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Chowderhead wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:

Tadashi wrote:The Wolves on the other hand...hmmm, what to say in their defense..

Space Vikings.

Need I say more?

I don't mind that, but their attitude needs fixing.

I'm actually quite curious about this.

What part of their attitude do you think needs fixing?

Well, they have a massive drinking problem for one...

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

Still Bland. Still boring.

Chowderhead wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:

Tadashi wrote:The Wolves on the other hand...hmmm, what to say in their defense..

Space Vikings.

Need I say more?

I don't mind that, but their attitude needs fixing.

I'm actually quite curious about this.

What part of their attitude do you think needs fixing?

The egotism and stubborn obstinacy. Basically, the Space Wolves are the raging, rebellious teenager of the Space Marines. They think they're better than everyone, and never listen to anyone's advice.

I dislike the Blood Angels. Their fluff is terrible and it always has been. I hate their current codex because everything is blood this and blood that. They're way OTT in terms of special rules and all their special characters are just annoying to play against. Did I mention the fluff?

I dislike GK. Only because all of the GK people I've played against have been jerks.

Dislike:
Grey Knights
Hate:
Ordo Hereticus
Tau
Thousand Sons

Chowderhead wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:

Tadashi wrote:The Wolves on the other hand...hmmm, what to say in their defense..

Space Vikings.

Need I say more?

I don't mind that, but their attitude needs fixing.

I'm actually quite curious about this.

What part of their attitude do you think needs fixing?

Read A Thousand Sons and you'll know. And the whole '...we're the Space Wolves and we don't listen to the Inquisition/Ecclesiachy...' crap. No other Astartes Chapter makes as big a deal about their autonomy as the Space Wolves do. The Adeptus Astartes may be the Emperor's Champions, but we are still part of the Imperium. And that means keeping things nice and cozy with the other Imperial organizations, even if the Ecclesiarchy are a bunch of doddering fools, and the Inquistion is composed of dishonorable and ignoble . Only raise gak when your autonomy is being compromised and it's not for the greater interests of the Imperium.

KplKeegan wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

Still Bland. Still boring.

Fair enough...if that's your opinion then I can respect that.

Tadashi wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

Chowderhead wrote:

Tadashi wrote:The Wolves on the other hand...hmmm, what to say in their defense..

Space Vikings.

Need I say more?

I don't mind that, but their attitude needs fixing.

I'm actually quite curious about this.

What part of their attitude do you think needs fixing?

Read A Thousand Sons and you'll know. And the whole '...we're the Space Wolves and we don't listen to the Inquisition/Ecclesiachy...' crap. No other Astartes Chapter makes as big a deal about their autonomy as the Space Wolves do. The Adeptus Astartes may be the Emperor's Champions, but we are still part of the Imperium. And that means keeping things nice and cozy with the other Imperial organizations, even if the Ecclesiarchy are a bunch of doddering fools, and the Inquistion is composed of dishonorable and ignoble . Only raise gak when your autonomy is being compromised and it's not for the greater interests of the Imperium.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KplKeegan wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

Still Bland. Still boring.

Fair enough...if that's your opinion then I can respect that.

Yes because everyone in Armageddon needed to be destroyed after the first war of Armageddon, men, women and children. Guilty or not. The Space Wolves do what they feel is right. The Inquisiton and the Ecclesiachy have done worse things than the Destruction of Prospero. Loyalty is to be commended, Leman had no reason not to trust Horrus. Orders can be changed at any time.

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

The problem is that, they succeed in this primarily through plot armor. Given the relative stated numbers of the Imperial Guard against the Space Marines and the scale of a galaxy, the entire military value of the Space Marines would be equal to a mere few hours of the Imperial Guard's daily recruitment intake. There are billions of IG regiments, translating to trillions if not tens of trillions of guardsmen, meaning tens of millions of guardsmen per Space Marine. They say a Space Marine is worth 10-12 guardsmen, even grossly inflating that by a thousand times, the entire military value of the astartes is still such an insignificant portion of the military value of the Imperial Guard that the IG's daily recruitment rate would more than make up for it.

Hence why merely a million space marines doesn't make any sense.

Vaktathi wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

The problem is that, they succeed in this primarily through plot armor. Given the relative stated numbers of the Imperial Guard against the Space Marines and the scale of a galaxy, the entire military value of the Space Marines would be equal to a mere few hours of the Imperial Guard's daily recruitment intake. There are billions of IG regiments, translating to trillions if not tens of trillions of guardsmen, meaning tens of millions of guardsmen per Space Marine. They say a Space Marine is worth 10-12 guardsmen, even grossly inflating that by a thousand times, the entire military value of the astartes is still such an insignificant portion of the military value of the Imperial Guard that the IG's daily recruitment rate would more than make up for it.

Hence why merely a million space marines doesn't make any sense.

When you think from a military standpoint, you'll realize what you said entirely misses the point.

The success of the Marines isn't in their actual combat strength, since, as you say, compared to the rest of the guard, it isn't that much. What makes the Marines so effective in what they do is the concentration of strength. Think of it this way. A squad of ten Marines has the fighting capabilities of at least a hundred guardsmen. That means that in their preferred rolls of quick strikes and raids, you can deploy a tremendous amount of fighting power while still maintaining a small, streamlined unit. It is this very strength that makes the Space Marines unparalleled at what they do. No other force in the galaxy can ever hope to achieve that kind of effectiveness in that setting.

Vaktathi wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

The problem is that, they succeed in this primarily through plot armor. Given the relative stated numbers of the Imperial Guard against the Space Marines and the scale of a galaxy, the entire military value of the Space Marines would be equal to a mere few hours of the Imperial Guard's daily recruitment intake. There are billions of IG regiments, translating to trillions if not tens of trillions of guardsmen, meaning tens of millions of guardsmen per Space Marine. They say a Space Marine is worth 10-12 guardsmen, even grossly inflating that by a thousand times, the entire military value of the astartes is still such an insignificant portion of the military value of the Imperial Guard that the IG's daily recruitment rate would more than make up for it.

Hence why merely a million space marines doesn't make any sense.

True but Guardsmen are more easily corrupted than Space Marines leading to mass insurrections and a lot of Guards going Traitor.

rockerbikie wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

The problem is that, they succeed in this primarily through plot armor. Given the relative stated numbers of the Imperial Guard against the Space Marines and the scale of a galaxy, the entire military value of the Space Marines would be equal to a mere few hours of the Imperial Guard's daily recruitment intake. There are billions of IG regiments, translating to trillions if not tens of trillions of guardsmen, meaning tens of millions of guardsmen per Space Marine. They say a Space Marine is worth 10-12 guardsmen, even grossly inflating that by a thousand times, the entire military value of the astartes is still such an insignificant portion of the military value of the Imperial Guard that the IG's daily recruitment rate would more than make up for it.

Hence why merely a million space marines doesn't make any sense.

True but Guardsmen are more easily corrupted than Space Marines leading to mass insurrections and a lot of Guards going Traitor.

Don't forget half the original Astartes went traitor, nearly 50 entire chapters have turned since then, and innumerable companies, squads, individuals. The Astartes aren't all that reliable in that regard either.

Vaktathi wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

The problem is that, they succeed in this primarily through plot armor. Given the relative stated numbers of the Imperial Guard against the Space Marines and the scale of a galaxy, the entire military value of the Space Marines would be equal to a mere few hours of the Imperial Guard's daily recruitment intake. There are billions of IG regiments, translating to trillions if not tens of trillions of guardsmen, meaning tens of millions of guardsmen per Space Marine. They say a Space Marine is worth 10-12 guardsmen, even grossly inflating that by a thousand times, the entire military value of the astartes is still such an insignificant portion of the military value of the Imperial Guard that the IG's daily recruitment rate would more than make up for it.

Hence why merely a million space marines doesn't make any sense.

True but Guardsmen are more easily corrupted than Space Marines leading to mass insurrections and a lot of Guards going Traitor.

Don't forget half the original Astartes went traitor, nearly 50 entire chapters have turned since then, and innumerable companies, squads, individuals. The Astartes aren't all that reliable in that regard either.

They were uninformed that Chaos even existed back then. Guardmen know what Chaos is.

Vaktathi wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

The problem is that, they succeed in this primarily through plot armor. Given the relative stated numbers of the Imperial Guard against the Space Marines and the scale of a galaxy, the entire military value of the Space Marines would be equal to a mere few hours of the Imperial Guard's daily recruitment intake. There are billions of IG regiments, translating to trillions if not tens of trillions of guardsmen, meaning tens of millions of guardsmen per Space Marine. They say a Space Marine is worth 10-12 guardsmen, even grossly inflating that by a thousand times, the entire military value of the astartes is still such an insignificant portion of the military value of the Imperial Guard that the IG's daily recruitment rate would more than make up for it.

Hence why merely a million space marines doesn't make any sense.

True but Guardsmen are more easily corrupted than Space Marines leading to mass insurrections and a lot of Guards going Traitor.

Don't forget half the original Astartes went traitor, nearly 50 entire chapters have turned since then, and innumerable companies, squads, individuals. The Astartes aren't all that reliable in that regard either.

Still far more reliable than the average Guardsman. If you had read the Iron Warriors Rubicon, you'd know that the Iron Warriors have enough trator guardsman and cultists to litterally build their way up a wall with a ramp of bodies. And you're still not addressing the apples-oranges issue. The Guard is a standing army. The Space Marines are, first and foremost, objectively based assets, organized, trained, equipped, and designed to be deployed in a strategic manner to specific objectives. As a Special Operations Capable force, they are absolutely peerless. If you are trying to hold the entire Imperium with them alone, you're right, it wouldn't work. But they are still entirely invaluable to the Imperium for their skills. The guard would find fighting on without them a monumental task, if not completely impossible.

You have also not taken into account unit capabilities against individual capabilities. The capabilities of a squad of ten soldiers does not equal the capabilities of one soldier multiplied by ten, because having more bodies on the field gives access to tactics, strategies, and equipment that one soldier could never field on his own. By that logic, while one Marine may equal 10-12 guardsmen, a squad of ten has a fighting capability far greater than the 1:10 ratio suggests.

Really, the only thing I HATE is the "Ultrasmurfs" hate. I just can't understand why everyone hates the Ultras so much...Honestly, it's the only thing in 40k that makes me nerd-rage.

mega_bassist wrote:Really, the only thing I HATE is the "Ultrasmurfs" hate. I just can't understand why everyone hates the Ultras so much...Honestly, it's the only thing in 40k that makes me nerd-rage.

Agreed. There is nothing wrong with the Ultramarines. They make great helpers to the Black Templars.

rockerbikie wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

The problem is that, they succeed in this primarily through plot armor. Given the relative stated numbers of the Imperial Guard against the Space Marines and the scale of a galaxy, the entire military value of the Space Marines would be equal to a mere few hours of the Imperial Guard's daily recruitment intake. There are billions of IG regiments, translating to trillions if not tens of trillions of guardsmen, meaning tens of millions of guardsmen per Space Marine. They say a Space Marine is worth 10-12 guardsmen, even grossly inflating that by a thousand times, the entire military value of the astartes is still such an insignificant portion of the military value of the Imperial Guard that the IG's daily recruitment rate would more than make up for it.

Hence why merely a million space marines doesn't make any sense.

True but Guardsmen are more easily corrupted than Space Marines leading to mass insurrections and a lot of Guards going Traitor.

Don't forget half the original Astartes went traitor, nearly 50 entire chapters have turned since then, and innumerable companies, squads, individuals. The Astartes aren't all that reliable in that regard either.

They were uninformed that Chaos even existed back then. Guardmen know what Chaos is.

Actually, they generally don't, and are often destroyed by the Inquisition after conflicts with Chaos forces to ensure knowledge of Chaos does not spread. The Tactica Imperialis book tells the story of an IG regiment that defeats the black crusade of Jihar the Lacerator, and Emperor's Children commander and his warband. Once they defeat him, the IG regiment is destroyed from orbit to prevent the victorious IG units from returning and spreading any knowledge or taint they may have picked up.

TermiesInARaider wrote:

Still far more reliable than the average Guardsman. If you had read the Iron Warriors Rubicon, you'd know that the Iron Warriors have enough trator guardsman and cultists to litterally build their way up a wall with a ramp of bodies. And you're still not addressing the apples-oranges issue. The Guard is a standing army. The Space Marines are, first and foremost, objectively based assets, organized, trained, equipped, and designed to be deployed in a strategic manner to specific objectives. As a Special Operations Capable force, they are absolutely peerless. If you are trying to hold the entire Imperium with them alone, you're right, it wouldn't work. But they are still entirely invaluable to the Imperium for their skills. The guard would find fighting on without them a monumental task, if not completely impossible

The human troops of the Iron Warriors as described in Storm of Iron and Dead Sky Black Sun, etc. are not typically actually traitor Imperial Guardsmen, but rather human troops raised from other sources. Remember that billions of troops, retainers, families, etc followed the Legions into the Eye of Terror and large numbers of other human renegades dwell there as well.

And yes, while Space Marines are peerless as a special operations force, more often than not they are portrayed basically as heavy infantry fighting in front lines, storming hive cities, fighting wars of attrition, etc in ways that are stupid and would see the entirety of the Astartes dead in a month, but they succeed basically because the authors say they do.

However, even as a peerless special operations force, they are replaceable. Even if we exaggerate it and assume it took a thousand times as many "normal" human special operations troops (e.g. Stormtroopers, Inquisitorial agents, etc) to achieve the same objectives, those numbers are far more than available and still represent only a small fraction of the Imperium's non-astartes military might.

You have also not taken into account unit capabilities against individual capabilities. The capabilities of a squad of ten soldiers does not equal the capabilities of one soldier multiplied by ten, because having more bodies on the field gives access to tactics, strategies, and equipment that one soldier could never field on his own. By that logic, while one Marine may equal 10-12 guardsmen, a squad of ten has a fighting capability far greater than the 1:10 ratio suggests.

And by this same token it's not taking into account necessarily the same thing of the Guardsmen (numbers are much more readily available there), or the capabilities of the IG that the SM's lack like large amounts of heavy armor, readily and widely available indirect fire weapons and artillery (historically the biggest killer of soldiers on modern battlefields), etc that the SM's typically lack, not to mention simply the ability to present a presence in a larger number of areas than the Astartes, a Guard regiment can hold a line several miles wide without gaps, an Astartes company cannot. A guard regiment can hold an escape route to prevent encirclement where an Astartes regiment simply couldn't be in enough places at once to do so.

TermiesInARaider wrote:The Guard is a standing army. The Space Marines are, first and foremost, objectively based assets, organized, trained, equipped, and designed to be deployed in a strategic manner to specific objectives. As a Special Operations Capable force, they are absolutely peerless. If you are trying to hold the entire Imperium with them alone, you're right, it wouldn't work. But they are still entirely invaluable to the Imperium for their skills. The guard would find fighting on without them a monumental task, if not completely impossible.

You have also not taken into account unit capabilities against individual capabilities. The capabilities of a squad of ten soldiers does not equal the capabilities of one soldier multiplied by ten, because having more bodies on the field gives access to tactics, strategies, and equipment that one soldier could never field on his own. By that logic, while one Marine may equal 10-12 guardsmen, a squad of ten has a fighting capability far greater than the 1:10 ratio suggests.

The Guard is the standing army.

But there's nothing too exciting about Space Marines. There's no political turmoil, no real strife between chapters (sans the Lion and the Wuff), just Chivalrous Super Humans...

While in the Guard, such things are common place and gives each Regiment more character; like the Salvar Chemdogs, the Phantine Corps, Tanith, Terrax, Valhallan... The list goes on...

KplKeegan wrote:

TermiesInARaider wrote:The Guard is a standing army. The Space Marines are, first and foremost, objectively based assets, organized, trained, equipped, and designed to be deployed in a strategic manner to specific objectives. As a Special Operations Capable force, they are absolutely peerless. If you are trying to hold the entire Imperium with them alone, you're right, it wouldn't work. But they are still entirely invaluable to the Imperium for their skills. The guard would find fighting on without them a monumental task, if not completely impossible.

You have also not taken into account unit capabilities against individual capabilities. The capabilities of a squad of ten soldiers does not equal the capabilities of one soldier multiplied by ten, because having more bodies on the field gives access to tactics, strategies, and equipment that one soldier could never field on his own. By that logic, while one Marine may equal 10-12 guardsmen, a squad of ten has a fighting capability far greater than the 1:10 ratio suggests.

The Guard is the standing army.

But there's nothing too exciting about Space Marines. There's no political turmoil, no real strife between chapters (sans the Lion and the Wuff), just Chivalrous Super Humans...

While in the Guard, such things are common place and gives each Regiment more character; like the Salvar Chemdogs, the Phantine Corps, Tanith, Terrax, Valhallan... The list goes on...

The post was not ordered to whether the Space Marines were exciting. It was ordered to weather the fluff on their military capabilities is consistent. It proves that the 1:10 ratio does, in fact, fit their description. This is not a street-fight, this is organized war. When one Adeptus Astartes has the same threat profile as a squad-sized unit of baseline humans, one Marine taking out a tank is not as far fetched, is it?

KplKeegan wrote:

TermiesInARaider wrote:The Guard is a standing army. The Space Marines are, first and foremost, objectively based assets, organized, trained, equipped, and designed to be deployed in a strategic manner to specific objectives. As a Special Operations Capable force, they are absolutely peerless. If you are trying to hold the entire Imperium with them alone, you're right, it wouldn't work. But they are still entirely invaluable to the Imperium for their skills. The guard would find fighting on without them a monumental task, if not completely impossible.

You have also not taken into account unit capabilities against individual capabilities. The capabilities of a squad of ten soldiers does not equal the capabilities of one soldier multiplied by ten, because having more bodies on the field gives access to tactics, strategies, and equipment that one soldier could never field on his own. By that logic, while one Marine may equal 10-12 guardsmen, a squad of ten has a fighting capability far greater than the 1:10 ratio suggests.

The Guard is the standing army.

But there's nothing too exciting about Space Marines. There's no political turmoil, no real strife between chapters (sans the Lion and the Wuff), just Chivalrous Super Humans...

While in the Guard, such things are common place and gives each Regiment more character; like the Salvar Chemdogs, the Phantine Corps, Tanith, Terrax, Valhallan... The list goes on...

Marines Malevolent and Salamanders. The Badab War. The Soul Drinker CHAPTER WAR. There are Chapter wars are power struggles.

Vaktathi wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Tadashi wrote:

KplKeegan wrote:I hate Speehss Mahreens completely. They're just so... Bland. Nuetered Super Human Soldiers that aren't considered Human anymore? Each of them Supermen? Even the dysfunctional sort (Blood Angles, Space Wolves) are still 'loyal, unwavering' halfwits. Bleh.

What I dislike? Chapter of the Month Space Marine Players...

Without Space Marines, the Imperium would have fallen long ago, or better yet, never would have existed. The Astartes are just as important as the Guard and the Navy and everyone else is.

The problem is that, they succeed in this primarily through plot armor. Given the relative stated numbers of the Imperial Guard against the Space Marines and the scale of a galaxy, the entire military value of the Space Marines would be equal to a mere few hours of the Imperial Guard's daily recruitment intake. There are billions of IG regiments, translating to trillions if not tens of trillions of guardsmen, meaning tens of millions of guardsmen per Space Marine. They say a Space Marine is worth 10-12 guardsmen, even grossly inflating that by a thousand times, the entire military value of the astartes is still such an insignificant portion of the military value of the Imperial Guard that the IG's daily recruitment rate would more than make up for it.

Hence why merely a million space marines doesn't make any sense.

True but Guardsmen are more easily corrupted than Space Marines leading to mass insurrections and a lot of Guards going Traitor.

Don't forget half the original Astartes went traitor, nearly 50 entire chapters have turned since then, and innumerable companies, squads, individuals. The Astartes aren't all that reliable in that regard either.

They were uninformed that Chaos even existed back then. Guardmen know what Chaos is.

Actually, they generally don't, and are often destroyed by the Inquisition after conflicts with Chaos forces to ensure knowledge of Chaos does not spread. The Tactica Imperialis book tells the story of an IG regiment that defeats the black crusade of Jihar the Lacerator, and Emperor's Children commander and his warband. Once they defeat him, the IG regiment is destroyed from orbit to prevent the victorious IG units from returning and spreading any knowledge or taint they may have picked up.

TermiesInARaider wrote:

Still far more reliable than the average Guardsman. If you had read the Iron Warriors Rubicon, you'd know that the Iron Warriors have enough trator guardsman and cultists to litterally build their way up a wall with a ramp of bodies. And you're still not addressing the apples-oranges issue. The Guard is a standing army. The Space Marines are, first and foremost, objectively based assets, organized, trained, equipped, and designed to be deployed in a strategic manner to specific objectives. As a Special Operations Capable force, they are absolutely peerless. If you are trying to hold the entire Imperium with them alone, you're right, it wouldn't work. But they are still entirely invaluable to the Imperium for their skills. The guard would find fighting on without them a monumental task, if not completely impossible

The human troops of the Iron Warriors as described in Storm of Iron and Dead Sky Black Sun, etc. are not typically actually traitor Imperial Guardsmen, but rather human troops raised from other sources. Remember that billions of troops, retainers, families, etc followed the Legions into the Eye of Terror and large numbers of other human renegades dwell there as well.

And yes, while Space Marines are peerless as a special operations force, more often than not they are portrayed basically as heavy infantry fighting in front lines, storming hive cities, fighting wars of attrition, etc in ways that are stupid and would see the entirety of the Astartes dead in a month, but they succeed basically because the authors say they do.

However, even as a peerless special operations force, they are replaceable. Even if we exaggerate it and assume it took a thousand times as many "normal" human special operations troops (e.g. Stormtroopers, Inquisitorial agents, etc) to achieve the same objectives, those numbers are far more than available and still represent only a small fraction of the Imperium's non-astartes military might.

You have also not taken into account unit capabilities against individual capabilities. The capabilities of a squad of ten soldiers does not equal the capabilities of one soldier multiplied by ten, because having more bodies on the field gives access to tactics, strategies, and equipment that one soldier could never field on his own. By that logic, while one Marine may equal 10-12 guardsmen, a squad of ten has a fighting capability far greater than the 1:10 ratio suggests.

And by this same token it's not taking into account necessarily the same thing of the Guardsmen (numbers are much more readily available there), or the capabilities of the IG that the SM's lack like large amounts of heavy armor, readily and widely available indirect fire weapons and artillery (historically the biggest killer of soldiers on modern battlefields), etc that the SM's typically lack, not to mention simply the ability to present a presence in a larger number of areas than the Astartes, a Guard regiment can hold a line several miles wide without gaps, an Astartes company cannot. A guard regiment can hold an escape route to prevent encirclement where an Astartes regiment simply couldn't be in enough places at once to do so.

You're again, disregarding the concentration of force. What ten Marines can accomplish in, say, a fast raid behind enemy lines, the equivalent amount of Kasrkin, or Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, would never be able to accomplish, because the amount of forces they would have to bring to bear would make the fast movement and stealth required in such a mission impossible. That is why the Space Marines are referred to as the Scalpel of the Emperor. They bring tremendous fighting power to bear, in settings that could never be accessed by larger forces. 50 Kasrkin cannot handle the missions that 5 Space Marines can handle, because 50 Kasrkin would be detected by the enemy, surrounded, and slaughtered long before they ever reached the objective.

As for the Authors... Well, that's the plot-armor phenomena. I'm just saying that the 1:10 ratio is very misunderstood, and that particular bit of fluff does fit much of what they're described as capable of.

All the ultramarine hatred is what I hate the most.
Also, the lack of material for the SOB would be intresting if they had a book about some of the non combant ordos.

TermiesInARaider wrote:
You're again, disregarding the concentration of force. What ten Marines can accomplish in, say, a fast raid behind enemy lines, the equivalent amount of Kasrkin, or Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, would never be able to accomplish, because the amount of forces they would have to bring to bear would make the fast movement and stealth required in such a mission impossible.

Maybe, maybe not, that would be highly dependent on the situation. If they couldn't though, the Imperium could likely manage it through force of arms. Even if they have to lose a million men, that's something they can sustain. When you have tens of millions of guardsmen for *each* space marine, not to mention special forces like Stormtroopers and the like, that gives a lot more options. Sure more people die. But the Imperium cares not.

50 Kasrkin cannot handle the missions that 5 Space Marines can handle, because 50 Kasrkin would be detected by the enemy, surrounded, and slaughtered long before they ever reached the objective.

And you base this on...? How are they significantly more detectable than 9ft tall power armored super soldiers in bright colors? Space Marines aren't exactly known for subtlety. If it's not coming down to hand to hand combat, the Kasrkin likely, if anything, have an advantage, as they sport significantly more firepower. In terms of deployment ability, the SM's may have the advantage in terms of being able to deploy by drop pod and bypass defenses, but if they have to go through any sort of defensive systems, it's difficult to see where 50 kasrkin would have a harder time than 5 Space Marines given the greater advantage in firepower, ability to sustain losses, etc.

If the Kasrkin lose 20 dudes, there's still 30 left to take on a lot of duties and cover ground. If the SM's lose 2 dudes, they've got 3 dudes left, 3 dudes are going to have trouble accomplishing a lot of objectives no matter how scary they are, because they simply can't be in enough places at once and cover enough avenues of attack.

As for the Authors... Well, that's the plot-armor phenomena. I'm just saying that the 1:10 ratio is very misunderstood, and that particular bit of fluff does fit much of what they're described as capable of.

It's coming straight from Rogal Dorn. "Give me 100 Space Marines, or failing that, 1000 other men". He's saying what it would take 100 marines to accomplish, it would take 1000 other troops. That sounds like its already taking into account force multipliers since he's stating it from an objective oriented viewpoint rather than a 1:1 comparison of a Space Marine to a Guardsman.

Samus_aran115 wrote:The black Templars, because they're just like the glorious Word Bearers, but they get away with their overzealous ways because the emperor died

...I never thought of that before... what a reallly great point. Seriously. I never thought of that before. We need a show down between the two in a BL book.

mega_bassist wrote:Really, the only thing I HATE is the "Ultrasmurfs" hate. I just can't understand why everyone hates the Ultras so much...Honestly, it's the only thing in 40k that makes me nerd-rage.

+1 This

Dislike: Tau. The space commie thing gets old and the anime style bugs me.

Hate: Dark Angels. Anyone who can get away with attacking another chapter and get away with it...Ie Ophidium Gulf Crusade, gets a special spot.
The biggest hate those is ultras. I don't want to get into a 10 page discussion over the codex and guilliman, but that is where it starts then the attitude of we are the best (I know it comes from Ward) really gets under my skin as I cannot stand arrogance. The fact that they defy their system by controlling a sector when no one is supposed to....man I could write 10 pages on it alone...where's that thread on the "ultramarines were convienently located on the other side of the galaxy."

Other dislikes involve the failcast sayings. I haven't had a problem so don't tell me its bad. That and the ward hate. Yeah his codexes are annoying but if you step back most 5th ed codexes are balanced to each other.

Fralethepalewhale wrote:Draigo.

+1 to that
and also all his grey brothers.

double to the power gamers who leave them unprimed and as, "grey plastic knights"

As a daemon player that would be Grey Knights.

No other Astartes Chapter makes as big a deal about their autonomy as the Space Wolves do.

Dark Angels, but they do it in a far more secretive manner than the brutish Space Wolves.


Anyways

Dislike: Space wolves fluff
Hate: Eldar holofields.

Necrons

Hate.

Draigo.

The idea is good, but the way it's written makes it like Twilight.

I don't go around "DEM NIGHTZ IS OVERPOWEREDS BURNS IT!" And I play Daemons! I just think Ward's incompetence turns good ideas into pure gak.

Dislike Knights.

Not the game play, the fluff.

Again, Wards incompetence is beyond mortal comprehension.

Black Legion and Abbadabbadon. I find the fact that he continues to have any followers beyond my capacity to suspend my disbelief. The Black Legion is everything about Chaos that is random and nonsensical (from a story perspective).