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Pretty sure none of space marine is canon...

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Troike wrote:

Eihnlazer wrote:
Thrown on a planet with no way to get supplies or backup, 20 marines will certainly kill 10,000 ork boys before they die

I think that's overestimating the Marines just a bit...

It depends. I could totally see 20 Marines from Space Marine do that.

And Space Marine is just as canon as anything else.

Captain Titus' player must have some seriously loaded dice.

@Ashirya

At least until you get on the business end of a Leman Russ battle tank. Who's genetically inferior now?!

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Troike wrote:

Eihnlazer wrote:
Thrown on a planet with no way to get supplies or backup, 20 marines will certainly kill 10,000 ork boys before they die

I think that's overestimating the Marines just a bit...

It depends. I could totally see 20 Marines from Space Marine do that.

And Space Marine is just as canon as anything else.

Yes, but that is due to gameplay factors rather than fluff factors. The Orks in that game are designed to be a steady stream of mooks for the player to wade through. The game also lets Marines completely heal themselves just by killing an enemy in a particularly bloody fashion.

pm713 wrote:
Pretty sure none of space marine is canon...

It's just as canon as anything else.

@Leman Russ:

Russes are bad and should feel bad.


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 Troike wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Troike wrote:

Eihnlazer wrote:
Thrown on a planet with no way to get supplies or backup, 20 marines will certainly kill 10,000 ork boys before they die

I think that's overestimating the Marines just a bit...

It depends. I could totally see 20 Marines from Space Marine do that.

And Space Marine is just as canon as anything else.

Yes, but that is due to gameplay factors rather than fluff factors. The Orks in that game are designed to be a steady stream of mooks for the player to wade through. The game also lets Marines completely heal themselves just by killing an enemy in a particularly bloody fashion.

And the same does not apply to the 40K game because?...

pm713 wrote:
Pretty sure none of space marine is canon...

40k has no canon.

Everything is what you choose to interpret of it.

 Ashiraya wrote:
And the same does not apply to the 40K game because?...

Aren't you often saying that the gameplay doesn't really reflect the fluff?

 Kain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Pretty sure none of space marine is canon...

40k has no canon.

Everything is what you choose to interpret of it.

If my interpretation is nine-foot Space Marines who laugh at LRBTs then you can do nothing but gnash your teeth and mutter about fanwank.

I love 40K.


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 Troike wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
And the same does not apply to the 40K game because?...

Aren't you often saying that the gameplay doesn't really reflect the fluff?

It doesn't. It is still just as canon- it does not trump fluff, however. That is what I protest against ('Battle Cannons are AP3- this makes the opinion that they ignore PA uncontestable!')

Pick what you like.

 Kain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Pretty sure none of space marine is canon...

40k has no canon.

Everything is what you choose to interpret of it.

Everyone is Alpharius.

Therefore, Alpharius is simultaneously both the best and worst basic infantry.

/thread.

 liquidjoshi wrote:

 Kain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Pretty sure none of space marine is canon...

40k has no canon.

Everything is what you choose to interpret of it.

Everyone is Alpharius.

Therefore, Alpharius is simultaneously both the best and worst basic infantry.

/thread.

And the Emperor is a time lord.

And everyone is Jesus in purgatory.

/WMG memes.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Eldar civilians are trained soldiers as well.

I would say a Tau Fire Warrior if we take their equipment out of the equation. They aren't strong melee fighters and have poor sight without their fancy visual systems.

The Tau actually have very good eyesight. The problem is that they take longer to focus. You know how you can switch from close range vision to long range vision in a flash just by moving your eyes? Well, for Tau it takes longer. That's why they're so focused on long range combat. It gives them time to focus, without the chaotic shifting aspect of close quarters.

Meh, I like to think that Schmuckbait the Corrupted Space Marine goes splat when a shell able to blow up tanks and dig really big holes fall on him.

Same deal for Schmuckbait the Eternally not Corrupted.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Eldar civilians are trained soldiers as well.

I would say a Tau Fire Warrior if we take their equipment out of the equation. They aren't strong melee fighters and have poor sight without their fancy visual systems.

The Tau actually have very good eyesight. The problem is that they take longer to focus. You know how you can switch from close range vision to long range vision in a flash just by moving your eyes? Well, for Tau it takes longer. That's why they're so focused on long range combat. It gives them time to focus, without the chaotic shifting aspect of close quarters.

That doesn't sound like good eyesight to me.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Meh, I like to think that Schmuckbait the Corrupted Space Marine goes splat when a shell able to blow up tanks and dig really big holes fall on him.

Same deal for Schmuckbait the Eternally not Corrupted.

Of course you do, look at your avatar.

On the front, does Godzilla beat a Space Marine? One on one with prep time.

 liquidjoshi wrote:
On the front, does Godzilla beat a Space Marine? One on one with prep time.

Godzilla's pretty much a much bigger and stompier Carnifex, so I'd say he would probably win

Considering the entire point of the Tau codex is to slap enough awesome wargear on us to make up for what are undoubtedly some of the worst stat-lines in the game, I'd have to say Tau.

The thing about Tau Fire Warriors is that they aren't the equivalent of Imperial Guardsmen. Guardsmen are selected from the best troops available. Fire Warriors are pretty much just everyone the Fire Caste has to offer. Guardsmen outclassing FW isn't surprising, even if humans are not inherently better fighters than tau.

I'd say that the worst 'basic troops' for the playable factions going by background are Chaos Cultists. The very best of them manage to be almost as good as guardsmen.

 Perfect Organism wrote:
The thing about Tau Fire Warriors is that they aren't the equivalent of Imperial Guardsmen. Guardsmen are selected from the best troops available. Fire Warriors are pretty much just everyone the Fire Caste has to offer. Guardsmen outclassing FW isn't surprising, even if humans are not inherently better fighters than tau.

It's not like the Tau just recruit randomly when they need more soldiers, the Fire Caste are born into their role and they receive lots of training - more than the average Imperial Guardsman (unless it's a world like Cadia). Imperial Guardsman may be the best, but that's the best of the worst (the PDF). Regiments from worlds like Cadia, Catachan and Krieg aren't what the average Guardsman are like.

 Perfect Organism wrote:
The thing about Tau Fire Warriors is that they aren't the equivalent of Imperial Guardsmen. Guardsmen are selected from the best troops available. Fire Warriors are pretty much just everyone the Fire Caste has to offer. Guardsmen outclassing FW isn't surprising, even if humans are not inherently better fighters than tau.

I'd say that the worst 'basic troops' for the playable factions going by background are Chaos Cultists. The very best of them manage to be almost as good as guardsmen.

How can you people discount Grotz?

Fluff wise Ork armies / warbands / waaaaghs -always- show up with more Grotz than actually boyz, they're just so terrible that no one notices. Even your run of the mill Chaos Cultist with a frying pan and a dull steak knife would be able to beat out a grot 1v1.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Perfect Organism wrote:
The thing about Tau Fire Warriors is that they aren't the equivalent of Imperial Guardsmen. Guardsmen are selected from the best troops available. Fire Warriors are pretty much just everyone the Fire Caste has to offer. Guardsmen outclassing FW isn't surprising, even if humans are not inherently better fighters than tau.

I'd say that the worst 'basic troops' for the playable factions going by background are Chaos Cultists. The very best of them manage to be almost as good as guardsmen.

How can you people discount Grotz?

Fluff wise Ork armies / warbands / waaaaghs -always- show up with more Grotz than actually boyz, they're just so terrible that no one notices. Even your run of the mill Chaos Cultist with a frying pan and a dull steak knife would be able to beat out a grot 1v1.

Except the Grots are really just along for the ride, they're there to fix stuff, shoot the enemy with any accuracy, a quick snack, or just be an annoyance.

Its the Boyz that do the actual fighting.

If Space Marine is Canon, then all of it is, including murderously accurate Tankbustas, freakin' scary stealth Bomb Squigs, Ard boy Nobz that can just shug off repeated Melta and Lascannon hits..

Are you SURE you want to do this

As to my vote, Grots. They are basic infantry, being a codex troop choice. They have worse stats than TAU, FFS. In the fluff they do a chunk of the fighting too, in swarms of stabby little gits.

We may want to clarify whether we are defining basic infantry as codex choices in the troop slot here, or fluff-wise?

I can't thing of anything generally worse that's still a troop choice, as even Nurglings and Tau-in-CC beat them out

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Perfect Organism wrote:
The thing about Tau Fire Warriors is that they aren't the equivalent of Imperial Guardsmen. Guardsmen are selected from the best troops available. Fire Warriors are pretty much just everyone the Fire Caste has to offer. Guardsmen outclassing FW isn't surprising, even if humans are not inherently better fighters than tau.

It's not like the Tau just recruit randomly when they need more soldiers, the Fire Caste are born into their role and they receive lots of training - more than the average Imperial Guardsman (unless it's a world like Cadia). Imperial Guardsman may be the best, but that's the best of the worst (the PDF). Regiments from worlds like Cadia, Catachan and Krieg aren't what the average Guardsman are like.

There is no such thing as an average guardsmen. No 2 worlds are the same. What makes the guard better than the Tau is the ability to bring out soldiers who live and know the battlefield. Planet filled with ash and lava? there will be a few million regiments of soldier who have lived and fought on planets exactly like it. Mountains of ice and snow? Millions more regiments used to exactly that. Need numbers to run against a wall? Regiments for that too?

There are not enough fire warriors and not enough experience to go around such a small army.

You say fire warriors are trained from birth? I can assure you there are millions of humans trained from birth to fight. Born into the army? Yet again, millions more regiments.

I know it sounds childish, but whatever the tau infantry have in terms of experience and training, there will also be countless humans who can too, let alone the humans that can out do the tau.

There is no way to account for the average human though, each world has its own set of skills, advantages and disadvantages. This is what makes the guard strong and is the very reason it survives. I would always trust an imperial regiment of infantry over a force of fire warriors. Even if the choice of human regiments was out of a mixed bag.

The PDF arent the worst either. As usual no 2 worlds are the same. PDF can be anything, just like the guard.

So I too, am not surprised that Guardsmen are considered better (if they are).



My vote goes towards Tau for the worst average troops. Unless things like grots etc are included.

 Metaljunx wrote:
The fluff told us how well the tau is trained in the fire caste but even normal guardsman can beat them . I think the tau embraced the greater good too much so they don't fight like humans do .

There's more to combat training than hand-to-hand combat. Discipline drills, weapons training, developing a sense of comradery between the soldiers, education, etc.

Okay, people who are saying tau have to stop their silliness.

The easiest way to see who has the weakest infantry is to simply take their statline (minus armor save), and add all the numbers together.

If you do this, then you get...

Ork Boy - 25
Guardsmen/Cultist - 24
Firewarriors - 22
Conscript - 20
Gretchin - 18


So there you have it. GEq and orks are about the same, followed by firewarriors, who are slightly worse, and then it escalates from there to conscripts and grots.

Firewarriors may have WS2, but so do conscripts and grots, and the latter are stuck with LD5, along with other sources of 2's in their statlines.

 Troike wrote:

Eihnlazer wrote:
Thrown on a planet with no way to get supplies or backup, 20 marines will certainly kill 10,000 ork boys before they die

I think that's overestimating the Marines just a bit...

not really. If one chapters company is supposed to be as strong as it says at least. depending, personally, I like the idea of 1 marine being worth more than 100 guardsmen because, it brings a little be more believability to how a company of 100 odd marines and some armor can hold out vs ork waaaghs. (and to how they are effective at all with so few numbers).

the tabletop turns a marines power down a lot, sadly. But hey, gotta sell models! haha.

1 marine could, without armor and just his boltgun, probably kill about 10 ork boyz. especially if they are sluggas.


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back on topic, tau- they aren't even really better shots than normal IG guardsmen and will get beat to a pulp in melee. OFC, fancy gear is fancy.

 raiden wrote:
not really

Yeah, still standing by that estimate being a bit ridiculous in terms of what it's saying about the power of Marines. One Space Marine isn't worth 500 Orks, that's just going into silly levels of overpowered. If that's the case, then what is the point of the other races even being in the fluff? ...Does that sound like a fun setting to be in if you're not a Marine fan?

raiden wrote:I like the idea of 1 marine being worth more than 100 guardsmen because, it brings a little be more believability to how a company of 100 odd marines and some armor can hold out vs ork waaaghs. (and to how they are effective at all with so few numbers).

But people often get this one wrong. Yes, a small contingent of marines can hold out against much larger numbers, but it's not because each marine is individually 100 supermen rolled into one. The reason space marines are gods on the battlefield isn't because they're individually practically invincible.

The reason space marines can do so well is because of an incredible logistics system, on the one hand, and their extreme tactical acumen, on the other. Space marines win wars because they show up out of nowhere with overwhelming force concentration and destroy their enemies in detail, or because they can hole up in uber defensive positions that makes their enemies' numbers worthless. Where the fact that space marines are individually a little bit better is what makes all the difference.

Space marines win because they're smart, not because an individual marine can roflstomp anything and everything with no effort required. Space marines would have a bland, awful fluff if that was true.

Thats true, marines are a multiplicative force, but more often than not in the fluff the guards flashlights do little more than leave a blackened mark on there power armor.

Not that they are invincible at all, but they are one of the damned hardest things to kill in the setting. Aside from some of the bug stuff but eh.


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 Troike wrote:

 raiden wrote:
not really

Yeah, still standing by that estimate being a bit ridiculous in terms of what it's saying about the power of Marines. One Space Marine isn't worth 500 Orks, that's just going into silly levels of overpowered. If that's the case, then what is the point of the other races even being in the fluff? ...Does that sound like a fun setting to be in if you're not a Marine fan?

thats normal ork boyz, or guardsmen. That being said, I never said 1 marine was worth 500 orks, but 10 marines are worth several thousands in almost all the novels because of how they operate. As another poster has stated.

1 marine would be able to kill about 20 orks, but he would have a rough time. 1 marine vs 500? that marine is dead, he may set off a reactor and blow himself and all the other 500 orks up, but he is dead. lol. (also, this is coming from someone who is just as avid an IG fan)

I love all races, in truth, I believe they all have their place, but I agree with both Raiden and Ailaros.

Marines are extremely few. As in, there's millions, if not billions, if not trillions, if not quadrillions (Etc) of Guardsmen whereas there is but one million Marines.

Neither the power to kill a hundred Orks nor the tactical acumen they are famed for would be enough. It is all those factors combined that make up for their low numbers and make them such a relevant force as they are.

It makes most sense that way.

Remember that Space Marines are trained in and capable at all forms of warfare. This includes fighting a far more numerous foe, or a siege.