No more Space Marines?

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**Brother Coa**

Vaktathi wrote:
If you actually take the numbers GW puts out for the relative value of a Space Marine (1 SM for every 10-12 normal soldiers per Codex: Space Marines) and the number of Imperial Guard regiments currently active (given as plural "billions" in Codex: Imperial Guard) and an average regiment size of 8,000 (using the Cadian 8th as a standard), then the total fighting strength of the Adeptus Astartes is equal to about 1/16,000,000th of the fighting capability of the Imperial Guard if we assume "billions" of regiments simply means 2 billion (the lowest possible value for the plural "billions" given in Codex: Imperial Guard).

Even if we exaggerate the SM's value by say, 10,000x (lets say there are force multipliers such as rapid speed and other capabilities we aren't taking into account that the IG can't replicate as readily and aren't already taken into account by the 10/12-1 ratio and no force multipliers are taken into account for the IG at all) then the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes is still only about 1/1,600 that of the Imperial Guard.

In other words, GW has made the Imperial Guard so large (yet likely accurate given a million worlds) that the Space Marines really would be completely insignificant by any meaningful measure. The IG's daily casualty/recruitment rates are probably of more military value. Realistically, the entirety of the Astartes would be insufficient for the defense or conquest of a single world opposed by a a number of soldiers roughly equal to that of the number of soldiers under arms on Earth today (assuming trained/equipped to Imperial Guard standards), with a modicum of Imperial Navy equivalent support, assuming the ratio given in every Codex: Space Marines of 10/12 normal soldiers for 1 Space Marine.

Indeed using the ratios of 10 or 12 guardsmen for each Space Marine, the entirety of the Space Marines would have been destroyed in the Vraks campaign (Imperial Armour V/VI/VIII) given the casualty ratios (and about a third of the Dark Angels Chapter was lost on Vraks in a single mission there).

And lets face it, even if they can't replicate the exact same capabilities, the Imperial Guard has more than enough quantify of "inferior" units possessing similar capabilities (e.g. Drop Troops, siege regiments, armored regiments, etc) to more than offset that what the Space Marines offer even if they were only the tiniest fraction of the IG's available troops (which they aren't necessarily).

This is why the concept of only a million Space Marines is somewhat ludicrous. Merely a million Space Marines, even possessing the capabilities they have, would literally be a meaningless galactic military force.

This post is so full of win. Thank you for explaining some thing

**Brother Heinrich**

Brother Coa wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
If you actually take the numbers GW puts out for the relative value of a Space Marine (1 SM for every 10-12 normal soldiers per Codex: Space Marines) and the number of Imperial Guard regiments currently active (given as plural "billions" in Codex: Imperial Guard) and an average regiment size of 8,000 (using the Cadian 8th as a standard), then the total fighting strength of the Adeptus Astartes is equal to about 1/16,000,000th of the fighting capability of the Imperial Guard if we assume "billions" of regiments simply means 2 billion (the lowest possible value for the plural "billions" given in Codex: Imperial Guard).

Even if we exaggerate the SM's value by say, 10,000x (lets say there are force multipliers such as rapid speed and other capabilities we aren't taking into account that the IG can't replicate as readily and aren't already taken into account by the 10/12-1 ratio and no force multipliers are taken into account for the IG at all) then the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes is still only about 1/1,600 that of the Imperial Guard.

In other words, GW has made the Imperial Guard so large (yet likely accurate given a million worlds) that the Space Marines really would be completely insignificant by any meaningful measure. The IG's daily casualty/recruitment rates are probably of more military value. Realistically, the entirety of the Astartes would be insufficient for the defense or conquest of a single world opposed by a a number of soldiers roughly equal to that of the number of soldiers under arms on Earth today (assuming trained/equipped to Imperial Guard standards), with a modicum of Imperial Navy equivalent support, assuming the ratio given in every Codex: Space Marines of 10/12 normal soldiers for 1 Space Marine.

Indeed using the ratios of 10 or 12 guardsmen for each Space Marine, the entirety of the Space Marines would have been destroyed in the Vraks campaign (Imperial Armour V/VI/VIII) given the casualty ratios (and about a third of the Dark Angels Chapter was lost on Vraks in a single mission there).

And lets face it, even if they can't replicate the exact same capabilities, the Imperial Guard has more than enough quantify of "inferior" units possessing similar capabilities (e.g. Drop Troops, siege regiments, armored regiments, etc) to more than offset that what the Space Marines offer even if they were only the tiniest fraction of the IG's available troops (which they aren't necessarily).

This is why the concept of only a million Space Marines is somewhat ludicrous. Merely a million Space Marines, even possessing the capabilities they have, would literally be a meaningless galactic military force.

This post is so full of win. Thank you for explaining some thing

Well said, though regardless of the insignifigance of Space Marines in the grand scheme, they still do fill an important role as special forces, a la the whole 'hammer and scalpel' analogy.

**Seaward**

Vaktathi wrote:
This is why the concept of only a million Space Marines is somewhat ludicrous. Merely a million Space Marines, even possessing the capabilities they have, would literally be a meaningless galactic military force.

There are likely more of them. GW's been tinkering with numbers lately - Legion size during the Horus Heresy has received a massive boost from earlier fluff, for instance. And by "earlier," I mean even previous novels in the series.

**Mahtamori**

Don't oversell the real life soldiers too much. Not even the Russian special forces are badass enough to merit a comparison to 40K Space Marines.

Brother SRM wrote:The Space Marines are the first and last line of defense for the Imperium. The Imperium isn't exactly in a good place right now and the Marines are all that's standing between mankind and annihilation.

No, that would be the Imperial Guard.

The Marines are far too thinly spread to be the first line of defence. The Marines will have failed already, or not shown up in time as is their wont to do often enough, if they are the last line of defence.

In addition, Space Marines are the Imperium's strongest soldiers and as such they can not be wasted in last stands nor can they be allowed to take the initial, and strongest, hit from a force.

**Fireknife**

After reading the Taros Campaign I have to say SM are definitely needed.

And I don't see the IG alone being able to take care of chaos or daemons or orcs, or tyranids or necron. They could maybe take tau and eldar simply because they lack the numbers

**Brother Coa**

Fireknife wrote:
And I don't see the IG alone being able to take care of chaos or daemons or orcs, or tyranids or necron. They could maybe take tau and eldar simply because they lack the numbers

Taros campaign was fail, you should see Gaunt's Ghost or "Fire and Honor".

**PraetorDave**

Chowderhead wrote:The Marines are like the Space Marines, and the Enlisted are like Guardsmen.

Let me guess, you are a marine, or you are related to one. While the marines training regimen is slightly harder than the army's, U.S. marines =/= Space Marines. U.S. Marines are rank and file infantry just like the army. The Rangers are more akin to space marines, but even thats a poor parallel.

**shadowsnip**

PraetorDave wrote:
Chowderhead wrote:The Marines are like the Space Marines, and the Enlisted are like Guardsmen.

Let me guess, you are a marine, or you are related to one. While the marines training regimen is slightly harder than the army's, U.S. marines =/= Space Marines. U.S. Marines are rank and file infantry just like the army. The Rangers are more akin to space marines, but even thats a poor parallel.

rangers lead the way

However Imho the closet thing you'll get to Space Marine compared to real life soldiers are Delta or ST6 and EVEN THAT is a poor parallel

**TrollPie**

Space Marines are closest related to the SAS, if the entire SAS was compressed in to one soldier and every other soldier in the world represented a Guardsman.
Back on topic, Vaktathi put it better than I ever could.

**AlmightyWalrus**

Vaktathi wrote:Lots'o wise text

Agreed on pretty much everything except one thing: Daemons. Imperial Guard just won't be able to handle the same stuff as the Grey Knights because they would turn crazy.

**Vaktathi**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:Lots'o wise text

Agreed on pretty much everything except one thing: Daemons. Imperial Guard just won't be able to handle the same stuff as the Grey Knights because they would turn crazy.

In many situations this is totally correct (though the guard often does fight the denizens of the warp but are generally disposed of after such campaigns and are of course suceptible to corruption like any other non-GK force), but again, neither can just about anyone else, and it's another instance where there's simply too ludicrously few GK's to make any difference in a truly large scale daemonic invasion (say, like something unleashed by a Black Crusade or an entire star system consumed by a Warp Storm) without humongous numbers of supporting assets and likely expending themselves nearly entirely (as in the 1st Armageddon war, which was still only one world).

In an empire consisting of a million inhabited worlds and claiming millions of others under its control, if even merely 100 of those worlds are experiencing daemon threat worthy of the GK's attention at any one time (remember, that's 100 worlds over several million star systems) that'd be more than enough to stretch the GK's beyond their capability, hell even if you only had 10 worlds, just getting to all of them and throwing 100 GK's to defeat thousands if not millions or billions of Daemons is silly. As anything other than an Anti-Daemon praetorian guard for Sol system, realistically there are just too few for what their job requires, hence why GW really needs to revise their numbers

Once you start actually realizing the scale of the universe and the numbers GW gives for various factions, only the Orks, Tyranids, and Imperial Guard really should show up on anyone's measure of galactic military might.