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Ssgt Carl wrote:Actually, imo, what’s in the rules should be considered just as much as ‘official fluff’.

No, because rules are invented so that faction may be balanced.
By rules, 1 marine is worth only 3 Guardsman. In fluff 1 marine can kill thousands of Orks with ease...

Which would indicate that the fluff is the BS propaganda, not the rules

Ascalam wrote:Which would indicate that the fluff is the BS propaganda, not the rules

Yeah, imagine "Gaunt's Ghost" with word dice, miss, FLFSLF all over the book. It kills the mood doesn't it
Rules are for everyone to be balanced ( because fluffwise Space Marine are toughest and others wouldn't have much of a chance then ).

It does, a touch

Even you have to admit that the SM fluff is a bit OTT though. One marine holding off a Waaagh, for example. Did they leave all their ammo, artillery, tanks and hand weapons at home?

Butchering your way through thousands of orks is unlikely too... After a while you will run out of ammo, and it's hard to reload and melee at the same time. Your weapon will overheat eventually (i remember the old termie assault cannons doing this a lot good times ) and you will simply get pulled down by the mass of people around you as you climb a shifting, unstable pile of corpses that makes lousy footing for a fight. Eventually you will be tripped or pulled down and then it's adios amigo..


I actually did a test with the 'hold the gate against the waaagh' scenariio, a while back.

I visualised what the rabidest fanboy would want to change, and proceeded from there.

I upped all his stats to 10
gave him the blendernaughts infinite attacks rule
2++ armour with a reroll
2+ FNP
Regeneration of all lost wounds at the start of each turn, automatically
The Ctan's ability to ignore all saves, and disallow recovery of lost wounds
2+ WBB with a reroll
And finally the ability to point at a single model per turn and remove it from the game, no saves, to reperesent his 'awesomeness' rewriting the universe.


Against this fluff-marine Ward wet dream i put just the ork models i have in my collection, with no ups or buffs, and with no extra reinforcements. My collection is miniscule compared to a proper WAAAGH.


He lasted 5 turns. That's about 10 minutes of 'real time'.

Most fluff seems to agree that space marines know no fear.
They are not brave.
Bravery is not the absence of fear, it is overcoming the fear you have.

"Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death."-Omar N. Bradley

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”- Nelson Mandela

If they feel no fear, then I guess it is not bravery, just bada**ness.

Yea I agree with the sentiment that Space Marines are not brave.

I mean the brave ones are Imperial Guardsman. Regular dudes, armed with very little standing up against the untold horrors of the universe.

Genetically and psycho engineered super humans in the most scientifically advanced protective armor available performing calculated surgical strike forces does not show any bravery at all really. Heroism maybe, badassness maybe, but certainly not "bravery"

Space Marines shouldn't even be in the same LEAGUE of bravery as an Imperial Guardsman who is standing there HOLDING the line against all odds armed only in a flack jacket and a flashlight with a bayonet stuck on the end of it.

Same with Eldar Guardians. Citizens stepping up to the occasion and going to battle to defend what they believe in will always be braver than said genetically and psycho engineered soldiers. Simply because they are not killing machines, and they DO know fear, and they are standing up to that.

No, they just run away "tactically".

"It had often been said that a Space Marine knew no fear.
Such a statement was not literally true, a Space Marine could know fear, but he had the training and discipline to deal with it and not let it affect him in battle. Captain Saul Tarvitz was no exception, he had faced storms of gunfire and monstrous aliens and even glimpsed the insane predators of the warp, but when Angron charged, he ran."

Galaxy in Flames.

In the novels every chapter feels fear

Space marines are the elite, but sure they can feel fear in some situations its just it doesn't consume them making them freeze up or run. I think they have been trained to turn fear into somthing usefull, so they can feel it though it doesn't really effect them.

Marines feel fear but fight through it. This makes them brave.

I have always viewed the whole "and they shall know no fear thing" as a sort of stylized stoicism imparted on them through both training, natural inclination, and hypnotic suggestion.

Essentially while they are rational beings with a fight or flight reflex, they have been trained/programmed to have a stronger fight reflex (or a weaker flight one)...but as any good soldier are still able to recognize when its a good time to get out of dodge.

I would argue that Space Marines are courageous...insofar that they face monstrous entities on a regular basis and rarely back down, steeling themselves for the fight so they may do their duty for the Emperor. But on that note their courage is derived from their training, indoctrination, and superior equipment. Its easy to be brave when you are certain you will win 99% of all your engagements, because you mare made of awesome.
So what I am getting at here is that Space Marines are courageous (or brave), but that any guardsman who stands up in a fight is more so.

Ascalam wrote:Which would indicate that the fluff is the BS propaganda, not the rules

Not really. The best troops in the real world can and have prevailed against better than 3 times their number of decent line grunts on numerous occaissions, so why does it seem realistic that to you that troops run through a selection and training process as or more rigorous than the SAS, plus given extensive modifications and a wholly superior scale of equipment would achieve less?


Back to topic, fear is response that can be overcome by the correct hormonal stimulation in real people, such they they sort of forget or don't bother to feel fear until after the crisis has passed, especially if the situation is confrontational. As mentioned above, their biological fight response vastly outweighs their flight response in is basic biochemical power in their body. When you start to try and break it down at that level, it is difficult to know how to actually define bravery or fear, since they are on some level just a neural response to chemical stimuli. Astartes, by nature of their selection, are recruited from people with such a predisposition, which is nurtured by their training. Is fear the hormones that induce and neural impulses that convey fear? Is bravery the hormonal response that overrides such?

The only race to not feel fear are Orks, they were created specifically not to by the Old Ones.

The Imperium has done it's best to temper Marines into not feeling fear and they pretty much have. However the Imperium is in no way as advanced as the Old Ones were and so can't completely make Marines immune from it.
Also bravery is the ability to carry on through the fear, to not let it stop you.

Alternatively, you could think of it the other way.

What is a being that feels literally no fear. In 40k terms, that's pretty much going to amount to things belonging to the Mechanicus, like cybernetica robots, or certain Skitarrii.

So, generally speaking, I think *most* space marines are brave, as in, they go on past fear ala all those quotes an earlier poster did.

However, others. Specifically, Black Templars, are just looneys. They're not fighting out of 'bravery' or the like, they've gone well past that.

If anything, the rules do somewhat support this. As in, fearless is literally fearless, 'and they shall know no fear' is just 'braver than err... fear?'

Tau players are the bravest people in the Imperium.

Sanctus Ferri wrote:

Ascalam wrote:Which would indicate that the fluff is the BS propaganda, not the rules

Not really. The best troops in the real world can and have prevailed against better than 3 times their number of decent line grunts on numerous occaissions, so why does it seem realistic that to you that troops run through a selection and training process as or more rigorous than the SAS, plus given extensive modifications and a wholly superior scale of equipment would achieve less?

I would have no issue with 3 times their number, or even 10 times their number. That's conceivable, if unlikely.


1000 + times their number with no opportunity to reload or rest, no chance to repair damaged equipment etc is a touch much Sheer luck would pull them down, even if the enemy was entirely made up of grots. As the enemy is usually non-marines that are on par with the Marines or better in soime areas, and at least decent in others it is a bit steep to have the marines mow them down with the old 'six guns are never empty for the good guys' movie trope, without breaking a sweat or their stride.


Ontopic:

If the marines can feel fear, and then supress it due to training, then they can be brave. If they are literally fearless they have no capacity for bravery.

I'm inclined toward the former.

I would have no issue with 3 times their number, or even 10 times their number. That's conceivable, if unlikely.

1000 + times their number with no opportunity to reload or rest, no chance to repair damaged equipment etc is a touch much Sheer luck would pull them down, even if the enemy was entirely made up of grots. As the enemy is usually non-marines that are on par with the Marines or better in soime areas, and at least decent in others it is a bit steep to have the marines mow them down with the old 'six guns are never empty for the good guys' movie trope, without breaking a sweat or their stride.

You know that the Germans routinely prevailed against 10 times their number and more of Russians through 1941-42, right? One battalion of Grenadiers of the Old Guard of Napoleon's Imperial Guard defeated 8 Prussian battalions at once storming Placenoit during the Waterloo battle in 1815 with bayonets only. The 89th Foot of the British army smashed 9 times it's own strength of Americans at Chrysler's Farm in 1813. And those were just ordinary humans with comparable weapons, with a disparity in training and morale. And Cortez and his 30 conquistadors who held the bridge against thousands of Aztecs? All they had was better martial training, steel armour and weapons, and a few crossbows. Astartes are not just superbly trained, better than any of the examples above, they are also possessed of strength and toughness at least comparable to the peak of human potential. (ie, gold metal Olympic athlete). And then they've got power armour. So they run out of ammo. They've got monofilament knives, not to mention their bodies themselves. Just slamming into a group of ordinary soldiers could cause death and incapacitation. It's not too hard to snap a neck with ordinary strength, but for them, augmented twice over? What could grots do in any number, aside from get mashed to paste? How to you propose they would actually hurt the Astartes?

Since we are speaking of courage, remember that battles are more psychological than physical. Fearless Orks and Necrons aside, how long do you think soldiers would stay in the fight after seeing what the Astartes squad opposed had just done to the leading platoon? As it is, in war as we know it, the majority of soldiers take only a passive role in the fight, firing unaimed and keeping under cover. You're asking an awful lot of ordinary people to face such a thing at any odds. Most people, even with decent training, are pretty poor warriors.

To the topic: There isn't really any need to make them actually fearless to generate effectively fearless behaviour. There is a certain point where knowledge of one's superiority, esprit d'corps and honour make backing down more difficult than risking certain death. Plenty of real people have chosen death rather than risk dishonour. For example, the behaviour of the real Knights Templar, who once charged into 20 times their number of Saracens, and death, just because the Grand Master didn't want it thought he feared to die. Would reckless pride be bravery though? In a way, their fear of failure (which someone mentioned above) was greater than their fear of death, so they were in some sense succumbing to the greater fear and overcoming the lesser one. Is that bravery? Space Marines are a prime candidate for such feelings.

Yes.

No one else run down Khornates on Thunderwolves.

Sanctus Ferri wrote:

I would have no issue with 3 times their number, or even 10 times their number. That's conceivable, if unlikely.

1000 + times their number with no opportunity to reload or rest, no chance to repair damaged equipment etc is a touch much Sheer luck would pull them down, even if the enemy was entirely made up of grots. As the enemy is usually non-marines that are on par with the Marines or better in soime areas, and at least decent in others it is a bit steep to have the marines mow them down with the old 'six guns are never empty for the good guys' movie trope, without breaking a sweat or their stride.

You know that the Germans routinely prevailed against 10 times their number and more of Russians through 1941-42, right? One battalion of Grenadiers of the Old Guard of Napoleon's Imperial Guard defeated 8 Prussian battalions at once storming Placenoit during the Waterloo battle in 1815 with bayonets only. The 89th Foot of the British army smashed 9 times it's own strength of Americans at Chrysler's Farm in 1813. And those were just ordinary humans with comparable weapons, with a disparity in training and morale. And Cortez and his 30 conquistadors who held the bridge against thousands of Aztecs? All they had was better martial training, steel armour and weapons, and a few crossbows. Astartes are not just superbly trained, better than any of the examples above, they are also possessed of strength and toughness at least comparable to the peak of human potential. (ie, gold metal Olympic athlete). And then they've got power armour. So they run out of ammo. They've got monofilament knives, not to mention their bodies themselves. Just slamming into a group of ordinary soldiers could cause death and incapacitation. It's not too hard to snap a neck with ordinary strength, but for them, augmented twice over? What could grots do in any number, aside from get mashed to paste? How to you propose they would actually hurt the Astartes?

Since we are speaking of courage, remember that battles are more psychological than physical. Fearless Orks and Necrons aside, how long do you think soldiers would stay in the fight after seeing what the Astartes squad opposed had just done to the leading platoon? As it is, in war as we know it, the majority of soldiers take only a passive role in the fight, firing unaimed and keeping under cover. You're asking an awful lot of ordinary people to face such a thing at any odds. Most people, even with decent training, are pretty poor warriors.

To the topic: There isn't really any need to make them actually fearless to generate effectively fearless behaviour. There is a certain point where knowledge of one's superiority, esprit d'corps and honour make backing down more difficult than risking certain death. Plenty of real people have chosen death rather than risk dishonour. For example, the behaviour of the real Knights Templar, who once charged into 20 times their number of Saracens, and death, just because the Grand Master didn't want it thought he feared to die. Would reckless pride be bravery though? In a way, their fear of failure (which someone mentioned above) was greater than their fear of death, so they were in some sense succumbing to the greater fear and overcoming the lesser one. Is that bravery? Space Marines are a prime candidate for such feelings.

Somebody didn't bother to read my post, did they

I said i had no problem with 10 times their number. It has happened before, it's conceivable, i'm kosher with it...

1000+ times their number is still BS, and it is generally the orks and the necrons that are getting mowed like chaff, despite the fact that they are both just as tough as Astartes, and fearless. There should be approximately equal casualties agaisnt these foes, as their are both statistically similar and fluffwise pretty decent in a fight.

The original post on fluff being BS was built on one marine (albiet an uber one) holding off a whole waaagh for 3 days in an open gate. that's odds of 1 vs millions. Find me an occasion where one soldier IRL held off millions, or even thousands, and you'll have a point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Re- Grots:

No matter how strong you might be, of you have no leverage you're stuffed. The grots will eventually pull you down.

The same thing has happened with swarms of rats vs big strong men. The rats weigh perhaps a pound apiece, but they will eventually trip you (because you are stepping on them and can't see because one is on your face..). Once you're down you're history.

Marines are good. They aren't THAT good

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:If you look at Space Marines through a hard-sci-fi lens, they're really emotionally stunted, brainwashed, drug-addled psycopaths with very poor social skills and a serious death wish. Anything that scares or unnerves a marine has to be pretty damn scary, and I doubt it really takes much in the way of bravery on their part to overcome that.

This.

Which is a big reason I'm not a fan of BL agit-prop claiming them to be golden boys, particularly as most 'non-fiction' fluff in WD, Codex etc. points elsewhere. I have no doubt they have individual personalities to an extent and chapter ideology can differ massively ('Serve the Imperium' is quite a broad remit) one need only compare Ultramar to the Marines Malevolents' various incidents to see this.

Somebody didn't bother to read my post, did they

I said i had no problem with 10 times their number. It has happened before, it's conceivable, i'm kosher with it...

Actually, I did. You wrote:

I would have no issue with 3 times their number, or even 10 times their number. That's conceivable, if unlikely.

The end part, where 10 to one is 'unlikely.' That is the part I was taking issue with. 'Ordinary' humans have done it many times. And better. Operation Gothic Serpent, Mogadishu, 1993 involved US troops holding out against 25 to one odds. There are fairly numerous cases from the Ukraine in 1941 where the Germans were trouncing 20-40 times their number. Given Astartes augmentation, training and equipment, I think that they ought to routinely do better than that. I think that defeating 50 or 100 times their number of ordinary humans ought to just another day at the office. So, I think that when luck is running their way, when they are having a great day or their foe is having a terrible one, 1000 to one is possible. Conceivable, but unlikely, as you said.

1000+ times their number is still BS, and it is generally the orks and the necrons that are getting mowed like chaff, despite the fact that they are both just as tough as Astartes, and fearless. There should be approximately equal casualties agaisnt these foes, as their are both statistically similar and fluffwise pretty decent in a fight.

Well, two problems. First, Toughness isn't their only stat, so how does that make them equal? Astartes have better Initiative than both, and better BS than the Orks. Plus, Orks don't really do tactics. And, extrapolating what their Initiative of 2 represents, Necrons fight like Russians, in a rigid, unimaginative fashion, which comes pretty close to not having tactics. That, after all, is how the Germans kept slaughtering the Russians. There is no evidence to support the idea that Germans were more physically resistant to pain and injury than the Russians. Indeed, reading German accounts, one gets the opposite impression.

The second problem is that stats themselves. Games Workshop has attempted to condense the difference between ordinary human and Astartes to 1 point in most cases. Which is ridiculous. If you tried to play out any real history with the rules, you'd get totally unrealistic results, because the Napoleon's Old Guard would, based on that scale, be lucky to get a single point of advantage in WS and Leadership. The difference between one 4 and another could be quite large, in *ahem* 'reality.'

As to fearlessness: fear exists for a reason. Lacking fear is great if you are a master tactician. If, however, your tactics suck, fearlessness is really more to your enemies' advantage than your own. I refer you to the numerous uses of Russian penal troops who, by virtue of having NKVD machinegunners behind them, were effectively fearless, 1941-45 or Somali militia high on khat and filled with religious fervour in 1993. Or the battle of New Orleans in 1815. Not pretty.

The original post on fluff being BS was built on one marine (albiet an uber one) holding off a whole waaagh for 3 days in an open gate. that's odds of 1 vs millions. Find me an occasion where one soldier IRL held off millions, or even thousands, and you'll have a point.

That really depends on the tactical situation. I am unaware of the fluff in question. Given the right set up, it's possible. There are actually several accounts from 1942 and 1943 where between 1 and 3 German machine gunners (they were severely understrength, so 1 man MG teams) defeated whole Russian regiments 2-3000 strong. So, there is 1000 to one. They were MG.34/42s, I imagine they were set up in tripod mode, as they were bringing the Russians under effective fire at 2000m. They were all situations were the Germans had time to choose and set up positions which gave them excellent fields of fire as well. Obviously, they were also well supplied with ammo, spare barrels, etc. Now, in the situation you mention, it sounds more like melee combat. If the Marine couldn't cover his flanks, and had to fight masses of attackers from all sides, then I would agree with your scepticism. If he could fight his enemies one or two at a time, then the only limiting factor is fatigue. As long as his muscle endurance held out, killing one outclassed opponent after another to infinity isn't a big deal. But again, I don't know the fluff instance to which you refer, so I cam't comment on the actual tactical set up. As far as endurance goes, there have been ordinary humans who could, for example, continuously draw and shoot a fairly powerful bow for IIRC 72 hours in competitions in Tokugawa Japan, so I am thinking the Astartes can hack people down for quite awhile.

Now, a million may be pushing it, and for more reasons than one. I am thinking that it would take months of continuous combat for one person to kill a million. If the Marine killed one a second (an excellent rate!), you have something like 116 days of straight killing. If that is in fact the scenario we are contemplating, then I think you would be quite right to regard it as implausible.

No matter how strong you might be, of you have no leverage you're stuffed. The grots will eventually pull you down.

The same thing has happened with swarms of rats vs big strong men. The rats weigh perhaps a pound apiece, but they will eventually trip you (because you are stepping on them and can't see because one is on your face..). Once you're down you're history.

As far as grots, however, I again think they are dead, period. I have heard of rats killing wounded men in the trenches. I have even heard of them killing severely fatigued men, large dogs, etc. But I have never heard of them killing a soldier who was not on the point of collapse. If you are aware of some example to the contrary, I would be (genuinely, no sarcasm implied) fascinated to hear of it.

Marines are good. They aren't THAT good

It's just a question of how good 'good' an 'THAT good' are. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fanatic exponent of Astartes invincibility. (They aren't even my army of choice.) I think there is exaggeration in the fluff, and in the rules. I am for example appalled at the way GW have whittled away the Sororitas' stats beginning with 3rd Ed to make the Marines seem Uber, even though none of the Astartes modifications address reaction time, and hence Initiative. (Sisters had 4 in 2nd Ed) And the story in Tactica Imperialis where the 40 some Marines kill 600+ Dark Eldar seemed laughable. On real battlefields, though not so much GW Tabletops, speed and initiative are paramount, and thus the Eldar of both kinds ought to be at least on even odds with Astartes. But then, Eldar are smarter than humans, and can be expected to have equal or better tactics too. Orks and Necrons are Russians, however. So, I am much more open to fluff where Marines slaughter hordes of them because there is historical evidence to support it. The stats that dominate the 40k tabletop battlefield do not dominate real battlefields, because when we take control of an army, we are not elevated or denigrated to the level of tactical imagination and doctrinal limitations the force's real commander would have, nor do the rules reflect Boyd loops realistically.

So yes, I accept your point. I have just been taking issue with where you put that point on the continuum, as it were.

Im going to quote George RR Martin, passage taken from A Game of Thrones, most people will most likely be familiar with it and I think it fits quite well into this discussion.

“Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"
"That is the only time a man can be brave.”

I think Eddard hit the nail on the head. To be brave you have to be afraid, seeing as space marines cannot feel fear I wouldnt call them brave.

Thatguy91 wrote:Im going to quote George RR Martin, passage taken from A Game of Thrones, most people will most likely be familiar with it and I think it fits quite well into this discussion.

“Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"
"That is the only time a man can be brave.”

I think Eddard hit the nail on the head. To be brave you have to be afraid, seeing as space marines cannot feel fear I wouldnt call them brave.

They can feel fear...
There are plenty of things saying they can.
They fear different things than regular people.

How I imagine Space Marines handle fear:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

After a while of being exposed to war I do not think you are capable of feeling fear in the same way. War must be a constant sh*t storm where your sanity cant remain if you are commpareble with fear. Combined with the constant brainwashing of the marines, theire fear of death would be almost compleatly removed. I would say that most marines are not much more then brainwashed psycos

Jape wrote:

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:If you look at Space Marines through a hard-sci-fi lens, they're really emotionally stunted, brainwashed, drug-addled psycopaths with very poor social skills and a serious death wish. Anything that scares or unnerves a marine has to be pretty damn scary, and I doubt it really takes much in the way of bravery on their part to overcome that.

This.

Which is a big reason I'm not a fan of BL agit-prop claiming them to be golden boys, particularly as most 'non-fiction' fluff in WD, Codex etc. points elsewhere. I have no doubt they have individual personalities to an extent and chapter ideology can differ massively ('Serve the Imperium' is quite a broad remit) one need only compare Ultramar to the Marines Malevolents' various incidents to see this.

Thank you! I totally agree. The BL novels are fun and all, but they idolize and humanize marines to a ridiculous extent. Only ADB seems to get it remotely right with his Night Lords. They verge on autistic when it comes to understanding human emotion, kill remorselessly and sometimes compulsively, and barely adhere to any sort of command structure, and only then by threat of violence. They kill each other routinely and with little provocation. They are living weapons, unshackled and without morals, direction, or purpose. I know, they're Night Lords, that's how they're supposed to act. But the Night Lords were not inherently different from other Legions in any way but their mentality. They freely used their own cruelty and sadism as a weapon. Without extremely rigid discipline and indoctrination, any other Astartes would act the same way.

Sanctus Ferri wrote:As it is, in war as we know it, the majority of soldiers take only a passive role in the fight, firing unaimed and keeping under cover. You're asking an awful lot of ordinary people to face such a thing at any odds. Most people, even with decent training, are pretty poor warriors.

This is also a very good point. A post-WWII study showed that only somewhere around 10% of American GIs actually fired their weapons at the enemy when in a firefight. The rest were either hiding or blind-firing. Of that 10%, probably an even smaller fraction behaved with suitable aggression under fire. These are the people the military relies on. I've seen papers discussing the role of sociopaths in the military - any good platoon or squad leader will know which of his men are sick in the head, and utilize them accordingly. You put the sociopath on the squad automatic weapon, or in charge of a fire team. They are force multipliers, they have little fear of death and no problem with killing others, they will fight aggressively and the rest of the unit will follow. It's not bravery, it's a mental disorder.

There seems to be a link between sociopaths and underactive amygdalas. Fearlessness in rats can be induced in the lab with lesions on the amygdala. Marines could easily be surgically altered to literally be unable to process fear.

My point is, based on fluff, most Chapters essentially select for this personality type anyway when they recruit, or could easily induce it surgically on a normal human. "Real" Space Marines are not particularly brave. They're insane. It's hard to feel much fear when your brain is unable to register it. The bigger problem when creating a marine is brainwashing him to follow orders without question instead of shooting his sergeant in the back of the head.

Even in the case that SMs do feel a certain degree of fear it still makes them less brave than Guardsmen or Eldar guardians in my book.

Hence why I think the IG and Eldar are the biggest badasses of the 40k universe. Let's not forget that Eldar experience emotions much more intensely than humans, which must also count with fear I suppose. Plus, they are much more aware of the dangers around them(being super ancient and stuff). These guys have to overcome a sh*t-load of fear before they can get ready for battle.