The new! big! extra-big! extra-new! Marines with special bolters as troops choices kinda got me thinking... What happened to Marines (of any kind) being special?

1) I admit that I'm not very up to date: hence, this is a real question, but it also might have a regular old answer I missed.

2) my favorite conflict (or at least representation of Marines) in 40k is the Badab war, in large part because a lot of it has to do with forces stretched thin.

But, like, I'm kinda used to Marines as relic everything, from storied and rebuilt suits of power armor, to basic bolters being armoury heirlooms, to of course esoteric stuff like dreads being not just sarcophagi but themselves important historical objects. (Yeah, STCs help recover, but they're still not exactly disposable.)

You've got your 10 companies built around maximizing resources and staying fighting fit, with the tactical squad at the hear of this that (rules don't always represent this the best) are supposed to be able to do whatever they need to as line troops.

But now we've got 5 primaris troops types that are within the narrative all filling the tactical marine role in battle companies? I get (assume) that the phobos stuff is replacing scouts down the line and seems to mechanically fill that role, but that's a ton of new types of specialists and gear available to basic marines. So, is there a narrative reason Marines (spread across the Imperium on a bajillion front) suddenly have access to a ton of gear with a lot of variation? Like, I liked that Marines, despite all their silly best whatever were balanced by every one of them being some storied hero in relic gear, even if mechanically they're still just tactical goons, and I feel like that's been lost--am I alone in losing the fun of marines? Primaris are nicely sculpted and all, but I'm missing the charm.

Cawl's been stockpiling this year for centuries, with direct authority from Guilliman to do so. He's essentially been able to work under the radar and amass massive resources. It also helps that the galaxy being split in half and being the big priority to deal with helps a lot with "hey, listen to me and bow to my authority".

Again - your Primaris Marines are over two hundred years old if they started at the start of the Indomitus Crusade. That's plenty of time for them to be wearing relic armour, having relic weapons, and being storied heroes in their own right.

I've never bought onto the idea of Marine gear being relics. Sure maybe here and there some fancy artificer Aegis outfit or such but Brother McGrunt over there? He's got a "special" bolter, sure.

Anyone who's served in any armed or even police force will tell you weapons get worn out, no matter how well you try build them. There's no way there isn't a solid manufacturing line pushing out new suits and guns. You don't WANT Brother Better-Than-You's hand-me down bolter. You want a new one from the armoury.

This brings up an interesting point that Terry Pratchett addressed. How much repair can be done before you've got a new item?

“This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know.

Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant

I'm certain 99.9999985% of the Firstborn Marine gear is new production and a minuscule amount is Relic.

Pratchett was just recalling the Ship of Theseus parable/thought experiment.

And no, I don't think it's realistic. 40k is highly unrealistic, but that was part of the baroque setting which I appreciated. The setting is full of relics of prior eras, and just like the "first is unstable but more powerful" trope, it's got fun style that's really easy to write narratives around, design fun characters, or play RPGs. No, if 40k were realistic, 90%+ of it would have nothing to do with commanders and it'd just be blobs of mass infantry or sieges or bombing runs or whatever. It's fantasy in space, IMHO moreso than it is SF.

I think the OP has a valid point. It was specifically said in 4th ed SM codex that when the ultramarines 1st company got wiped out during the first tyrannic war the losses of so many suits of terminator armour as well as their wargear (not to mention the soldiers themselves) was a grevious blow to the chapter that took centuries to recover from. So it took the ultramarines, a chapter with vast resources, a bare minimum of 200 years (most likely a few 100 years more) to replace about 100 suits of elite armours and wargear. At the time of having recovered about half the chapters first company was said to have become tyranid hunters (or tyrannica war veterans). A type of sternguards unique to the ultramarines that specialized in fighting tyrranids using regular marine equipment (with specialized ammunition). That implies that the chapter was actually unable to replenish their supply of 1st company gear since half the first company where basically glorified tactical marines. After a minimum of 200 years.

Times have changed though and tyrranid hunters aren’t a thing anymore. Unfortunately in today’s 40k you can have armies appear out of no where, fully kitted to reinforce the entire galaxy. Resources used to be at the same time very limited (SM gear) and abundant (Guard gear) in 40k but these days I guess it’s all just abundant.

Mary Sue..
Plot Armour..
Model sales..

- Warhammer 42k Indomitus Heresy 2020.

ironically, it is possible to make a argument for the "multiple different versions of a given primaris job role" being the result of local, non-standardised production and limited means of production, with different chapters are such all finding slightly different ways to achieve the same goals. while their may be 5 different versions of the "primaris tactical squad" equivalent, theirs nothing saying that every chapter uses all 5 at once. they might use one, or two, or start with one then switch to another as a change in doctrine or equipment availability.

I agree that all this new gear coming out so quickly (in game terms) is a little stupid, but its not impossible to explain via in-universe methods (like parallel evolution). Its also worth pointing out that Space Marines have never really been as bad-ass as their fluff makes them out to be, and that certain elements of the "lost relics" ideas dont make sense at all, given how popular said relics are, and GW have actually toned this down a little compared to older fluff in some cases. their was a time that baneblades were ultra-rare, like "you might have a company of 3 in a army group of millions" rare, rather than merely "not common, but nothing special" like they are now (although this was the early 2000s era when the only baneblades were £350 forge world resin kits). many of the Leman Russ varients were explicitly out of production or just bloody rare, again back when they were forge world resin kits. Thiers other examples i am sure i could dredge up of things working differently back then.

I'm thinking I might want to use this angle to my advantage with regards to my marine army going forward.

I intend to build the core of the army from a "fluffy" mix of firstborn marines in a way that reflects the old scarcity angle - lots of vehicles and stuff, 5 model squads, plenty of apotecharies etc. Once my army starts growing beyond the first 1500 or so points, I'll be gradually adding Primaris into the mix, and from then on only add more primaris to the army. This will eventually lead to an army where firstborn marines represent a minority, and Primaris represent the majority of the infantry force, since if the Primaris marines arent limited to 1000 battle brothers per chapter, there can be practially any number of them.

I'll start piling on the Primaris from gravis armoured units first. These will look bulkier enough so that they will just appear as terminator armourlike units compared to their smaller brothers.

one thing to keep in mind is that Cawl designed MK X armor to be modular, so Phobos armor, tacticus and gravis armor are simply differant levels of build up on the same frame.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Cawl's been stockpiling this year for centuries,

Millennia.

The first Dawn of Fire novel (Avenging Son) touches on this. Cawl did much of his Primaris work on an Ark Mechanicus. Its basically a mobile Forge World, and all its resources were dedicated to making Primaris and Primaris gear, vehicles, etc.

How he hid it and kept it safe is an open question, but he had _thousands_ of years to stockpile kit for his creations. It wasn't being used for anything else, beyond infrequent tests by his test subjects. No requisitions, no supplying warfronts, just pure building and mothballing.
We simply don't have an equivalent experience, as last century's wargear largely isn't worth keeping, even for emergencies. The century before that is laughable junk (in terms of fighting wars), good only for museum pieces.

xexeskingofking wrote:ironically, it is possible to make a argument for the "multiple different versions of a given primaris job role" being the result of local, non-standardised production and limited means of production, with different chapters are such all finding slightly different ways to achieve the same goals. while their may be 5 different versions of the "primaris tactical squad" equivalent, theirs nothing saying that every chapter uses all 5 at once. they might use one, or two, or start with one then switch to another as a change in doctrine or equipment availability.

Interestingly, I was surprised to see Dawn of Fire kept things simple. The initial Primaris forces (at the start of the Indomitus Crusade) are Intercessors, Hellblasters, Inceptors and Aggressors (and of course a Lieutenant). The variations of stuff that has come later for us (canonically 100+ years later, after the Crusade is over) just isn't there, and most isn't even mentioned beyond some form of hover tanks and walkers. Indomitus the novel has it, but that's set later on (at least 10 years, in the ship's personal timeline, which doesn't account for warp travel, and it isn't clear how long it took for their fleet to set out from Terra after the start of the Crusade)

So it looks like the various Primaris specialists were either added to the roster as the Primaris marines got more experienced (their lack of real-world field experience and personal experience is a big highlight of Avenging Son), or they're left out to keep the narrative relatively simple.

No wonder Cawl is so cocky. He sat on that stuff knowing if he got discovered the Inquisition would blow all of it (and him) to hell, but he didn't get discovered. In a manner he pulled some massive espionage on the Imperium and got away with it.

I suppose one of the big reasons that everything is an old relic revered by their chapter for thousands of years is because, well this is fantasy in space more than anything. Stagnated, everything is old and barely understood.

If you try and gauge by real world standards yeah it's hilarious. "What you have the Auspex I5 Battle-Brother? That's several years out of date. I have the Auspex I6, it has a bigger optic lense!

And yeah, remember that Cawl has been working on this stuff since the before Gulliman was put into stasis. Some of the marines were likely born much before even Dante.

It isn't like they have not repaired that gear countless times over the centuries/millenia. And there are examples of things in real life that still work despite being incredibly old. It's just that technological advancement leaves them behind. In 40k the older stuff is liable to be MORE advanced.

Mostly it makes no sense from a logistical standpoint. They would have been whittled down to non existence if it was a thing.

They'd have lost a lot more recovering some items than they'd gain. Sure something like a Titan or a Baneblade but a bolter? Even a suit of Tactical Dreadnought Armour?

Too many would have been irretrievably lost on Space Hulks or on daemon worlds anyway.

It's a nice idea but it is firmly in the arena of "don't think about that too hard" like a lot of the WH40K.

The scarcity thing was only ever fluff anyway. Look at new releases. The Centurions, Baal Predators, Stormravens... They were "rare" but really they weren't. Same with relics like bolters and power weapons. My Necromunda gang has a heavy bolter, two bolters and IIRC 3 power weapons. It makes a nice Grimdark narrative setting but it's not practical. If were really a thing you'd find many more Marines armed with heavy stubbers or even lasguns.

Just accept it as something that happens for "reasons" and move on.

It’s not out of the ballpark to see a marine feasibly using a weapon or armor that had been in service for centuries or longer, especially when the equipment in question is extremely expensive in terms of materials and time to produce more of. I mean the Abraham’s has been in service for what 40 years now? That’s enough time for a soldier to be sitting in the same tank his father of even grandfather commanded. The US keeps on reusing the same chassis because the damn things are crazy expensive to completely replace, so it’s more cost efficient to sand Blast the old one, make repairs/enhancements and put it back in the field if they can.

I think this is something that has happened in dribs and drabs over the years but essentially the whole concept and character of 40k has now changed (the Primaris/Primarchs returned are the apotheosis of this I think rather than it just resting on that piece of background).
It's no longer 10 seconds to midnight and mankind is no longer doomed. In fact, it looks like it's making a bit of a comeback.

As such, I think bits of the background that reference this (I'm using Brother Leo's old helmet from 200 years ago, the lens is still cracked from where he got shot through the eyeball but otherwise it's OK) probably don't fit as well any more. I think there is a bit of incongruity/disconnect highlighted by this change; you're being asked to believe that someone stockpiled enough wargear for entire Legions of marines while the barbarians were literally at the gates and humankind holding on by its fingertips?

Incidentally I don't think the new background is better or worse. I do have a massive amount of nostalgia for the early editions and grew up on them in the 80s along with reading 2000AD and Dune etc, the proper grim-dark, so they are therefore several levels of cool above the space-lords returning to kick-butt stuff coming out now, but then the other perspective of that is that I'm a grognard and stuck in the past

 agurus1 wrote:
It’s not out of the ballpark to see a marine feasibly using a weapon or armor that had been in service for centuries or longer, especially when the equipment in question is extremely expensive in terms of materials and time to produce more of. I mean the Abraham’s has been in service for what 40 years now? That’s enough time for a soldier to be sitting in the same tank his father of even grandfather commanded. The US keeps on reusing the same chassis because the damn things are crazy expensive to completely replace, so it’s more cost efficient to sand Blast the old one, make repairs/enhancements and put it back in the field if they can.

Ships will remain in service for even longer, but that's because they are a huge investment. No country can afford to replace an aircraft carrier just because it's "kinda old." But if a soldier is given a gun and armor from 100 years ago, he should be worried...

Now maybe the reason Primaris are so well equipped is because Cawl designed equipment that can actually be produced? Marines no longer have to salvage antiques when they want another tank, they can get a new one straight out of the factory, I suppose?

Blech, give me 40k over Dune any day.

Primaris has changed more than just the SM unit options and I’m not sure how much of it was intentional. Remember the story about the 2 space marine accounts that were made planetary governors because they found an STC for a new kind of knife?

Now the imperium can only ent new kinds of power armour, jump packs, bolters Floating tanks etc. And Cawl has improved in the emperors work.

There was a time when all this was heresy, new terminators and dreadnoughts could not be made and they could not be dismantled in order to see how they were made.

Not only had humanity lost the knowledge front he golden age but over the last 10k years they had lost the understanding from the age of the emperor. Space marines handed down their equipment like heirlooms and worshiped them as holy relics.

The whole point of the heresy was that Horus would loose and plunge humanity into an age of cultural, religious and technological stagnation that would ultimately drive them to chaos. That was the game the alpha legion were playing.

If GW wanted to change this then that’s fine but I think it should have been acknowledged as the start of some sort of change in the history of the imperium, RG returning helps this. But it feels like they are just trying to blow it off by saying cawl has been working on this for 10k years so it’s always been on the cards.

mrFickle wrote:
Now the imperium can only ent new kinds of power armour, jump packs, bolters Floating tanks etc. And Cawl has improved in the emperors work.

And had the Emperor's explicit permission to do so.

Just want to make that point clear.

Wot Smudge said.

Cawl has Guilliman as a benefactor. And contributed to the original Space Marine (and Primarch I think) project.

He’s been beavering away at the Primaris project for millennia. And, being a high ranking Tech Priest, likely has access to all sorts of live combat recordings to enable him to better tweak the arms and armour.

Remember. The original Space Marines were a bodge job. After the kidnapping of the infant Primarchs, The Emperor simply worked with what was left - and with the warp storms settling, he was against the clock.

What has happened to me.. am I allowed to just put down a dividing line and say "NOPE" to anything after (maybe 2018?)

Going back on what I have said earlier, I just read some of the modern background and I despair. Marines a bodge job? Seriously when has that ever been a thing in the past 30 years of background?

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. GW were prepared to literally destroy an entire game world and it's inhabitants to push a new games system and force people to jump over, so this (which after all is just to prompt people to buy a new collection of marines) is quite tame by comparison.
I'm reminded of a blog review I read of the Will Smith movie I, Robot, which featured a photoshop of Smith pissing on the grave of Isaac Asimov.
I suppose in this case it would be Rick Priestly but they don't even have the temerity to let him die first.

/rant

They were a bodge job since the Primarch background was first set out.

I don't know if "bodge job" is the right way to put it. But it's been established waaaaay before Primaris that the Emperor pieced together the Marine Legions based on his designs for the Primarchs, and that they were always inferior as a result. I'll have to dig out the 2nd ed Ultramarines Codex in a bit when I can, that's got more on it.

Might help if I clarify what I’m meaning by bodge job, as it can vary.

Specifically, Making The Best Of The Situation And Materials At Hand.

Cawl didn’t create then new implants, so much as complete (dare I say perfect) them.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Might help if I clarify what I’m meaning by bodge job, as it can vary.

Specifically, Making The Best Of The Situation And Materials At Hand.

Cawl didn’t create then new implants, so much as complete (dare I say perfect) them.

its also worth pointing out it took crawl literally thousands of years to improve on what the Emperor did in (at most) a few hundred years, and most likely a few dozen. the timeline of is still a little screwy, but he didnt start on Marines until after the primarchs were stolen, and had cadres ready for most of them by the time he began his Great Crusade.

An argument could be advanced that the Emperor had actually intended the Marines to be at Primaris level, but wasnt able to make that happen in the time frame he wanted, so went with what he could get working, with the plan to "perfect" the marines after winning the Great Crusade. Its totally not supported by canon, obviously, but its nice fanon.

Well, we know The Emperor first created the Thunder Warriors, and discarded them entirely once their purpose was served.

Primarchs were a massive leap forward. And it seems to me it’s case of “not enough time” to replicate them, rather “they were a one and done” thing.

Astartes of course bridge that gap. Not as physically robust as Thunder Warriors, but far more sophisticated from what little is stated in the background.

We can also reasonably surmise the Emperor’s plans were utterly derailed by the Heresy.

See, he went back to Terra, leaving Horus in charge to perfect his Webway work, safe in the knowledge the Crusade had suitable leaders.

Had the Heresy happened long after it did? Specifically after The Emperor has got his Webway working? Who knows what might’ve been next.

And had he retained The Primarchs, it’s at least somewhat arguable he’d never had lead the Crusade himself, instead trusting it to his Mini-Me’s.

I could see the next project being Primaris, or something close to it. Tweaking and improving the Astartes recipe - particularly once lost technologies recovered during the Crusade made it back to his Labs on Terra.

TL/DR (don’t blame you)

The Emperor doesn’t come across as one to just decide a job is “good enough” and leave it there. He’d be tinkering and improving.

Alrighty, here we go, excerpt from 2nd ed Ultramarines Codex as promised. Though admittedly it's not quite as I remember...

"The development of genetic tissue took many centuries of work. This research was itself a spin-off from the aborted Primarch project, which was an early attempt at genetic restructuring with the aim of creating god-like creatures called Primarchs."
"Samples of genetic tissue taken from the foetal Primarchs were used to create the genetic banks which provided the first Space Marine gene-seed."

So... uhhh... ok, it doesn't really go as much into the inferior nature of an ordinary Marine compared to a Primarch as I remember. Who knows, maybe I'm thinking of other fluff elsewhere in early editions, or maybe I've subconsciously overwritten it in my head.

 Super Ready wrote:
Alrighty, here we go, excerpt from 2nd ed Ultramarines Codex as promised. Though admittedly it's not quite as I remember...

"The development of genetic tissue took many centuries of work. This research was itself a spin-off from the aborted Primarch project, which was an early attempt at genetic restructuring with the aim of creating god-like creatures called Primarchs."
"Samples of genetic tissue taken from the foetal Primarchs were used to create the genetic banks which provided the first Space Marine gene-seed."

So... uhhh... ok, it doesn't really go as much into the inferior nature of an ordinary Marine compared to a Primarch as I remember. Who knows, maybe I'm thinking of other fluff elsewhere in early editions, or maybe I've subconsciously overwritten it in my head.

im not sure, that sounds right. I think the inferior part is just that the Space Marines are not as individually powerful as their Primarch gene-fathers. weather this was because they were never intended to be or because he lacked the ability to make more beings at primarch power levels is a question i dont know the canonical answer to, but i seem to remember it leaning more towards the latter than the former.

The Emperor doesn’t come across as one to just decide a job is “good enough” and leave it there. He’d be tinkering and improving.

oh, i completely agree with you, but thier comes a time in any products design cycle when you have to go firm, freeze the design and start production, and save any new improvements to the next iteration. While the marines may not have been "finished", and a few centuries more tinkering might have led to a better end product, he needed his armies soon, due to external factors beyond his control, and he could always iterate the new version out once the Great Crusade was done.

Everything in 40k is made of stuff that literally does not, and probably cannot, exist in real world physics. How long does a bolter last for? Rogue traders run around with archeotech weapons that no one understands or can possibly repair but they are still functional after a minimum of 15000 years. Dark Age of Technology's materials science was THAT good. And bolters are overbuilt to incredible levels, given the barrel thickness and overall weight of a weapon that shoots 0.75 caliber rounds. So yes, a Chapter Master might be wielding a bolter used by the first Chapter Master of his Chapter, with minimal replacement parts, because it's probably made of self-healing materials that get their resources from the residue of bolter propellant, is tougher than diamond on an order of magnitude and literally corrosion proof under normal conditions.

And that's nowhere near as good as it gets.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Now the imperium can only ent new kinds of power armour, jump packs, bolters Floating tanks etc. And Cawl has improved in the emperors work.

And had the Emperor's explicit permission to do so.

Just want to make that point clear.

I’m not trying to make a point about Cawl/primaris story line, everything people have said here is correct. What I’m saying is that GW crated this new story to justify it the primaris model line. It’s very deus ex. Everything you knew about the imperium is wrong cos there’s this guy that’s been living underground For 10k year that has all the answers.

I’m not against the idea, just think it could have been done better.

mrFickle wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Now the imperium can only ent new kinds of power armour, jump packs, bolters Floating tanks etc. And Cawl has improved in the emperors work.

And had the Emperor's explicit permission to do so.

Just want to make that point clear.

I’m not trying to make a point about Cawl/primaris story line, everything people have said here is correct. What I’m saying is that GW crated this new story to justify it the primaris model line. It’s very deus ex. Everything you knew about the imperium is wrong cos there’s this guy that’s been living underground For 10k year that has all the answers.

I’m not against the idea, just think it could have been done better.

The "everything you thought you knew about XYZ" - but isn't that what made things like the HH and stuff appealing, that your preconceptions *could* have been wrong?

Now, obviously, there's a difference between not knowing if what you thought you knew is wrong, and knowing for sure that what you thought you new is wrong, but for most people saying "well, that's not what it used to be!" are oftentimes the same people who say "well, anything to do with the lore in 40k is from an unreliable narrator anyway".

Basically, I feel there's a lot of hoops that people jump through to discredit modern lore. I'm not attacking your argument, just using your comments to make a separate observation, if that makes sense!

It’s also nothing new. The background has always been fluid.

About the only things set in stone are the Emperor being on the Golden Throne, and eventually the Eldar birthing Slaanesh.

Tyranids, Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar - even Orks getting physically larger as they fight are quite modern.

You must admit though that, I think other than the transition from 1st to 2nd edition (when really they were fleshing out and creating the 40k identity) the changes over the past few years - specifically the Cawl stuff, although that's just part of it - far outweigh any other changes that have been made in the past 25 years or so.

It's made me realise actually that I've been left behind, and I'm actually just stinking up the place now for people who are onboard a bit more with the times and actually enjoy it.

I shall now retreat to my refuge of old White Dwarf mags and shake my fist angrily whenever I see a Primarch or Primaris miniature in a GW store window

mrFickle wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Now the imperium can only ent new kinds of power armour, jump packs, bolters Floating tanks etc. And Cawl has improved in the emperors work.

And had the Emperor's explicit permission to do so.

Just want to make that point clear.

I’m not trying to make a point about Cawl/primaris story line, everything people have said here is correct. What I’m saying is that GW crated this new story to justify it the primaris model line. It’s very deus ex. Everything you knew about the imperium is wrong cos there’s this guy that’s been living underground For 10k year that has all the answers.

I’m not against the idea, just think it could have been done better.

I do think they could have given hints and glimpses before the unveiling. GW has always been very good about breadcrumbs in the background (even if they often do not lead to anything). Ynnari as a concept was a background feature for a long time before the entity fumbled its way into existence (and the army subsequently floundered on the table).

Part of the kneejerk reaction to Primaris is they hit the setting cold, and smashed the panic button labelled 'Change!' References to Cawl and his Great Work should have been in the Ad Mech double codex, a battlefield with unidentified marines with unfamiliar weapons, etc. Just little snippets in 7th (and maybe 6th, though I'm not sure the development timeline works) edition publications would have made a big difference.

mrFickle wrote:
, new terminators and dreadnoughts could not be made and they could not be dismantled in order to see how they were made.

You can't maintain a suit of armor for 10 000 years without repairing it. You'd figure out how it works. You'd have to build new parts. You'd have to provide new suits to new chapters. The appearance of Centurions et all shows they are capable of building new equipment if there is a plan. In 10 000 years you could reverse engineer anything.

Kayback wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
, new terminators and dreadnoughts could not be made and they could not be dismantled in order to see how they were made.

You can't maintain a suit of armor for 10 000 years without repairing it. You'd figure out how it works. You'd have to build new parts. You'd have to provide new suits to new chapters. The appearance of Centurions et all shows they are capable of building new equipment if there is a plan. In 10 000 years you could reverse engineer anything.

Well that sounds logical but we’re talking 40K here and the old lore was setup around this idea that the imperium has stagnated and they had replaced scientific knowledge with religious beatification.

As story line it’s probably not sustainable but it was way cooler. And yes the lore has always been fluid. I remember an old white dwarf when they brought out flying units for Epic. And there was a story about how the imperium had lost its knowledge of flying and some how recovered it.

All I’m really getting at is some changes are good and some are bad and the way they did cawl and primaris was bad. Because it either went too far or not far enough. It very quickly turn a lot of ideas on their head for SM whilst ignoring the rest of the imperium. For SM to go through some sort of technological revolution and the rest of the imperium to be totally ignored, I dunno it feels odd.

For me all they really needed to do was say they discovered a cache of new STCs. Or take it further than they did and have RG use the primaris to re conquer the imperium and take take the cult of the emperor and all the other nasty bits that exploit humanity for their own gain. Or something. Now the imperium, to me, feels like it’s running 2 conflicting identities.

Kayback wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
, new terminators and dreadnoughts could not be made and they could not be dismantled in order to see how they were made.

You can't maintain a suit of armor for 10 000 years without repairing it. You'd figure out how it works. You'd have to build new parts. You'd have to provide new suits to new chapters. The appearance of Centurions et all shows they are capable of building new equipment if there is a plan. In 10 000 years you could reverse engineer anything.

Ahhh, now, on this point?

I’m learning to tinker with my car. Nothing too fancy. So far, the extent of my knowledge is replacing drop link pins (which help stabilise the suspension) and wiring in my new stereo.

I’m also capable of replacing lights, bulbs, fuses and spark plugs. All of that, without any real understanding or care about how the whole of the thing works.

Repairing and maintaining is relatively easy. Building it from scratch? Not to much.

It could be that, once the armour is stripped away, Dreadnought suits are massively temperamental, with bits and bobs liable to leave their socket with a modicum off force - but those bits are made to such robust specifications they need only be popped back in. But all the time they’re out of place, the whole of the thing grinds to a halt. Being able to identify the problem and relocate the rogue linkage requires less knowledge than building that part from scratch.

It’s also entirely possible that it’s the insular and selfish nature of Forgeworlds that the know-how and resources to fabricate entirely new suits is spread out over multiple. Perhaps Metallica can sort you with the MIU link and legs, but you’ll need to speak to Ryza for the Sarcophagus, and only a relatively obscure Forgeworld can actually produce the On Switch.

The Imperium. It’s a logistical nightmare!

I've made that kind of comparison elsewhere recently, only with PC building.
How many of us know how to build a PC by putting the core components together and bunging an OS on?
Now... how many of those know how to code the OS from scratch?

Okay, but the Mechanicus isn't a bunch of random uneducated guys tinkering with stuff without really bothering to understand it. Sure they're more into religion than the scientific method, but they haven't forgotten everything. Basic laws of physics and equations are part of their cult.

If something holds them back, it's dogma, not their incapability to understand how machines work. There are even some heretek cults that reverse-engineer xeno technology; considering the mechanicus can make regular power armour, I'm sure they could figure out how terminator armor is made if they really tried.
Problem is, they would have to come up with their own blueprints instead of a STC and that's verboten.

Some of them aren’t. The longer you serve and the higher your rank, the deeper in the mysteries you’re inducted.

Your lower level Enginseer likely couldn’t build an engine, but certainly knows how to swap out parts. Whereas an Arch Magos may well have the knowledge to properly assess an STC fragment to see whether it’s worth mass production, filing, or hoarding.

This was one of the worst aspects of the new fluff. It shattered the image of an Imperium struggling to survive but still on the cusp of collapse. I have come to reconcile it by looking at it not as a sign that the Imperium is suddenly more capable of production but, rather, that the Imperium has always lacked focus, a clear unified agenda, and strong leadership. The primarch's return means that there is a rare glimmer of unity that has been sorely lacking with various institutions literally fighting one another. If even a small fraction of the Imperium's resources could be marshaled under with a single goal in mind, they could more than easily produce the arms, ships, weapons, etc. necessary to outfit millions of marines. The point is that to do so means taking resources from another branch of the government and, normally, that would have led to overt conflict that stalled any ambitious plans.

Imperial Logistics are mind boggling.

By our standards, the Imperium has near infinite resources of both man and material. The trick is, getting the man and material to the right place at the right time.

This is why the Imperial Guard’s standard issue is the humble Lasgun. Yes, we joke about it as players. Yes in-game it’s pretty crap.

But? In-universe? It’s ideal. It can be produced in the millions by any Hive World. It lacks moving parts, so requires little training beyond “point this end at the enemy”.

It’s power packs are largely standardised. So chances are even if you receive the wrong shipment, you can still make use of what you did receive.

We see the same across the vehicles of the Imperial Guard. Basic, robust, relatively easily maintained. Or, to put it another way? About as foolproof as can be had.

And that’s how the Imperium holds it together. It doesn’t matter if you get the wrong shipment of Leman Russ, Chimera, Lasgun, Power Packs etc - your men under arms can still, most likely, use it all the same.

Fancy things such as Bolters? Those require actual maintenance. Same with other, more impressive guns and materiel.

In terms of stability of union, it’s hard to beat The Imperium because their resources are greater than yours by some degree.]

Sure, the sheer bureaucracy might mean they don’t rock up to give you a righteous kicking for a few decades? But it’s coming. And when it does? It’ll overwhelm all but the strongest and cleverest of defences.

Splitting the Imperium in Twain? Weakens that.

 Grumblewartz wrote:
This was one of the worst aspects of the new fluff. It shattered the image of an Imperium struggling to survive but still on the cusp of collapse. I have come to reconcile it by looking at it not as a sign that the Imperium is suddenly more capable of production but, rather, that the Imperium has always lacked focus, a clear unified agenda, and strong leadership. The primarch's return means that there is a rare glimmer of unity that has been sorely lacking with various institutions literally fighting one another. If even a small fraction of the Imperium's resources could be marshaled under with a single goal in mind, they could more than easily produce the arms, ships, weapons, etc. necessary to outfit millions of marines. The point is that to do so means taking resources from another branch of the government and, normally, that would have led to overt conflict that stalled any ambitious plans.

Its actually even more byzantine and complicated than that.
There are a lot of details to it, but the hard stop is the Ad Mech aren't part of the Imperium. They're _allied_ to the Imperium.
In practice this line gets blurred, but the Ad Mech have a lot of ability to say 'No.' Especially at lower levels- any random general or fleet commander doesn't have a lot of leverage barring exceptional circumstances like, 'Hey, there is a tyranid fleet incoming next month, and we can just not be here when it arrives.'

And equipment from Forge Worlds usually flows to the Ministorum, who assign it based on the information they have, which may be years or decades out of date. The Navy and the Guard are also separate organizations so things can also get out of whack there, and sometimes the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition can put their own individual oars in. Oh and sometimes supplies go out on chartered ships, so that's another organization involved. And the Navigators are their own organization with their own pull, and despite being filthy mutants, that matters sometimes too.

Any supply trip involves at least a half-a-dozen institutions, plus the local planets and their rulers, and any of them have the ability to introduce complications.

Somehow, the Imperium has managed to combine the worst aspects of a decentralized, feudal-like government with the worst aspects of a centralized autocracy. That's pretty impressive, when you think about it

 Tiennos wrote:
Somehow, the Imperium has managed to combine the worst aspects of a decentralized, feudal-like government with the worst aspects of a centralized autocracy. That's pretty impressive, when you think about it

Yeah. Dawn of Fire Book 1 has a very weird subplot that doesn't quite hook up with anything else.

Basically, a young scribe finds has a urgent message come across her desk (for filing), has a religious epiphany about it, and decides she has to take it to a different office in the next spire.
Which basically means a pilgrimage through the lower levels of the various scribe and paper associated guilds, all centered around 'Ultima-level' messages (basically, 'Help, <Xenos> are attacking <planet>'), and the layers and layers of them that have built up in the spire. So life in the lower spire centers around this leftover paper, including warring guilds like the Incinerators and Recyclers, who want to burn paper to make room (and provide energy to generate power in the spire), or recycle paper to record the next round of messages. Think Necromunda gangs, but paper based. Its alternately absurd, surreal, and puzzling, but neatly illustrates how borked the Imperium is, and how old and worn down Terra is.

The end of her journey is a spoiler that I won't share, but it isn't at all surprising.

yhea, the fact that the imperium isnt monolithic isnt really a suprise to anyone familliar with the lore. I suppose the reason people dont complain about, for example, the way that cadians get mk-36 lasrifles and the catchans use mk4 carbines is that the game treats that as "beneath" them and gives them the same stat-line as "las-gun". i think part of the complaints about the 30+ bolter weapons is that it every unit seems to have its own unique gun with a statline and its hard for even the players running SM to remember what the stats of his own guns are, let alone the other side trying to form a coherent response to them. do those marines there have 24" guns, or 30"? are they strength 5 or 4? will i be facing 10 shots, or 15, or 20 at this range? is that the same as that almost simmilar looking bunch on the left flank? none of this is supposed to be "secret" info that they can't find out, but in practice asking to confirm everything all the time slows the game down so much that we might not bother.


Edit: I'm sorry, i let my annoyance at a rules element spill over into a discussion about lore. My apologies, ill try and keep it out of this forum section

Problem with Primaris warhead, ESPECIALLY vehicles, is that the imperium has trouble making them. The fact all primaris tanks are hover tanks with basically experimental technology means that having your whole armoured division hover is fine... until attrition becomes a real thing and tanks are lost faster than they can build them. 100 years after their reveal it might be plausible for all their wargear, which is all so unique, to be ubiquitous., But what about in another 100 years? Or 200 years? How can the Admech keep on resupplying thing that they already have so much trouble and taking so long making like all the hover tanks and all the pointless weapons individual primaris marines carry?

Like, how many forgeworlds can even create a repulser? and how many have access to schematics for Belisarius pattern plasma weaponry? Because it sure as hell is less than the amount that have access to even the regular plasma weapons if were to judge based on Cawls secrecy and admech tech hoarding.

All marines will be Primaris. But simply put, the Imperium just wont be able to replace the losses of assets that are even harder to produce than the assets that they seem to have replaced, which were already extremely hard to produce. Realistically, Marine forces should not be using impulsors as rhino replacements and repulsors as land raiders, etc. They should be used in conjunction with them and should be much more rare than they are now. I'm just praying GW for once gets some common sense and make some fething space marine tanks on proper treads in the future as the timeline progresses. Not this all-hover, super common relic bs we have now.

Also, that Primaris marines are deliberately made unflexible on the squad level is purely slowed. Unless, and only unless Guilliman is trying to recreate the Legions or enlargening chapters by like 5 to 10 times their size will the idea of single-weapon units ever be feasible. It litteraly makes no sense. If you just think about it, how marines are used now, like individual squads doing missions on their own, the tiny ass size of chapters, etc, then you'll quickly see the stupidity of having such unflexible units . But whatever, that's something for a slightly different topic.

I used to be proud of knowing and loving 40k but starting since near the end of 7th when gw started hiring the gakiest artists in their history who made the most childish looking or most disproportionately drawn artwork we have ever seen, combined with the cringey ass fluff starting from Rising Storn or w.e it was called, up until now with all the Primaris crap targetted towards kids under 12 (which is the culmination of the most cheesy and cringy art and lore I have experienced yet).. Well, now it's just embarassing.

40k was so cool just a few years ago. I wouldnt hesitate to bring it up or mention it at all with my friends, and they're dudes who think this stuff is nerdy. Now I'm ashamed I'm even a fan at all and never bring it up. My god. Most of the current artwork, and all of the primaris fluff... Its all so lame and kiddy now.

Doing some number crunching here... Let's assume that every Marine chapter is 100% mechanized (honestly a biiig assumption) And every Marine chapter is 100% Primaris (yet again biiig assumption)

and that there are one thousand chapters of space marines in the galaxy (give or take)

now, for ease of sanity we're going to assume every heavy support squad is in gravis armor, and every fast attack squad is in tacticus armor, and that only gravis armor gets repulsors, everyone else gets Impulsors.

First Company will need 20 Impulsors,
as will the Two battleline and assault reserve company. (for 80 Impulsors period)
the Battle companies will need, 16 Impulsors, and 4 Repulsors.
the heavy support company will need a whooping 20 Repulsors (this is, yet again assuming 100% mechanization and that they're all equipped as heavy intercessors)
The 10th company, assuming 100 vanguard marines and 100 scouts, will need 20 Impulsors and 20 Land Speeder Storms.

totaling to a need for 116 Impulsors, 24 Repulsors, and 20 Land Speeder Storms.

Now... there are an estimated 1000 marine chapters in the galaxy,

this means if every one was a FULLY mechanized the IoM would need to have produced 116000 Impulsors, 24000 Repulsors and yeah have 20000 land speeder storms about.

it's proably doable given Cawl had 10 thousand years to perpare. at the same time we know for a fact that many marine chapters continue to make old marines in part because of these logistical issues.

Though i'm sure it's been mentioned before but it should be noted that Cawl did make the current armor and weapons to be very modular. In a few places it describes how between missions an aggressor squad can switch between being armed with the bolt or the flamer weapons. I know it's unrealistic to believe that the marine commander can plan for every single eventuality when building his forces loadouts, but then again very little about marines is realistic by current standards.

Actually, best way I imagine it. Who remembers Zoids? Particularly the first season where the main robot could go into this big arse snail building/tank thing and have a bunch of outside parts taken off and different ones slapped on to change it's capabilities. Same thing would work with Repulsors and most armor types. Hell if the guns can be built similar to how you put together the physical ones they could even switch mid mission if there was a resupply point.

So, dangerous theory time.

Cawl was, as I am understanding, given direct orders to start stockpiling and keep improving despite what the rest of the Cogboys are doing at the time. He was also one of the original guys (well, kinda) working on Space Marines, so he knows what he's doing more so than the average Cogboy.

Now, keep in mind that Cawl's motivations may be sketchy- but his work has been focused on the Primaris project. He's not been worrying about advancing to the next tier Cogboy priest rank, he's not had to navigate Cogboy politics, he's not had to divide his work efforts between as many things as a good chunk of the Cogboys are prone to doing. Or maybe it has, and he's just been at this so long he's learned to manage his tasks better than they do.

I have a theory that the Admech has spent the last ~10,000 years looking at the Imperium and saying, "Yup, they're screwed". Not "We", but "They". I've had a feeling that the overall Admech has been silently wanting to sever ties to the Imperium and nullify the Treaty of Olympus Mons- but without particularly making it obvious and provoking a response from the Imperium. I think they've not necessarily withheld technology and deliberately slowed production, but maybe they've... taken extra precautionary methods that require more time. Or redirected their priorities for resources here and there.

Like- imagine one of those shady mechanics that finds 10 problems with your truck when you just wanted him to fix 2 things. He's probably exaggerating most, if not all of the other 8 problems he found- and there's even a chance those 'broken' things are something that he broke and thought you'd never realize it. Some of those problems aren't really 'problems' at all, or they're something you could take care of in an hour. So he's gonna milk you for every buck he can.

Keep in mind that there were a lot of traitors in the Admech during the Horus Heresy and at a certain point, the Imperium didn't bother with trying to figure out which ones were loyal and which ones weren't- they were too important and it simply wasn't worth the effort. After the insanity that went down on Mars combined with the Horus Heresy, I doubt either side wanted to fire up any sort of violent, destructive purge on Mars and deplete even MORE lives and resources- both were content to just agree that all the Cogboys that were left were good Cogboys, and as long as they played loyal there was no reason to speculate otherwise, right?

I think the Admech has, for the longest time, looked at their arrangement with the Imperium and seen the obvious:
-The Imperium needs the Admech, not nearly as much vice versa
-The Admech will get Astartes visits if they don't help the Imperium
-Astartes need to be armed by Admech routinely in order to be dangerous
-The less dangerous the Astartes are, the less leverage the Imperium has over the Admech
-Every world can be a Forge World if you're brave enough

And then comes Cawl, out of nowhere, giving the Chapters of Astartes loads of new wargear and more badass Marines. And there's a living demigod that's pushing that forward.

The game's changed now. So yeah, the Admech hates Cawl for a reason. Well, a lot of reasons- some better than others. But when this MIA Cogboy shows up and essentially tilts the balance of power back into the hands of the Imperium and puts them on slightly more even footing? Well, yeah, of course he's a Heretek. For... reasons and stuff. Like... that stuff other Cogboys have been trying to do or have done themselves, yeah. That's it. Shame on him.

Of course, when something like this happens- you can bet there's a ton of Cogboys that take the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" route and suddenly manifest the knowledge to assist in keeping those new Astartes boys fit to fight. That gun system that took a year to fix? Well of course now they can knock that out in a week. All that stuff Cawl's doing with power armor and the like? Yeah, oh look at that- mmmmaaaaybe those rites and prayers and ungents and what-have-you that took weeks? Well, they can do a condensed version, I suppose. Praise the Omnissiah, I suppose.

The good news is that once all the old marines are largely passed away and all the chapters are largely primaris they can give all the old bolt guns and power armour to the imperial guard. Because surely any right minded general would want to buff the majority of its fighting force, not just focus on their elite units that only engage in focused area of combat along the war zones.

The IG commits more soldiers to war than SM so much f cawl can creat fancy new power armour etc why wouldn’t he make a better las rifle and more resilient flack armour?

Because there are untold Billions under arms? If an improved basic equipment uses even 1% more resources to produce, that’s a massive uptick in what’s needed to maintain supplies.

Most Guardsman are also likely close to illiterate. Hence the majority of their equipment is pretty basic and foolproof.

mrFickle wrote:
The good news is that once all the old marines are largely passed away and all the chapters are largely primaris they can give all the old bolt guns and power armour to the imperial guard. Because surely any right minded general would want to buff the majority of its fighting force, not just focus on their elite units that only engage in focused area of combat along the war zones.

The IG commits more soldiers to war than SM so much f cawl can creat fancy new power armour etc why wouldn’t he make a better las rifle and more resilient flack armour?

I don't think regular humans can properly use Space Marine equipment, not until they refit it to a normal size, at least. Even the SoB have their own pattern of bolter so it's not guaranteed that they could just pick up a Marine bolter as is.

And as far as making new equipment for the IG... Yeah it's just way too big. Producing shiny new plasma guns for an elite force that represents 0.001% of your whole military is a piece of cake compared to giving a new pair of socks to the other 99.999%.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
The new! big! extra-big! extra-new! Marines with special bolters as troops choices kinda got me thinking... What happened to Marines (of any kind) being special?

When you need endless supply of new models to sell fluff goes to hell.

Kits sell most of their lifetime sales in matter of months. Marines are bit more resilient to that but even them older kits don't sell much anymore. Got to churn out new kits so GW can keep cash flow flowing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mrFickle wrote:
The good news is that once all the old marines are largely passed away and all the chapters are largely primaris they can give all the old bolt guns and power armour to the imperial guard. Because surely any right minded general would want to buff the majority of its fighting force, not just focus on their elite units that only engage in focused area of combat along the war zones.

The IG commits more soldiers to war than SM so much f cawl can creat fancy new power armour etc why wouldn’t he make a better las rifle and more resilient flack armour?

Uuuhh....Yea right. Human would be breaking his wrist, arm and shoulder trying to fire marine sized weapon. There's reason Inquisitors, SOB etc use different version with smaller ones. You don't go picking up marine weapon and expect to fire. You a) aren't nearly as strong as marine b) you don't have power armoured suit. Unarmoured marine can punch through door and twist metal bars. He can wield weapons whose recoils would break normal human by sheer recoil.

mrFickle wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Now the imperium can only ent new kinds of power armour, jump packs, bolters Floating tanks etc. And Cawl has improved in the emperors work.

And had the Emperor's explicit permission to do so.

Just want to make that point clear.

I’m not trying to make a point about Cawl/primaris story line, everything people have said here is correct. What I’m saying is that GW crated this new story to justify it the primaris model line. It’s very deus ex. Everything you knew about the imperium is wrong cos there’s this guy that’s been living underground For 10k year that has all the answers.

I’m not against the idea, just think it could have been done better.

I very much agree with this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mrFickle wrote:
The good news is that once all the old marines are largely passed away and all the chapters are largely primaris they can give all the old bolt guns and power armour to the imperial guard. Because surely any right minded general would want to buff the majority of its fighting force, not just focus on their elite units that only engage in focused area of combat along the war zones.

The IG commits more soldiers to war than SM so much f cawl can creat fancy new power armour etc why wouldn’t he make a better las rifle and more resilient flack armour?

The numbers are way off there; all the vanilla marine equipment in the galaxy could equip maybe one planet worth of guard.

Space marines draw upon the resources of a 1 million planet empire. It is pretty close to infinite.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mrFickle wrote:
The good news is that once all the old marines are largely passed away and all the chapters are largely primaris they can give all the old bolt guns and power armour to the imperial guard. Because surely any right minded general would want to buff the majority of its fighting force, not just focus on their elite units that only engage in focused area of combat along the war zones.

The IG commits more soldiers to war than SM so much f cawl can creat fancy new power armour etc why wouldn’t he make a better las rifle and more resilient flack armour?

Slightly upgrade the tools of a trillion men? or greatly upgrade the tools for a million super soldiers?

xerxeskingofking wrote:
its also worth pointing out it took crawl literally thousands of years to improve on what the Emperor did in (at most) a few hundred years, and most likely a few dozen.

Improving over time is the opposite of what a lot of people love about the Imperium's lore. I mean, just here, there is this thread:
40k: Descendant Degeneration
that is a love letter to the grim-dark of 40k, and degeneration isn't exactly about improving over time .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:
its also worth pointing out it took crawl literally thousands of years to improve on what the Emperor did in (at most) a few hundred years, and most likely a few dozen.

Improving over time is the opposite of what a lot of people love about the Imperium's lore. I mean, just here, there is this thread:
40k: Descendant Degeneration
that is a love letter to the grim-dark of 40k, and degeneration isn't exactly about improving over time .

granted people love that in the background but it's the oppisite with rules, how many people would like it if every new unit we got was worse and worse?

Tinfoil hat theory time:

What if G-man and cawl have an arrengment where G man creates true Imperium secundus..

What if he and cawl had a deal where Cawl will ascend as the true omnisiah, G-man will be happy for emps to be forgotten and the IOM to become secular again, so cawl is allowed to inovate all he wants as long as he feeds the muscle of SM which in turns protects cawl from the cog boys until such time as cawl ascends and controls all the cog boys. Gman keeps feeding any STC tech to cawl on the understanding he keeps getting gear (they never have to speak of an otherwise very rapid and brutal surgical SM deployment).

All they really need to happen now is Emps to kick the bucket...

I think Cawl is no more heretic then Zeph was.
As long as he gets results surpassing competion Emper-..erm I mean G man will protect.

For all intents and purposes isint Cawl the literal omniisiah?? Ashe has potentially copied himself infinitely that put the Omni in the Omnisiah if I ever saw..

Im only up to mechanichum with BL novels so just spit ballin here

Voss wrote:

 Grumblewartz wrote:
This was one of the worst aspects of the new fluff. It shattered the image of an Imperium struggling to survive but still on the cusp of collapse. I have come to reconcile it by looking at it not as a sign that the Imperium is suddenly more capable of production but, rather, that the Imperium has always lacked focus, a clear unified agenda, and strong leadership. The primarch's return means that there is a rare glimmer of unity that has been sorely lacking with various institutions literally fighting one another. If even a small fraction of the Imperium's resources could be marshaled under with a single goal in mind, they could more than easily produce the arms, ships, weapons, etc. necessary to outfit millions of marines. The point is that to do so means taking resources from another branch of the government and, normally, that would have led to overt conflict that stalled any ambitious plans.

Its actually even more byzantine and complicated than that.
There are a lot of details to it, but the hard stop is the Ad Mech aren't part of the Imperium. They're _allied_ to the Imperium.
In practice this line gets blurred, but the Ad Mech have a lot of ability to say 'No.' Especially at lower levels- any random general or fleet commander doesn't have a lot of leverage barring exceptional circumstances like, 'Hey, there is a tyranid fleet incoming next month, and we can just not be here when it arrives.'

And equipment from Forge Worlds usually flows to the Ministorum, who assign it based on the information they have, which may be years or decades out of date. The Navy and the Guard are also separate organizations so things can also get out of whack there, and sometimes the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition can put their own individual oars in. Oh and sometimes supplies go out on chartered ships, so that's another organization involved. And the Navigators are their own organization with their own pull, and despite being filthy mutants, that matters sometimes too.

Any supply trip involves at least a half-a-dozen institutions, plus the local planets and their rulers, and any of them have the ability to introduce complications.

The Martian Mechanicum had a proper alliance with the Emperor, but post-binary succession and the creation of the Adeptus Mechanicus they are well and truly part of the Imperium. You also seem to otherwise be a bit confused with your terminology and description of the power/administrative structure. The Ministorum is the Ecclesiarchy, the other one-third of the Imperium. The Imperial Guard sort under the Munitorum, the Navy under the Fleet, the Munitorum and the Fleet sort under the Administratum which sort under the Adeptus Terra which is on the same level as the Mechanicus and Ministorum.

Keel wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Grumblewartz wrote:
This was one of the worst aspects of the new fluff. It shattered the image of an Imperium struggling to survive but still on the cusp of collapse. I have come to reconcile it by looking at it not as a sign that the Imperium is suddenly more capable of production but, rather, that the Imperium has always lacked focus, a clear unified agenda, and strong leadership. The primarch's return means that there is a rare glimmer of unity that has been sorely lacking with various institutions literally fighting one another. If even a small fraction of the Imperium's resources could be marshaled under with a single goal in mind, they could more than easily produce the arms, ships, weapons, etc. necessary to outfit millions of marines. The point is that to do so means taking resources from another branch of the government and, normally, that would have led to overt conflict that stalled any ambitious plans.

Its actually even more byzantine and complicated than that.
There are a lot of details to it, but the hard stop is the Ad Mech aren't part of the Imperium. They're _allied_ to the Imperium.
In practice this line gets blurred, but the Ad Mech have a lot of ability to say 'No.' Especially at lower levels- any random general or fleet commander doesn't have a lot of leverage barring exceptional circumstances like, 'Hey, there is a tyranid fleet incoming next month, and we can just not be here when it arrives.'

And equipment from Forge Worlds usually flows to the Ministorum, who assign it based on the information they have, which may be years or decades out of date. The Navy and the Guard are also separate organizations so things can also get out of whack there, and sometimes the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition can put their own individual oars in. Oh and sometimes supplies go out on chartered ships, so that's another organization involved. And the Navigators are their own organization with their own pull, and despite being filthy mutants, that matters sometimes too.

Any supply trip involves at least a half-a-dozen institutions, plus the local planets and their rulers, and any of them have the ability to introduce complications.

The Martian Mechanicum had a proper alliance with the Emperor, but post-binary succession and the creation of the Adeptus Mechanicus they are well and truly part of the Imperium. You also seem to otherwise be a bit confused with your terminology and description of the power/administrative structure. The Ministorum is the Ecclesiarchy, the other one-third of the Imperium. The Imperial Guard sort under the Munitorum, the Navy under the Fleet, the Munitorum and the Fleet sort under the Administratum which sort under the Adeptus Terra which is on the same level as the Mechanicus and Ministorum.

Are there any books that pick up from where Mechanicum leaves off ?
Mars is pretty much a heap of magma and corrupted code at the end of mechanicum..

Keel wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Grumblewartz wrote:
This was one of the worst aspects of the new fluff. It shattered the image of an Imperium struggling to survive but still on the cusp of collapse. I have come to reconcile it by looking at it not as a sign that the Imperium is suddenly more capable of production but, rather, that the Imperium has always lacked focus, a clear unified agenda, and strong leadership. The primarch's return means that there is a rare glimmer of unity that has been sorely lacking with various institutions literally fighting one another. If even a small fraction of the Imperium's resources could be marshaled under with a single goal in mind, they could more than easily produce the arms, ships, weapons, etc. necessary to outfit millions of marines. The point is that to do so means taking resources from another branch of the government and, normally, that would have led to overt conflict that stalled any ambitious plans.

Its actually even more byzantine and complicated than that.
There are a lot of details to it, but the hard stop is the Ad Mech aren't part of the Imperium. They're _allied_ to the Imperium.
In practice this line gets blurred, but the Ad Mech have a lot of ability to say 'No.' Especially at lower levels- any random general or fleet commander doesn't have a lot of leverage barring exceptional circumstances like, 'Hey, there is a tyranid fleet incoming next month, and we can just not be here when it arrives.'

And equipment from Forge Worlds usually flows to the Ministorum, who assign it based on the information they have, which may be years or decades out of date. The Navy and the Guard are also separate organizations so things can also get out of whack there, and sometimes the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition can put their own individual oars in. Oh and sometimes supplies go out on chartered ships, so that's another organization involved. And the Navigators are their own organization with their own pull, and despite being filthy mutants, that matters sometimes too.

Any supply trip involves at least a half-a-dozen institutions, plus the local planets and their rulers, and any of them have the ability to introduce complications.

The Martian Mechanicum had a proper alliance with the Emperor, but post-binary succession and the creation of the Adeptus Mechanicus they are well and truly part of the Imperium. You also seem to otherwise be a bit confused with your terminology and description of the power/administrative structure. The Ministorum is the Ecclesiarchy, the other one-third of the Imperium. The Imperial Guard sort under the Munitorum, the Navy under the Fleet, the Munitorum and the Fleet sort under the Administratum which sort under the Adeptus Terra which is on the same level as the Mechanicus and Ministorum.

Administorum is the one I'm thinking of, yes. Thanks. The nonsense words blur together.

As for Ad Mech, I'm going to blame the Cain books for my impression of that continued division. Both sides seem more than happy to let the other rot in their own problems and stick to their own chains of command and logistics.
Nobody in that series likes or respects the 'cog boys,' and that feeling is returned with machine like regularity.

It comes up in other materials too, like the Priest/Lords/God of Mars series, where the division between Ad Mech and Imperium is really stark.

I remember a story about some techpriests scheming to get a Knight house back under their control (it used to be aligned with the Mechanicus but switched alliegance to the Imperium at some point).
Whether the AdMech is officially part of the Imperium or not, it certainly has its own agenda and its own sphere of influence.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Space marines draw upon the resources of a 1 million planet empire. It is pretty close to infinite.


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mrFickle wrote:
The good news is that once all the old marines are largely passed away and all the chapters are largely primaris they can give all the old bolt guns and power armour to the imperial guard. Because surely any right minded general would want to buff the majority of its fighting force, not just focus on their elite units that only engage in focused area of combat along the war zones.

The IG commits more soldiers to war than SM so much f cawl can creat fancy new power armour etc why wouldn’t he make a better las rifle and more resilient flack armour?

Slightly upgrade the tools of a trillion men? or greatly upgrade the tools for a million super soldiers?

Ignore the vast majority of your army and just focus on outfitting a small percentage? Great way to sell models not a great way to win the war. The imperial guard goes through soldiers like PizzaExpress goes through cheese. They must be making new kit constantly to supply the sheep’s of war

Exactly that reason.

Guardsmen don’t tend to survive long. At all. Hence they rely upon overwhelming numbers.

Now, you’ve a billion soldiers to not only equip, but train. And you need them on the frontlines as soon as possible.

Most of them likely can’t read, and are pretty young.

Some might come from PDF’s, where you taken the cream of the crop. They’ll have basic training, and familiarity with deliberately basic weapons (so if you need to re-educate a rebellious planet, it doesn’t take too long)

Technological ignorance is also the coin of your realm. Provided they’re from a fairly advanced planet, their only interaction with technology will be from their family’s allotted tasks.

Now, the more complex the weapon, the longer it takes to train them in how to maintain it.

Lasguns are of course pretty straight forward as covered. No moving parts, ammunition is plentiful, rechargeable, and light to carry. If a part does wear out? Easy to replace. Even the most backwards savage can be taught how to unscrew a barrel and screw in a replacement.

They’re also produced in frankly staggering numbers.

IG equipment is a balance between effectiveness, ease of maintenance and ease of production.

Change that for Bolters or slightly better weapons? You’re altering that dynamic, and the resources required to equip your billion men.

Oh, and you’re training and equipping a billion men every single week, possibly every single day. Any changes to the equipment will mean changes to the production facilities, materials required, and the expertise needed to produce.


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Finally? (Yay afterthoughts!)

If you don’t meet your quotas? You’re probably dead meat.

I accept the the logistics of the IG are staggering. What I am saying is that Mr Cawl is clearly such a genius that he could create a better lasrifle and a better flick jacket that requires no extra training. They are the same thing but better. You don’t need to read the instruction if you splash out on a good pair of jeans, you put them on. Las rifle point and shoot.

All I’m trying to donut point out a big gaping hole that GW have created by creating a new bit of lore so they can molly coddle their favourite army.

If Cawl can get away with enhancing marine tech the heads of the Astra militarum should be spitting acid that the AD Mech is ignoring their army. I don’t believe the IG have been fighting 100% the same way for 10k years, again if everyone else can change why not them.

And the sister of battle! Don’t they want heavy bolters. The point is that now the imperium can make these things, even if they haven’t made them yet because the lore now exists that states the imperium can innovate and win the internal religious and cultural arguments that have prevented it from happening in the past. Just some thicker armour for a tank, high velocity rounds. Bring back displacement shields. It’s all on the cards

But it won’t happen cos GW have tried to Pretend that this isn’t the the change they have implemented in the lore.

mrFickle wrote:I accept the the logistics of the IG are staggering. What I am saying is that Mr Cawl is clearly such a genius that he could create a better lasrifle and a better flick jacket that requires no extra training. They are the same thing but better. You don’t need to read the instruction if you splash out on a good pair of jeans, you put them on. Las rifle point and shoot.

Maybe Cawl could. But again, think of the scale.

If the upgrade takes even only 1% more effort, across the whole Imperium, that's an utterly OBSCENE amount of work to go through for upgrading what is essentially cannon fodder. You seem to assume that Cawl *does* have infinite resources, which simply isn't true. Does Cawl have massive resources and political pull at his disposal? Absolutely. Does Cawl have enough to re-equip the entire Imperium's military? Definitely not.

All I’m trying to donut point out a big gaping hole that GW have created by creating a new bit of lore so they can molly coddle their favourite army.

There's no gaping hole. It's as simple as "Cawl thought enhancing Space Marines would be more effective than trying to enhance the Guardsmen due the initial time investment into Astartes being significant, and Guardsmen not have any investment"

If Cawl can get away with enhancing marine tech the heads of the Astra militarum should be spitting acid that the AD Mech is ignoring their army.

The heads of the Militarum honestly don't care about their troops. The heads of the Militarum would also understand the massive logistical nightmare that upgrading every single one of their troops would be. So, no, I don't think they run to Cawl crying about "why did you focus on the Emperor's angels instead of these grunts?"

I don’t believe the IG have been fighting 100% the same way for 10k years, again if everyone else can change why not them.

The Militarum have changed on an ad-hoc basis, and arguably since the Great Crusade, have gotten WORSE. There's been no massive positive sweep through the system. Localised forced might get some good stuff from their local forge world or culture, but these aren't widespread. Again - the Imperial Guard is MASSIVE.

As Sgt_Smudge said.

Consider the roles of the IG and Marines.

Marines are surgical. Their purpose is to utterly annihilate the enemy command structure. Against pretty much all the Imperium’s foes, it’s the quickest way to destabilised the enemy war machine.

Take out the Warboss, and the Waaagh! Spends as much time fighting itself as fighting you.

Tear apart the Hive Fleet, and that problem is largely contained for the time being.

Eldar? Each Farseer lost is arguably irreplaceable.

And so on and so forth. Cawl has ensured they’ve the killiest and most efficient tools to do so. The biological tweaking also means your average Marine remains combat effective for longer, both in the field and in terms of life expectancy over their career.


IG? Overwhelming numbers that can, with a fair warp (there’s always a problem!) just be ferried in in endless droves. They are a tool of sheer attrition. So they’re not equipped to a high standard, let alone the logistics of improving their weapons and other basic equipment.

If it were true that 1% of change would be too much effort then it would have been impossible to establish the the IG in the first place. The imperium is one big war machine, all you have to do is stop making lasting V1 and start making Lasgun V2 and eventually turn over will see the whole army upgraded. The effort that is going into building floating tanks must be significantly more than enhancing simple tech.

And the point is it doesn’t have to be Cawl, he has just broken the mould. Any ambitious Ad Mech dude wanting to secure favours from someone within the AM, Navy or anywhere Else could turn up with some boosted gear.

And it’s not Cawl. It’s the Cawl story line that has created an inconsistency that can justify Significant technological advancement can happen in one place but can’t take place in another.

The reason GW have for Dark Angles being able to field certain different types of weapons and an a seemingly unlimited number of Deathwing terminator was because the core of the rock Is full of ancient armouries from the crusade. That’s how Sammeal can fly around on his jet bike. Not because there was a terminator production line.

Now that’s redundant story isn’t it because the admech can just make stuff for you.

mrFickle wrote:
If it were true that 1% of change would be too much effort then it would have been impossible to establish the the IG in the first place. The imperium is one big war machine, all you have to do is stop making lasting V1 and start making Lasgun V2 and eventually turn over will see the whole army upgraded.

all you have to do is stop making lasting V1 and start making Lasgun V2

all you have to do

That in and of itself is a horribly difficult thing to do.

Cawl had 10 000 years to work on his projects. I don't know how much of it was spent on weapon design and how much was spent playing solitaire, but improving lasguns even a little bit might well take a few millenia.

It’s the year 40K and people fly through a different dimension in a Bubble of reality to avoid being eaten by demons. “It’s difficult” doesn’t support any Argument

It took 10k years to sort out the primaris. Anything is possible

mrFickle wrote:
It’s the year 40K and people fly through a different dimension in a Bubble of reality to avoid being eaten by demons. “It’s difficult” doesn’t support any Argument

...it does. It literally does. How far do you think Cawl would have got with Primaris if he’d been doing it under scrutiny? Forge Worlds do their own thing. They have done since the Long Night. They’re not going to suddenly change their manufacturing techniques.

 DalekCheese wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
It’s the year 40K and people fly through a different dimension in a Bubble of reality to avoid being eaten by demons. “It’s difficult” doesn’t support any Argument

...it does. It literally does. How far do you think Cawl would have got with Primaris if he’d been doing it under scrutiny? Forge Worlds do their own thing. They have done since the Long Night. They’re not going to suddenly change their manufacturing techniques.

But SM gears wasn’t made all in one place it was made on lots of different forge worlds and the same must be true for primaris

When Lord Guilliman, biological Son of The Emperor, and Regent by appointment of the High Lords of Terra (which includes the head honcho of the Mechanicus) says you devote certain resources to arming Astartes?

You......kinda do it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
When Lord Guilliman, biological Son of The Emperor, and Regent by appointment of the High Lords of Terra (which includes the head honcho of the Mechanicus) says you devote certain resources to arming Astartes?

You......kinda do it.

Yes and he could say, now do the IG

mrFickle wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
When Lord Guilliman, biological Son of The Emperor, and Regent by appointment of the High Lords of Terra (which includes the head honcho of the Mechanicus) says you devote certain resources to arming Astartes?

You......kinda do it.

Yes and he could say, now do the IG

And how many resources would that take? Would it even be worth doing it, when you could just upgrade literally anything else first, instead of the meat shields with easy-manufacture arms and armour?

You really do seem to have leant into the "well. Cawl can do anything he wants" approach when you don't even know how true that is. Just because Cawl can upgrade Space Marines doesn't mean for a second he could do the same for Guardsmen, because Guardsmen are totally different.

It's like saying "well, you can lift a car, so you must be able to lift a truck!"

mrFickle wrote:

 DalekCheese wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
It’s the year 40K and people fly through a different dimension in a Bubble of reality to avoid being eaten by demons. “It’s difficult” doesn’t support any Argument

...it does. It literally does. How far do you think Cawl would have got with Primaris if he’d been doing it under scrutiny? Forge Worlds do their own thing. They have done since the Long Night. They’re not going to suddenly change their manufacturing techniques.

But SM gears wasn’t made all in one place it was made on lots of different forge worlds and the same must be true for primaris

It was not. And there isn't any reason it 'must' be.

The equipment was (at least up to the unveiling) was made on Cawl's Ark Mechanicus, the Zar Quaesitor. The Arks are ridiculously huge ships, and they casually mention that making the thing would have required stripping "dozens" of worlds of all their resources. Its a miniature forge world, and its manufacturing was primarily aimed at stockpiling Primaris gear. Over thousands of years. Try to imagine the resources of multiple worlds being shaped towards advanced manufacturing for the entire span of human history to date.

There was hold after hold of tanks, battle walkers, aircraft and void fighters, all of unfamiliar, new designs. His battleplate rapidly scanned them for combat capabilities, flashing hints of unknown technologies across his helmplate. All were obviously intended for the Adeptus Astartes. He was still trying to evaluate the equipment when they went into another hold and further wonders were revealed: thousands of suits of power armour waited for wearers in silent ranks, their plates part-wrapped in protective films, hanging from padded armatures in racks dozens of layers high.

Haley, Guy. Avenging Son (Dawn of Fire Warhammer 40,000 Book 1) (p. 167). Kindle Edition.

But no, that isn't the same as providing equipment for billions of guardsmen who are actively using and losing equipment, requiring parts, etc.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
So, dangerous theory time.

Cawl was, as I am understanding, given direct orders to start stockpiling and keep improving despite what the rest of the Cogboys are doing at the time. He was also one of the original guys (well, kinda) working on Space Marines, so he knows what he's doing more so than the average Cogboy.

Now, keep in mind that Cawl's motivations may be sketchy- but his work has been focused on the Primaris project. He's not been worrying about advancing to the next tier Cogboy priest rank, he's not had to navigate Cogboy politics, he's not had to divide his work efforts between as many things as a good chunk of the Cogboys are prone to doing. Or maybe it has, and he's just been at this so long he's learned to manage his tasks better than they do.

I have a theory that the Admech has spent the last ~10,000 years looking at the Imperium and saying, "Yup, they're screwed". Not "We", but "They". I've had a feeling that the overall Admech has been silently wanting to sever ties to the Imperium and nullify the Treaty of Olympus Mons- but without particularly making it obvious and provoking a response from the Imperium. I think they've not necessarily withheld technology and deliberately slowed production, but maybe they've... taken extra precautionary methods that require more time. Or redirected their priorities for resources here and there.

Like- imagine one of those shady mechanics that finds 10 problems with your truck when you just wanted him to fix 2 things. He's probably exaggerating most, if not all of the other 8 problems he found- and there's even a chance those 'broken' things are something that he broke and thought you'd never realize it. Some of those problems aren't really 'problems' at all, or they're something you could take care of in an hour. So he's gonna milk you for every buck he can.

Keep in mind that there were a lot of traitors in the Admech during the Horus Heresy and at a certain point, the Imperium didn't bother with trying to figure out which ones were loyal and which ones weren't- they were too important and it simply wasn't worth the effort. After the insanity that went down on Mars combined with the Horus Heresy, I doubt either side wanted to fire up any sort of violent, destructive purge on Mars and deplete even MORE lives and resources- both were content to just agree that all the Cogboys that were left were good Cogboys, and as long as they played loyal there was no reason to speculate otherwise, right?

I think the Admech has, for the longest time, looked at their arrangement with the Imperium and seen the obvious:
-The Imperium needs the Admech, not nearly as much vice versa
-The Admech will get Astartes visits if they don't help the Imperium
-Astartes need to be armed by Admech routinely in order to be dangerous
-The less dangerous the Astartes are, the less leverage the Imperium has over the Admech
-Every world can be a Forge World if you're brave enough

And then comes Cawl, out of nowhere, giving the Chapters of Astartes loads of new wargear and more badass Marines. And there's a living demigod that's pushing that forward.

The game's changed now. So yeah, the Admech hates Cawl for a reason. Well, a lot of reasons- some better than others. But when this MIA Cogboy shows up and essentially tilts the balance of power back into the hands of the Imperium and puts them on slightly more even footing? Well, yeah, of course he's a Heretek. For... reasons and stuff. Like... that stuff other Cogboys have been trying to do or have done themselves, yeah. That's it. Shame on him.

Of course, when something like this happens- you can bet there's a ton of Cogboys that take the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" route and suddenly manifest the knowledge to assist in keeping those new Astartes boys fit to fight. That gun system that took a year to fix? Well of course now they can knock that out in a week. All that stuff Cawl's doing with power armor and the like? Yeah, oh look at that- mmmmaaaaybe those rites and prayers and ungents and what-have-you that took weeks? Well, they can do a condensed version, I suppose. Praise the Omnissiah, I suppose.

Your reasoning sounds plausible to me. We have to remember that most of the "fluff" is actually propaganda - it does not necessarily reflect the realities of the setting. The whole Admech being superstitious almost to the point of luddism sounds to me like some kind of front they want to maintain in order to hide their real agendas & capabilities, maybe even from within themselves. Think of something like Scientology and you'll know what I mean.

As to resources let's face it, the imperium as been on a state of emergency since the rift opened. Boy, you thought the was bad before, afterwards it got a whole ing lot worse.

On most planets still under imperial rule the military is likely the only priority. Mass starvation s the rule of the day for most people. Anyone unable to work in a factorum producing supplies or do any work essential to the war effort has probably been killed. Most likely converted to corpse starch to feed the workers a minimal diet.

Old? Dead. Sick? Dead? Injured and crippled? Dead. Slow? Dead. Have no skills directly related to the war effort? Worked to death at slave labor, dead.

Masses of population have likely been converted to servitors that run on recycled nutrients at minimum levels.

Reproduction is likely tightly controlled, with prenatal screening for any possibly birth defects resulting in early termination of the pregnancy.

Some planets may have 'birth servitors" who do nothing but produce viable worker fetuses constantly.

Maybe the infamous and mystery shrouded methods Krieg uses to produce so many warriors so quickly has been exported to other worlds to produce pure workers, as well as fighting men for the guard depending on the planet's resources.

So yeah they have a lot of resources for the war, by making the current imperium such a hell that it makes the pre rift imperium look like "The good ol' days."

I think it’s worth remembering that Cawl will have made- what- a million suits of MkX armour? Absolute maximum.

There are anywhere from billions to quadrillions of Guardsmen out there.

 tauist wrote:
Your reasoning sounds plausible to me. We have to remember that most of the "fluff" is actually propaganda - it does not necessarily reflect the realities of the setting. The whole Admech being superstitious almost to the point of luddism sounds to me like some kind of front they want to maintain in order to hide their real agendas & capabilities, maybe even from within themselves. Think of something like Scientology and you'll know what I mean.

Considering that a lot of these 'accounts' are from the perspectives of people on the ground, directly or by proxy- their own interpretations of things are entirely up for debate. In some cases, the source of the information may in fact be absolutely out of his gourd or embellishing the events.

You also have to understand that it's a lot like a modern, real-world military.

In the olden days when I was a Marine (Standard Terran of the Merica region, not gene-enhanced)- we believed things like "the Air Force gets extra money if they aren't in their dorms"- well, there was a little truth and a little myth to that. Truth: If the Air Force was housed in substandard housing for an extended period of time, the Air Force didn't take their full housing allowance out of their paycheck (your housing allowance is basically 'rent' and if you live in the barracks on on-post housing, they just deduct your 'rent' automatically). This wasn't 'extra pay', this was the Air Force basically not screwing over their troops- unlike the Marine Corps, which would stack 3 4 guys in a room too small for a 40k table with communal showers for the whole floor and deduct the same amount as they would if you had your own private room, and shared common area with one other Marine (and the Corps came under fire for this and someone lit a fire under their 4th Point of Contact to get this resolved).

Other things we believed- it was always the same: A bit of truth, a bit of urban legend, and somewhere in between was the reality of it that made sense.

The Admech isn't superstitious and ridiculous about technology- they're cautious. Let's look at these things:

There's that theory that the AI's of the Men of Iron were shattered into fragments of technology, a very tiny dumbed-down version of what they once were- and now exist as 'machine spirits' in common technology across the Imperium. Dark Age Archeotech is beyond human comprehension, and so outright terrifying that even Necrons seethe with envy. Heretical Chaos Scrap Code from 4Chan Hackers on the Deep Web of the Warp can Demon-Possess a machine, which is basically like frequently using Limewire to download porn in 2020. Some of the data could be McAffee antivirus and 30-Day AOL free trials. Oh, and the Void Dragon- or part of it- may have farted out a good chunk of the technology throughout the ages after Big E sent it to the Vaults without dinner for being rude.

So, yeah- to the average guardsman whose entire understanding of technology is "heehaw, chainsword go brrrr"- it probably looks like supersitious religious weirdo stuff. But... Maybe those 'rites and incantations' are the Grimdark equivalent of "Rubber Duck Debugging", or a way for the Cogboy to remember the steps of proper maintenance/assembly/troubleshooting- Kinda like associating a song or rhyme with something to make sure you don't miss a step. Hell, for all we know- they could be just doting on the machine to see how it's Machine Spirit responds; and if it gets nasty they can utilize percussion maintenance before declaring it defective and blaming that guardsman with the dumb face (he looks like the kind of guy that would screw things up, Commissar will believe it).

In a setting where 'technology' is the Deathwatch Stalker Bolt Rifle that explodes the head of a Genestealer Patriarch, a Baneblade that drops a rampaging Heretic's Knight Titan, the Mechanism that keeps the Life-Eater virus bombs inert, the keypad that activates the Gellar Field, and the Cogitator with your hidden folder of Aeldari Hentai- they've got a lot of reasons to be cautious.

And the Admech isn't going to try to explain this to the general public, nor is the Imperium. Why? Because people are people, whether it's Grimdark or modern-day real-world... you'd have thousands of idiots creating religions worshipping the "god" in their microwave. Or worse- guard regiments freaking the hell out over the rumors that the Vox-Casters have the ghosts of AI Robot Demons in there giving them wrong orders on purpose. Before you know it all these crazy superstitions and beliefs create a new Chaos God in the Warp calling itself 'Fore-Chan'. Just like how Orks have a gestalt psychic consciousness that makes them more resourceful and kunnin' over time? Humans have one that makes them dumber.

With all that out of the way- the reason I believe there's more assets being diverted to the Astartes? Let's be very, very honest:

A guardsman is very often some dude who's mostly capable of using an idiot-proof rifle and following basic commands, and when he doesn't there's a spicy man with a black trenchcoat to free up his lasrifle for the next unlucky moron that's just learned what bootlaces are and managed to get his footwear on the correct feet.

A Space Marine is created from an extremely rare demographic of guys that can punch Orks to death at the age of 13, and then they get further 'investment' with the very limited selection of gene-seed implantation and the massively expensive/time-consuming process that turns them into Space Marines. Not only that, but there's the Power Armor that goes on this badass and his weapons... oh, and these guys also have been brainwashed to really, REALLY like to go and fight/kill things that also like to fight/kill and those enemy things can sometimes shred Space Marines... but Space Marines practically get a pickle tickle from the idea of dying a heroic death on the battlefield as the last man standing, so... essentially you're trying to keep these self-destructive and hyper-violent sociopaths alive as long as you can, so you're probably going to want to give them stuff that makes them less likely to die and more likely to depopulate an entire army of enemies that had the audacity not to be born human and/or have the wrong religion.

I consider the guard to be like the allies in WW2. Lots of them have never driven a vehicle before. But they weren't stupid. Most could read. They used tactics but numbers still mattered especially against more experienced troops with superior equipment. The guard hurr duurr wave attack is mainly a meme.

On the space marine logistics, it would be easier to upgrade marines as they manufacture their own equipment anyway (Well most of it). No need to reconfigure a forgeworlds supply chain when you can just change your own Chapters forge.

Tygre wrote:
The guard hurr duurr wave attack is mainly a meme.

Generals ordering frontal assaults even though the previous ones ended up with tens of thousands of casualties and no progress? Surely no one would be that dense...

 Tiennos wrote:

Tygre wrote:
The guard hurr duurr wave attack is mainly a meme.

Generals ordering frontal assaults even though the previous ones ended up with tens of thousands of casualties and no progress? Surely no one would be that dense...

Yes some generals were dense and used outdated tactics. Frontal attacks worked prior to WW1. Not all generals were that dense. Even Hague improved. And sometimes frontal assaults are warranted, see D-Day in WW2. Mass frontal attacks would be used when appropriate or by some (not all) wasteful generals, but every time.

So I don't derail this thread further, I will reiterate my on topic point from earlier. It would be much easier to change local production than large parts of the logistics chain.

If you want a look at what the guard seems to be based on I recommend "inside the soviet army" by Vikton Suvurov.

He detailed life as a draftee in the soviet army and how it was designed to indoctrinate people into accepting the total power of THE STATE and to submit automatically to any orders.

Sure sounds like the guard to me, you people might like it.

Tygre wrote:
On the space marine logistics, it would be easier to upgrade marines as they manufacture their own equipment anyway (Well most of it). No need to reconfigure a forgeworlds supply chain when you can just change your own Chapters forge.

I'd always figured Astartes may have some limited capacity to work on their wargear and maintain it- but the bulk of the raw materials and core components are going to go through a Forge World or at least some collective bunch of Cogboys. The idea of Marines having to produce all of their own wargear- even for 1000 Astartes- they'd be spending well over 90% of their time hunting down resources just to stay mostly functional.

My understanding is that raw materials might come from elsewhere, and the initial units might come off of a Forge World conveyor belt. But once it's in the Chapter's hands? The Techmarines and armourers get to maintain it. Everything from bolters and chainswords up to Thunderhawks. It is, after all, pretty much their entire fluff purpose.

 Super Ready wrote:
My understanding is that raw materials might come from elsewhere, and the initial units might come off of a Forge World conveyor belt. But once it's in the Chapter's hands? The Techmarines and armourers get to maintain it. Everything from bolters and chainswords up to Thunderhawks. It is, after all, pretty much their entire fluff purpose.

Yeah, techmarines and baseline humans (and failed aspirants, low level tech-adepts) armorers/equerries/whatever the chapter/legion calls them.

From my understanding Chapters can forge Rhino hulls and everything down. I recall a bit somewhere (the old Index Astartes bit on Rhinos or predators I think.) that every 13th Rhino gets melted down as a sacrifice. And that some Rhino hulls are chosen for Predators etc.

How much capacity would be needed to keep on top of combat losses? Marines (fluff-wise) don't suffer many casualties often. When marines start dropping something out of the ordinary is happening (novel worthy events even). It matters less if it takes 6 months to build a vehicle, but you lose a vehicle on average every 30 years. I assume most (not all) marine vehicles that are knocked out can be repaired. And of course a steady supply of ammo.

Tygre wrote:
How much capacity would be needed to keep on top of combat losses? Marines (fluff-wise) don't suffer many casualties often. When marines start dropping something out of the ordinary is happening (novel worthy events even). It matters less if it takes 6 months to build a vehicle, but you lose a vehicle on average every 30 years. I assume most (not all) marine vehicles that are knocked out can be repaired. And of course a steady supply of ammo.

Novel-Worthy though it may be, it still happens. And as much as the idea seems heretical- sometimes fallen Astartes get left behind on the battlefield and can't be recovered (and their Heretical kinsmen will eagerly pillage their wargear). There's also those that get lost in the warp for centuries, perhaps forever- and along with the loss of the Astartes comes the loss of precious wargear (and serfs, etc.)

So it's my thinking that they get most of the major components from Forge Worlds- but the assembly, customization, maintenance, etc. falls onto the Chapter.

There are some significant fluff examples of big Marine losses, too - the Battle for Macragge, Blood Angels' Leonatos, Crimson Fists, and Scythes of the Emperor. We know from the latter two that replacing that many lost Marines is not an easy task (the Fists being half-wiped out and taking centuries to come anywhere close to recovering, and the Scythes being effectively wiped out). It goes some way to explaining why Chapters are so keen to recover lost geneseed in particular.

I can see an argument being made that that's the Marines themselves, though, and it wouldn't be so tricky to replace their gear.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Tygre wrote:
How much capacity would be needed to keep on top of combat losses? Marines (fluff-wise) don't suffer many casualties often. When marines start dropping something out of the ordinary is happening (novel worthy events even). It matters less if it takes 6 months to build a vehicle, but you lose a vehicle on average every 30 years. I assume most (not all) marine vehicles that are knocked out can be repaired. And of course a steady supply of ammo.

Novel-Worthy though it may be, it still happens. And as much as the idea seems heretical- sometimes fallen Astartes get left behind on the battlefield and can't be recovered (and their Heretical kinsmen will eagerly pillage their wargear). There's also those that get lost in the warp for centuries, perhaps forever- and along with the loss of the Astartes comes the loss of precious wargear (and serfs, etc.)

So it's my thinking that they get most of the major components from Forge Worlds- but the assembly, customization, maintenance, etc. falls onto the Chapter.

My point is that those kinds of permanent losses are relatively rare and are not common occurrences.

I would imagine that for ship based Chapters logistics would be horrendous if they had to rely on Forgeworlds. Imagine needing to replace some vehicles and forgeworld with the contract is 5 sectors away and you need to head in the opposite direction. I am not saying the Chapters do all their own manufacturing, exceptions like ships being the obvious example, but most stuff would be in-house.

Like ships, I could see some items would require a forgeworld. Terminator armour would be likely a Forgeworld product. Marines themselves would be the true bottleneck as Super Ready mentioned.

For Primaris making the various bolt rifles, armour etc in-house would make more sense than waiting for a Forgeworld to get around to making such a small order.

Here's a twist I'd like to see; Cawl's 'innovations' are mainly salvaged from previous era. As in the blueprints were actually created using the 31st-34th ish millenia when technology had not degraded so much, and the very idea of innovation was not quite as heretical. His main achievement is figuring out the production lines, not the inventing itself (still epic and named-character-worthy, but not a setting cracker).

Judging by the lore it seems to be routine for chapters to suffer heavy losses.

Chapters tend to deploy in three ways. The first, most common approach is to send out individual task forces (i.e. battle companies, either reinforced or understrength). These will either be on patrol and attack targets of opportunity, limiting their losses if possible, or they will be sent to reinforce a larger effort, like a crusade. The chapter will suffer few losses from this sort of deployment, as their aren't many marines being put at risk.

The second sort of deployment is standard for large battles or campaigns, and involves most or all of the chapter's four battle companies, potentially reinforced by select elements of the reserve companies, as well as the usual attachments from the 1st, 10th, and armory. This scale of deployment allows the chapter to engage in heavy fighting and take the leading role in a given operation. Losses will vary wildly depending on the nature of the battle, but they will likely be heavy as this scale of commitment is only employed against serious threats. However, the reserve companies will make the losses good relatively quickly, as a chapter is organized around keeping its battle companies at full strength. Space Marines are expected to die, die early, and die often. Not as often as Guardsmen, obviously, but very marines survive to be veterans.

The third kind of deployment involves the entire chapter, more or less, and this seems to be relatively rare. It has all of the same risks and characteristics as the "multiple battle companies" approach, save that losses are even more likely to be high, and more difficult to replace. In this sort of deployment a chapter can be worn down to almost nothing in fairly short order if a battle goes wrong.

In the Badab War books, for example, a chapter engaged in heavy fighting could be rendered ineffective after several battles or an extended campaign. Multi-company task forces were usually limited to handful of battles before they had to withdraw and reequip. The Badab War involved intense fighting against highly formidable foes, so the casualties were almost certainly higher than the norm. However, it is probable that a chapter fighting a major Chaos incursion, a Hive Fleet, or an Eldar Swordwind would probably suffer losses at an even higher rate.

You're forgetting the most common deployment method: A few squads and a Captain/Libby/Chaplain. All the way down to a demi-squad.

Uriel, Ragnar, the BT in Priests/Lords/Gods of Mars, its a pretty common thing.


A full company honestly is relatively rare, let alone multiple companies in the same war. That's reserved for the really big campaigns (Armaggeddon War, Battle of Macragge, etc).

Full chapter almost never happens At least a company stays home, and various detached elements generally add up to at least another.
When it does happens, its often when enemies come to them- the Crimson Fists, the BA in Devastation of Baal, Magnus vs Fenris, either time.

remember what we read about isn't the average bog standard deployment, it's the exciting bits. because "a squad of 10 marines drop podded down onto a world and slaughtered the unperpared cultists in an afternoon" is..... pretty dull.

One plot that would be fun to explore is the negative impact on logistics of having new state-of-the-art equipment.

Imagine a chapter that was given all the new bells and whistles that Cawl could offer. They've made big progress in their sector for a century or two. Then the wear-and-tear on their equipment starts to be a problem and they realize that because of the higher complexity, the techmarines don't have the capacity to manufacture enough of some critical replacement parts. They try to revert to older equipment, slowing down their manufacturing even more as all the machinery has to be reconfigured. Then they run into compatibility issues and have to maintain separately the older and newer stuff, putting even more strain on their forges... until the chapter is completely unable to fight effectively anymore and has to abandon its mission and rush to the nearest forge world to get that stuff sorted out.

Voss wrote:
You're forgetting the most common deployment method: A few squads and a Captain/Libby/Chaplain. All the way down to a demi-squad.

Uriel, Ragnar, the BT in Priests/Lords/Gods of Mars, its a pretty common thing.


A full company honestly is relatively rare, let alone multiple companies in the same war. That's reserved for the really big campaigns (Armaggeddon War, Battle of Macragge, etc).

Full chapter almost never happens At least a company stays home, and various detached elements generally add up to at least another.
When it does happens, its often when enemies come to them- the Crimson Fists, the BA in Devastation of Baal, Magnus vs Fenris, either time.

I included most of those smaller deployments when I mentioned "understrength companies." A few squads, a commander, and some vehicles. The important bit is that those deployments have their own space ship, which allows them to act independently.

You are right, though, that it is common to have a single squad, a dreadnought, or equivalent go out on it own. Sometimes they're an honor guard, sometimes they're a scouting force, and sometimes they're responding to a request from an Inquisitor or Imperial Commander. An omission on my part.

I disagree, though, that company-sized deployments are rare. GW goes to great lengths to emphasize that a company or demi-company is the standard size of deployment for Space Marines, especially in a warzone. There may be an argument that warzones are relatively rare compared to, say, "kill team"-type operations, but fighting in warzones is the primary purpose of Space Marines so I see no problem in emphasizing that sort of deployment.

 Tiennos wrote:
One plot that would be fun to explore is the negative impact on logistics of having new state-of-the-art equipment.

Imagine a chapter that was given all the new bells and whistles that Cawl could offer. They've made big progress in their sector for a century or two. Then the wear-and-tear on their equipment starts to be a problem and they realize that because of the higher complexity, the techmarines don't have the capacity to manufacture enough of some critical replacement parts. They try to revert to older equipment, slowing down their manufacturing even more as all the machinery has to be reconfigured. Then they run into compatibility issues and have to maintain separately the older and newer stuff, putting even more strain on their forges... until the chapter is completely unable to fight effectively anymore and has to abandon its mission and rush to the nearest forge world to get that stuff sorted out.

No, because that would stop the Primaris train from running.

Face it, there's no logic with this fluff.

Hecaton wrote:

 Tiennos wrote:
One plot that would be fun to explore is the negative impact on logistics of having new state-of-the-art equipment.

Imagine a chapter that was given all the new bells and whistles that Cawl could offer. They've made big progress in their sector for a century or two. Then the wear-and-tear on their equipment starts to be a problem and they realize that because of the higher complexity, the techmarines don't have the capacity to manufacture enough of some critical replacement parts. They try to revert to older equipment, slowing down their manufacturing even more as all the machinery has to be reconfigured. Then they run into compatibility issues and have to maintain separately the older and newer stuff, putting even more strain on their forges... until the chapter is completely unable to fight effectively anymore and has to abandon its mission and rush to the nearest forge world to get that stuff sorted out.

No, because that would stop the Primaris train from running.

Face it, there's no logic with this fluff.

if you go by logistical logic, then having a special elite quasi feudal knight class as a whole is not logic for a galaxy spanning imperium

Not Online!!! wrote:
if you go by logistical logic, then having a special elite quasi feudal knight class as a whole is not logic for a galaxy spanning imperium

I don't believe we have enough info for this. Compare a modern military situation: say, a soldier with a gun and some training and not much else, a soldier with a lot of training and gear, a helicopter with crew etc., a fighter with crew etc.

Like, military is not my thing, but there are wild disparities in cost, efficiency, and most importantly function.

It's entirely possible that said knight class is necessary or simply most efficient for the role in a thinly-spread empire facing all sorts of crazy horrors. Not that this is mechanically represented well or anything, but isn't the theoretical idea that they're most often seen when things are not able to be handled by regular soldiers? Isn't there a logic to having expensive specialists ready for jobs that cheap generalists would be inefficient at responding to? What if, when Marines aren't present, whatever super-duper threat typically wrecks several times more what it costs to deploy that knight class?

Yeah, it's silly that they have so many swords and their armies are teeny-tiny and would be wrecked by attrition faster than they could be replaced since they have tiny reserves. But I think there's nothing inherently wrong with the logic of sending in the space cavalry.

I'm not sure how rare Marines actually are, anyways. I know the usual estimate is 1000 chapters while the Imperium has 1000000 worlds, but I really don't trust any numbers GW writers throw around. If you really look into the details of about anything in the setting, it starts to fall apart.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
The new! big! extra-big! extra-new! Marines with special bolters as troops choices kinda got me thinking... What happened to Marines (of any kind) being special?

1) I admit that I'm not very up to date: hence, this is a real question, but it also might have a regular old answer I missed.

2) my favorite conflict (or at least representation of Marines) in 40k is the Badab war, in large part because a lot of it has to do with forces stretched thin.

But, like, I'm kinda used to Marines as relic everything, from storied and rebuilt suits of power armor, to basic bolters being armoury heirlooms, to of course esoteric stuff like dreads being not just sarcophagi but themselves important historical objects. (Yeah, STCs help recover, but they're still not exactly disposable.)

You've got your 10 companies built around maximizing resources and staying fighting fit, with the tactical squad at the hear of this that (rules don't always represent this the best) are supposed to be able to do whatever they need to as line troops.

But now we've got 5 primaris troops types that are within the narrative all filling the tactical marine role in battle companies? I get (assume) that the phobos stuff is replacing scouts down the line and seems to mechanically fill that role, but that's a ton of new types of specialists and gear available to basic marines. So, is there a narrative reason Marines (spread across the Imperium on a bajillion front) suddenly have access to a ton of gear with a lot of variation? Like, I liked that Marines, despite all their silly best whatever were balanced by every one of them being some storied hero in relic gear, even if mechanically they're still just tactical goons, and I feel like that's been lost--am I alone in losing the fun of marines? Primaris are nicely sculpted and all, but I'm missing the charm.

You either feel the charm or you don't. Nobody can make you feel it. The good news is that its a big galaxy. Your Tenebrous Edge of Grim Darkness Chapter can be cut off from logistical support, keeping things functional by using Oaths of Moment as guntape and eschewing all of the new gear. Others can choose to have fun with the shiny new stuff that Cawl produced.

There are only 1000 Chapters, each with 1000 marines. That is a trivial amount for a galaxy-spanning empire to support. WW2 Germany went through a rearmament cycle for its army (small arms, tanks) while engaged in a six-year multi-front war with access denied to outside resources.

In the 40K universe, a handful of forges/factories could develop and produce the range of Primaris weaponry for all Chapters. So yes, they do have access to what would seem like infinite resources compared to their size/demand signal.

ps - The logistics of ammunition natures in the Grimdark future is somewhat mysterious. I'm sure that the Logistics Officer for a Space Marine strike force would prefer as much commonality as possible. Wrong game, of course!

 Tiennos wrote:
I'm not sure how rare Marines actually are, anyways

If you're referring to my comment on tiny forces, I was referring to specific force attrition. Not that there aren't potentially marines to replace lost forces but like, how the hell are any first founding chapters still around? How have they never since the HH suffered losses which couldn't be recovered, whether biological, technological, or cultural? How have the Dark Angels (or whoever) more or less maintained continuity? I don't need a history of SM librarians or whatever, here. I mean that I just find it silly that, especially with all of the epic wipe-out historical conflicts and planet-decimating battles that SM function in their tiny armies (10,000 or even 50,000 would still be small cultures to try to maintain). IDK.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
If you're referring to my comment on tiny forces, I was referring to specific force attrition. Not that there aren't potentially marines to replace lost forces but like, how the hell are any first founding chapters still around? How have they never since the HH suffered losses which couldn't be recovered, whether biological, technological, or cultural? How have the Dark Angels (or whoever) more or less maintained continuity? I don't need a history of SM librarians or whatever, here. I mean that I just find it silly that, especially with all of the epic wipe-out historical conflicts and planet-decimating battles that SM function in their tiny armies (10,000 or even 50,000 would still be small cultures to try to maintain). IDK.

Well... yeah, the setting doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 10000 years is more than recorded human history so far. 10000 years ago, people were still hunter-gatherers using stone tools and barely beginning to figure out agriculture. The idea that anything (whether it's a space marine chapter or something else) can maintain its knowledge and traditions intact through literally hundreds of generations is ridiculous.

I think the loss of culture and the sheer scale is absolutely great for RPG-style stuff. But yes, between relics of older editions' fluff that don't make sense (chapter size) and new stuff (HH getting detailed, all sorts of denser history) I feel like something was lost. I guess 4/5 times at least I'd prefer to let things stay ambiguous and nebulous, since that imaginary space (which I think was really nicely integrated into early fluff) is more interesting than some decent writing.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Here's a twist I'd like to see; Cawl's 'innovations' are mainly salvaged from previous era. As in the blueprints were actually created using the 31st-34th ish millenia when technology had not degraded so much, and the very idea of innovation was not quite as heretical. His main achievement is figuring out the production lines, not the inventing itself (still epic and named-character-worthy, but not a setting cracker).

That's kind of how I see it, other than the problem is that while that works for vehicles, most of those weapons would not have had a reason to be designed at Astartes scale for. They'd be smaller human-portable frames.

Also, there could be an argument that Primaris were not suddenly thrown at players; several Editions back, there was at least one fluff piece that had Imperial Explorators coming across a secret lab that had been growing larger-than-average Astartes specimens, and it had been plundered by Fabius Bile's goons. I mean, they WERE literally suddenly introduced to the game with 8th edition, but older players can use some of the older fluff (that was really otherwise a throwaway) to flesh out the headcanon of Primaris by saying stories like the one above were secret Cawl labs.

40k also has a long proud tradtion of bringing something in, claiming it's been there for a long time/always been there, and fleshing it out after the fact., for an example... the Horus Heresy comes to mind

That is generally a practical way to write settings, if not the only practical way.