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

Scout sergeants are veterans, not necessarily upper case V but still full-fledged Battle Brothers. The situations where a regular scout is in command of a squad is either an intentional baptism by fire, or their sergeant has been killed.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
No, Kel, the ability to convert humans into space marines post-puberty is not and has never been A Thing. Even during the Horus Heresy, the adult humans who were 'raised' were not -quite- Space Marines.

The brave heroes who 'die' and are chosen to becomes Wolves are fourteen years old at the most.

Fenris is just that vicious.

Trying to pretend otherwise is ignoring the grim darkness of the setting to make it more palatable to people who want 40k to be a standard heroic fantasy. Which it is not and has never been.

The waiting on the Black Carapace has nothing to do with training. It must be the last organ implanted for the process to work. Which means that they have to wait until they're at least sixteen before they can bond the carapace, assuming they start at the minimum age of ten. Then it has to mature, which depending on the source can be anything from six months to two years.

The idea that SM can only be recruited in puberty comes from some very old RT or 2nd edition fluff iirc, and it is incorrect because the fluff in in question was only an outline of a standard recruitment procedure.
Regardless, the fluff does very clearly mention that adults can still become Space Marines. When Primarchs such as Leman Russ or Lion El'Johnson were found, most of their loyal warriors from their homeworld were turned into full Space Marines. The only ones that are mentioned as being to old to become Space Marines were really old men like Luther or Kor Phaeron.

Most SM Chapters do recruit young boys whether the methods work on adults or not because young children can be more easily indoctrinated, so it is not a matter of "not enough grimdark", but the SW don't do things like other Chapters. Each SW recruit is already a legendary warrior and hero amongst his people, to make it any less would damage the whole einherjar theme of the Space Wolves. If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

 Orblivion wrote:
Scout sergeants are veterans, not necessarily upper case V but still full-fledged Battle Brothers. The situations where a regular scout is in command of a squad is either an intentional baptism by fire, or their sergeant has been killed.

And Wolf Scouts are all veterans, with the possibility of being lead by a Wolf Guard who is a full on big V Veteran.

Which team are you going to trust more with the sensitive mission?

Jefffar wrote:

 Orblivion wrote:
Scout sergeants are veterans, not necessarily upper case V but still full-fledged Battle Brothers. The situations where a regular scout is in command of a squad is either an intentional baptism by fire, or their sergeant has been killed.

And Wolf Scouts are all veterans, with the possibility of being lead by a Wolf Guard who is a full on big V Veteran.

Which team are you going to trust more with the sensitive mission?

Not my point. I wasn't posting as a 'codex scouts vs space wolf scouts', I was just correcting some earlier posters who implied that scouting for codex chapters was left entirely in the hands of untested newbies.

SW really are special fenrisian helfrost snowflakes and you shouldn't compare what they do to other marines.

IIRC, recruitment is something like...

Wolf priest lands during a big tribal war. Both sides stop fighting, re-arm, then start fighting again. Wolf priest chooses the ones that did well, dead, or alive (hence the name, chooser of the slain).
They take the chosen ones back to the fang, toss them all in rooms and plop the canis helix in them. A few die, a few live, they open the small rooms into a big room where some dead animals are with some big tubs of water. They let them eat and drink, then give them some basic equipment and drop them some stupid distance away from the fang. If they return, they can become a SW, and start their legit long training.

As a reminder, SW are such special snowflakes there is a restraining order on inquisition ships being near fenris, and all the SW are taught about the GK and everything they do.

So lets chalk this one up to special helfrost flake. That is the big appeal though, they are not the rank and file like the rest of the marines. They make special booze (see: gasoline), go hunting on frenris when not deployed, and do things differently.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
SW really are special fenrisian helfrost snowflakes and you shouldn't compare what they do to other marines.

IIRC, recruitment is something like...

Wolf priest lands during a big tribal war. Both sides stop fighting, re-arm, then start fighting again. Wolf priest chooses the ones that did well, dead, or alive (hence the name, chooser of the slain).
They take the chosen ones back to the fang, toss them all in rooms and plop the canis helix in them. A few die, a few live, they open the small rooms into a big room where some dead animals are with some big tubs of water. They let them eat and drink, then give them some basic equipment and drop them some stupid distance away from the fang. If they return, they can become a SW, and start their legit long training.

As a reminder, SW are such special snowflakes there is a restraining order on inquisition ships being near fenris, and all the SW are taught about the GK and everything they do.

So lets chalk this one up to special helfrost flake. That is the big appeal though, they are not the rank and file like the rest of the marines. They make special booze (see: gasoline), go hunting on frenris when not deployed, and do things differently.

You left out the three years of training before being implanted. And (if the Omnibus was anything to go by) most Space Wolves don't' learn about Grey Knights until they actually need to (as in, very few Space Wolves younger than Wolf Guard/Long Fangs actually know who they are). Also, pretty much every Chapter on a Death World with deadly fauna go hunting.

Yeah, its really the following,

Wolf priest lands during a big tribal war. Both sides stop fighting, re-arm, then start fighting again. Wolf priest chooses the ones that did well, dead, or alive (hence the name, chooser of the slain).
The recruits are taken to training camps where they are rigorously put through several years of training, during which many of the supplicants will die.
Survivors are taken back to the fang, tossed them all in rooms and plop the canis helix in them. A few die, a few live, they open the small rooms into a big room where some dead animals are with some big tubs of water. They let them eat and drink, then give them some basic equipment and drop them some stupid distance away from the fang. If they return they become Bloodclaws.

@Iron_Captain
I feel like most of those warriors might not have been teenagers but they were probably have been under 25. The epiphyseal union of long bones is very frequently unfinished until that age. I do understand that even in the case of Leman Russ, the vast majority of his warriors were killed by transformation.

The fact that the bones haven't finished developing is actually pretty key to the Marinating process - it kind of relies on hijacking puberty to work.

pelicaniforce wrote:
@Iron_Captain
I feel like most of those warriors might not have been teenagers but they were probably have been under 25. The epiphyseal union of long bones is very frequently unfinished until that age. I do understand that even in the case of Leman Russ, the vast majority of his warriors were killed by transformation.

While it may be unfinished, it would be too far along for the process to have good success rates.

Its quite easy to see how many of the warriors in the battles between tribes would be young. If you are old enough swing an axe you are a man. 25-30 is middle aged.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

This is kind of anecdotal, but I stopped getting 'bigger' in 5th grade. I was 6'3 and weighed over 200 lbs, and by the time I was in 8th grade the only thing that really gave away my age was lacking facial hair. Other than that I looked like I was early to mid twenties.

It's pretty feasible that after living as barbarians in an environment like Fenris for thousands of years, people would have evolved to fit the climate. Making the idea of 14 year olds who would qualify strength and size wise as adults today.. very viable.

Or at least only those individuals who grow that big will be surviving into adulthood.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

Two things.

Firstly) Most of those Fenrisian Armies are also made up of adolescents.

Secondly) It's only the adolescents who become Marines - but there are probably plenty of Fenrisian heroes who are not chosen to become Space Marines because they're too old.

Furyou Miko wrote:The fact that the bones haven't finished developing is actually pretty key to the Marinating process - it kind of relies on hijacking puberty to work.

That is not stated anywhere. And it goes against the fact that most of the adult warriors accompanying Primarchs such as Leman Russ and Lion El'Jonson could still be made into full Space Marines.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

This is kind of anecdotal, but I stopped getting 'bigger' in 5th grade. I was 6'3 and weighed over 200 lbs, and by the time I was in 8th grade the only thing that really gave away my age was lacking facial hair. Other than that I looked like I was early to mid twenties.

It's pretty feasible that after living as barbarians in an environment like Fenris for thousands of years, people would have evolved to fit the climate. Making the idea of 14 year olds who would qualify strength and size wise as adults today.. very viable.

Actually it is the reverse. Modern children get into puberty much earlier, and grow much bigger than children in the past did, because of better nutrition. In a society like Fenris, where food is scarce, 14 year olds would be much smaller and less developed than 14 year olds in our world.

Furyou Miko wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

Two things.

Firstly) Most of those Fenrisian Armies are also made up of adolescents.

That is just silly.

Furyou Miko wrote:Secondly) It's only the adolescents who become Marines - but there are probably plenty of Fenrisian heroes who are not chosen to become Space Marines because they're too old.

That is pure conjecture.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Furyou Miko wrote:The fact that the bones haven't finished developing is actually pretty key to the Marinating process - it kind of relies on hijacking puberty to work.

That is not stated anywhere. And it goes against the fact that most of the adult warriors accompanying Primarchs such as Leman Russ and Lion El'Jonson could still be made into full Space Marines.

According to Codex: Space Marines, only adolescents are able to be made into Astartes. Maybe they had better methods back during the GC, but 40k Astartes have to be children (unless you consider Codex: Space Marines to be a bad source of fluff).

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

This is kind of anecdotal, but I stopped getting 'bigger' in 5th grade. I was 6'3 and weighed over 200 lbs, and by the time I was in 8th grade the only thing that really gave away my age was lacking facial hair. Other than that I looked like I was early to mid twenties.

It's pretty feasible that after living as barbarians in an environment like Fenris for thousands of years, people would have evolved to fit the climate. Making the idea of 14 year olds who would qualify strength and size wise as adults today.. very viable.

Actually it is the reverse. Modern children get into puberty much earlier, and grow much bigger than children in the past did, because of better nutrition. In a society like Fenris, where food is scarce, 14 year olds would be much smaller and less developed than 14 year olds in our world.

So, what you're saying is that lack of food = lack of evolution?

Furyou Miko wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

Two things.

Firstly) Most of those Fenrisian Armies are also made up of adolescents.

That is just silly.

According to Space Wolf Omnibus, adolescents are fighting in battles from around 11-12 years old. Make of that what you will.

Furyou Miko wrote:Secondly) It's only the adolescents who become Marines - but there are probably plenty of Fenrisian heroes who are not chosen to become Space Marines because they're too old.

That is pure conjecture.

I concur. I have yet to read any fluff to support this, though logic would dictate that not all Fenrisian heroes are Space Wolves.

It was't even a definitive statement, so there's no point trying to attack me over it. I said probably. You're the ones trying to use "but that would be silly" to disprove codex fluff. Suddenly when I use 'that would be silly' to cover something that's not even mentioned and its a problem?

 dusara217 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Furyou Miko wrote:The fact that the bones haven't finished developing is actually pretty key to the Marinating process - it kind of relies on hijacking puberty to work.

That is not stated anywhere. And it goes against the fact that most of the adult warriors accompanying Primarchs such as Leman Russ and Lion El'Jonson could still be made into full Space Marines.

According to Codex: Space Marines, only adolescents are able to be made into Astartes. Maybe they had better methods back during the GC, but 40k Astartes have to be children (unless you consider Codex: Space Marines to be a bad source of fluff).

It doesn't say they have to be adolescents, it says they have to be "youths". That is a pretty subjective word, depending on the speaker. A youth can be a young man just as well as a kid.

 dusara217 wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

This is kind of anecdotal, but I stopped getting 'bigger' in 5th grade. I was 6'3 and weighed over 200 lbs, and by the time I was in 8th grade the only thing that really gave away my age was lacking facial hair. Other than that I looked like I was early to mid twenties.

It's pretty feasible that after living as barbarians in an environment like Fenris for thousands of years, people would have evolved to fit the climate. Making the idea of 14 year olds who would qualify strength and size wise as adults today.. very viable.

Actually it is the reverse. Modern children get into puberty much earlier, and grow much bigger than children in the past did, because of better nutrition. In a society like Fenris, where food is scarce, 14 year olds would be much smaller and less developed than 14 year olds in our world.

So, what you're saying is that lack of food = lack of evolution?

No, but with a lack of food, things certainly are not going to be evolving towards bigger and stronger (and therefore requiring more food).

 dusara217 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Furyou Miko wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
If all of those "legendary heroes" would turn out to be 14 years old or less, that would make Fenris seem like a joke, if entire Fenrisian armies and the world's most dangerous creatures are regularly beaten by little kids.

Two things.

Firstly) Most of those Fenrisian Armies are also made up of adolescents.

That is just silly.

According to Space Wolf Omnibus, adolescents are fighting in battles from around 11-12 years old. Make of that what you will.

That is quite common. Any major war sees children fighting. In a culture that is pretty much in eternal war it would be even more common. It still does not mean that their whole army, or even a significant part of it, consists of kids. That would not be a sustainable society.

 dusara217 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Furyou Miko wrote:Secondly) It's only the adolescents who become Marines - but there are probably plenty of Fenrisian heroes who are not chosen to become Space Marines because they're too old.

That is pure conjecture.

I concur. I have yet to read any fluff to support this, though logic would dictate that not all Fenrisian heroes are Space Wolves.

iirc SW fluff correctly, someone actually needs to die (or rather, mortally wounded) in battle. That is why the Runepriests are known as "choosers of the slain", which is also the translation of Norse "valkyrja", fitting with the Viking myths the SW are based on. They probably also still need to be below a certain age, altough not necesarily kids. Many of the SW characters have a background indicating they were recruited as (young) adults, pretty much all of them performed deeds that are impossible to do for a kid. For example: Egil Iron Wolf was the most famous silversmith on Fenris, Arjac Rockfist, also a skilled blacksmith, was known as ''a giant of a man'' and Lukas had a legendary reputation across Fenris for bedding women. It makes much more sense for them to have been (young) men rather than young teens. It also fits the image of the SW, and the mythology they are based on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
It was't even a definitive statement, so there's no point trying to attack me over it. I said probably. You're the ones trying to use "but that would be silly" to disprove codex fluff. Suddenly when I use 'that would be silly' to cover something that's not even mentioned and its a problem?

"Most of those Fenrisian armies are also made up of adolescents" is not codex fluff, and it is something that to me at least seems extremely silly. Neither was the second statement supported by codex fluff. I was not attacking you on that one though (I agree with it), I just said that it is pure conjecture, because we have zero information on the percentage of Fenrisian heroes that become Space Wolves.

If food is scarce, larger individuals are actually advantaged. They are tougher and more likely to survive to collect the little food there is. What you will have is fewer individuals overall.

Examining the bones of ancient humans, the individuals who were hunter-gatherers vs those who were early farmers. The Hunter-gatherers were taller, and almost certainly more heavily muscled, due to their diet which had more protein then early farming communities did. While meat wouldn't have been in every meal, most food would be plant based, it would be far more common than at a farmers table. Farmers would be restricted to an almost entirely plant based diet as they couldn't follow the herds of wild game around. The only meat they would have would be opportunistically collected, or if one of the farm animals(post domestication) died. Animals weren't raised specifically for meat for a long time, it was for labor, fiber, and milk to begin with almost exclusively. And only once dairy became common did the extra source of calcium begin to compensate for less protein.

Farming communities would have higher populations but their diet would be more limited.

The Fenrisian societies are somewhat in between true hunter-gatherers and farmers. They are semi-nomadic due to the surface of Fenris being unstable, islands can disappear rapidly. Plus they have ready access to ocean protein sources.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
It was't even a definitive statement, so there's no point trying to attack me over it. I said probably. You're the ones trying to use "but that would be silly" to disprove codex fluff. Suddenly when I use 'that would be silly' to cover something that's not even mentioned and its a problem?

I did say that logic supports your statement, but...

The Black Carapace is something a neophyte earns through service in most chapters. The Wolves just skip the whole process and add the black carapace as part of the transformation into a space marine.

train harder, train longer

On a side note, if Lukas the Trickster is said to have shared the beds of a dozen women in a single night before becoming a Space Wolf, that would imply he either went through the Helix at a much later age, or he was basically a child Casanova. Implications, GW, implications.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
On a side note, if Lukas the Trickster is said to have shared the beds of a dozen women in a single night before becoming a Space Wolf, that would imply he either went through the Helix at a much later age, or he was basically a child Casanova. Implications, GW, implications.

Marine initiates can be successful in the mid and early teens as well. There is plenty of overlap for a initiate to be sexually active.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
On a side note, if Lukas the Trickster is said to have shared the beds of a dozen women in a single night before becoming a Space Wolf, that would imply he either went through the Helix at a much later age, or he was basically a child Casanova. Implications, GW, implications.

Marine initiates can be successful in the mid and early teens as well. There is plenty of overlap for a initiate to be sexually active.

This. Ragnar had some fun with a girl before he became a Space Wolf as well.

There are records of girls getting pregnant as young as eight, to twelve year old boys, so...

 dusara217 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
On a side note, if Lukas the Trickster is said to have shared the beds of a dozen women in a single night before becoming a Space Wolf, that would imply he either went through the Helix at a much later age, or he was basically a child Casanova. Implications, GW, implications.

Marine initiates can be successful in the mid and early teens as well. There is plenty of overlap for a initiate to be sexually active.

This. Ragnar had some fun with a girl before he became a Space Wolf as well.

Also if they are the best - you do want them to as they have the best genes?

People did have to mature earlier in more dangerous times than now - we have child soldiers in the world - its very likely they have sex young as well - violence and sex tend to go together - often not a good thing.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Regardless, the fluff does very clearly mention that adults can still become Space Marines. When Primarchs such as Leman Russ or Lion El'Johnson were found, most of their loyal warriors from their homeworld were turned into full Space Marines. The only ones that are mentioned as being to old to become Space Marines were really old men like Luther or Kor Phaeron.

This is not true in the case of the Dark Angels. In Descent of Angels Zahariel and Nemiel, as well as the others who were inducted alongside them, make up the first generation of new recruits. He's around 14/15 at this point (can't remember the exact age). Most knights of the Order (like Sar Hardariel and Luther) are given extensive enhancements and turned into not-quite-space-marines (just like Kor Phaeron basically). Luther is also in his prime and not that old at this point (it's repeatedly mentioned that he's only slightly less impressive than the Lion, though the Lion's superhuman nature becomes more evident as the story goes on).

I don't have the book on me right now but I believe this is outright stated. It also leads to an odd dynamic where all the leaders (Sar Hadariel in this case becomes a chapter master) are shorter than the new marines.

 EngulfedObject wrote:
Sar Hadariel in this case becomes a chapter master) are shorter than the new marines.

He's also incredibly insecure with a serious inferiority complex. Stoopid racist Space Marines...

I would just chalk it up to plot armor, i mean, the SW dont follow the codexs any way so.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I would just chalk it up to plot armor, i mean, the SW dont follow the codexs any way so.

Yes, that totally tracks. Non-Codex = ultimate plot armour. Never mind Marneus Calgar pimpslapping the Hive Tyrant with his bare hands... While he was still unrecovered from critical injuries...