadership compromised, the defending planet would be in a pretty sorry state allowing the SM chapter to pick it apart over time. This is important to remember because this campaign is likely to last months. There may be some form of resistance but if you're whole planet couldn't stop them how can a few bands of uncoordinated citizens do it with whatever they can scrounge together?
Anyways, that was fun. Good way to kill the last 30 minutes at work.
The problem with Oldcrons was you were either mindless slaves of one C'tan...or you were mindless slaves of another C'tan. There was little opportunity for players to make their own themes, while other factions got Craftworlds, Chapters, warbands, Sept worlds, etc... The other problem was Oldcrons being shoehorned into being behind nearly every conspiracy or event, and being set up to be unbeatable: C'tan for example were described as being vulnerable only to large amounts of warp energy such as the Blackstone Fortresses/Talismans of Vaul...which they have effectively neutralized by the Deceiver precipitating the Gothic War.
Newcrons:
By creating dynasties, the Necrons were broken up into less monolithic blocks, and the idea that many of Lords might be insane made them less of an unbeatable foe. The whole portrayal of some of them as "honorable" grates on me but was probably an attempt to make them more likable as protagonists if players have them as an army. The same rationale was probably behind making some Necron Lords focused on rebuilding empires, so they would conquer humans rather than kill everyone. Fracturing the C'tan (and also mentioning more minor C'tan) was to shift the focus onto the Necrons and their Lords rather than less than a handful of C'tan.
It is possible I think to somewhat meld the two. You can still have your C'tan loyalists following their C'tan or C'tan fragment. You can have pure Necrons enslaving their star gods or vowing to be free of the C'tan (and maybe any other gods including the Chaos gods) forever. Internecine fighting between the Necrons and also Necrons vs. Tyranids can be a way to tone down the seeming unstoppability of both factions.
ILegion wrote: The way I understand it, Space Marines don't really "pacify" a world. They have one job, kill that worlds soldiers. The IG come behind them to consolidate the ground the SM took. At that point they also roll in bureaucrats to launch a huge propaganda campaign to start turning the population in the right direction mentally, which could take a couple of generations. It's more of a combined effort by the Imperium.
But! Gonna play devil's advocate and try to rationalize how a single SM chapter can conquer (not pacify) a planet by themselves.
As far as how can a chapter of SM kill off a worlds armies? I'd say its a combination of factors.
For one, they are better trained and equipped than a worlds standard PDF.
Fluff wise, SM are just hard as hell to kill. You have to have something that will penetrate PA, with enough power left, and in a critical enough spot to actually put them down. Outside of a worlds HB, AC, LC, etc., it'll take a massive amount of shots to bring down a single marine, fluff wise. If the SM gets into close combat its usually a slaughter since it would take a massive amount of bodies to bring one down. Which could work except that it'll be hard to get that many bodies in one place. Like a hive city. They can be sectioned off to easily to ever do it so that their numbers can matter. Force concentration, choke points, etc. are vital in military campaigns. History has countless battles where a vastly numerical army was beaten or, at the very least, held at bay by a better trained and equipped force. I mean, we've all seen 300. This goes to the next point, PDF.
In numerous books the PDF, while soldiers, are often depicted as more of a national guard unit. This doesn't necessarily mean they can't fight, but throw in the fact that many of them have never actually fired a shot in anger. So now you have an under equipped army with no combat experience fighting an entire SM chapter which would also include their armor, battle barges, flyers, etc. Not to mention you'd have to throw in the fact that most humans in the 40k universe have an ingrained fear of Astartes. Like, hard to be in their presence without shaking for the average citizen fear.
This doesn't even account for things like terminators or centurions where, in the fluff, they'd be hard to bring down with anything other than a direct shot from a lascannon or stronger weapon which I doubt will be in abundance and most chapters have about 100 terminators.
Now, add in a SM chapter isn't going to deploy piece meal across the planet. That's the concentration of force. They'll pick targets they know they can beat, rapidly deploy, destroy it, then redeploy. They'll do things like take out key communications facilities and leadership. Now that under equipped, poorly trained (by comparison) PDF unit likely wont be able to communicate or have the leadership to coordinate a massed attack where their number would show.
Also, not every city would need to be taken. The SM could just kill the whole city from orbit. That in itself would be a huge shock to any citizens and kill their moral. I mean, they can obliterate a city while you are literally helpless to stop it.
Enemy aircraft. They could be an issue but I don't see why the SM battle barge wouldn't just destroy the majority of it in the opening salvos of an orbital bombarment.
Finally, with communications and leadership compromised, the defending planet would be in a pretty sorry state allowing the SM chapter to pick it apart over time. This is important to remember because this campaign is likely to last months. There may be some form of resistance but if you're whole planet couldn't stop them how can a few bands of uncoordinated citizens do it with whatever they can scrounge together?
Anyways, that was fun. Good way to kill the last 30 minutes at work.
There was a post circulating around years ago about what would happen if a company of night lords landed on present day earth. It wasn't pretty. 100 superhuman space batmans who were more than willing to torture people to force them into submission.
One thing you have to note is that in the initial wave of expansion out from Terra, a typical planet was either sparsely populated or populated with natives with much lower technology. So, it would have been like the colonial power expansions in the past. Natives wielding spears had no chance against soldiers with guns. Its why a relatively small number of spanish could take down the whole Aztec empire.
Would have been the same for space marines. Of course when they met up with close to equivalent resistance and technology, that's when the rest of the imperium armies would come in.
But the universe at that time was not ready for the strength of a combined armed forces made up of a space marine legion. Most places did not have any coherent organisation enough to master a regional force (most natives weren't even capable of space travel). And a space marine legion would likely be more than enough to steamroll any typical mere planetary force.
Facing a space legion means facing a fearsome combined armed force of super humans. Each space marine on its own is a one man army. A whole legion of them working together with chapter tactics, supported by predator tanks, thunderhawk gunships, drop pods, and even the titan legions would likely quash any most ordinary resistance easily.
I think that poo-pooing PDF as inexperienced and unorganized soldiers is harsh. These are men and women who will get drafted into guard regiments and hold the line against any xenos/chaos raid or normal invasion until rienforcements arrive (if they arrive). Often whole planetary invasions are fought by PDF without any outside help. These aren't amatures.
Also I forget if it was a short story and if it was about Luna Wolves or Space Wolves but there was a Horus Heresy story that involves Legion forces dropping onto a non-compliant planet. Think it was about 100 or so marines involved in the first recon drop. These are experienced legion crusaders but they still accidentally end up dropping near a local military base. While these are unagmented humans, taken by surprise, they still rally a forceful response and sent the Legionnaires packing back to their drop ships after incurring not insignificant casualties.
ILegion wrote: The way I understand it, Space Marines don't really "pacify" a world. They have one job, kill that worlds soldiers. The IG come behind them to consolidate the ground the SM took. At that point they also roll in bureaucrats to launch a huge propaganda campaign to start turning the population in the right direction mentally, which could take a couple of generations. It's more of a combined effort by the Imperium.
But! Gonna play devil's advocate and try to rationalize how a single SM chapter can conquer (not pacify) a planet by themselves.
Spoiler:
As far as how can a chapter of SM kill off a worlds armies? I'd say its a combination of factors.
For one, they are better trained and equipped than a worlds standard PDF.
Fluff wise, SM are just hard as hell to kill. You have to have something that will penetrate PA, with enough power left, and in a critical enough spot to actually put them down. Outside of a worlds HB, AC, LC, etc., it'll take a massive amount of shots to bring down a single marine, fluff wise. If the SM gets into close combat its usually a slaughter since it would take a massive amount of bodies to bring one down. Which could work except that it'll be hard to get that many bodies in one place. Like a hive city. They can be sectioned off to easily to ever do it so that their numbers can matter. Force concentration, choke points, etc. are vital in military campaigns. History has countless battles where a vastly numerical army was beaten or, at the very least, held at bay by a better trained and equipped force. I mean, we've all seen 300. This goes to the next point, PDF.
In numerous books the PDF, while soldiers, are often depicted as more of a national guard unit. This doesn't necessarily mean they can't fight, but throw in the fact that many of them have never actually fired a shot in anger. So now you have an under equipped army with no combat experience fighting an entire SM chapter which would also include their armor, battle barges, flyers, etc. Not to mention you'd have to throw in the fact that most humans in the 40k universe have an ingrained fear of Astartes. Like, hard to be in their presence without shaking for the average citizen fear.
This doesn't even account for things like terminators or centurions where, in the fluff, they'd be hard to bring down with anything other than a direct shot from a lascannon or stronger weapon which I doubt will be in abundance and most chapters have about 100 terminators.
Now, add in a SM chapter isn't going to deploy piece meal across the planet. That's the concentration of force. They'll pick targets they know they can beat, rapidly deploy, destroy it, then redeploy. They'll do things like take out key communications facilities and leadership. Now that under equipped, poorly trained (by comparison) PDF unit likely wont be able to communicate or have the leadership to coordinate a massed attack where their number would show.
Also, not every city would need to be taken. The SM could just kill the whole city from orbit. That in itself would be a huge shock to any citizens and kill their moral. I mean, they can obliterate a city while you are literally helpless to stop it.
Enemy aircraft. They could be an issue but I don't see why the SM battle barge wouldn't just destroy the majority of it in the opening salvos of an orbital bombarment.
Finally, with communications and leadership compromised, the defending planet would be in a pretty sorry state allowing the SM chapter to pick it apart over time. This is important to remember because this campaign is likely to last months. There may be some form of resistance but if you're whole planet couldn't stop them how can a few bands of uncoordinated citizens do it with whatever they can scrounge together?
Anyways, that was fun. Good way to kill the last 30 minutes at work.
I think the issue comes in that people are assuming that Marines will be sent against backwater worlds without much military force or defence from orbital bombardment. 100 Marines might just be able to conquer a world of savages and barbarians, but why on earth would you send Marines against that target anyway? You could achieve the same effect with a small detachment of Guard, or a Navy ship from orbit. Marines are precious. They'll only be sent against targets that require Marines to crack.
So, Marines will be sent against high priority stuff. Planets where there will be void shielding to protect from orbital bombardment. Planets where there is something valuable on them, necessitating a strong defence force. Planets where the rogue governor/cult/whatever has amassed forces that would make for a prolonged engagement with traditional warfare. In these sorts of situations, 100 Marines will be cut down promptly after they land. Need more men, and support. Hence the idea of larger chapters/companies and regiments of unrememberred serfs
Unless, of course, Marines are actually used to pacify mainly backwater planets filled with savages wielding 9mm handguns where 100 men will do and the actual heavy lifting is left to the Guard. Realistic, but not exactly the image most people have of the Marines...
History has countless battles where a vastly numerical army was beaten or, at the very least, held at bay by a better trained and equipped force. I mean, we've all seen 300.
Funny you mention 300 actually as that's where I got the idea of regiments of unnamed and unremembered serfs from. Everyone remembers the last stand of the 300 Spartans, holding off a million Persians for days. Here's how it actually went down, as far as historians have been able to decypher:
300 Spartan Hoplites marched to the Hot Gates to hold the Persian army in place while the real army was being mustered. Alongside them marched ~700 Helots (a slave-caste of the Spartans). Alongside those 'Spartan' forces marched roughly 6000 other Greek soldiers totalling a force of some 7,000 by modern estimates. Against them was arrayed the Persian army, estimated to be around 120,000-300,000. Still overwhelmingly large, but not quite the 1 million often suggested.
The force of 7,000 held off that 300,000 strong army for a day with minimal casualties which is a fantastically impressive feat. They would likely have held for longer had they not been outflanked, but they were. Upon learning that they have been encircled on the second day, many of the Greeks retreated but a number stayed to perform a rearguard action to allow the other forces to retreat without being run down by Persian cavalry. The Spartans (and their Helots), 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. So a total force of ~2100 minus casualties.
Against this force, Xerxes brought 10,000 soldiers on the third day of battle.
So, what we have is a Greek force with superior arms and armour (longer spears and heavier shields offered them a distinct advantage against Persian troops), fighting a defensive action in a choke-point, were victorious for a day before local intelligence negated the numbers advantage, whereupon those who stayed behind in the rearguard were killed relatively easily. And even though they held for 3 days and were eventually slaughtered, we still haven't stopped banging on about it as a heroic achievement to this day.
Modern estimates put Persian fatalities at ~20,000 men. If Xerxes' army was 120,000 strong that's a significant number but not enough to stop his advance. If it was 300,000 men then it's not even really a dent in his forces.
Compared to this, our Marines are even more outnumbered, in unfamiliar territory so if they are able to find a choke point the local population will already know any ways to get around it, and are fighting an offensive not a defensive action. Not a situation that's conducive to success (although they might be facing a force that's less organised).
The problem with Oldcrons was you were either mindless slaves of one C'tan...or you were mindless slaves of another C'tan. There was little opportunity for players to make their own themes, while other factions got Craftworlds, Chapters, warbands, Sept worlds, etc... The other problem was Oldcrons being shoehorned into being behind nearly every conspiracy or event, and being set up to be unbeatable: C'tan for example were described as being vulnerable only to large amounts of warp energy such as the Blackstone Fortresses/Talismans of Vaul...which they have effectively neutralized by the Deceiver precipitating the Gothic War.
Newcrons:
By creating dynasties, the Necrons were broken up into less monolithic blocks, and the idea that many of Lords might be insane made them less of an unbeatable foe. The whole portrayal of some of them as "honorable" grates on me but was probably an attempt to make them more likable as protagonists if players have them as an army. The same rationale was probably behind making some Necron Lords focused on rebuilding empires, so they would conquer humans rather than kill everyone. Fracturing the C'tan (and also mentioning more minor C'tan) was to shift the focus onto the Necrons and their Lords rather than less than a handful of C'tan.
It is possible I think to somewhat meld the two. You can still have your C'tan loyalists following their C'tan or C'tan fragment. You can have pure Necrons enslaving their star gods or vowing to be free of the C'tan (and maybe any other gods including the Chaos gods) forever. Internecine fighting between the Necrons and also Necrons vs. Tyranids can be a way to tone down the seeming unstoppability of both factions.
Yeah I agree that there's a middle-ground between the two. I think it boils down to who is in the minority. If you have a minority of honourable senile old coots scrapping against each other then the whole faction looks ridiculous. If you have the majority of them being unified soulless murder-robots obsessively persecuting a war that ended 60 million years ago...but a few of them harbour doubts about what they've done or the viability of the war they're persecuting, the whole thing keeps the 'your dudes' factor while making Necrons not a joke.
So basically, scrap dynasties. They're petty and make the Necrons feel naff. Return them to a monolithic army-that-conquered-the-galaxy, tempering their OP-ness by nerfing their FTL travel so it's reliable but slooow, turning them into a sort of inexorable march of the dead. However within that monolithic army you have dissenters. The odd revolutionary, conducting experiments in secret of ways they might reverse the biotransference and restore their species. At the same time you have another minority where C'Tan shards have slipped containment and taken over a Tomb World. This offers the opportunity for people to build their Necron forces however they please, within the context of the Necrons being a bona-fide galactic-scale threat (without being OP).
agurus1 wrote: I think that poo-pooing PDF as inexperienced and unorganized soldiers is harsh. These are men and women who will get drafted into guard regiments and hold the line against any xenos/chaos raid or normal invasion until rienforcements arrive (if they arrive). Often whole planetary invasions are fought by PDF without any outside help. These aren't amatures.
Also I forget if it was a short story and if it was about Luna Wolves or Space Wolves but there was a Horus Heresy story that involves Legion forces dropping onto a non-compliant planet. Think it was about 100 or so marines involved in the first recon drop. These are experienced legion crusaders but they still accidentally end up dropping near a local military base. While these are unagmented humans, taken by surprise, they still rally a forceful response and sent the Legionnaires packing back to their drop ships after incurring not insignificant casualties.
Honestly, I think the quality of the PDF is going to variety wildly from place to place. Some may be excellent while some may be down right garbage. But it would be hard to maintain an excellent PDF force anyways because a lot of planets that have the resources and experience to train a good PDF end up having their best soldiers taken by the Imperial Guard anyways. Right now I'm re-reading the Uriel Ventris series and it just talked about how the Lavrentian 44th were wary of trusting the IG in the coming fight against the Tau, presumably because, more often than not, the PDF is a very sub par, unreliably fighting force. In the book Dead Men Walking they do a pretty good job against the Necrons, even using civilians, but that's more because they are trained and supported by the Death Korps of Kreig than because they are great soldiers. That isn't to say some wont put up a hell of a fight though, I just don't think it'd be the majority, fortress worlds like Cadia aside.
There was a post circulating around years ago about what would happen if a company of night lords landed on present day earth. It wasn't pretty. 100 superhuman space batmans who were more than willing to torture people to force them into submission.
I remember reading that. Like you said, it was pretty terrible for Earth haha
Funny you mention 300 actually as that's where I got the idea of regiments of unnamed and unremembered serfs from. Everyone remembers the last stand of the 300 Spartans, holding off a million Persians for days. Here's how it actually went down, as far as historians have been able to decypher:
300 Spartan Hoplites marched to the Hot Gates to hold the Persian army in place while the real army was being mustered. Alongside them marched ~700 Helots (a slave-caste of the Spartans). Alongside those 'Spartan' forces marched roughly 6000 other Greek soldiers totalling a force of some 7,000 by modern estimates. Against them was arrayed the Persian army, estimated to be around 120,000-300,000. Still overwhelmingly large, but not quite the 1 million often suggested.
The force of 7,000 held off that 300,000 strong army for a day with minimal casualties which is a fantastically impressive feat. They would likely have held for longer had they not been outflanked, but they were. Upon learning that they have been encircled on the second day, many of the Greeks retreated but a number stayed to perform a rearguard action to allow the other forces to retreat without being run down by Persian cavalry. The Spartans (and their Helots), 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. So a total force of ~2100 minus casualties.
Against this force, Xerxes brought 10,000 soldiers on the third day of battle.
So, what we have is a Greek force with superior arms and armour (longer spears and heavier shields offered them a distinct advantage against Persian troops), fighting a defensive action in a choke-point, were victorious for a day before local intelligence negated the numbers advantage, whereupon those who stayed behind in the rearguard were killed relatively easily. And even though they held for 3 days and were eventually slaughtered, we still haven't stopped banging on about it as a heroic achievement to this day.
Modern estimates put Persian fatalities at ~20,000 men. If Xerxes' army was 120,000 strong that's a significant number but not enough to stop his advance. If it was 300,000 men then it's not even really a dent in his forces.
Compared to this, our Marines are even more outnumbered, in unfamiliar territory so if they are able to find a choke point the local population will already know any ways to get around it, and are fighting an offensive not a defensive action. Not a situation that's conducive to success (although they might be facing a force that's less organised).
Yeah the myth of only 300 soldiers is great for story telling but not realistic. I studied this in college and in the army, good example of superior terrain/tactics/equipment. If if I remember right the Battle of Thermopylae lasted closer to a week but only had about 3 days of fighting with the Spartans rotating out who actually fought so that their soldiers could get some rest. And it wan't just their shields and longer spears that made a difference, they were also clad head to toe in armor that the Persion bows couldn't penetrate. They relied pretty heavily on their bows which the Spartans thought of as cowardly. Also, the Persians relied on cavalry pretty heavily but the terrain clearly favored the Spartans, the cavalry couldn't maneuver. The Spartans also used feints, like pretending to fall back to lure in more of Xerxes troops and then slaughtered them. Some sources even point to Xerxes, while watching the battle, jumping up thinking he had lost his army at at least 1 point because of this. While the local citizens would normally have an advantage here with the choke points, I think it would still favor the marines more. Like in a hive city. Most of their defenses are going to be geared towards stopping an enemy with human like qualities. Like an autocannon set up at the end of an allyway. Normally, a person may not be able to throw a grenade down it but a SM might could, or ride through it with a Land Raider, or fall on it from above with Assault Squads. Its little things like this. All while taking minimal casualties compared to what a normal human unit would take. In the short story Deathwing, for example, 30 terminators attack a huge city controlled by a GSC full of hybrids and purstrains. They destroy the entire infestation by themselves, in one battle, with no support, killing a lot of stealers. Granted only 6 lived but they took down the entire city by themselves. One thing I forgot to mention on 300, while the Spartans tended to be heavily armored the Persians weren't. This is a huge disadvantage. If they were armored head to toe would it have went the same way? I doubt it. If the Persians had the armor to just charge in and break the Greek formation it probably would have gone a little differently. Granted, the greeks were fighting a defensive action, and generally, when attacking, you want least 3-1 odds in your favor when attacking. I'd say that 1 SM is worth more than 3 humans so the numbers aren't AS important.
A better example may be Andrew Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign during the American Civil War. At the peak of his army, Jackson had about 17,000 men vs. a couple of Union forces that numbered about 52,000. The problem the Union soldiers faced here, I think, would be similar to what the PDF would face against a marine invasion force. The union army was actually multiple armies with independent command so they never really coordinated to bring all their numbers to bear at the same time. A PDF defending different cities may have a similar issue. If the marines could disrupt communication at all that would just compound the problem, which they could just through orbital bombardment. According to the books I've read, it tends to play hell with comms. So even if the hive city had void shields, why not bombard them anyways to disrupt communications while the marines attack lesser defended cities one at a time. This allows them to do something else Jackson did which is concentrate his forces. In a majority of battles Jackson was able to maneuver his army into a position where he actually had more men on the field fighting than the Union did which should never have happened considering their forces. Marines would never have the numbers, but being able to bring an entire chapter against one opponent at a time would be telling. Like, if an entire world could muster and fight at once, yeah, marines lose. But being able to section those forces off like that and take them one at a time would tip the balance.
Also, I wasn't looking at this as either a fortress world, well defended hive city, or anything like that. I was thinking more along the lines of a normal world. With nothing special about it really that maybe rebelled (not from chaos just tired of the imperium) so the marines were sent to make an example or something. It isn't a back water but it isn't Cadia. Something in between. Closer to Earth. We aren't really a back water but we aren't super advanced.
Yeah the myth of only 300 soldiers is great for story telling but not realistic. I studied this in college and in the army, good example of superior terrain/tactics/equipment. If if I remember right the Battle of Thermopylae lasted closer to a week but only had about 3 days of fighting with the Spartans rotating out who actually fought so that their soldiers could get some rest. And it wan't just their shields and longer spears that made a difference, they were also clad head to toe in armor that the Persion bows couldn't penetrate. They relied pretty heavily on their bows which the Spartans thought of as cowardly. Also, the Persians relied on cavalry pretty heavily but the terrain clearly favored the Spartans, the cavalry couldn't maneuver. The Spartans also used feints, like pretending to fall back to lure in more of Xerxes troops and then slaughtered them. Some sources even point to Xerxes, while watching the battle, jumping up thinking he had lost his army at at least 1 point because of this. While the local citizens would normally have an advantage here with the choke points, I think it would still favor the marines more. Like in a hive city. Most of their defenses are going to be geared towards stopping an enemy with human like qualities. Like an autocannon set up at the end of an allyway. Normally, a person may not be able to throw a grenade down it but a SM might could, or ride through it with a Land Raider, or fall on it from above with Assault Squads. Its little things like this. All while taking minimal casualties compared to what a normal human unit would take. In the short story Deathwing, for example, 30 terminators attack a huge city controlled by a GSC full of hybrids and purstrains. They destroy the entire infestation by themselves, in one battle, with no support, killing a lot of stealers. Granted only 6 lived but they took down the entire city by themselves. One thing I forgot to mention on 300, while the Spartans tended to be heavily armored the Persians weren't. This is a huge disadvantage. If they were armored head to toe would it have went the same way? I doubt it. If the Persians had the armor to just charge in and break the Greek formation it probably would have gone a little differently. Granted, the greeks were fighting a defensive action, and generally, when attacking, you want least 3-1 odds in your favor when attacking. I'd say that 1 SM is worth more than 3 humans so the numbers aren't AS important.
A better example may be Andrew Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign during the American Civil War. At the peak of his army, Jackson had about 17,000 men vs. a couple of Union forces that numbered about 52,000. The problem the Union soldiers faced here, I think, would be similar to what the PDF would face against a marine invasion force. The union army was actually multiple armies with independent command so they never really coordinated to bring all their numbers to bear at the same time. A PDF defending different cities may have a similar issue. If the marines could disrupt communication at all that would just compound the problem, which they could just through orbital bombardment. According to the books I've read, it tends to play hell with comms. So even if the hive city had void shields, why not bombard them anyways to disrupt communications while the marines attack lesser defended cities one at a time. This allows them to do something else Jackson did which is concentrate his forces. In a majority of battles Jackson was able to maneuver his army into a position where he actually had more men on the field fighting than the Union did which should never have happened considering their forces. Marines would never have the numbers, but being able to bring an entire chapter against one opponent at a time would be telling. Like, if an entire world could muster and fight at once, yeah, marines lose. But being able to section those forces off like that and take them one at a time would tip the balance.
Also, I wasn't looking at this as either a fortress world, well defended hive city, or anything like that. I was thinking more along the lines of a normal world. With nothing special about it really that maybe rebelled (not from chaos just tired of the imperium) so the marines were sent to make an example or something. It isn't a back water but it isn't Cadia. Something in between. Closer to Earth. We aren't really a back water but we aren't super advanced.
Yeah that does make sense, although I still don't think the Marines stand a hope in hell against any of the targets they'd be required to fight if there's only 100 of them (plus vehicle crew). It's honestly a laughably small force that, barring orbital bombardment, I'm fairly certain our armed forces could take. Even if it's only tank shells that can penetrate Power Armour, there's more than enough tanks in the US alone to outnumber Marines 2-to-1. And compared to most 40k planets worth a damn we're absolutely a backwater. We've barely even got spaceflight.
I'm not saying that Marines would lose out to any army that outnumbers them. I'm not even saying that being heavily outnumbered would mean they're toast. It's just that in any situation where Marines would be required to mollify a threat they're outnumbered so severely that even if the opposing force brought a fraction of their arms to bear they'd be drowned in bullets.
The example I was running through back at the start was a hive that was woefully underequipped compared to most hives in the Imperium, with only 0.1% of a single hive's population being armed and against the Marines. In reality that would be far nastier, especially if things had gone bad enough to require the Marines to be called in. Yet even with those enormously favourable odds for the Marines they're still dead over a hundred times over. Hell, the example wasn't even realistic for that. It was 0.1% of the population is armed, against the Marines and then takes a single shot at them before shooting themselves in the head.
I understand how situations can be engineered to result in force multipliers that can negate some degree of numerical advantage. The issue is that no force multiplier bar orbital bombardment will be able to overcome the odds the company of Marines are facing when 'pacifying a hive', let along 'pacifying a world' that they would realistically be sent against, given our current understanding of Marine physiology and capability.
I'm not saying that Marines can't overcome odds that aren't in their favour. I'm not saying that Marines are incapable, or that their advantages aren't significant. I am saying that the advantages they have are simply not enough to overcome the catastrophically terrible odds they're facing if there's only 100 of them.
7000 Greeks lost to 300,000 Persians, but survived for about a week (being outnumbered 42-to-1).
17,000 of Andrew Jackson's soldiers beat 52,000 Union soldiers (being outnumbered 3-to-1)
In the best possible scenario I can imagine (1% of the population against the Marines, only 50% armed with any sort of weapon at all, all of them fire a single shot and then promptly shoot themselves in the head), the Marines are still outnumbered 400-to-1. Those are insurmountable odds even if all other factors are accounted for (especially seeing as the opposing force, whipped up into a fervour by the rogue governor, is extremely unlikely to shoot themselves in the head after firing their one shot).
Unless the rebellious force is taken completely and utterly unawares the Marines stand no chance at all. The surprise factor is rather ruined by the sodding great battlebarge overhead though...
Are we assuming that they fight all the conventional forces on a planet? as that would be stupid to say the least, they could just drop onto the most powerful nations living room and kill the entire high command, leave the rest leaderless and pick off the biggest threats?
Two small changes though and it's fixed. Companies are 10-100,000 strong. Wherever Marines go they're acconpanied by serfs, native troops and/or IG regiments that fight alongside but never get recorded in history just like the helots amd thespians at the battle of thermopylae
I quite like that idea. The glory-hound Space Marines are well-known for the victory that was really won with the endless sacrifice of Serfs who are forgotten to history.
Yeah it's definitely a favourite of mine
Plus, you get kickass conversion opportunities like these Black Templar serfs:
Totally agreed. My homebrew Marine Chapter already has a dedicated Chapter serf/IG force. I find the aesthetic of an army of common soldiers led by a small group of giant demi-gods to be very attractive. Especially now that with the Primaris, Marines actually stand out from the crowd. Space Marine armies would be so much more interesting if they offered options for Chapter serfs.
Formosa wrote: Are we assuming that they fight all the conventional forces on a planet? as that would be stupid to say the least, they could just drop onto the most powerful nations living room and kill the entire high command, leave the rest leaderless and pick off the biggest threats?
Not sure about others, but I've tried to work that into my calculations by making it so that only 0.1% of the given hive's population ever get a single shot at the Marines. Marines are still toast.
It would work provided the planet hadn't the faintest idea you were coming (sort of spoiled by the battlebarge dropping out of orbit) or don't have the capability to defend yourself even if you do (we'd probably fall into this category as we have no defence against orbital bombardment).
The whole War on Terror example I posted earlier is indication that the whole 'drop in and kill the leaders' idea doesn't really work when it's a hearts and minds thing rather than a single person driving it, so it would work for a single corrupt governor but would probably be completely ineffective against anything that actually had popular support.
Oh, another thought. Regardless of numbers, the hive dudes are the Spartans in this situation. Fighting a defensive engagement on home turf where they are better able to use the terrain against the Marines. Marines may have been to many hives in their service career, but these people have been living in this particular hive for all of their life.
Eldenfirefly wrote: One thing you have to note is that in the initial wave of expansion out from Terra, a typical planet was either sparsely populated or populated with natives with much lower technology. So, it would have been like the colonial power expansions in the past. Natives wielding spears had no chance against soldiers with guns. Its why a relatively small number of spanish could take down the whole Aztec empire.
For the first wave, many planets welcomes the IoM.
They remembered what interstellar travel was like before. In stories or in legends, it was a great time to be alive. A time of abundance. Everywhere in the great crusade you find planets that had been isolated in darkness, on the brink of starvation, or under the rule of xenos. Once liberated most were more than willing to submit to imperial rule, because they genuinely thought it was going to be for the best.
Formosa wrote: Are we assuming that they fight all the conventional forces on a planet? as that would be stupid to say the least, they could just drop onto the most powerful nations living room and kill the entire high command, leave the rest leaderless and pick off the biggest threats?
This is the point of view I've been taking. They'll basically pick apart a planet's defenses. Target leadership, communications, bases, etc. Then conduct lightening fast strikes via drop pod, thunderhawk, etc. to annihilate those key facilities and personnel before hitting you're next target.
But, I'll stop playing devil's advocate, I'm running out of arguments haha.
Personally, I don't think the marines can defeat a planet by themselves. They just physically don't have enough bodies to cover enough ground. Even if an entire chapter deployed to fight a planet similar to earth with multiple factions, They wouldn't have enough personnel to hit enough targets to accomplish a full decapitation strike. That's why you don't really hear about them defeating a planet by themselves and why the only time they really did was in the Great Crusade with they numbered in the tens of thousands per Legion. That's why conquering a planet and pacifying it is a combined imperial effort.
I guess, technically, a single space marine battle barge could conquer a planet. They could role up, virus bomb the hell out of it then lance strike it to set the gases off. That's exterminatus though so not really what we're talking about here haha.
In terms of comparative technological advancement the US army might as well be. Still not a taxtic that has met with any form of success.
Nope. Not even close. Once you bring in psykers, teleportation, etc., you're in a whole other area. Certainly, for more industrial or advanced worlds, the whole "cut off the head" thing fails as you say. There are also a great deal of less advanced worlds where the Marines are facing forces that might struggle agains the modern Taliban. They get called in as a matter of expedience, or maybe there's no Guard close enough, etc etc. In these cases, where you have a less populated world with a more "backward" tech level, the cut off the head strategy would likely work and work pretty well. Like I said, real world comparisons work to a point, but when you have a populace who might not even have known about space travel look to the skies and see burning drop pods come down and crush half a settlement while giant armored demons get out and launch lightning from their hands while nothing the populace has can even distract them? Yeah, in the right circumstances, an army consisting only of space marines really could pacify a planet without killing everyone or resorting to destroying the planet itself.
On another side note, I think its important to differentiate between conquering a planet and making it loyal to the IoM. Space marines can kill the armies but aren't really made to then win the hearts and minds, so on that front they definitely fail.
Totally agreed. My homebrew Marine Chapter already has a dedicated Chapter serf/IG force. I find the aesthetic of an army of common soldiers led by a small group of giant demi-gods to be very attractive. Especially now that with the Primaris, Marines actually stand out from the crowd. Space Marine armies would be so much more interesting if they offered options for Chapter serfs.
Neat! I always like to see this played out in people's armies it certainly is a great aesthetic, helped by the embiggened Primaris miniatures. I keep meaning to have a stab at it myself, doing a take on 'Red Templars' as sort of space-Knights Hospitallers with a load of men-at-arms supporting them.
There's tons of cool things you can do. Roman-style up-teched auxilia for the Ultramarines. Failed aspirants-turned combat servitors for Iron Hands. A load of screaming fanatical loonies bedecked in gold that trail the Imperial Fists around (basically terra-groupies). Light-cavalry bikers like mongol-style dragoons for the White Scars. Covert spec-ops style dudes for Raven Guard. Techno-barbaric warriors for the Space Wolves.
It's not just realistic, it's a damn cool idea too
Ooh, forgot about these awesome conversions for Space Wolf mortal auxilia:
The whole War on Terror example I posted earlier is indication that the whole 'drop in and kill the leaders' idea doesn't really work when it's a hearts and minds thing rather than a single person driving it, so it would work for a single corrupt governor but would probably be completely ineffective against anything that actually had popular support. .
The difference between the War on Terror and a planetary assault by the Astartes (or wars in our own past) is that the Astartes aren't bound by treaties and laws governing what you should and should not do with local populaces. The Coalition is.
ILegion wrote: On another side note, I think its important to differentiate between conquering a planet and making it loyal to the IoM. Space marines can kill the armies but aren't really made to then win the hearts and minds, so on that front they definitely fail.
Personally, I'd say it's the opposite way around.
Space Marines at 100 men strong are woefully inadequate to kill even a modest PDF forces. However, as the guardian angels of the Imperium, the chosen warriors of the Emperor, the forgers of the very Imperium, they are the single best propaganda tool the Imperium has at its disposal.
That might be a way for 100 Marines to pacify a planet. Rock up, state that they are the chosen angels of the Emperor and the governor has displeased him. Give him to us, or the wrath of the Emperor will rain down upon you (all bluff, given their numbers). Then drop down into a public place and lord around like the 7ft tall genetically engineered propaganda machine you are in an attempt at further intimidation and they might just hand the governor over.
Not exactly the sort of shoot-em-up novel people usually want from SM books though...
The difference between the War on Terror and a planetary assault by the Astartes (or wars in our own past) is that the Astartes aren't bound by treaties and laws governing what you should and should not do with local populaces. The Coalition is.
Another good point and another good example why real world comparisons only go so far. You don't need to worry about where in the hive city the enemy is hiding if you can just level the hive city ...
If you're already at the scale where you are leveling cities, why does landing troops matter? And if you did have to land troops, why not land the guard or mechanicus? The former has leveled cities through sheer bloodyminded determination, and the latter has tanks that can level cities in a single shot.
What do the space marines do that another imperial organization does not do better?
The whole War on Terror example I posted earlier is indication that the whole 'drop in and kill the leaders' idea doesn't really work when it's a hearts and minds thing rather than a single person driving it, so it would work for a single corrupt governor but would probably be completely ineffective against anything that actually had popular support.
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The difference between the War on Terror and a planetary assault by the Astartes (or wars in our own past) is that the Astartes aren't bound by treaties and laws governing what you should and should not do with local populaces. The Coalition is.
What should or should not be done to the populace is precisely what makes the War on Terror pretty much unwinnable using the tactics the Coalition is using (air strikes and kill the leadership). That's what the article I linked was explaining, and is usually missed by a lot of people when they talk about it. It's the fact that continual hostilities (including air strikes which are more indiscriminate than we'd like) creates deeper rooted hatred towards the Coalition and the West in general that perpetuates the War on Terror.
When actually interviewing insurgents, it's not typically 'we're fighting because we've been whipped up into a fanatical frenzy by X charismatic leader'. It's usually 'we're fighting because airstrikes killed my family and levelled our home' or 'my friend was an insurgent and was shot by the Coalition, so now I'm fighting too'. The reason that piece of work has taken place is because the assumed tactic of 'take out the leadership' was proving ineffective. It's a common misconception of applying the rules of state-to-state warfare (where armies rely on the leadership and co-ordination of generals) to a completely different conflict (grass-roots resistance to what's viewed as a foreign invasion).
How this relates to Astartes is that the lack of rules of engagement, meaning more indiscriminate strikes and even greater civilian casualties, would simply have the effect of galvanising the population against the Marines even faster. Especially seeing as any rogue Governor worth his salt will ensure that the Marines are portrayed as a foreign invader and the populace is fighting for their homes and very survival.
Perhaps this is why the Marines are used, building on the propaganda point from earlier. Perhaps they're used to try and break that hold the governor has on the population, pitching themselves as the very messengers of the Emperor himself and turning the population against the governor without having to rely on their (inadequate if they're 100 men) force of arms.
Unit1126PLL wrote: If you're already at the scale where you are leveling cities, why does landing troops matter? And if you did have to land troops, why not land the guard or mechanicus? The former has leveled cities through sheer bloodyminded determination, and the latter has tanks that can level cities in a single shot.
What do the space marines do that another imperial organization does not do better?
This.
The point of 'pacifying' a planet is so that you can still use its resources. Not necessarily people as they're pretty much worthless in the 40k universe, but infrastructure is important. Hives are colossal edifices that do a great deal of the lower-scale manufacturing for the Imperial war effort. Just levelling them from orbit when a governor goes bad isn't a great idea.
Unit1126PLL wrote: If you're already at the scale where you are leveling cities, why does landing troops matter? And if you did have to land troops, why not land the guard or mechanicus? The former has leveled cities through sheer bloodyminded determination, and the latter has tanks that can level cities in a single shot.
What do the space marines do that another imperial organization does not do better?
Because sometimes you want to capture and not simply destroy.
Space Marines are shock troops. They're weapons of terror in and of themselves, and they're the best special forces you can get. The Imperial Guard are ultimately just line troops, with varying levels of quality.
Totally agreed. My homebrew Marine Chapter already has a dedicated Chapter serf/IG force. I find the aesthetic of an army of common soldiers led by a small group of giant demi-gods to be very attractive. Especially now that with the Primaris, Marines actually stand out from the crowd. Space Marine armies would be so much more interesting if they offered options for Chapter serfs.
Neat! I always like to see this played out in people's armies it certainly is a great aesthetic, helped by the embiggened Primaris miniatures. I keep meaning to have a stab at it myself, doing a take on 'Red Templars' as sort of space-Knights Hospitallers with a load of men-at-arms supporting them.
There's tons of cool things you can do. Roman-style up-teched auxilia for the Ultramarines. Failed aspirants-turned combat servitors for Iron Hands. A load of screaming fanatical loonies bedecked in gold that trail the Imperial Fists around (basically terra-groupies). Light-cavalry bikers like mongol-style dragoons for the White Scars. Covert spec-ops style dudes for Raven Guard. Techno-barbaric warriors for the Space Wolves.
It's not just realistic, it's a damn cool idea too
Ooh, forgot about these awesome conversions for Space Wolf mortal auxilia:
Spoiler:
Awesome! I totally have to do something with that failed aspirants idea. So many ideas, so little time...
Yeah that does make sense, although I still don't think the Marines stand a hope in hell against any of the targets they'd be required to fight if there's only 100 of them (plus vehicle crew). It's honestly a laughably small force that, barring orbital bombardment, I'm fairly certain our armed forces could take. Even if it's only tank shells that can penetrate Power Armour, there's more than enough tanks in the US alone to outnumber Marines 2-to-1.
That is not entirely true. It is true in an absolute sense, but it does not take into account the realities of combat. The US has maybe a few thousand tanks, but those are spread around the country, stored in depots and on military bases. Their crews too, are not constantly sitting in their tanks waiting for Marines to drop from the sky. If Marines strike Washington DC, there are maybe only 2-3 military bases in close enough proximity to contribute to the fight. And those are of course the places the Marines are going to be targeting first. Now Marines don't just walk in through the front door, they strike from orbit. The soldiers at the base will have no warning whatsoever that they are going to be attacked until the drop pods crash down in their midst. At that point the battle is already lost for them. Attacked totally out of the blue, with almost invulnerable giants wreaking havoc everywhere across the base, it will be very hard if not impossible for them to set up a coordinated defense. In the resulting chaos, their morale will be shattered very quickly and they will run. Even if they outnumber the Marines 10-1. Thing is, the soldiers won't know they outnumber the Marines by so much, and the chaos of a surprise attack won't leave them with the time needed to gather intelligence and find out. Meanwhile, the other bases might be attacked at the same time. If not, they would likely get word that the first base is under attack relatively quickly, and send reinforcements. But the Marines aren't going to sit around and wait until they are surrounded by overwhelming forces, they will withdraw and then strike the next base in the same manner while the defenders are still dealing with the aftermath of the first attack. While the local garrison in DC is being kept busy in this manner, another squad of Space Marines strikes the Pentagon, and another the White House and Capitol.
Basically, Marines don't invade planets by engaging the full power of the defenders in a big conventional war. That is the Guard's job. Marines use shock and awe tactics to quickly shatter the defender's morale and chain of command, leaving their forces paralysed. It won't work against every kind of opponent in 40k (fanatical Chaos worshippers, Orks etc.) but it would be pretty effective against your average planet defended by average Human soldiers that just so happen to serve a rebellious governor or commander.
I do agree that a Space Marine company is way too small to engage in the kind of battles they are often portrayed as fighting in the fluff. In the fluff, they don't just do shock and awe, but also siege fortresses, engage in tank battles etc. IG regiments face the same problem. A conflict like the Wars on Armageddon seems big, until you realise that the entire Imperial force in one of the biggest intergalactic wars of all time is less than what got deployed for single battles on the Eastern Front in WWII. But for a planetary invasion, (assuming the target is a rebellious Imperial world) a 100 Marines would be sufficient. Like ISIS captured much of Syria and Iraq with just a few thousand guys (while being heavily outnumbered by the Iraqi forces) or the German army conquered France and much of the Soviet Union while being heavily outmatched. Just shatter their morale and then don't give them time to rally and realise they could easily take you on. Panicked as they are, they will keep running or surrendering as you chase them. War is not about killing your opponents. It is about making them lose the will to fight.
What do the space marines do that another imperial organization does not do better?
React quicker.
Even if every Marine is only worth 10 other troops or whatever they're able to deploy much faster. Whilst the Guard would still be mustering or waiting for the Navy and the Mechanicus would need to organise themselves the Space Marines are able to receive a message, decide whether or not they respond to it and deploy their forces much more quickly. They don't have the same bureaucratic or equipment limitations.
They're probably more effective being used to defend besieged Imperial planets than attacking hostile ones because of that.
For Space Marines to take a world by themselves they need to be able to deploy orbital fire with ease (even if you don't bomb civilian centres you can destroy any army in the field), have an enemy that will fold without leadership (which is easily destroyed), have a load of native forces they could easily recruit as allies (like happened with the Spanish conquests in the New World) or each Marine is more like a Black Library Marine than a Codex Marine and as such could take on a hundred or more soldiers with ease (whereupon the force multiplication allows them to individually destroy enemy elements with minimal casualties).
The whole War on Terror example I posted earlier is indication that the whole 'drop in and kill the leaders' idea doesn't really work when it's a hearts and minds thing rather than a single person driving it, so it would work for a single corrupt governor but would probably be completely ineffective against anything that actually had popular support.
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The difference between the War on Terror and a planetary assault by the Astartes (or wars in our own past) is that the Astartes aren't bound by treaties and laws governing what you should and should not do with local populaces. The Coalition is.
What should or should not be done to the populace is precisely what makes the War on Terror pretty much unwinnable using the tactics the Coalition is using (air strikes and kill the leadership). That's what the article I linked was explaining, and is usually missed by a lot of people when they talk about it. It's the fact that continual hostilities (including air strikes which are more indiscriminate than we'd like) creates deeper rooted hatred towards the Coalition and the West in general that perpetuates the War on Terror.
When actually interviewing insurgents, it's not typically 'we're fighting because we've been whipped up into a fanatical frenzy by X charismatic leader'. It's usually 'we're fighting because airstrikes killed my family and levelled our home' or 'my friend was an insurgent and was shot by the Coalition, so now I'm fighting too'. The reason that piece of work has taken place is because the assumed tactic of 'take out the leadership' was proving ineffective. It's a common misconception of applying the rules of state-to-state warfare (where armies rely on the leadership and co-ordination of generals) to a completely different conflict (grass-roots resistance to what's viewed as a foreign invasion).
How this relates to Astartes is that the lack of rules of engagement, meaning more indiscriminate strikes and even greater civilian casualties, would simply have the effect of galvanising the population against the Marines even faster. Especially seeing as any rogue Governor worth his salt will ensure that the Marines are portrayed as a foreign invader and the populace is fighting for their homes and very survival.
Perhaps this is why the Marines are used, building on the propaganda point from earlier. Perhaps they're used to try and break that hold the governor has on the population, pitching themselves as the very messengers of the Emperor himself and turning the population against the governor without having to rely on their (inadequate if they're 100 men) force of arms.
Except thats not always the case. When you go in and put the opposition down hard, its done, for the time being at least. Its been done effectively time and again in our history. Does it come back to bite later? Sure, but they are (and were) concerned with the now. And that is very much an Imperium way of looking at it. You've crushed them utterly. They can take the propaganda stance you mentioned while doing it as well. After all they are the Emperor's Avenging Angels, sent to destroy those who would stand against the Emperor. A charismatic governor can try to convince the population that the Astartes are invaders, but then he's going against the dogma they have been force fed their whole lives. Suddenly this governor is denouncing God's Angels? Not just when they are far away and a myth, but now that they are here?
Now you've got a force with no RoE, that still can speak to the Religious Fervor of the Locals.
Unit1126PLL wrote: If you're already at the scale where you are leveling cities, why does landing troops matter? And if you did have to land troops, why not land the guard or mechanicus? The former has leveled cities through sheer bloodyminded determination, and the latter has tanks that can level cities in a single shot.
What do the space marines do that another imperial organization does not do better?
Because sometimes you want to capture and not simply destroy.
Space Marines are shock troops. They're weapons of terror in and of themselves, and they're the best special forces you can get. The Imperial Guard are ultimately just line troops, with varying levels of quality.
I'm not sure this is true anymore. Sure, it used to be the fluff, but special forces don't field superheavy tanks, main battle tanks, heavy artillery, orbit-capable spacecraft... really anything heavier than a Rhino or Razorback and you've completely left the park on the issue of "special forces". Right now, the SM seem like super expensive line troops that are 100x the cost of guardsmen but still die when the heavy tank they're crewing goes nuclear.
What do the space marines do that another imperial organization does not do better?
React quicker.
Even if every Marine is only worth 10 other troops or whatever they're able to deploy much faster. Whilst the Guard would still be mustering or waiting for the Navy and the Mechanicus would need to organise themselves the Space Marines are able to receive a message, decide whether or not they respond to it and deploy their forces much more quickly. They don't have the same bureaucratic or equipment limitations.
They're probably more effective being used to defend besieged Imperial planets than attacking hostile ones because of that.
For Space Marines to take a world by themselves they need to be able to deploy orbital fire with ease (even if you don't bomb civilian centres you can destroy any army in the field), have an enemy that will fold without leadership (which is easily destroyed), have a load of native forces they could easily recruit as allies (like happened with the Spanish conquests in the New World) or each Marine is more like a Black Library Marine than a Codex Marine and as such could take on a hundred or more soldiers with ease (whereupon the force multiplication allows them to individually destroy enemy elements with minimal casualties).
So essentially for Marines to do the job that Guard could do on effectively any world, there has to be a whole bunch of "insert plot device here" going for them - like, sure, if assassinating Stalin with a OSS operative destroyed the Soviet Union then I suppose OSS would be a really attractive weapon. But I have a hard time believing that barring certain situations (psychic dominance of a whole planet, and .... that's it) assassinating a few leadership positions will somehow win a war by itself.
And it's a question of pacification again. If they are trying to preserve the world, you need bodies to occupy the physical space. Being able to kill someone 200 times over with a butter knife in .5 seconds doesn't help if they just nuked the arbites fortress-precinct five towns over. And if you're not trying to preserve a world, why deploy someone who is able to kill someone 200 times over with a butter knife in .5 seconds when you could just kill seven billion people seven billion times over with a orbital strike in .001 seconds?
I can see the speed argument, but surely you can do that without spending huge amounts of dosh on expensive regular people.
@Iron Captain i'd wager a sodding great starship materialising in system might give them some indication to mobilise troops. If not, then when it releases Thunderhawks and Drop Pods which are fairly obviously military vehicles they might catch on. Even if they're not sure if they're peaceful it's likely that armed forces will be put on high alert and brass moved to secure defended bunkers.
Similar thing would take place on a 40k world.
I also question somewhat the validity of drop pods as stealth craft. See a meteor detatch from a ship in orbit and head straight to your position (which is presumably of tactical significance if the Marines are targeting it) it's going to be pretty obvious what's going to happen. Re-entry for the space shuttle takes about an hour. Reasonable amount of time to mobilise at least a cursory force to key strategic areas and evacuate leadership. Less if you're in a compact hive.
I do absolutely agree with you though that the chaos and confusion of their landing could be used to their advantage. Especially if the defenders don't know what they're dealing with.
So the list of viable targets for Marines gets ever smaller. To be effective, they need to be sent against a planet with minimal defences, that's never seen or heard of Marines before, has issues caused by a single rogue governor rather than general dissent, but doesn't have a unified resistance force.
Pretty specific set of circumstances...
@SomeRandomEvilGuy now that makes sense! Marines aren't used to quell genuine rebellions. They're used as propaganda shock and awe tools to bully governers who are wavering in their faith, rather than ones that have actually done anything. They are better suited to this than the Guard by dint of being quicker to react
Now that works for 100 Marines. More diplomats with guns than anything else. Not exactly heroic, but realistic
I also like the idea of Marines being dispatched individually to head emperor-sanctioned resistance movements of local fighters, using their charisma and tactical acumen. That would play nicely into an INQ28-style warband
Ynneadwraith wrote: i'd wager a sodding great starship materialising in system might give them some indication to mobilise troops. If not, then when it releases Thunderhawks and Drop Pods which are fairly obviously military vehicles they might catch on. Even if they're not sure if they're peaceful it's likely that armed forces will be put on high alert and brass moved to secure defended bunkers.
Similar thing would take place on a 40k world.
Except why would a ship entering system be a cause for alarm on an Imperial Hive World? It would be a common occurrence, even a Warship would be a common enough occurrence, particularly for Hive Worlds. Unless the Governor and his men mobilize every time the Navy shows up, which would be cause for alarm on the Navy's side of things, their first indication that they are being invaded would be the Drop Pods and Thunderhawks. Even if it takes an hour for re-entry, thats not enough time for enough of a stand up for military forces. Could the leaders get to a more secure location? Yes, but they'd still lose a large portion of their forces to surprise. And they would lose even more if Orbital Strikes on key locations started the same time the Invasion was launched.
Oh I agree, with the idea. Just them bluffing and making a show of force could be way more effective than trying to fight a whole planet. I just don't think something like that would ever occur to Azreal or Grimnar if they were told to take down a governor. Standing around looking pretty isn't really in their psyche, or any space marines.
Plus the public place would need to be where the governor is to get the full effect. Make that Hive City or w/e go get him. But then again, if you can drop down into a public place why not just drop into his mansion and get him yourself?
Ynneadwraith wrote: i'd wager a sodding great starship materialising in system might give them some indication to mobilise troops. If not, then when it releases Thunderhawks and Drop Pods which are fairly obviously military vehicles they might catch on. Even if they're not sure if they're peaceful it's likely that armed forces will be put on high alert and brass moved to secure defended bunkers.
Similar thing would take place on a 40k world.
Except why would a ship entering system be a cause for alarm on an Imperial Hive World? It would be a common occurrence, even a Warship would be a common enough occurrence, particularly for Hive Worlds. Unless the Governor and his men mobilize every time the Navy shows up, which would be cause for alarm on the Navy's side of things, their first indication that they are being invaded would be the Drop Pods and Thunderhawks. Even if it takes an hour for re-entry, thats not enough time for enough of a stand up for military forces. Could the leaders get to a more secure location? Yes, but they'd still lose a large portion of their forces to surprise. And they would lose even more if Orbital Strikes on key locations started the same time the Invasion was launched.
That is something I didn't think about. In my experience it can take days, close to a week, to mobilize the full combat power of an armor brigade. This is going from a complete garrison mindset to preparing to roll out assuming the men and equipment are already in the same place. Having even 1-2 days wouldn't be enough time to prepare for a space marine assault.
Ynneadwraith wrote: @Iron Captain i'd wager a sodding great starship materialising in system might give them some indication to mobilise troops. If not, then when it releases Thunderhawks and Drop Pods which are fairly obviously military vehicles they might catch on. Even if they're not sure if they're peaceful it's likely that armed forces will be put on high alert and brass moved to secure defended bunkers. Similar thing would take place on a 40k world. I also question somewhat the validity of drop pods as stealth craft. See a meteor detatch from a ship in orbit and head straight to your position (which is presumably of tactical significance if the Marines are targeting it) it's going to be pretty obvious what's going to happen. Re-entry for the space shuttle takes about an hour. Reasonable amount of time to mobilise at least a cursory force to key strategic areas and evacuate leadership. Less if you're in a compact hive.
When you are on a planet you can't really see if and what spaceships are flying around in your system or even in orbit. You either need to have someone look through a telescope that just so happens to be aimed exactly right or you need some kind of sensors or defending space fleet, which the average world in 40k isn't going to have unless it is an important center of something (at which case they usually send in the Navy and more than a single Marine company in the fluff). On our present-day world and most 40k worlds, an attack from space would come as a total surprise. That is true even if the Space Marine ship is detected. Even if you know the Marines have arrived, you still don't know when and where they will strike. And putting the entire planetary defense force on high alert and keeping all leaders locked away in bunkers isn't going to be a viable thing to do for longer periods of time. Especially not since in the fluff, even the mere rumour that the Space Marines are coming is often enough to send entire planetary populations into a panic. At such a moment, a leader would need to be visible and in a position to lead, not cowering in a bunker. That way the Marines won't even have to land in order to take the planet. Not to mention the fact that the Marines could just strike before anything could be mobilised...
I do absolutely agree with you though that the chaos and confusion of their landing could be used to their advantage. Especially if the defenders don't know what they're dealing with. So the list of viable targets for Marines gets ever smaller. To be effective, they need to be sent against a planet with minimal defences, that's never seen or heard of Marines before, has issues caused by a single rogue governor rather than general dissent, but doesn't have a unified resistance force.
Pretty specific set of circumstances...
Yes, but it covers the majority of conflicts in 40k that do not involve Xenos or Chaos. Most planets in 40k have only minimal defences (again, unless they are really important), virtually all people in 40k have never seen a Space Marine before and dissent pretty much always is limited to the leadership (given that the common masses are ignorant peasants who couldn't care less about politics). Unified resistance forces in the form of a PDF would be common, but again they'd be spread out across an entire planet and unable to mobilise and focus their power in the time required.
Against the average planet in 40k, a company of Space Marines would work really well. It is the important places, such as heavily defended fortress worlds or forge worlds where things start to fall apart.
Hmmm, you have a point about warahips being common. You're right, they wouldn't up-arm just for one.
If it drops in and starts shelling, you get the void shields up asap. If you can't you're boned. If you can then retreat to your bunker and scramble your forces. You're right the Marines would take them by surprise, but i don't think they have the capability to take out even a significant proportion of the opposing forces at 100-men strong. They could expend every bolt they have, with every one of them killing an enemy soldier and not make a dent in their forces simply because of how outnumbered they are even in the best case scenario i laid out before where 99% of the hive doesn't give two hoots about the Marines, amd the remaining 1% are so mind-numbingly incompetent that only one in ten even hits the Marines with a single bullet.
If they can equal that with orbital bombardment...then you might as well send a Navy ship which are more numerous than SM chapters.
All of that is fixed if Marine Chapters are just a little bit bigger, and come with support from serfs and/or IG.
I do prefer that option in addition to the 'propaganda tool' idea as i do like my post-human supersoldiers to get some smashy time too
Ynneadwraith wrote: Hmmm, you have a point about warahips being common. You're right, they wouldn't up-arm just for one.
If it drops in and starts shelling, you get the void shields up asap. If you can't you're boned. If you can then retreat to your bunker and scramble your forces. You're right the Marines would take them by surprise, but i don't think they have the capability to take out even a significant proportion of the opposing forces at 100-men strong. They could expend every bolt they have, with every one of them killing an enemy soldier and not make a dent in their forces simply because of how outnumbered they are even in the best case scenario i laid out before where 99% of the hive doesn't give two hoots about the Marines, amd the remaining 1% are so mind-numbingly incompetent that only one in ten even hits the Marines with a single bullet.
They dont need to make a dent in their numbers, they just need to hit their munitions and supply. They can kill the soldiers as they go about it for an added bonus.
If they can equal that with orbital bombardment...then you might as well send a Navy ship which are more numerous than SM chapters.
The thing is its not just about the bombardment, that's why you send the Marines. The Bombardment softens defences, kills large numbers of the unaware defenders. The Marines hit the locations were the remaining defenders gather, the aforementioned Supply and Munitions locations on a base, the Palace for the Symbolism.
All of that is fixed if Marine Chapters are just a little bit bigger, and come with support from serfs and/or IG.
Being bigger would help, I wont argue that. And in the confines of our example, which is a total war, then yes IG would be handy and likely on the way while the Marines significantly soften the targets. In the cases where they just need to show up, and make one strike not so much.
I do prefer that option in addition to the 'propaganda tool' idea as i do like my post-human supersoldiers to get some smashy time too
LIke I mentioned, there's no reason why they aren't propaganda while doing the smashy smash. They are the Emperor's Avenging Angels after all, and they've come for your Governor.
Exact methods vary but you should get a clear picture when you read fluff about the major wars of the setting.
When it comes to Imperium, they are usually joint efforts where IG, Marines and other imperial armed forces fight together. Even IG and Marines working together is scarily effective. The guard will meet the enemy in open war while the marines use their drop pods, teleportariums and gunships to cripple the enemy's weak points. And that's without Imperial Titans and Ordinatus...
Edit: And not to mention, the Imperial warmachine is extremely well organized. Just imagine the difference in mindset when it comes to a regular modern day humanbeing vs. a space marine.. or even a guardsman who has been shipped to the other side of the galaxy to wage war.
Ynneadwraith wrote: Hmmm, you have a point about warahips being common. You're right, they wouldn't up-arm just for one.
If it drops in and starts shelling, you get the void shields up asap. If you can't you're boned. If you can then retreat to your bunker and scramble your forces. You're right the Marines would take them by surprise, but i don't think they have the capability to take out even a significant proportion of the opposing forces at 100-men strong. They could expend every bolt they have, with every one of them killing an enemy soldier and not make a dent in their forces simply because of how outnumbered they are even in the best case scenario i laid out before where 99% of the hive doesn't give two hoots about the Marines, amd the remaining 1% are so mind-numbingly incompetent that only one in ten even hits the Marines with a single bullet.
True. But they won't have to make a dent in the enemy force. Again, wars are not won through killing people. Wars are won by making them drop out of the fight. This is done by destroying/seizing key objectives as well as shattering enemy morale. Two things Marines excel at. When the pods start dropping, you likely won't have void shields to get up (void shields are rare and ancient archeotech), your bunker might be too far away to run to and your forces will take way too long to scramble if they are even still loyal. Then, with you and all other senior rebel leaders dead, your armies won't really have a reason to fight anymore and the planet surrenders to the Marines. It is not like the common peasants who make up the PDF really cared about your rebellion anyway. At least not enough to fight what pretty much are manifestations of god himself. Even if they do continue to fight, the Marines could use shock and awe tactics to quickly break their morale.
Ynneadwraith wrote: If they can equal that with orbital bombardment...then you might as well send a Navy ship which are more numerous than SM chapters.
True, and most rebellions do probably get quelled by the Navy. But the Navy isn't nearly as glorious as the heroic SPACE MARINES. So we hear about those rare times the Navy wasn't around and a group of Marines did happen to be close by and stopped the rebellion, but we do not hear about all those times the Navy has stopped rebellions.
I do prefer that option in addition to the 'propaganda tool' idea as i do like my post-human supersoldiers to get some smashy time too
LIke I mentioned, there's no reason why they aren't propaganda while doing the smashy smash. They are the Emperor's Avenging Angels after all, and they've come for your Governor.
Yeah. I agree with that. Space Marines won't drop into a public place to stand around and look menacing, they will drop into a public place and turn it into a firestorm, slaughtering and destroying indiscriminately (unless they are Salamanders of course. Salamanders are nice guys). Then they disappear again, leaving with the warning 'turn over your governor or this will be the fate of your entire planet'. And they won't be joking. The Imperium isn't shy about purging entire planets. At that point, I'd wager that only the most fanatically rebellious populations would not surrender.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Wars in the Imperium do not "usually" involve the Space Marines.
The vast vast vast vast vast majority of wars involve the PDF and sometimes the Imperial Guard.
There are literally fewer individual space marines than there are planets in the imperium. People forget that.
Yeah, this is one of those things people forget about I think, because the perspectives we get of the 40k universe (as gamers) is skewed.
A lot of the factions in the game fall victim to this, actually.
There are very few engagements involving marines relative to the total number of conflicts; which is why when marines do show up it's treated in-universe as a big freakin' deal. Most Imperial citizens hear little and see less (if they ever see anything at all) of the Astartes over the course of their lives. They're called the Angels of Death not just by reputation but because they have a literal mythology built up around them.
Similarly, the Mechanicum, for example, while fully capable of waging wars are not actually a major fighting force in the Imperium. They're dangerous combatants, sure, but they likely aren't actually engaging in combat all that often relative to everything else they are busy doing.
The Tau, also, while major players in their pocket of the galaxy are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. The Imperium at large probably has trouble distinguishing them for any of dozens (or hundreds, or thousands) of similar upstart alien empires.
And it goes on and on.
Most conflicts in 40k involving the Imperium are fought with the Imperial Guard and PDF forces - both of which vary pretty wildly (though the Guard less so) in terms of capabilities, etc.
When marines do show up they tend to take their foes by surprise and win through the swift and precise application of overwhelming force. The background even does a pretty good job of acknowledging this when they are involved in protracted engagements in traditional warzones - the regular humans do the bulk of the work while the marines concentrate their efforts where their strength and mobility can do the most harm to their enemies. They're a scalpel that hits with the force of a sledgehammer.
It's worth pointing out, too, that even though some people have mentioned marine chapters perform a lot of frontline duties not really suited to traditional special forces, they do so entirely at their own discretion. Unlike the Guard relying on the Navy to sort out their logistical problems for them (and the nightmare that is logistics for thousands or millions of troops), marines have the ability to deploy virtually any tool they desire anywhere they want it very quickly with their own landers and drop ships and drop pods, etc.
I'd be willing to bet that if the USMC could deploy a squadron of M1 Abrams pretty much at-will via orbital drop, they would. And having that kind of capability would drastically impact the type of missions they entertain in the first place, too.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Wars in the Imperium do not "usually" involve the Space Marines.
The vast vast vast vast vast majority of wars involve the PDF and sometimes the Imperial Guard.
There are literally fewer individual space marines than there are planets in the imperium. People forget that.
Oh, I were speaking about major wars. That's when things get tricky and imperium plays more than one card. Pouring just marines or just guardsmen won't cut it in these cases. Examples: Pretty much all of the wars that are mentioned in the official fluff. Especially those that are the setting for the world wide campaigns in real world.
If it's just some backwater world, just sending an IG-regiment (or two) or a detachment of Marines is enough. Heck, even AdMech's forces can take some planets unaided. Examples: Wars that aren't mentioned in the fluff, like "the setting" for a pick-up game of 40k. Or wars that are the setting for the umphteenth Black Library book about some Imperial Guy and how he and his posse won a war* unaided.
In the Gaunts Ghosts series almost every major conflict is won without the aid of space marines. The only book that Astartes appear in is one where they are used to aid in breaching into a space hulk, so special forces type stuff.
They do. Something on the planet must be worth something, enough for it to mean lives, rather than just bombardment.
or it is possible that there is some combination. Orbital bombardment culls 99% of the population, ground troops mop up.
If the planet itself is what you want, you might not want to completely melt the crust, still you could crater the largest cities, release virus bombs to kill the populate, and shell the citadels into rubble and still have something that could come back to 'normal' in 30 years.
You know how many space marines it would take to conquer our earth if the 50 largest cities were all destroyed, communication were knocked out, and there were dust clouds that blocked out the sun for 30 years?
NOT MANY. Imagine any post apocolyptic movie you have ever seen, except instead of some random zombies running around you have a few hundred super soldiers roving around conquring places. It might take them 5 years, but they would mop up everything, and while they were doing it they could build a government and society to rule from when they left.
So again, we're at the point that Space Marines are more than capable of conquering worthless rocks with nothing on them, at which point you might as well send a more numerous Navy ship to do that anyway and then mop up with naval Armsmen if necessary. The SM are superfluous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing SM. I like the idea that a small force of them can do well at pacifying a much larger population. However, realistically they will need far more than 100 dudes to do it on any world that's worth pacifying.
Even if SM are way, way, way beyond what even BL thinks they're physically capable of it's still unlikely. It's the Superman principle. Superman is basically unstoppable beyond a specific weakness. The reason he has difficulty is that there's only one of him.
That's on top of the fact that 100 Marines aren't enough to overcome even token resistance.
Ynneadwraith wrote: So again, we're at the point that Space Marines are more than capable of conquering worthless rocks with nothing on them, at which point you might as well send a more numerous Navy ship to do that anyway and then mop up with naval Armsmen if necessary. The SM are superfluous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing SM. I like the idea that a small force of them can do well at pacifying a much larger population. However, realistically they will need far more than 100 dudes to do it on any world that's worth pacifying.
Even if SM are way, way, way beyond what even BL thinks they're physically capable of it's still unlikely. It's the Superman principle. Superman is basically unstoppable beyond a specific weakness. The reason he has difficulty is that there's only one of him.
That's on top of the fact that 100 Marines aren't enough to overcome even token resistance.
They are superfluous in the same way that special forces in our modern militaries are superfluous. They don't do anything that more common soldiers can't do. But special forces do certain tasks way more effectively than normal troops. And that is why they exist. You want to have specialists alongside the generalists. Space Marines and naval armsmen can both pacify a planet. But the Space Marines do it far more effectively and can deal with greater resistance. Space Marines can and do conquer planets that are far more than 'worthless balls of rock with nothing on them'. Saying that SM are superfluous because they can't take heavily defended planets on their own is like saying a US marine company is superfluous because it can not conquer China or North Korea on its own.
If you still argue that 100 SM can't overcome token resistance you really need to start reading the fluff. There have been lots of attempts to explain the principles of how Space Marines work in this thread. At this point continuing to argue that Space Marines can't be effective in small numbers is just being obtuse. A Space Marine company will have no trouble overcoming the resistance on your average Imperial planet. Such is not only well-established in the fluff but it can also be based on actual arguments. Again, battles are not won by numbers or killing people. Battles are won by breaking the morale of your enemy. And Space Marines, due to the superior tactical advantage afforded by their orbital position and ability to strike and withdraw quickly can just play the hit-and-run game with defending garrisons until they break and surrender. It doesn't matter if there is a thousand, ten thousand or ten million enemies. They will never be in the place to project their force effectively. The Space Marines will.
Iron_Captain wrote: On our present-day world and most 40k worlds, an attack from space would come as a total surprise. That is true even if the Space Marine ship is detected. Even if you know the Marines have arrived, you still don't know when and where they will strike. And putting the entire planetary defense force on high alert and keeping all leaders locked away in bunkers isn't going to be a viable thing to do for longer periods of time. Especially not since in the fluff, even the mere rumour that the Space Marines are coming is often enough to send entire planetary populations into a panic. At such a moment, a leader would need to be visible and in a position to lead, not cowering in a bunker. That way the Marines won't even have to land in order to take the planet.
The question isn't really whether the marine ship is detected or not, it's how long they give the people to reply to their "surrender to the sons of the Emperor" speech. Will they wait a minute? Ten? An hour? More? They will give the speech in one form or other, though. If the objectives can be achieved without wasting the Emperor's resources (both the marines and the local infrastructure and population) it's a flawless victory. Battle always presents a risk, no matter how small.
Iron_Captain wrote: On our present-day world and most 40k worlds, an attack from space would come as a total surprise. That is true even if the Space Marine ship is detected. Even if you know the Marines have arrived, you still don't know when and where they will strike. And putting the entire planetary defense force on high alert and keeping all leaders locked away in bunkers isn't going to be a viable thing to do for longer periods of time. Especially not since in the fluff, even the mere rumour that the Space Marines are coming is often enough to send entire planetary populations into a panic. At such a moment, a leader would need to be visible and in a position to lead, not cowering in a bunker. That way the Marines won't even have to land in order to take the planet.
The question isn't really whether the marine ship is detected or not, it's how long they give the people to reply to their "surrender to the sons of the Emperor" speech. Will they wait a minute? Ten? An hour? More? They will give the speech in one form or other, though. If the objectives can be achieved without wasting the Emperor's resources (both the marines and the local infrastructure and population) it's a flawless victory. Battle always presents a risk, no matter how small.
Would they even give them a chance to surrender though? Most would see them as traitors out right. They'd show up and get started immediately. At most they'd have from the time the battle barge entered the system to when it was stationed above the planet, assuming they can identify what kind of vessel it is and the space marines aren't trying to sneak into the system. There's always a good chance that they won't know the barge is there until it powers up right before the pods start raining down. In most the fluff I've read, when marines respond to a world that is rebelling they don't really have a "surrender" speech.
Iron_Captain wrote: On our present-day world and most 40k worlds, an attack from space would come as a total surprise. That is true even if the Space Marine ship is detected. Even if you know the Marines have arrived, you still don't know when and where they will strike. And putting the entire planetary defense force on high alert and keeping all leaders locked away in bunkers isn't going to be a viable thing to do for longer periods of time. Especially not since in the fluff, even the mere rumour that the Space Marines are coming is often enough to send entire planetary populations into a panic. At such a moment, a leader would need to be visible and in a position to lead, not cowering in a bunker. That way the Marines won't even have to land in order to take the planet.
The question isn't really whether the marine ship is detected or not, it's how long they give the people to reply to their "surrender to the sons of the Emperor" speech. Will they wait a minute? Ten? An hour? More? They will give the speech in one form or other, though. If the objectives can be achieved without wasting the Emperor's resources (both the marines and the local infrastructure and population) it's a flawless victory. Battle always presents a risk, no matter how small.
Would they even give them a chance to surrender though? Most would see them as traitors out right. They'd show up and get started immediately. At most they'd have from the time the battle barge entered the system to when it was stationed above the planet, assuming they can identify what kind of vessel it is and the space marines aren't trying to sneak into the system. There's always a good chance that they won't know the barge is there until it powers up right before the pods start raining down. In most the fluff I've read, when marines respond to a world that is rebelling they don't really have a "surrender" speech.
They might broadcast one as they attack. Like a "Lie on the ground, close your eyes and you won't be shot" kind of thing.
Ynneadwraith wrote: So again, we're at the point that Space Marines are more than capable of conquering worthless rocks with nothing on them, at which point you might as well send a more numerous Navy ship to do that anyway and then mop up with naval Armsmen if necessary. The SM are superfluous.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing SM. I like the idea that a small force of them can do well at pacifying a much larger population. However, realistically they will need far more than 100 dudes to do it on any world that's worth pacifying.
Even if SM are way, way, way beyond what even BL thinks they're physically capable of it's still unlikely. It's the Superman principle. Superman is basically unstoppable beyond a specific weakness. The reason he has difficulty is that there's only one of him.
That's on top of the fact that 100 Marines aren't enough to overcome even token resistance.
They are superfluous in the same way that special forces in our modern militaries are superfluous. They don't do anything that more common soldiers can't do. But special forces do certain tasks way more effectively than normal troops. And that is why they exist. You want to have specialists alongside the generalists. Space Marines and naval armsmen can both pacify a planet. But the Space Marines do it far more effectively and can deal with greater resistance. Space Marines can and do conquer planets that are far more than 'worthless balls of rock with nothing on them'. Saying that SM are superfluous because they can't take heavily defended planets on their own is like saying a US marine company is superfluous because it can not conquer China or North Korea on its own.
If you still argue that 100 SM can't overcome token resistance you really need to start reading the fluff. There have been lots of attempts to explain the principles of how Space Marines work in this thread. At this point continuing to argue that Space Marines can't be effective in small numbers is just being obtuse. A Space Marine company will have no trouble overcoming the resistance on your average Imperial planet. Such is not only well-established in the fluff but it can also be based on actual arguments. Again, battles are not won by numbers or killing people. Battles are won by breaking the morale of your enemy. And Space Marines, due to the superior tactical advantage afforded by their orbital position and ability to strike and withdraw quickly can just play the hit-and-run game with defending garrisons until they break and surrender. It doesn't matter if there is a thousand, ten thousand or ten million enemies. They will never be in the place to project their force effectively. The Space Marines will.
Was probably a little blunt and flowery with my wording, making my points unclear. Sorry about that.
I don't actually think Marines (or special forces as a concept) are superfluous. In the specific instance of Marines being able to bring their orbital bombardment to bear, it would be superfluous to have the Marines there as well. If they're willing to bombard from orbit and wreck the infrastructure of the planet, they might as well do it with a far more numerous Navy vessel as Space Marines are a very limited resource in the Imperium.
The phrase 'token resistance' was probably a bit disingenuous too. The full phrase should read 'moderately entrenched resistance', which means a planetary governor with reasonable military forces on his side who is smart enough to know what's coming for him, or a grass-roots anti-Imperium insurrection that by its nature isn't susceptible to having its leadership incapacitated.
I'm aware of the fluff. I'm also aware of how biased the fluff can be when it comes to the capabilities of Marines for the sake of the narrative. There's a reason phrases like 'plot armour' are bandied around as often as they are. What I'm trying to do is take an objective look at the augmentations and advantages Marines have over baseline humans (greater strength, endurance, accuracy, skill, equipment and ability to project their force in a single location) and weighing up whether I genuinely believe that would be enough to outweigh the advantages the baseline humans have (far, far greater numbers, access to weapons that are more than capable of killing Marines and knocking their Thunderhawks out of the sky, home turf advantage, fighting defensively) and trying to work out whether I think that a given piece of fluff is realistic or a flight of fantasy.
I'm not trying to work out whether it would be possible at all, as in infrequent circumstances there is evidence of smaller forces overcoming fantastic odds. I'm more trying to test through whether it's a viable enough tactic to be repeated often enough for it to be the Marines' modus operandi without them being wiped out after a few operations barring the application of handwavium about their capabilities. Not because I think the idea's stupid, but because I like the idea of Marines being the cavalry that the Guard call in when sh*t hits the fan. To be the cavalry, they need more than 100 men in my opinion for their tactics to be repeatable enough for Marine chapters to survive repeated engagements given their recruitment rate.
I like the idea of Marine tactics I think they'd work very effectively. Just not quite effectively enough to make it continually repeatable with the numbers they're using. Hell, I know it's all a bit of fun and of course stories with Marine protagonists are going to be bombastic and OTT. I suppose I just like the gritty realism a little more than the bombast. Doesn't make me more right or not, but given that this thread started as an objective view of how factions would invade somewhere I thought I'd try and apply that objectivity a little further than taking Marine capabilities in books at face value.
One thing to consider about planetary invasions is the following:
Let's say a planetary governor gets uppity. He refuses to pay his due taxes to the imperium, dubs himself as the sovereign ruler of his planet and declares that all imperial forces on his planets are to be killed on sight.
Do you know what is one of the most efficient ways for imperium to respond to this threat?
It is to do nothing. Yeah. That is, after reminding the governor that he and his planet stand now alone against a galaxy full of horrors. Should these horros decide to pay a visit to his planet... the imperium wouldn't send help. Because let's face it, if there's one thing the imperium does well even in the current age, it is to wage war.
I'll admit, I skimmed. Did anyone mention just putting the world under a blockade? Have fun feeding your billion rebels in a hive city on a mining planet with no/little food.
There is a reason that there are entire planets dedicated to agricultural, and my guess would be that transporting that food across interstellar distances isn't easy, or cheap. That means that it must be necessary.
You lightning-strike-orbital-droppod-whatever raids are going to hit the leaders, sure. But they are also going to hit your ammo stores, water purifiers, and food supplies.
RedCommander wrote: One thing to consider about planetary invasions is the following:
Let's say a planetary governor gets uppity. He refuses to pay his due taxes to the imperium, dubs himself as the sovereign ruler of his planet and declares that all imperial forces on his planets are to be killed on sight.
Do you know what is one of the most efficient ways for imperium to respond to this threat?
It is to do nothing. Yeah. That is, after reminding the governor that he and his planet stand now alone against a galaxy full of horrors. Should these horros decide to pay a visit to his planet... the imperium wouldn't send help. Because let's face it, if there's one thing the imperium does well even in the current age, it is to wage war.
The IoM doesn't really do that though. They may take some time to take care of it but letting a planet secede and doing nothing sets a bad precedent. Plus, it could take decades or even centuries for something like a xenos invasion or chaos assault. Other planets in the system, other systems in the sector, etc. etc. could see them and think "hey, me to." It could have a snowball affect and going from paying huge tithes to a distant world to none would be very appealing if there doesn't appear to be any negative repercussions. I mean, no one likes paying taxes. Besides, who to say the governor that got uppity isn't really a puppet of chaos or secretly throwing in with the Tau or part of a GSC? They'd have to respond.
Was probably a little blunt and flowery with my wording, making my points unclear. Sorry about that.
I don't actually think Marines (or special forces as a concept) are superfluous. In the specific instance of Marines being able to bring their orbital bombardment to bear, it would be superfluous to have the Marines there as well. If they're willing to bombard from orbit and wreck the infrastructure of the planet, they might as well do it with a far more numerous Navy vessel as Space Marines are a very limited resource in the Imperium.
Im not thinking you are understanding the point of the bombardments, at least as I have presented them. They aren't wholesale blowing up the hive and infrastructure, they are hitting key military locations which limit the resistance the Astartes themselves will face and they do it before the force has a chance to mobilize. If the enemy knows they are coming, then they would to a more blanket job with the Orbital Strikes, but the Astartes will still have to go in and hit whats left or confirm the the Governor is dead.
The phrase 'token resistance' was probably a bit disingenuous too. The full phrase should read 'moderately entrenched resistance', which means a planetary governor with reasonable military forces on his side who is smart enough to know what's coming for him, or a grass-roots anti-Imperium insurrection that by its nature isn't susceptible to having its leadership incapacitated.
The thing is its not necissarily about being smart enough to know whats coming for him, even for Governors in 40k there is a chance many of them haven't seen an Astartes and even fewer of them have insight into their operational capacities. Then there is also the fact that if a world is aware enough of Astartes, say because they will occasionally appear, do they know how often they appear? Is it a set schedule or do they show up at random? What they will be ready for is the Guard, so they will have static defenses, static defenses being easier for the more mobile Astartes forces to get around.
Lets say by some miracle of what ever faith the Governor now adheres to, he's aware of the Astartes and lets say he even has a Renegade Astartes advising him. And they've fully fortified, guns pointed to the sky, voidshields are live and they are waiting. Well the Loyalists will notice that when they show up, sure a more brazen Captain might order his Company full into action and then you'll very likely end up with a dead Company. Or, that Captain will take a look at whats going on and send a signal to the Chapter Fleet and perhaps the Sector Fleet. Then it wont be just 100 Astartes and the argument is moot.
but because I like the idea of Marines being the cavalry that the Guard call in when sh*t hits the fan. To be the cavalry, they need more than 100 men
Except in situations where the guard is already there and engaged they don't need to be more than 100 Men. If the enemy is already engaging with the Guard, those 100 Marines in the right places is all you need.
RedCommander wrote: One thing to consider about planetary invasions is the following:
Let's say a planetary governor gets uppity. He refuses to pay his due taxes to the imperium, dubs himself as the sovereign ruler of his planet and declares that all imperial forces on his planets are to be killed on sight.
Do you know what is one of the most efficient ways for imperium to respond to this threat?
It is to do nothing. Yeah. That is, after reminding the governor that he and his planet stand now alone against a galaxy full of horrors. Should these horros decide to pay a visit to his planet... the imperium wouldn't send help. Because let's face it, if there's one thing the imperium does well even in the current age, it is to wage war.
The IoM doesn't really do that though. They may take some time to take care of it but letting a planet secede and doing nothing sets a bad precedent. Plus, it could take decades or even centuries for something like a xenos invasion or chaos assault. Other planets in the system, other systems in the sector, etc. etc. could see them and think "hey, me to." It could have a snowball affect and going from paying huge tithes to a distant world to none would be very appealing if there doesn't appear to be any negative repercussions. I mean, no one likes paying taxes. Besides, who to say the governor that got uppity isn't really a puppet of chaos or secretly throwing in with the Tau or part of a GSC? They'd have to respond.
Edited for grammer
Yeah but if they are just regular uppity and not secretly in league with chaos or xenos, then the planet (that is, not necessarily the governor if you get my drift) probably comes to their senses and end their silly "Ooh, I think I know better than the Imperium!"-business. The sad thing is, the Imperium is the humankind's best bet.
If chaos and/or xenos are involved, then... it's on. Send in regiments of Imperial Guard and a detachment or a few of Space Marines to sort them out. Better keep an Exterminatus in hand too.
What about orbital defenses, many planets have orbital defense silos on the ground and even defensive satellites in orbit. One strike cruiser isn't going to be able to overcome that.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I would even go so far as to say that the majority of imperial worlds that are Ciivilized class and above would have enough orbital defenses to contest a planetary landing, and certainly enough to keep a strike cruiser from establishing geostationary orbit and simply bombarding key installations with impunity
I am surprised nobody brought up the First Taros Interventation. A limited Space Marine strike force failed in their objective and was forced to withdraw with numerous casulties.
The marines will also attack with a higher tempo. I remember reading somewhere that the Allies in Desert Storm attacked with a tempo much higher than the Allies in WW2 (2x as many combat actions per day, if I recall). Spacemarines will be higher still. Especially since they will be operating 24hrs a day.
The biggest problem with marines isn't that they aren't capable of performing a useful role in a planetary invasion, it's that their obscene cost is completely disproportionate to the limited value they add compared to the numberless conventional forces of the Imperium. If a marine company launches a drop pod assault into (surprise!) a proper air defense network and suffers 90% casualties before even touching the ground (with maybe a pod or two making it through by sheer luck) the Imperium has lost far more than they could possibly gain by winning the battle. And if you can only send the marines against weak targets with no air defense network, no sensors to detect an incoming threat in space, no defenses against enemy ships, no military forces capable of anti-marine tactics, etc, then what is the point in having them at all? A planet with nothing better than 1930s technology isn't going to last very long against a conventional IG force, and the guardsmen are a lot cheaper to produce and deploy.
Peregrine wrote: The biggest problem with marines isn't that they aren't capable of performing a useful role in a planetary invasion, it's that their obscene cost is completely disproportionate to the limited value they add compared to the numberless conventional forces of the Imperium. If a marine company launches a drop pod assault into (surprise!) a proper air defense network and suffers 90% casualties before even touching the ground (with maybe a pod or two making it through by sheer luck) the Imperium has lost far more than they could possibly gain by winning the battle. And if you can only send the marines against weak targets with no air defense network, no sensors to detect an incoming threat in space, no defenses against enemy ships, no military forces capable of anti-marine tactics, etc, then what is the point in having them at all? A planet with nothing better than 1930s technology isn't going to last very long against a conventional IG force, and the guardsmen are a lot cheaper to produce and deploy.
So, airborne troops are useless because you can't use them against heavy air defense? Tanks are useless because you can't send them against heavy anti-armour weaponry? Light infantry is useless because they'll suffer 90% casualties when you send them against machine gun emplacements? The US marines are useless because the US army can do the same job? Different kinds of troops fulfill different roles on a battlefield and for every type of troop and weapon in existence someone has found a weapon to counter it. That does not mean they are useless, it means that there are certain situations in which you want a certain weapon or type of troop. Even the most stupid military commander would not order a drop pod assault into a defense network designed to counter it. Marines have ways to neutralise air defense networks before making an assault. Either they deploy outside of its reach and destroy it from the ground, or they simply destroy it from orbit. When faced with a planet that has very heavy defenses, you ideally want to have both Marines and Guards. The Guard to make a frontal assault to distract the defenders, while the Marines concentrate all of their force on the weakest point in the defense and break through. You could have used Marines to do both tasks, but that would have been unnecessarily expensive. You could have used Guard to do both tasks, but Guardsmen would have had a much harder time breaking through the weak points in the enemy defense. You would have needed a very large force of Guardsmen to do so, which would have made distracting the enemy away from it virtually impossible. A Space Marine Chapter can take a lightly or moderately defended planet without much issue, but it is not meant to invade and conquer a heavily defended planet all on its own. In the fluff, you see that such assaults are virtually always a combined effort of Marines and Guard.
Hidden AA defences mauled a Flesh Tearer company, so offering a seemingly easy and undefended target only to reveal your defences when the pods and thunderhawks are in range seems like a good plan.
Bobthehero wrote: Hidden AA defences mauled a Flesh Tearer company, so offering a seemingly easy and undefended target only to reveal your defences when the pods and thunderhawks are in range seems like a good plan.
Source?
Not to mention that the Flesh Tearers are already very headstrong and bloodthirsty.
Iron_Captain wrote: So, airborne troops are useless because you can't use them against heavy air defense? Tanks are useless because you can't send them against heavy anti-armour weaponry? Light infantry is useless because they'll suffer 90% casualties when you send them against machine gun emplacements? The US marines are useless because the US army can do the same job? Different kinds of troops fulfill different roles on a battlefield and for every type of troop and weapon in existence someone has found a weapon to counter it. That does not mean they are useless, it means that there are certain situations in which you want a certain weapon or type of troop.
The difference is that real-world airborne troops are not orders of magnitude more expensive and irreplaceable than conventional forces. Remember, the Imperium has less than one space marine for every planet it owns. Even a single dead space marine is a horrifying loss for the Imperium, enough to make pretty much any gain a pyrrhic victory at best. For the comparison to real-world units to be accurate the US would have to be limited to a single airborne soldier, who costs $100 trillion to replace. Would this be a relevant military unit? Of course not.
Even the most stupid military commander would not order a drop pod assault into a defense network designed to counter it. Marines have ways to neutralise air defense networks before making an assault. Either they deploy outside of its reach and destroy it from the ground, or they simply destroy it from orbit.
Ok, so the marines deploy out of reach. Congratulations, now the enemy has time to react to them, and the marines get slaughtered. And good luck engaging a properly-defended planet from orbit when space marine warships are much weaker than a navy fleet. This whole argument seems to be based on the assumption that the marines will magically find a way to win and be relevant, and can't encounter situations where they simply have no chance of success.
When faced with a planet that has very heavy defenses, you ideally want to have both Marines and Guards. The Guard to make a frontal assault to distract the defenders, while the Marines concentrate all of their force on the weakest point in the defense and break through. You could have used Marines to do both tasks, but that would have been unnecessarily expensive. You could have used Guard to do both tasks, but Guardsmen would have had a much harder time breaking through the weak points in the enemy defense. You would have needed a very large force of Guardsmen to do so, which would have made distracting the enemy away from it virtually impossible.
Alternatively, this isn't WWI trench warfare, and this scenario ends up with a small force of marines isolated and surrounded by the enemy, and quickly killed. Breaking through a line of defenses doesn't magically win a war.
But 40k is WWI trench warfare... the Taus are the ones that don't are like that... and thats the reason they butchered Space Marines and Imperial Guard, because they used actual military strategies
Peregrine wrote: The biggest problem with marines isn't that they aren't capable of performing a useful role in a planetary invasion, it's that their obscene cost is completely disproportionate to the limited value they add compared to the numberless conventional forces of the Imperium. If a marine company launches a drop pod assault into (surprise!) a proper air defense network and suffers 90% casualties before even touching the ground (with maybe a pod or two making it through by sheer luck) the Imperium has lost far more than they could possibly gain by winning the battle. And if you can only send the marines against weak targets with no air defense network, no sensors to detect an incoming threat in space, no defenses against enemy ships, no military forces capable of anti-marine tactics, etc, then what is the point in having them at all? A planet with nothing better than 1930s technology isn't going to last very long against a conventional IG force, and the guardsmen are a lot cheaper to produce and deploy.
It's fairly well established that Drop Pods arrive too fast for any tracking systems to shoot them down other than blindly firing into the air and hoping you get lucky. Drop Pods are used when AA cover is too dense to insert normally.
Grey Templar wrote: It's fairly well established that Drop Pods arrive too fast for any tracking systems to shoot them down other than blindly firing into the air and hoping you get lucky. Drop Pods are used when AA cover is too dense to insert normally.
And that's just nonsense. We were able to get direct contact hits on incoming ICBMs way back in the 1970s (or earlier). There is no such thing as "too fast to hit", unless you're arbitrarily limiting the defender to hand-aimed WWII machine gun turrets. Against a proper Tau/Eldar/Necron air defense network, or even a high-end Imperial world, a drop pod assault would be suicide. Sure, the drop pods will work just fine against orks or a horde of PDF conscripts, but those are the easy targets that you don't need priceless super-soldiers to defeat.
Teleported Terminators is what you're after if you want a suprise assault, not drop pods. They also have the benefit of being able to teleport behind defences. If you want a tactical insertion of small numbers to knock out leadership or some vital system, those are your dudes.
Iron_Captain wrote: So, airborne troops are useless because you can't use them against heavy air defense? Tanks are useless because you can't send them against heavy anti-armour weaponry? Light infantry is useless because they'll suffer 90% casualties when you send them against machine gun emplacements? The US marines are useless because the US army can do the same job? Different kinds of troops fulfill different roles on a battlefield and for every type of troop and weapon in existence someone has found a weapon to counter it. That does not mean they are useless, it means that there are certain situations in which you want a certain weapon or type of troop.
The difference is that real-world airborne troops are not orders of magnitude more expensive and irreplaceable than conventional forces. Remember, the Imperium has less than one space marine for every planet it owns. Even a single dead space marine is a horrifying loss for the Imperium, enough to make pretty much any gain a pyrrhic victory at best. For the comparison to real-world units to be accurate the US would have to be limited to a single airborne soldier, who costs $100 trillion to replace. Would this be a relevant military unit? Of course not.
Airborne troops are highly trained specialists. They are quite a bit more expensive to maintain than a bunch of conscripts. More expensive in fact than Space Marines. Space Marines are not expensive at all to the Imperium. They are semi-independent, self-sustaining entities. The Imperium doesn't have to spend manpower or resources to keep them going, the Space Marines take care of that themselves.
Even the most stupid military commander would not order a drop pod assault into a defense network designed to counter it. Marines have ways to neutralise air defense networks before making an assault. Either they deploy outside of its reach and destroy it from the ground, or they simply destroy it from orbit.
Ok, so the marines deploy out of reach. Congratulations, now the enemy has time to react to them, and the marines get slaughtered. And good luck engaging a properly-defended planet from orbit when space marine warships are much weaker than a navy fleet. This whole argument seems to be based on the assumption that the marines will magically find a way to win and be relevant, and can't encounter situations where they simply have no chance of success.
You assume the enemy is going to be faster than the Space Marines. Unless they are Eldar, that is not going to be the case. Mustering forces for a military operation is a very slow process that in reality often takes weeks or at least days. By the time the enemy force is prepared to move out and has reached the Space Marine drop site, the Marines will have moved on. This is one of the biggest advantages that Marines have over Guard forces. Marines are self-sustaining and can react and deploy virtually instantly, without the huge logistical operations that deploying an IG regiment requires.
When faced with a planet that has very heavy defenses, you ideally want to have both Marines and Guards. The Guard to make a frontal assault to distract the defenders, while the Marines concentrate all of their force on the weakest point in the defense and break through. You could have used Marines to do both tasks, but that would have been unnecessarily expensive. You could have used Guard to do both tasks, but Guardsmen would have had a much harder time breaking through the weak points in the enemy defense. You would have needed a very large force of Guardsmen to do so, which would have made distracting the enemy away from it virtually impossible.
Alternatively, this isn't WWI trench warfare, and this scenario ends up with a small force of marines isolated and surrounded by the enemy, and quickly killed. Breaking through a line of defenses doesn't magically win a war.
Breaking through a defensive line does not magically win a war, but it can win the battle if the attacker exploits it properly. It does put the attacker in a very advantageous position to win the battle. The defender could surround the Marines, if it were not for the fact that they are already surrounded themselves, as the Guard is still assaulting the front line. Pulling away men from that defense to respond to the breach means that the defenders are going to be even more outnumbered and that that line is likely to be overrun. Not responding to the breach (because they can't spare the men or because the fact that in the chaos of battle they may simply not notice the breach in time) means they will soon be attacked in the back by the Marines or that the Marines will take out the whole command structure. Either way, a breach in your lines presents a nasty dilemma for you as defender.
Iron_Captain wrote: Airborne troops are highly trained specialists. They are quite a bit more expensive to maintain than a bunch of conscripts. More expensive in fact than Space Marines. Space Marines are not expensive at all to the Imperium. They are semi-independent, self-sustaining entities. The Imperium doesn't have to spend manpower or resources to keep them going, the Space Marines take care of that themselves.
Airborne troops do not cost orders of magnitude more to maintain. They're better trained than the average, but we don't spend trillions of dollars per soldier on them. And no, space marines are not free, just like you can't say that airborne troops are not expensive because the army is its own organization. If the Imperium disbanded the space marine chapters and put their resources to better use they would benefit significantly.
You assume the enemy is going to be faster than the Space Marines. Unless they are Eldar, that is not going to be the case. Mustering forces for a military operation is a very slow process that in reality often takes weeks or at least days. By the time the enemy force is prepared to move out and has reached the Space Marine drop site, the Marines will have moved on. This is one of the biggest advantages that Marines have over Guard forces. Marines are self-sustaining and can react and deploy virtually instantly, without the huge logistical operations that deploying an IG regiment requires.
Deploying outside the range of a proper air defense network, complete with high-altitude SAMs capable of engaging drop pods, anti-ship weapons that can threaten the ships carrying the marines, etc, means deploying hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the main target. And that's assuming the defenses are for a point target, not a complete planetary-scale network that leaves no room for a safe landing zone. And a planet that is doing the kind of things that draw an invasion attempt by the Imperium is going to be expecting a response. It might not be instant, but issuing krak missiles and lascannons to the defending troops is going to be a lot faster than marching thousands of miles across enemy territory to even get to the battlefield. And it doesn't matter how skilled a warrior you are, guided missiles with warheads that can punch a hole in a tank are going to kill you if you're anywhere in their effective range.
Also, all of this assumes an Imperial planet, where the defenses are entirely dependent on human crews. God help the marines if they're attacking a Tau planet, with swarms of drones, drone turrets, etc, that can be activated with the press of a button. It's quite likely that the few marines that survived to reach the surface would be slaughtered by automated defenses before reaching any living Tau.
Breaking through a defensive line does not magically win a war, but it can win the battle if the attacker exploits it properly. It does put the attacker in a very advantageous position to win the battle. The defender could surround the Marines, if it were not for the fact that they are already surrounded themselves, as the Guard is still assaulting the front line. Pulling away men from that defense to respond to the breach means that the defenders are going to be even more outnumbered and that that line is likely to be overrun. Not responding to the breach (because they can't spare the men or because the fact that in the chaos of battle they may simply not notice the breach in time) means they will soon be attacked in the back by the Marines or that the Marines will take out the whole command structure. Either way, a breach in your lines presents a nasty dilemma for you as defender.
Alternatively, this is not WWI trench warfare, and there is no single "front line". Why assume that dealing with the breach means pulling troops backward instead of, say, flattening the entire area with an air strike? Or disengaging from the fight and establishing a new defense line? Or sending reserves into the fight? Etc.
And why are you assuming that the marines will magically take out the command structure? Radios exist, after all, and the kind of low-end force that depends on having its entire command structure physically present on the front lines is the kind of easy target that you don't need marines to beat. More likely the command structure is in a bunker/command tank/etc hundreds of miles from the front lines, with only low-ranking officers (sergeants, platoon commanders, etc) in charge of small units located anywhere near the fighting. And taking out a sergeant isn't going to have any effect outside the immediate area and a small infantry unit that will shortly follow its leader into death.
I headcanon that Space Marines use massive amounts of ECM when deepstriking to confuse targeting systems.
Actually I headcanon that it applies to pretty much all battlefields and only really expensive equipment can work in it which is why everybody seems to use line of sight instead of firing over the horizon etc.
Iron_Captain wrote: Airborne troops are highly trained specialists. They are quite a bit more expensive to maintain than a bunch of conscripts. More expensive in fact than Space Marines. Space Marines are not expensive at all to the Imperium. They are semi-independent, self-sustaining entities. The Imperium doesn't have to spend manpower or resources to keep them going, the Space Marines take care of that themselves.
Airborne troops do not cost orders of magnitude more to maintain. They're better trained than the average, but we don't spend trillions of dollars per soldier on them. And no, space marines are not free, just like you can't say that airborne troops are not expensive because the army is its own organization. If the Imperium disbanded the space marine chapters and put their resources to better use they would benefit significantly.
The logic of your argument doesn't hold up regardless of the price difference. According to your logic, it should not matter if an army spends a thousand or ten thousand more on elite troops, why would they spend that extra money if they can get more cheaper soldiers instead to do the same job? The answer is that elite troops offer something that normal troops do not, and that that capability is worth paying for. If the Imperium ever needs to respond rapidly to a crisis, the Imperial Guard will be useless. It takes years to get through all the bureaucratic hassle and then a few years more to ready and transport the regiments. Meanwhile, a Space Marine Chapter offers the same strenght as multiple IG regiments, but they can be deployed at a moments notice. The Imperium needs them. If anything, the Imperium needs more Marines because there currently are so few they could not possibly cover the entire Imperium.
And no, the Imperium doesn't spend anything on the Marines after their founding. Marines have their own planet, their own resources and their own forges. If all Marine chapters were disbanded, the Imperium would face a huge civil war and at the end of it the only thing they'd get is a few relatively worthless planets. The Imperium already has over a million planets. It doesn't really need any more planets and it can easily afford to miss a few for the upkeep of a rapid reaction force.
You assume the enemy is going to be faster than the Space Marines. Unless they are Eldar, that is not going to be the case. Mustering forces for a military operation is a very slow process that in reality often takes weeks or at least days. By the time the enemy force is prepared to move out and has reached the Space Marine drop site, the Marines will have moved on. This is one of the biggest advantages that Marines have over Guard forces. Marines are self-sustaining and can react and deploy virtually instantly, without the huge logistical operations that deploying an IG regiment requires.
Deploying outside the range of a proper air defense network, complete with high-altitude SAMs capable of engaging drop pods, anti-ship weapons that can threaten the ships carrying the marines, etc, means deploying hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the main target. And that's assuming the defenses are for a point target, not a complete planetary-scale network that leaves no room for a safe landing zone. And a planet that is doing the kind of things that draw an invasion attempt by the Imperium is going to be expecting a response. It might not be instant, but issuing krak missiles and lascannons to the defending troops is going to be a lot faster than marching thousands of miles across enemy territory to even get to the battlefield. And it doesn't matter how skilled a warrior you are, guided missiles with warheads that can punch a hole in a tank are going to kill you if you're anywhere in their effective range.
Also, all of this assumes an Imperial planet, where the defenses are entirely dependent on human crews. God help the marines if they're attacking a Tau planet, with swarms of drones, drone turrets, etc, that can be activated with the press of a button. It's quite likely that the few marines that survived to reach the surface would be slaughtered by automated defenses before reaching any living Tau.
Yeah, keep on moving those goalposts. No, Marines are not invincible. They can not overcome any defense imaginable. This is why very heavily defended worlds are never assaulted by just a single Marine company or a single Guard regiment. That would be suicide. Military commanders aren't stupid. For an attack on a well defended position to succeed, you need to greatly outnumber the defenders. In your scenario, if a planet is that well defended, there won't just be a single Marine company, there will be multiple and they will be backed up by a large army of Imperial Guard and a full Navy fleet.
Breaking through a defensive line does not magically win a war, but it can win the battle if the attacker exploits it properly. It does put the attacker in a very advantageous position to win the battle. The defender could surround the Marines, if it were not for the fact that they are already surrounded themselves, as the Guard is still assaulting the front line. Pulling away men from that defense to respond to the breach means that the defenders are going to be even more outnumbered and that that line is likely to be overrun. Not responding to the breach (because they can't spare the men or because the fact that in the chaos of battle they may simply not notice the breach in time) means they will soon be attacked in the back by the Marines or that the Marines will take out the whole command structure. Either way, a breach in your lines presents a nasty dilemma for you as defender.
Alternatively, this is not WWI trench warfare, and there is no single "front line".
Don't move goalposts. I said "defensive line". That means there is a single front line. Any conventional war has a frontline, not just WWI style trench warfare.
Peregrine wrote: Why assume that dealing with the breach means pulling troops backward instead of, say, flattening the entire area with an air strike?
Because the attackers came from space. If you had an airforce, you could have prevented them from landing in the first place. To safely land forces on a planet you'd need air superiority. Therefore, since the attackers have already landed and started assaulting the defender's positions we can safely assume that the attackers have air superiority. Trying to bomb the area would be suicide on the part of the defender's pilots.
Peregrine wrote: Or disengaging from the fight and establishing a new defense line?
Probably the smartest move, but that means you'd have to retreat and lose the territory you were defending, meaning the attackers indeed won the battle.
Unless the attackers were stupid, they will outmatch you in sheer force and numbers (on a 3:1 ratio, if they followed basic strategic guidelines). If you send in reserves they will send in reserves too and nothing will change.
Peregrine wrote: And why are you assuming that the marines will magically take out the command structure? Radios exist, after all, and the kind of low-end force that depends on having its entire command structure physically present on the front lines is the kind of easy target that you don't need marines to beat. More likely the command structure is in a bunker/command tank/etc hundreds of miles from the front lines, with only low-ranking officers (sergeants, platoon commanders, etc) in charge of small units located anywhere near the fighting. And taking out a sergeant isn't going to have any effect outside the immediate area and a small infantry unit that will shortly follow its leader into death.
This is 40k. Commanders are always physically present on the front line. It wouldn't be heroic to sit in a bunker far away. Also, against Space Marines, sitting in a bunker far away from the frontlines is probably exactly what you do not want to be doing. What would stop the Marines from teleporting terminators in the middle of your bunker? You'd probably be safer on the frontlines, in the midst of your armies, moving around a lot.
godking wrote: A 100 or a 1000 space marines are NOT going to pacify an entire planet no matter how superior they are to the locals.
Especially not if the planet's leadership knows that they are coming and has time to prepare for them.
If i am a rogue governor i am going to invest in snipers UEDs and boobytraps and attempt to not engage space marines in stand up battles.
Then i will prepare for a long assymetric war
Even if i lose a 1000 men for every one space marine the space marines would eventually lose by attrition.
No-one's saying they're pacifying and holding the planet.
Eliminating the leadership and infrastructure elements seems to work fine.
And again, if you are a rogue governor, odds are, you probably won't even expect Space Marines to come knocking, given how rare they are. Assymetric war won't help you - unless you can somehow gain void superiority, the Astartes can strike when and where they want, at your weakest elements.
They can't hold a planet, but they can break one into submission to a larger occupying and pacifying force.
Grey Templar wrote: It's fairly well established that Drop Pods arrive too fast for any tracking systems to shoot them down other than blindly firing into the air and hoping you get lucky. Drop Pods are used when AA cover is too dense to insert normally.
And that's just nonsense. We were able to get direct contact hits on incoming ICBMs way back in the 1970s (or earlier). There is no such thing as "too fast to hit", unless you're arbitrarily limiting the defender to hand-aimed WWII machine gun turrets. Against a proper Tau/Eldar/Necron air defense network, or even a high-end Imperial world, a drop pod assault would be suicide. Sure, the drop pods will work just fine against orks or a horde of PDF conscripts, but those are the easy targets that you don't need priceless super-soldiers to defeat.
Hitting a missile is very different from hitting a drop pod. Drop Pods are much much faster than a missile. It's like trying to shoot down a meteor, which travel anywhere from 11-72 kilometers per second.
Bringing up terminators for a case study of a standard company assaulting a planet doesn't make much sense considering that each chapter only has about 100 suits of Terminator armor if they are lucky, and they are concentrated in the 1st company. So most companies will not have Terminator support fluff-wise.
Most planets have orbital defenses that will keep a strike cruiser from attaining a bombardment position, and also keep marines from deploying directly into a target area via drop pod or troop landers (thunderhawks). As mentioned before, fluff and in game stats prove that drop pods are vulnerable to AA fire.
If the marines deploy further out of range they could be hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from their intended target, and a long slog away from them. This means more time for the defended to entranced and prepare to repel whatever inevitable assault comes.
Honestly best case scenario would be for the strike cruiser to attempt to avoid detection and covertly insert its compliment of super soldiers. Then they can play bit more to their strengths, hitting targets suddenly and without warning before fading back into the countryside. Honestly I see a successful campaign for a marine company following stereotypical Alpha Legion or Raven Guard tactics. Establishing contacts with Loyalist locals or PDF would be important, and slowly growing an insurrection with the marines as the core would work I think.
Kinda like Gaunts Ghosts on Gereon, they insert and become the elite arm of a partisan force.
Slightly suspect source seeing as Codexes make whoever they're about to be the best, Hence why we have at least 3 factions capable of taking over the Galaxy.
Most planets have orbital defenses that will keep a strike cruiser from attaining a bombardment position, and also keep marines from deploying directly into a target area via drop pod or troop landers (thunderhawks). As mentioned before, fluff and in game stats prove that drop pods are vulnerable to AA fire.
Very few planets are going to have orbital or ground defenses capable of fighting off a cruiser. Some of the larger hive and forge worlds sure, but definitely not most planets.
Most planets would barely be able to know that a strike cruiser has even entered the system.
Few would be able to stop a cruiser from altering the orbit of an asteroid onto a collision course with the planets largest settlements. Many fortresses would have the ability to shot down drop pods but few would be able to stop a rock 3km in diameter moving at escape velocity.
It was actually a cooperative blurb, where the Scions being much smaller targets than pods and THawks are able to land, disable a few defences and then the Flesh Tearers land where the defences are down and successfully kill the governor they wanted to kill.
Bobthehero wrote: It was actually a cooperative blurb, where the Scions being much smaller targets than pods and THawks are able to land, disable a few defences and then the Flesh Tearers land where the defences are down and successfully kill the governor they wanted to kill.
So the Flesh Tearers need the Scions to save the day then.
Two forces using their strenght to achieve their objectives, Scions or Marines alone couldn't reach the governor, so they cooperated to get the mission done.
Most planets have orbital defenses that will keep a strike cruiser from attaining a bombardment position, and also keep marines from deploying directly into a target area via drop pod or troop landers (thunderhawks). As mentioned before, fluff and in game stats prove that drop pods are vulnerable to AA fire.
Very few planets are going to have orbital or ground defenses capable of fighting off a cruiser. Some of the larger hive and forge worlds sure, but definitely not most planets.
Most planets would barely be able to know that a strike cruiser has even entered the system.
Few would be able to stop a cruiser from altering the orbit of an asteroid onto a collision course with the planets largest settlements. Many fortresses would have the ability to shot down drop pods but few would be able to stop a rock 3km in diameter moving at escape velocity.
Firstly while Strike cruiser are powerful they aren't all that as far as imperial ships go. And we aren't talking backward agri worlds that don't merit the insertion of a space marine force, we are talking about planets that are important enough to merit the immediate response that marines are capable of delivering. That would be most likely be civilized worlds on up. Since more worlds of that class are supposed to be relatively self sufficient as far as defenses go in order to resist attacks and invasion, we can assume that orbital defenses on such planets would be enough to keep a single strike cruiser from obtaining a positions for orbital bombardment and direct insertion of its marines.
I'm not saying marines can't pacify a planet, I'm just saying it will take a lot more than just a few drop pod assaults and an orbital bombardment to do it. I don't see a problem in them forming the core of a partisan force and over time just wearing down the traitorous elements and winning that way. Honestly makes a better story than, "marines drop in and kill everyone somehow without taking casualties cause marines."
Bobthehero wrote: Just put your command element in a bunker that's 6 feet tall, the Terminators are going to die when their heads materialize in the ceiling.
That made me laugh so hard I am now imagining Terminators trying to invade a Squat world... Poor terminators.
agurus1 wrote: Bringing up terminators for a case study of a standard company assaulting a planet doesn't make much sense considering that each chapter only has about 100 suits of Terminator armor if they are lucky, and they are concentrated in the 1st company. So most companies will not have Terminator support fluff-wise.
Most planets have orbital defenses that will keep a strike cruiser from attaining a bombardment position, and also keep marines from deploying directly into a target area via drop pod or troop landers (thunderhawks). As mentioned before, fluff and in game stats prove that drop pods are vulnerable to AA fire.
If the marines deploy further out of range they could be hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from their intended target, and a long slog away from them. This means more time for the defended to entranced and prepare to repel whatever inevitable assault comes.
Honestly best case scenario would be for the strike cruiser to attempt to avoid detection and covertly insert its compliment of super soldiers. Then they can play bit more to their strengths, hitting targets suddenly and without warning before fading back into the countryside. Honestly I see a successful campaign for a marine company following stereotypical Alpha Legion or Raven Guard tactics. Establishing contacts with Loyalist locals or PDF would be important, and slowly growing an insurrection with the marines as the core would work I think.
Kinda like Gaunts Ghosts on Gereon, they insert and become the elite arm of a partisan force.
Terminators are not concentrated in the 1st Company. They are part of the 1st Company, but the 1st Company virtually never fights as a cohesive unit (only in very rare cases). Normally, 1st Company veterans and terminators will be assigned to the battle companies. The captain of a codex-compliant battle company therefore almost certainly has terminators at his disposal at all times.
Most planets do not have orbital defenses. Such technology is ancient and valuable and the AdMech therefore does not waste it on your average Imperial world. Instead, orbital defenses are concentrated on worlds that have a lot of strategic value to the Imperium. Planet-based orbital defenses also can not hit ships in high orbit (as per Battlefleet Gothic and the Apocalypse orbital defence laser datasheet). A ship can bombard a planet from beyond the reach of any planetary weapons (which is why valuable planets in 40k are always protected by orbital defense platforms). An insurrection is not very Imperium-like (unless you are Gaunt, but Gaunt is not quite an average Imperial officer). The Imperium prefers other methods. Oftentimes, all that it takes to bring a rebellious planet back in line is an Imperial warship appearing in orbit (with the threat of orbital bombardment that implies) and in case that is not enough, the Imperium prefers either a quick (but violent) regime change (in case it is just the leadership) or an obvious display of excessive force (if it is the common people who rebel) to make an example of that world to any other would-be rebels.
Space Marines also often conquer worlds without firing even a single shot. The sheer psychological impact of Space Marines (remember that to the people of 40k, these are physical manifestations of their faith, literal angels of god) is often enough to end a rebellion.
Bobthehero wrote: So why would those redoubt be able to blow out pods, but others couldn't?
Heh.
Answer A: because its necessary to the plot.
Answer B: the attacking chapter forgot to deploy decoys, chaff, ECM scramblers, or maybe that redoubt was privvy to a fancy upgrade.
Answer C: doesnt matter, since my Drop Pods have always been reliable methods of deployment in every game Ive played, and would still be reliable even if my opponent had a Redoubt.
Pods just do what they do, until they don't, and theres no clear cutoff line. But the takeaway is that they work a lot of the time, and are a crucial aspect of space marine deployment capability and identity.
Bobthehero wrote: Just put your command element in a bunker that's 6 feet tall, the Terminators are going to die when their heads materialize in the ceiling.
That made me laugh so hard I am now imagining Terminators trying to invade a Squat world... Poor terminators.
Well, Terminators come with Powerfists as standard equipment. They just punch the hallway wider as they move. Slow going? Sure! But this is why marines don't have to sleep.
Primaris would have a tough time though, as they don't have any CC weapon options.
Well, as far as I know 40k is still a persiflage about fascism, totalitarian states and manly men. So of course on a hive world populated by trillions of fainthearted people and low-lives one hundred manly men with huge guns wearing sci fi plate armor can easily handle the bad guys.
Well, as far as I know 40k is still a persiflage about fascism, totalitarian states and manly men. So of course on a hive world populated by trillions of fainthearted people and low-lives one hundred manly men with huge guns wearing sci fi plate armor can easily handle the bad guys.
For me it's more about trying to inject just a smidge more realism into my science fantasy universe with the end result of continuing my suspension of disbelief (and by the sounds of things the suspension of disbelief of maybe half the commenters on this thread).
Plus, it's also nice if the Fridge Logic is more Fridge Revelation (hey, that thing I've just read actually makes a ton of sense) rather than Fridge Disappointment (oh, so they basically made all of that up without really thinking it through properly).
For the record, I like the idea of drop-pods including a wide array of electronic warfare mechanisms that help prevent them being targeted. Especially if they're Standard Template Constructs that would seem to fit very well.
Most planets have orbital defenses that will keep a strike cruiser from attaining a bombardment position, and also keep marines from deploying directly into a target area via drop pod or troop landers (thunderhawks). As mentioned before, fluff and in game stats prove that drop pods are vulnerable to AA fire.
Very few planets are going to have orbital or ground defenses capable of fighting off a cruiser. Some of the larger hive and forge worlds sure, but definitely not most planets.
Most planets would barely be able to know that a strike cruiser has even entered the system.
Few would be able to stop a cruiser from altering the orbit of an asteroid onto a collision course with the planets largest settlements. Many fortresses would have the ability to shot down drop pods but few would be able to stop a rock 3km in diameter moving at escape velocity.
Try rephrasing it to 'most planets worth a damn will have orbital defences to keep a strike cruiser at bay'. Marines are a rare and expensive resource. They're going to be used in the most efficient manner possible. Sending them to pacify some backwater planet that's not even important or valuable enough to have orbital defences in a galaxy as dangerous as 40k is probably a waste of said valuable resource.
We're trying to find a way to make Marines actually useful here, mainly because I actually like Marines if we're at the stage of just dropping asteroids on major cities then there's precisely zero point in bringing Marines along. you could achieve everything they could achieve from orbit much more efficiently if you don't care about collateral.
As far as I see it, this is how it lies from a realism perspective:
Things 100 Marines would be good at
Rebellion prevention (not pacification) Due to their increased flexibility compared to the Guard, they are able to be far more responsive. They also carry hefty political sway as creations with direct links to the God-Emperor. This makes them ideally placed to prevent rebellions happening in the first place. Networks of spies feed information back to the Chapter about brewing discontent. Marines rock up before it gets too bad and say 'you're doing a bad thing and the Emperor doesn't like it. We strongly recommend that you hand over your leaders for re-education and desist from your activities'. If they refuse, then the 100 Marines are more than capable of dealing with a rebellion in its early stages.
Special Operations Basically an expy of real-world special forces. Very useful in a war and domestic setting, but they will need significant support from serfs, IG regiments or recruited locals to be swinging any major conflicts.
Inspiring regular Guard during planetary-scale conflicts Basically 7.5ft tall Commissars in power armour that are blessed by the emperor himself. Very inspirational.
Things 100 Marines would be terrible at
Pacifying a planet that's actually gone into rebellion Any planet they could conceivably pacify would be a waste of resources at this point. Any planet that's worth it would have defences geared around defending it from xenos and traitor assault, meaning that dealing with 100 Marines would be trivial.
Sieging fortresses Not enough men to create a decent perimeter to prevent supplies coming in. Not enough men to succeed in a frontal assault. Terrible idea.
Waging planetary war Planetary wars are mind-bogglingly huge. 100 men is not enough by several orders of magnitude, even if they are super-soldiers.
Spearheading assaults during planetary war Again, 100 men (even supersoldiers) is unlikely to be enough. On a very local scale perhaps, but to make a difference on a frontline that spans continents through martial force alone is unlikely.
Things Marines would be much better at if there were more of them in a Chapter, if they were supported by many, many unremembered serfs, and/or there were many, many, many more Chapters than we're told
Grey Templar wrote: Hitting a missile is very different from hitting a drop pod. Drop Pods are much much faster than a missile. It's like trying to shoot down a meteor, which travel anywhere from 11-72 kilometers per second.
There's no way they're coming in that fast, because the marines (and the structure of the drop pod) have to survive the braking process. If you're crossing the SAM engagement range at 72kps you're talking about a very expensive kinetic weapon, not a successful delivery of space marines.
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Ynneadwraith wrote: For the record, I like the idea of drop-pods including a wide array of electronic warfare mechanisms that help prevent them being targeted. Especially if they're Standard Template Constructs that would seem to fit very well.
The problem is that it isn't possible to hide something coming in that fast, because high speed means extreme heat and a nice obvious target for IR-guided missiles. Drop pods can't be stealthy, their only defense is speed and that only works against primitive forces (orks, PDF, etc) that are limited to manually-aimed machine guns for AA weapons.
True, I was also skeptical of drop-pods being stealthy in any way. It's a sodding great meteor heading towards you.
It is possible (and in fact probable) that they've got extensive countermeasures. From electronic jamming of targeting systems, to advanced futuristic chaff to protect from incoming fire.
That still doesn't mean I think they're stealthy, but it does mean that they stand a chance of hitting the ground (especially in a genuine war setting amid the general chaos of a wider assault).
Most planets have orbital defenses that will keep a strike cruiser from attaining a bombardment position, and also keep marines from deploying directly into a target area via drop pod or troop landers (thunderhawks). As mentioned before, fluff and in game stats prove that drop pods are vulnerable to AA fire.
Very few planets are going to have orbital or ground defenses capable of fighting off a cruiser. Some of the larger hive and forge worlds sure, but definitely not most planets.
Most planets would barely be able to know that a strike cruiser has even entered the system.
Few would be able to stop a cruiser from altering the orbit of an asteroid onto a collision course with the planets largest settlements. Many fortresses would have the ability to shot down drop pods but few would be able to stop a rock 3km in diameter moving at escape velocity.
Try rephrasing it to 'most planets worth a damn will have orbital defences to keep a strike cruiser at bay'. Marines are a rare and expensive resource. They're going to be used in the most efficient manner possible. Sending them to pacify some backwater planet that's not even important or valuable enough to have orbital defences in a galaxy as dangerous as 40k is probably a waste of said valuable resource.
I think you would need to define what exactly is a planet that 'is worth a damn' then. Because from reading the fluff, I get that that the vast majority of planets in the Imperium doesn't seem to have orbital defences. Most planets seem to be only defended by a few regiments of PDF equipped with outdated IG equipment. Does that mean that all those planets are worthless? Even Armageddon did not have much in the way of orbital defences before the Second War (just a few obsolete detection satellites and small attack craft) Given how large (and therefore extremely expensive) orbital defences (defence lasers for low orbit, orbital defence platforms and system defence fleets for high orbit) are in 40k, they are probably only found on forge worlds, segmentum and sector command worlds, powerful hive worlds, space marine homeworlds and fortress worlds. Maybe on important shrine worlds as well. These are the kinds of worlds that are so heavily fortified that Marines couldn't possibly conquer them on their own. Not even if a Chapter was much larger than it is. To take such a world would take a huge force of Imperial Guardsmen and a large Navy fleet. It would also see the deployment of more valuable, powerful assets such as superheavy vehicles, stormtroopers, assassins, Space Marines and maybe even Titans. Basically, it would take a large combined force to take a heavily defended planet. That is realistic. It would not be realistic if Marines could do that on their own. Even the Legions of the Great Crusade usually only could take such worlds with the aid of the Imperial Army.
Similarly to how the US marines aren't useless because they can't conquer North Korea on their own it doesn't mean that Imperial Space Marines are useless because they can't take the most well-defended places in the galaxy on their own. Space Marines are useful to the Imperium because they are a rapid-reaction force that packs quite a bit of punch in a small package. A Space Marine force can show up and quell a rebellion before it gets really serious. The Guard or Navy couldn't possibly do that unless they happen to be around already. The bureaucracy and logistical paperwork involved in Guard and Navy operations means that the Imperial force would only show up many, many years later when the planet is already fully lost to the Imperium, leading to a very costly campaign to reconquer it, purge the population and restore the infrastructure. Not to mention all those years of lost tithes. In large-scale wars along the Imperial Guard, the Space Marines function as the perfect spearhead for assaults (they can project far more force on a small area of an enemy line than the Guard could ever hope to do), or the anchor point for a defense (due to their martial prowess and inspirational qualities to the Guardsmen). Add to that the fact they can operate behind enemy lines very well to take out key objectives, and you get a force that is useful in all sorts of ways. Think of the IG and the Space Marines as a sledgehammer and a dagger. The sledgehammer hits with much more total force than the scalpel, but it is diffused over a large area. The dagger can focus the force of its blow in a small area, projecting far more force onto it than the sledgehammer could ever hope to and causing the dagger to penetrate whatever it is you are stabbing.
To be honest, I fail to see what the problem is here. It seems you want Marines to be doing things that they aren't supposed to be doing and that they never do in the fluff? Space Marines are really good at the things they are supposed to be doing. That makes them useful. The fact that they aren't as well suited for tasks that they aren't meant to be doing isn't very relevant, is it? For large-scale planetary or interplanetary warfare, the Imperium already has the ubiquitous Imperial Guard. So Marines don't need to do that on their own.
So, I guess that means we have found ways for Marines to be useful? It seems we have gotten quite off-topic by now
Yeah what you say makes a lot of sense and we do appear to have veered waaay off topic
I suppose the issue I see is that the vast majority of Marines fluff doesn't seem to conform to the stuff that they'd actually be good at (as you mention, quelling a rebellion before it's happened and spec ops stuff). It tends to be stuff like mashing their way through entire hives to get to the one dude in charge, or sieging fortresses, or defending worlds entirely by themselves.
I don't necessarily want Marines to be doing those things, but whoever's writing the majority of Marines fluff seems to, which is the root of a lot of the misunderstanding of what Marines are actually capable of.
I suppose what I want is a way to square the actual capabilities of Marines as I see them (post-human, but not supermen) with what you read in the fluff about them doing.
But yeah, I do think we've found something useful for them rapid-response special-operations forces that primarily rely on propaganda and muscle to bluff their way into ensuring a planet's compliance, and when that bluff wavers they have enough force to make a showy local display of strength to reinforce it. If the bluff fails entirely, they'll probably get ganked
Oh, and I suppose what a planet that is 'worth a damn' to me is one where there's enough industry and infrastructure down there to actually make nuking it from orbit and resettling an unfavourable idea. Otherwise there's no point in sending in Marines to sort it out, you only need their ships.
There's a good example of a non-space-marine planetary invasion in the novel Shadowsword. The Imperial Guard are attacking without Space Marines, and in the first wave of the assault are Baneblades essentially dropped from orbit clamped to the floor of metal boxes.
When the metal boxes land, the clamps release and the Baneblades essentially 'surprise buttsex' the bad guys who were expecting such landing ships to carry infantry. They then use their (laughable, admittedly) "speed" and "maneuverability" to mop up the air defense weaponry so that other, less durable forces can land in the newly-established DZ.
There are some mishaps, including a baneblade that has to shoot its way out of its own landing box because the clamps don't release, and IIRC the ECM fails on one of the landing boxes and one of the tanks gets blown out of the sky and the tank tumbles to the ground. It is repaired, but the crew are (needless to say) powderized.
I thought it was awesome, but it's from a novel where Imperial Guard superheavy tanks are the star of the show, so as always, take it with a grain of salt.
EDIT: And now, from Codex: Astra Militarum, we have the stratagem to deepstrike Baneblades. (lol I'd laugh)
The problem is GW's complete lack of understanding of scale. Marines would be fine if there were billions of chapters, and a typical marine invasion force consisted of thousands of chapters fighting a proper planetary-scale war. But instead we get the idiocy of having less than one marine per planet in the Imperium, forces of 100 marines being considered relevant in planetary-scale conflicts, and GW authors going on and on about how half their tanks/armor/whatever is priceless lost technology that can never be replaced.
The difference is that real-world airborne troops are not orders of magnitude more expensive and irreplaceable than conventional forces. Remember, the Imperium has less than one space marine for every planet it owns. Even a single dead space marine is a horrifying loss for the Imperium, enough to make pretty much any gain a pyrrhic victory at best. For the comparison to real-world units to be accurate the US would have to be limited to a single airborne soldier, who costs $100 trillion to replace. Would this be a relevant military unit? Of course not.
You are taking this comparison too far. Just because there are less marines than planets in the Imperium, does not mean that a planet is worth less than a Space Marine. There are less aircraft carriers in the world than countries, does that mean that each aircraft carrier is worth at least as much as a country? No.
Space Marines may be rare, they may be expensive, but they are not THAT expensive.
The problem is GW's complete lack of understanding of scale. Marines would be fine if there were billions of chapters, and a typical marine invasion force consisted of thousands of chapters fighting a proper planetary-scale war. But instead we get the idiocy of having less than one marine per planet in the Imperium, forces of 100 marines being considered relevant in planetary-scale conflicts, and GW authors going on and on about how half their tanks/armor/whatever is priceless lost technology that can never be replaced.
Mostly agreed, but Marines are not the only ones suffering from that. Imperial Guard regiments are also laughably small, and the forces gathered for the Wars of Armageddon or the 13th Black Crusade are less than the Germans or Soviets had on the Eastern Front in WW2. So I guess it kinda works out in the end? Except all those epic wars you read about in the fluff are actually relatively small skirmishes... Or just headcanon that those orders of battle are actually only a small part of the total forces that were present.
Only thing I don't agree with you on is that Marines would need to fight proper planetary-scale wars. The Space Marine Legions were broken up into small Chapters precisely so that they would no longer be able to do that kind of stuff. It would also kinda take away jobs from the Imperial Guard. Also, forces of a 100 Marines (every Marine is roughly 10 lesser warriors, so a company is about equal to a small regiment of lesser troops) can certainly be relevant in battles. And if they are being relevant in individual battles, then they are also being relevant in the war as a whole.
Most planets have orbital defenses that will keep a strike cruiser from attaining a bombardment position, and also keep marines from deploying directly into a target area via drop pod or troop landers (thunderhawks). As mentioned before, fluff and in game stats prove that drop pods are vulnerable to AA fire.
Very few planets are going to have orbital or ground defenses capable of fighting off a cruiser. Some of the larger hive and forge worlds sure, but definitely not most planets.
Most planets would barely be able to know that a strike cruiser has even entered the system.
Few would be able to stop a cruiser from altering the orbit of an asteroid onto a collision course with the planets largest settlements. Many fortresses would have the ability to shot down drop pods but few would be able to stop a rock 3km in diameter moving at escape velocity.
Try rephrasing it to 'most planets worth a damn will have orbital defences to keep a strike cruiser at bay'. Marines are a rare and expensive resource. They're going to be used in the most efficient manner possible. Sending them to pacify some backwater planet that's not even important or valuable enough to have orbital defences in a galaxy as dangerous as 40k is probably a waste of said valuable resource.
What is worth a dam is entirely fluid to the circumstances of the time. The IoM has so many planets that when a few fall it is often just easier to reduce to to rubble and rebuild than it is to go about the costly process of trying to invade. Others can be blockaded and waited out.
Now if there is a valuable STC it's worth a dam. They exist on defended planets as well as undefended planets.
If the planet has some critical supply, it's worth a dam. Again these things exist all over.
If there is a particularly important chaos or rebel leader that needs removal. Someone with power over the thoughts and minds of more than just one planet, that might be worth a dam. If I was a promenent chaos cultists I would probably want to sit on a fortress world, but that might make my job as a subversive element hard or impossible. Che Guvera didnt get executed where it was safe in Cuba.
Rebellion prevention (not pacification) Due to their increased flexibility compared to the Guard, they are able to be far more responsive. They also carry hefty political sway as creations with direct links to the God-Emperor. This makes them ideally placed to prevent rebellions happening in the first place. Networks of spies feed information back to the Chapter about brewing discontent. Marines rock up before it gets too bad and say 'you're doing a bad thing and the Emperor doesn't like it. We strongly recommend that you hand over your leaders for re-education and desist from your activities'. If they refuse, then the 100 Marines are more than capable of dealing with a rebellion in its early stages.
Marines are politically reliable, well after Horus they are MORE reliable and thus they are excellent at fighting rebellions. Being fast and hard hitting even more so. The British ruled india with rapid response regiments of less than 500 men. Arriving quickly was more important than arriving in ultimate strength.
I think you would need to define what exactly is a planet that 'is worth a damn' then. Because from reading the fluff, I get that that the vast majority of planets in the Imperium doesn't seem to have orbital defences. Most planets seem to be only defended by a few regiments of PDF equipped with outdated IG equipment. Does that mean that all those planets are worthless? Even Armageddon did not have much in the way of orbital defences before the Second War (just a few obsolete detection satellites and small attack craft)
Given how large (and therefore extremely expensive) orbital defences (defence lasers for low orbit, orbital defence platforms and system defence fleets for high orbit) are in 40k, they are probably only found on forge worlds, segmentum and sector command worlds, powerful hive worlds, space marine homeworlds and fortress worlds. Maybe on important shrine worlds as well. These are the kinds of worlds that are so heavily fortified that Marines couldn't possibly conquer them on their own. Not even if a Chapter was much larger than it is. To take such a world would take a huge force of Imperial Guardsmen and a large Navy fleet. It would also see the deployment of more valuable, powerful assets such as superheavy vehicles, stormtroopers, assassins, Space Marines and maybe even Titans. Basically, it would take a large combined force to take a heavily defended planet. That is realistic. It would not be realistic if Marines could do that on their own. Even the Legions of the Great Crusade usually only could take such worlds with the aid of the Imperial Army.
Totally. The cost and expense of building fortifications is going to preclude them from being implemented everywhere. Not even all forge worlds and hive worlds are going to have the defenses necessary to defend the entire planet. Planets being huge, they would require an order of magnitude more weapons than a ship to cover all sides. They can't move, so would need to be weighted to longer range defenses at the expense of short range. Being in a fixed space leads to recoil and cooling problems, making the guns more expensive. Similarly being in the middle of the gravity well would again make guns more expensive of similar power. This is the same result that was found throughout naval warfare. Ships could always bring to bear heavier guns and more of them for a given cost. Shore batteries have not been able to cost effectively defend anything other than a bend in a river in centuries.
And then again, these batteries are fixed on the surface of a planet in the center of a gravity well. Land a big enough asteroid on top of it and the guns will be silenced permanently.
For me it's more about trying to inject just a smidge more realism into my science fantasy universe with the end result of continuing my suspension of disbelief (and by the sounds of things the suspension of disbelief of maybe half the commenters on this thread).
Plus, it's also nice if the Fridge Logic is more Fridge Revelation (hey, that thing I've just read actually makes a ton of sense) rather than Fridge Disappointment (oh, so they basically made all of that up without really thinking it through properly).
For the record, I like the idea of drop-pods including a wide array of electronic warfare mechanisms that help prevent them being targeted. Especially if they're Standard Template Constructs that would seem to fit very well.
Well... looking from a "realism" perspective:
Mankind is up vs civilizations that had space travel millions of years ago (Necrons, Eldar). Basically we can assume that 40k Tech is at the peak of what is technologically achievable in this universe - and beyond, since we have to add Psykers and the Warp to all this.
What this means, is that even though the technology of the Imperium seems to be ripped from late World War 1, (and well WW 2 if it comes to Aircraft... uh Spacecraft) it is far more advanced than we can imagine.
All our tech would look to them like bows and arrows to us, and we have no chance to figure out how this stuff really works, since we are stone age guys trying to guess how an F-22 Raptor does what it does.
So all the debates about "ECM and ECCM, electronics, computers" etc. are basically if a caveman would try to explain an F-22 with his understanding of carpentry, pottery and stoneshaping.
I think we need to distinguish between the great expansion when the emperor led the imperium and space marine legions to conquer most of the galaxy versus now where the imperium own a million worlds and they are focused on mostly just defending the worlds they have.
During the great expansion, there were no equivalent technologies, organisation nor concentration of forces capable of withstanding the space marine legions. There was no traitor forces and the level of technology of most unconquered worlds were primitive compared to what the imperium had. I doubt if most of the civilisations they met even had the level of technology of lasguns.
Plus at that time, we were not talking about 100 space marines taking over a planet. During the great expansion, space marine numbered in the hundreds of thousand and moved in entire space marine legions. A typical planet would have zero chance against an entire space marine legion.
After the horus heresy was put down, when most of the galaxy was back in imperium hands, only then were the space marine legions broken up into chapters. Now the role of space marine chapters is more of a rapid response force, and they are spread out across the entire galaxy. Their typical role is not always planetary assault anymore. And they can now call on any nearby planetary defense force to aid them.
I am sure they still have to do planetary assault every now and then, but they can call on alot more help nearby and its no longer as frequent. And its no longer like the great expansion where they were doing it literally all the time.
1) Sci-fi writers have no sense of scale Gw isn't the greatest culprit even.
2) SM are usually decribed as the elite spearhead of a massive army(even in HH). Even when they arrive last minute to save the day it's always in support of IG regiments.
3) All imperial planets are required to have a PDF. jokingly the redshirts of the redshirts (IG).
4) Some planets are sprawling hives with billions of inhabitants but some are medieval backwaters or otherwise sparsely populated with only a few million inhabitants.
Always upscale anything GW says about military matters. I refer you to a thread I started about the descriptive travesty of the imperator titan Dies Irae in False Gods.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: The Imperator-class titan Dies Irae is described as being 43 metres tall. This is really tiny for something that's supposed to be able to level cities. It also says it could hold a full company of soldiers in each leg. Assuming that's humans not astartes, that's still logistically improbable. That's around 300 people fitting in the leg who need to not be crushed together like sardines and need a way of deploying. And if you look at the warlord titans from FW on a table alongside other models, it has to be at least 100 metres tall.
And thinking back I'd change that improbable to impossible, plus where is this thing going to store additional shells for it's gigantic weapons on its only 43 metre tall body.
They don't scale things properly, that's why we get 'oh sure, just send one company of 100 guys to go pacify this entire planet'.
Also they're called space marines for a reason, they spend a lot of time in boarding actions.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: Always upscale anything GW says about military matters. I refer you to a thread I started about the descriptive travesty of the imperator titan Dies Irae in False Gods.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: The Imperator-class titan Dies Irae is described as being 43 metres tall. This is really tiny for something that's supposed to be able to level cities. It also says it could hold a full company of soldiers in each leg. Assuming that's humans not astartes, that's still logistically improbable. That's around 300 people fitting in the leg who need to not be crushed together like sardines and need a way of deploying. And if you look at the warlord titans from FW on a table alongside other models, it has to be at least 100 metres tall.
And thinking back I'd change that improbable to impossible, plus where is this thing going to store additional shells for it's gigantic weapons on its only 43 metre tall body.
They don't scale things properly, that's why we get 'oh sure, just send one company of 100 guys to go pacify this entire planet'.
Also they're called space marines for a reason, they spend a lot of time in boarding actions.
An Imperator class Titan has energy weapons like a Volcano cannon, and secondary lascannons. These run off the reactor power. Its Plasma Annhilator also seems to run directly off the reactor. With effectively unlimited battlefield endurance (reactors can run for years) It could therefore level a city...slowly.
loads of modelling opportunities...
