Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Primaris and most of the new fluff, GW have thrown a gak show spanner in the lore.

I hate the SW-DA feud, its actually good lore but I can't stand the biased bickering from the collectors of each legion. Its so bad that people can't even concede to obvious facts. Like the fact that the Lion and Russ were equally matched until the suckerpunch, so much so that the Lion kept pestering Russ for a re-match, thats kinda a win for both sides but it still isn't enough some people Don't know what it is because IF and IW are supposed to have the most extreme feud. I mean I am biased, I'm no better but I can always concede facts and my Legion/Primarchs failings. No Primarch or legion are without failings, even the Ultramarines, which previously were just complete GW apple polishers, I like the new HH lore that shows Guilliman to have many failings.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its almost as if the writers keep forgetting that marines are only in chapters of 1000, and have the need to kill off a bunch of them to show that the enemy is srs bizniz.

I think that is the main problem - they dont think.

 Grimskul wrote:
Not a fan of GW's issue with number scaling regarding how small chapters are. 1000'sh (not including command staff, support guys, etc.) guys were always hard to take seriously as a force capable of doing much on most planets, much less just a company of 100 marines. Makes them come off as more "elite", but also harder to explain losses or how they can even attempt to pacify/occupy areas. Definitely an instance of just adding a few zeroes to the number to make it more feasible. That or make it explicit they have an entire army of serfs with them at all times handling the logistics of these things.

I totally agree, though I think the key word here is "elite".

Your average SM is a transhuman supersoldier in power armor who has spend 20-30 years doing nothing but wage war. They should absolutely curb stomp any opponent. Buuuuut they rarely do so in the novels.

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:

epronovost wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
It takes what, 15-20 years to train a new sm? How the hell are they keeping up with their losses?

It takes about three years to transform a kid into a Scout Space Marines and about three more years for a Scout to become a fully trained Space Marine. If each Chapter has about 2 or 3 hundred Scouts in training at any given point and about twice more recruits ongoing the process of becoming a Space Marines, they should be capable of recovering relatively fast their losses.

The scouts make up the 10th company and are rarely more than a 100 strong.

Yes, after 6-10 years of training you become a brother . Then you are assigned to a devastator squad to master long-ranged weaponry and after that to an assault squad to master close-quarters combat. And ONLY then can they join a "normal" tactical squad as a full battle-brother. Like i said, decades pr SM.

Chapters that have been down to a few hundred marines (like the ultra marines and blood angels) may take upwards of a hundred years to fully recover.

Also, Space Marine are very hard to kill. While a few shots in the chest, a busted leg or arm might prevent them from fighting in a specific engagement, they will survive such wounds and return to the battlefield fairly fast.

Yea, but when a novel lists half the company or squad as dead, it's probably because they are, well, dead?

Almost every source for space marine structure notes that the 100 marine limit is not applied to 10th company and it can be as large as a chapter needs. Most chapters probably have a lot of scouts.

I know quoting wiki is almost heresy, and I am only doing it because i am 99% sure I read the same statement in one of the sm dexes (possibly 5th edition).

"The Codex Astartes places no limit on the number of Scout squads that may comprise the 10th Company, although in practice few Chapters will ever have more than 10 squads at any one time. Most will have significantly fewer, depending on the suitability of aspirants and the Chapter's casualty levels."

I've long ago accepted GW writers, for the most part, have no sense of scale. Though to some degree that makes sense, as humans in general are not good with numbers and the scale that 40k is at is beyond anything anyone has had to process in real life.

As for Marine recruiting I'd imagine that there is endless turn over, and a lot of chapters are in constant flux. It's a big universe and exact casualties would be impossible to track in real time. I'd imagine that many chapters are probably over the 1000 limit if they were to magically gather in one place but that's not realistic so lets say the third company is sent out to go fight. When they get back a few months or years later there are a bunch of new recruits from the reserve companies getting promotions and a ton of scouts ready to join those companies.

Andersp90 wrote:
Your average SM is a transhuman supersoldier in power armor who has spend 20-30 years doing nothing but wage war. They should absolutely curb stomp any opponent. Buuuuut they rarely do so in the novels. :facepalm

That's because all their enemies are exactly like that too. An Eldar is superhuman psychic being built for war. An Aspect Warrior will have decades if not century of obsessively training in a single domain. An Ork is a superhuman being built for war who live a life of violence and constant warfare against each other or other races from day one up until the time they die which might be centuries. Tau Fire Warriors are born and raised to be warriors and are descendant of a long eugenic program to make them more efficient in combat. They come from a civilisation more advanced than humanity too. Tyranid warriors are specifically built to eat galaxies. Necrons warriors and Immortals are eons old machine of living metal whose only function is war armed with disintagration guns and transdimentional blades. Space Marines aren't that special compared to these.

Hell, even if you compare them to elite humans they aren't all that exceptional. Scions are trained from early infancy in the most murderous and intense military academy possibly imagineable and armed with laser guns so powerful they can largely ignore a Space Marine armor while theirs protect them descently against their standard weapon. Sisters of Battle are trained in the same academies, but are in addition religious zealots of a god of war like no other and with pretty much the same stuff than Marines. Cadians, Catashans and plenty of other famous guardsmen have been also trained from early infancy to be nothing but soldiers.

Yes, Space Marines can curb stomp all none insanely trained superhuman opponents, but that's basically nobody amongst the big players in the setting. Plus, all elite humans have pretty much been equipped and trained to give them a hard time.

epronovost wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
Your average SM is a transhuman supersoldier in power armor who has spend 20-30 years doing nothing but wage war. They should absolutely curb stomp any opponent. Buuuuut they rarely do so in the novels. :facepalm

That's because all their enemies are exactly like that too. An Eldar is superhuman psychic being built for war. An Aspect Warrior will have decades if not century of obsessively training in a single domain. An Ork is a superhuman being built for war who live a life of violence and constant warfare against each other or other races from day one up until the time they die which might be centuries. Tau Fire Warriors are born and raised to be warriors and are descendant of a long eugenic program to make them more efficient in combat. Tyranid warriors are specifically built to eat galaxies. Necrons warriors and Immortals are eons old machine of living metal whose only function is war. Space Marines aren't special compared to these.

Hell, even if you compare them to elite humans they aren't all that exceptional. Scions are trained from early infancy in the most murderous and intense military academy possibly imagineable and armed with laser guns so powerful they can largely ignore a Space Marine armor while theirs protect them descently against their standard weapon. Sisters of Battle are trained in the same academies, but are in addition religious zealots of a god of war like no other and with pretty much the samestuff than Marines. Cadians, Catashans and plenty of other famous guardsmen have been also trained from early infancy to be nothing but soldiers.

Yes, Space MArines can curb stomp all none insanely trained superhuman opponents, but that's basically nobody amongst the big players in the setting. Plus, all elite humans have pretty much been equipped and trained to give them a hard time.

Yeah against humans, SM's make a mockery of their combat abilities. SM's can carve through hundreds of humans unless said humans have heavy weaponry. Lasguns are useless against power armour in the lore, as well are bayonets, even if a bayonet stabs an astartes in the weak points in the armour they still can't cause mortal injuries, unless they stab them from the eye lens.

Andersp90 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its almost as if the writers keep forgetting that marines are only in chapters of 1000, and have the need to kill off a bunch of them to show that the enemy is srs bizniz.

I think that is the main problem - they dont think.

 Grimskul wrote:
Not a fan of GW's issue with number scaling regarding how small chapters are. 1000'sh (not including command staff, support guys, etc.) guys were always hard to take seriously as a force capable of doing much on most planets, much less just a company of 100 marines. Makes them come off as more "elite", but also harder to explain losses or how they can even attempt to pacify/occupy areas. Definitely an instance of just adding a few zeroes to the number to make it more feasible. That or make it explicit they have an entire army of serfs with them at all times handling the logistics of these things.

I totally agree, though I think the key word here is "elite".

Your average SM is a transhuman supersoldier in power armor who has spend 20-30 years doing nothing but wage war. They should absolutely curb stomp any opponent. Buuuuut they rarely do so in the novels.

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:

epronovost wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
It takes what, 15-20 years to train a new sm? How the hell are they keeping up with their losses?

It takes about three years to transform a kid into a Scout Space Marines and about three more years for a Scout to become a fully trained Space Marine. If each Chapter has about 2 or 3 hundred Scouts in training at any given point and about twice more recruits ongoing the process of becoming a Space Marines, they should be capable of recovering relatively fast their losses.

The scouts make up the 10th company and are rarely more than a 100 strong.

Yes, after 6-10 years of training you become a brother . Then you are assigned to a devastator squad to master long-ranged weaponry and after that to an assault squad to master close-quarters combat. And ONLY then can they join a "normal" tactical squad as a full battle-brother. Like i said, decades pr SM.

Chapters that have been down to a few hundred marines (like the ultra marines and blood angels) may take upwards of a hundred years to fully recover.

Also, Space Marine are very hard to kill. While a few shots in the chest, a busted leg or arm might prevent them from fighting in a specific engagement, they will survive such wounds and return to the battlefield fairly fast.

Yea, but when a novel lists half the company or squad as dead, it's probably because they are, well, dead?

Almost every source for space marine structure notes that the 100 marine limit is not applied to 10th company and it can be as large as a chapter needs. Most chapters probably have a lot of scouts.

I know quoting wiki is almost heresy, and I am only doing it because i am 99% sure I read the same statement in one of the sm dexes (possibly 5th edition).

"The Codex Astartes places no limit on the number of Scout squads that may comprise the 10th Company, although in practice few Chapters will ever have more than 10 squads at any one time. Most will have significantly fewer, depending on the suitability of aspirants and the Chapter's casualty levels."

There are quite a few quotes that go the other way saying they have more than a hundred often. But I’m not searching for them, so take it or leave it

Though I would say about your wiki quote that perhaps it makes both true, there are rarely more that a hundred as they are constantly being put into other company slots (ready or not here I come style). So the numbers never get too high? Just as an idea..

————

Going back to the science of a space marine bit.
Love the biology post, and yeah lots of it seems true.
I feel they can explain a lot of that away by just saying - imagine how different we will see medicine/biology in 8000 years, let alone the far future.
(Not so long ago headaches were demons and skulls were drilled and all sorts of other weird things).

Some points I can’t argue and they would never change, Omaphage looking at you, it others maybe future mumbo jumbo explains some away.

“the REM sleep is necessary for normal functioning of the brain and it is a whole brain phenomenon which this organ wound interfere with.”
You give them this one anyway, but REM - it’s necessary in the standard brain, but with the Catalepsan maybe it is no longer necessary?

What I’m saying is, the organs may change the way the body works now, not just add the abilities they list (which counter some of what we know presently).
You know, that kind of thing.


Basically, Hive City Dweller, I loved your post, and it was a great read and all true, but ya know, the future. And stuff

Danny76 wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its almost as if the writers keep forgetting that marines are only in chapters of 1000, and have the need to kill off a bunch of them to show that the enemy is srs bizniz.

I think that is the main problem - they dont think.

 Grimskul wrote:
Not a fan of GW's issue with number scaling regarding how small chapters are. 1000'sh (not including command staff, support guys, etc.) guys were always hard to take seriously as a force capable of doing much on most planets, much less just a company of 100 marines. Makes them come off as more "elite", but also harder to explain losses or how they can even attempt to pacify/occupy areas. Definitely an instance of just adding a few zeroes to the number to make it more feasible. That or make it explicit they have an entire army of serfs with them at all times handling the logistics of these things.

I totally agree, though I think the key word here is "elite".

Your average SM is a transhuman supersoldier in power armor who has spend 20-30 years doing nothing but wage war. They should absolutely curb stomp any opponent. Buuuuut they rarely do so in the novels.

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:

epronovost wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
It takes what, 15-20 years to train a new sm? How the hell are they keeping up with their losses?

It takes about three years to transform a kid into a Scout Space Marines and about three more years for a Scout to become a fully trained Space Marine. If each Chapter has about 2 or 3 hundred Scouts in training at any given point and about twice more recruits ongoing the process of becoming a Space Marines, they should be capable of recovering relatively fast their losses.

The scouts make up the 10th company and are rarely more than a 100 strong.

Yes, after 6-10 years of training you become a brother . Then you are assigned to a devastator squad to master long-ranged weaponry and after that to an assault squad to master close-quarters combat. And ONLY then can they join a "normal" tactical squad as a full battle-brother. Like i said, decades pr SM.

Chapters that have been down to a few hundred marines (like the ultra marines and blood angels) may take upwards of a hundred years to fully recover.

Also, Space Marine are very hard to kill. While a few shots in the chest, a busted leg or arm might prevent them from fighting in a specific engagement, they will survive such wounds and return to the battlefield fairly fast.

Yea, but when a novel lists half the company or squad as dead, it's probably because they are, well, dead?

Almost every source for space marine structure notes that the 100 marine limit is not applied to 10th company and it can be as large as a chapter needs. Most chapters probably have a lot of scouts.

I know quoting wiki is almost heresy, and I am only doing it because i am 99% sure I read the same statement in one of the sm dexes (possibly 5th edition).

"The Codex Astartes places no limit on the number of Scout squads that may comprise the 10th Company, although in practice few Chapters will ever have more than 10 squads at any one time. Most will have significantly fewer, depending on the suitability of aspirants and the Chapter's casualty levels."

There are quite a few quotes that go the other way saying they have more than a hundred often. But I’m not searching for them, so take it or leave it

Though I would say about your wiki quote that perhaps it makes both true, there are rarely more that a hundred as they are constantly being put into other company slots (ready or not here I come style). So the numbers never get too high? Just as an idea..

————

Going back to the science of a space marine bit.
Love the biology post, and yeah lots of it seems true.
I feel they can explain a lot of that away by just saying - imagine how different we will see medicine/biology in 8000 years, let alone the far future.
(Not so long ago headaches were demons and skulls were drilled and all sorts of other weird things).

Some points I can’t argue and they would never change, Omaphage looking at you, it others maybe future mumbo jumbo explains some away.

“the REM sleep is necessary for normal functioning of the brain and it is a whole brain phenomenon which this organ wound interfere with.”
You give them this one anyway, but REM - it’s necessary in the standard brain, but with the Catalepsan maybe it is no longer necessary?

What I’m saying is, the organs may change the way the body works now, not just add the abilities they list (which counter some of what we know presently).
You know, that kind of thing.


Basically, Hive City Dweller, I loved your post, and it was a great read and all true, but ya know, the future. And stuff

Gene manipulation is already in the immediate future.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Yeah against humans, SM's make a mockery of their combat abilities. SM's can carve through hundreds of humans unless said humans have heavy weaponry. Lasguns are useless against power armour in the lore, as well are bayonets, even if a bayonet stabs an astartes in the weak points in the armour they still can't cause mortal injuries, unless they stab them from the eye lens.

Lasguns can kill Space Marines btw, they must shoot point blank at maximum power setting though. In the first Gaunt's Ghost novel that's how one Space Marine gets killed. A guardsmen sneak behind him while he tries to kill Gaunt in close combat and blows his helmet off with his lasgun. Later, in a another novel, a Khorn berzerker gets killed by when a platoon of guardsmen open fire on him and basically reduce him to a burning wreck due to too much lasgun fire (then again that's what you should expect when a 100 guys open fire on you at the same time while you run at them in an empty field). Hell, a Cadian caveman (or woman) stabbed a Space Marine through the neck with a primitive spear and killed him (the only casualty of the battle true), but I suspect he was bare headed.

 Grimskul wrote:
Not a fan of GW's issue with number scaling regarding how small chapters are. 1000'sh (not including command staff, support guys, etc.) guys were always hard to take seriously as a force capable of doing much on most planets, much less just a company of 100 marines. Makes them come off as more "elite", but also harder to explain losses or how they can even attempt to pacify/occupy areas. Definitely an instance of just adding a few zeroes to the number to make it more feasible. That or make it explicit they have an entire army of serfs with them at all times handling the logistics of these things.

Because the space marines are the elite of the elite special forces. Their method of "pacification" is kill any living thing that isn't a space marine in X meter radius. Occupation is not something a space marine does, that is a job for the guard. They exist to apply overwhelming force in a small area when a lance strike from space wont do for whatever reason. That is their only purpose and they are fairly useless outside of that from a strictly military perspective.

There is a big problem with bias in the lore, like in the path of the warrior novel, stating that SM's are no match for aspect warriors etc. Which is pretty stupid, I could live with an equal match but no match at all, come on.

There will always be a massive gap in the sources of how strong certain warriors are because of that, as Eldar players want their guys to be the best as do SM's, Necrons etc.. Thats why the best writers stay true to the lore and don't try and mary sue their favourite army, characters etc. Matt Ward is the worst offender for that, he doesn't even try to be fair and balanced.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Primaris and most of the new fluff, GW have thrown a gak show spanner in the lore.

Has anyone ever heard someone say they actually liked the Primaris fluff and thought it was a good idea? Dare I say, I think we're in unanimous agreement on this one thing.

 Luciferian wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Primaris and most of the new fluff, GW have thrown a gak show spanner in the lore.

Has anyone ever heard someone say they actually liked the Primaris fluff and thought it was a good idea? Dare I say, I think we're in unanimous agreement on this one thing.

Yeah but the guy asked the question, couldn't not bring it up.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
There is a big problem with bias in the lore, like in the path of the warrior novel, stating that SM's are no match for aspect warriors etc. Which is pretty stupid, I could live with an equal match but no match at all, come on.

There will always be a massive gap in the sources of how strong certain warriors are because of that, as Eldar players want their guys to be the best as do SM's, Necrons etc.. Thats why the best writers stay true to the lore and don't try and mary sue their favourite army, characters etc.

From a purely unbiased perspective (I play guard, and have little interest in space marines)... A space marine is probably a match for an aspect warrior/banshee/elite DE infantry in a 1v1, with the winner determined by skill and experience. Otherwise, a space marine could trash pretty much any other standard infantry in the setting, including ork boyz and necron warriors. That isn't to say they are invulnerable, I think a platoon of trained+experienced guardsmen with a few heavy weapons emplacements have a good chance of taking down a SINGLE space marine if they play their cards right, or the equivalent in another factions infantry. But a SM is really one of the most powerful standard infantry in the setting, again I think I am being pretty objective about that.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Primaris and most of the new fluff, GW have thrown a gak show spanner in the lore.

Has anyone ever heard someone say they actually liked the Primaris fluff and thought it was a good idea? Dare I say, I think we're in unanimous agreement on this one thing.

Yeah but the guy asked the question, couldn't not bring it up.

I've seen people who like the models and the table top potential but I personally don't know anyone in my area outside of very new players who like how GW justified the models.

A platoon is way overkill

w1zard wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
Not a fan of GW's issue with number scaling regarding how small chapters are. 1000'sh (not including command staff, support guys, etc.) guys were always hard to take seriously as a force capable of doing much on most planets, much less just a company of 100 marines. Makes them come off as more "elite", but also harder to explain losses or how they can even attempt to pacify/occupy areas. Definitely an instance of just adding a few zeroes to the number to make it more feasible. That or make it explicit they have an entire army of serfs with them at all times handling the logistics of these things.

Because the space marines are the elite of the elite special forces. Their method of "pacification" is kill any living thing that isn't a space marine in X meter radius. Occupation is not something a space marine does, that is a job for the guard. They exist to apply overwhelming force in a small area when a lance strike from space wont do for whatever reason. That is their only purpose and they are fairly useless outside of that from a strictly military perspective.

Don't get me wrong, I understand what the purpose of a SM is, but even with all their tech and strike force capabilities, 100 guys are not enough to cover the ground necessary for even some of the most basic areas, like hive cities. It probably doesn't help that GW, for varities sake, likes to give stories where marines are thrown outside of this area of expertise and still do well somehow, even though they don't have the sustainability for it. Having the extra numbers just makes it more palatable as far as fluff details go.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I've seen people who like the models and the table top potential but I personally don't know anyone in my area outside of very new players who like how GW justified the models.

I really like the models. The apothecary in particular really stands out as an indication of the potential in more realistically proportioned marines. But the fluff!

 Bobthehero wrote:
A platoon is way overkill

I sorta agree. In a fair fight a platoon of guardsmen would probably win through the numbers against one marine. Hell post splitting up the legions, operating with out support from other IOM factions or a pitched battle should be fairly rare. Marines don't fight fair, considering they have access to so many things that most guard units don't have. Drop pods dropping into the middle of a sleeping camp. Landspeeders screaming across an armored column, ranking it with fire. Scouts having planned the perfect ambush.

I do wish at times GW did more to play up that marines are not slogging through the trenches for weeks but ideally either fighting a decisive but by design one sided fight, or if they have to stand their ground, things have gone horribly wrong and we are buying time. Obviously this is really tough to reflect on the table top, since ideally we are playing a game were both sides have a decent chance against each other.

 Bobthehero wrote:
A platoon is way overkill

A full platoon of guardsmen like Catashans or Cadians (or any other famous guard regiment) should match a full squad of Space Marine. That seems logical to me.

w1zard wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
There is a big problem with bias in the lore, like in the path of the warrior novel, stating that SM's are no match for aspect warriors etc. Which is pretty stupid, I could live with an equal match but no match at all, come on.

There will always be a massive gap in the sources of how strong certain warriors are because of that, as Eldar players want their guys to be the best as do SM's, Necrons etc.. Thats why the best writers stay true to the lore and don't try and mary sue their favourite army, characters etc.

From a purely unbiased perspective (I play guard, and have little interest in space marines)... A space marine is probably a match for an aspect warrior/banshee/elite DE infantry in a 1v1, with the winner determined by skill and experience. Otherwise, a space marine could trash pretty much any other standard infantry in the setting, including ork boyz and necron warriors. That isn't to say they are invulnerable, I think a platoon of trained+experienced guardsmen with a few heavy weapons emplacements have a good chance of taking down a SINGLE space marine if they play their cards right, or the equivalent in another factions infantry. But a SM is really one of the most powerful standard infantry in the setting, again I think I am being pretty objective about that.

The comment wasn't directed at you, it was directed at the author, who is clearly biased, even though its one of my favourite novels.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

HoundsofDemos wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
A platoon is way overkill

I sorta agree. In a fair fight a platoon of guardsmen would probably win through the numbers against one marine. Hell post splitting up the legions, operating with out support from other IOM factions or a pitched battle should be fairly rare. Marines don't fight fair, considering they have access to so many things that most guard units don't have. Drop pods dropping into the middle of a sleeping camp. Landspeeders screaming across an armored column, ranking it with fire. Scouts having planned the perfect ambush.

I do wish at times GW did more to play up that marines are not slogging through the trenches for weeks but ideally either fighting a decisive but by design one sided fight, or if they have to stand their ground, things have gone horribly wrong and we are buying time. Obviously this is really tough to reflect on the table top, since ideally we are playing a game were both sides have a decent chance against each other.

Not realistically though, a marine is literally a tank, the lore states that a SM could be dragged down by tar pits, completely ridiculous, a marine has the strength to tear through light armoured ceremite with their hands, the momentum just running through squads of infantry would be like a bowling ball against pins.

There is no fairness in war, how can a super human ever be fair in combat, its like expecting superman to fight batman at batmans strength, speed etc.

IG fans have always tried to upscale guardsmens ability, but they are as dangerous as flies compared to SM's. I mean even forgetting the armour, its still extremely hard for a human or humans to even inflict a mortal wound on a SM. Its like saying eldar guardians have a chance against wraithguard. But its why I love my DKK, because every battle they fight is against insurmountable odds but they carry on holding the line.

What I meant by fair is that a battle that kinda resembles what a normal of game of 40k would look like. Two armies a fair distance apart, terrain not benefiting either side to an extreme degree and ideally the platoon would be a bit spread out. The guardsmen would have both a special and heavy per squad. Eventually someone is going to get a lucky shot or get close and detonate a las gun pack which multiple sources have shown can kill a marine.

If it was one marine versus that in an enclosed setting, then yea that's not going to be fun time for anyone but the marine unless they are very fast on their feet.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

The real answer is that 40k isn't a serious sci-fi franchise, it's fantasy in space. Complaining about chainswords is about as pointless as complaining about lightsabers, if you take the silliness away and require the setting to stand on its own against "real" sci-fi then it doesn't look good.

More particularly, 40k is fantasy in space with WW2 inspired warfare.

40k would actually benefit from more focus on melee, not less. The strategic aim of most battles should be to drive the enemy away and take their battlefield territory, not to sit there and 'pew pew' at each other until one side is dead.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
IG fans have always tried to upscale guardsmens ability, but they are as dangerous as flies compared to SM's.

With quotes like that I rather think its the SM fans upscaling their factions.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
When they get back a few months or years later there are a bunch of new recruits from the reserve companies getting promotions and a ton of scouts ready to join those companies.

A fully fledged SM has been 20-30 years in the making. And there are rarely more than a 100 scouts in each chapter.

It took the ultra marines a century to fully recover their losses after beating hive fleet Behemoth.

epronovost wrote:

Andersp90 wrote:
Your average SM is a transhuman supersoldier in power armor who has spend 20-30 years doing nothing but wage war. They should absolutely curb stomp any opponent. Buuuuut they rarely do so in the novels. :facepalm

That's because all their enemies are exactly like that too. An Eldar is superhuman psychic being built for war. An Aspect Warrior will have decades if not century of obsessively training in a single domain. An Ork is a superhuman being built for war who live a life of violence and constant warfare against each other or other races from day one up until the time they die which might be centuries. Tau Fire Warriors are born and raised to be warriors and are descendant of a long eugenic program to make them more efficient in combat. They come from a civilisation more advanced than humanity too. Tyranid warriors are specifically built to eat galaxies. Necrons warriors and Immortals are eons old machine of living metal whose only function is war armed with disintagration guns and transdimentional blades. Space Marines aren't that special compared to these.

Hell, even if you compare them to elite humans they aren't all that exceptional. Scions are trained from early infancy in the most murderous and intense military academy possibly imagineable and armed with laser guns so powerful they can largely ignore a Space Marine armor while theirs protect them descently against their standard weapon. Sisters of Battle are trained in the same academies, but are in addition religious zealots of a god of war like no other and with pretty much the same stuff than Marines. Cadians, Catashans and plenty of other famous guardsmen have been also trained from early infancy to be nothing but soldiers.

Yes, Space Marines can curb stomp all none insanely trained superhuman opponents, but that's basically nobody amongst the big players in the setting. Plus, all elite humans have pretty much been equipped and trained to give them a hard time.

I agree that the eldar elites should be able to go toe to toe with a SM.
A centuries old ork is a rare thing. Your average ork are sluggas/shoota boyz. A SM should curb stump them - but they dont in many novels..
Tau fire warriors are no match for an astartes. Suits is another story.
Yep, sending astartes to fight the tyranids is like pissing in the wind.
SM's actually reap a heavy toll on necron warrriors - both at range and CC. The big problem is that they dont stay down.

The mental processing capacity, physical presence, reflexes etc etc are far beyond what any human can ever hope to achieve - no matter how much they train. And that is why they mop the floor with scions etc.

There are quite a few quotes that go the other way saying they have more than a hundred often. But I’m not searching for them, so take it or leave it

I have never seen any indication of that, so unless you can provide at quote im not buying it.

They exist to apply overwhelming force in a small area when a lance strike from space wont do for whatever reason. That is their only purpose and they are fairly useless outside of that from a strictly military perspective.

And that is what pisses me off..

A platoon is way overkill

I agree.

By the standard of many BL novels, a single guardsman with a sharp stick would be plenty.

The standard of a book. You're blowing this way out of proportions.

 Bobthehero wrote:
The standard of a book. You're blowing this way out of proportions.

Ye, I was joking.

We have plenty of lore on marines (chaos) vs guard in the 40k lore.

- it rarely ends well for the guards.

epronovost wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
A platoon is way overkill

A full platoon of guardsmen like Catashans or Cadians (or any other famous guard regiment) should match a full squad of Space Marine. That seems logical to me.

Well, they dont.

Andersp90 wrote:
The mental processing capacity, physical presence, reflexes etc etc are far beyond what any human can ever hope to achieve - no matter how much they train. And that is why they mop the floor with scions etc.

Since Space Marines don't mop the floor with Scions (or Sisters) as they have fought shoulder to shoulder with and against each other on several occasions in the fluff, it seems to me that you are overstating the abilities of Space Marines a bit. Space Marines are indeed much stronger than any human being can hope to achieve (unless they are mutants or psykers of course) and while they are extremely intelligent and fast, the most highly train humans can keep up with them in that domain as demonstrated numerous times in the fluff where heroic or highly trained humans are seen dodging their blows or even, in the case of a Canoness sword fighting a Grey Knight commander (and sometime they even win those duels). I like the idea of the best humans being able to at least present a challenge to Space Marines as it make human faction (especially elite human faction) pertinent to the setting instead of filler or worse and it seems GW describe this as possible, but feel free to disagree with that.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
IG fans have always tried to upscale guardsmens ability, but they are as dangerous as flies compared to SM's.

With quotes like that I rather think its the SM fans upscaling their factions.

If you think a few squad of guard can tackle a SM, then yeah I don't think so.

Well if those squads have plasma or melta weapons, sure, the Marine's pretty screwed.

Yeah "a platoon should be able to tackle a 'squad' of marines" only if they have heavy weapons or plasmaguns, if its just against guardsmen with flashlights and bayonets, A single SM could go through hundreds,of them at ease. I mean in the 40k universe, without tanks and heavy ordnance Imperial guard would be useless as an army, I mean even tau are more dangerous than them seeing that their pulse weapons are actually good. Human soldiers are pretty much the worst soldiers in the universe other than cultists, gretchin or nurgling etc. They only thing that makes the guard so effective are their endless numbers.