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The Imperium? Inefficient? Wasteful?
Good heavens, I might swoon!

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Whatever. The entire series is an example of how stupidly inefficient the entire Imperial Guard is, from the bottom to the top. The entire crusade is just basically a dotty old man who's gone insane, playing with his toys. And at no point does the Inquisition, or the Astartes, which know this to be the case, intervene. It's an extremely dumb end to the entire series, which I thought was leading....somewhere. But nope. Just this whole time, it's been a pointless stupid trip. Thank god Dodden was dead and didn't have to see this.

No, as has been pointed out a few times you haven't actually paid any attention to the work, and are then throwing your toys out of the pram about what you think should've happened regardless of whether it was ever a likely or possibly outcome.

"I'm not wrong, all of you and the author are wrong" is a bold take.

Also, isn't Macaroth unusually young for a Warmaster, and presented as a strategic genius who is willing to make significant gambles? The latter is where most of the friction with his subordinates occurs, as senior Guard officers are typically very conservative and cautious. A dotty old man is not in line with Macaroth's characterisation at all.

The previous Warmaster, Slaydo, was over 100, but he was still plenty spritely enough to take on the former Archon of the Chaos forces in personal combat.

By the time of Urdesh, hasn't Gaunt ascended to the general ranks, or is that after the events of that campaign? I think he isn't just a Colonel by then.

Gaunt is "posthumously" promoted after the Salvations Reach meeting where the entire strike force is assumed dead.

But Gaunt has always been written as a brilliant officer and tactician. All the way back in Necropolis it was established that he was essentially destined to be a theatre level commander who was thrust into the role of political officer.

but when you've nothing that can actually take out the Warboss save using bio-bombs and obliterating the world

Depends on the warboss. Cain killed one in single combat. And then slipped away while the nobs were "figuring out" (i.e. coming to blows with each other) over who would duel him next.

Pretty sure the Imperial Nave can tell Marines "no".

They absolutely can. All effective military organizations (and the marines are *very* effective) honor the chain of command, and the marines are not part of the navy's chain of command. If there are bombardment elements available to support a marine strike team, those elements will be made available beforehand. The marines are so important that you wouldn't send a group of them in without the marines knowing exactly what support elements are available to them. The only exception would be a marine reconnaissance group operating behind enemy lines that stumbled across a high value target. You're not going to leave an ortillery asset free for a week while the marines try to find something important to shoot. But even then, a request for impromptu and ad hoc fire support would have to filter through the chain and get approval from someone higher up who knows which resources are available for immediate allocation. The overall commander of a planetary campaign doesn't want to be suddenly told, "Sorry, the fire support ship that we had ready for use on short notice can't help right now because it expended its bombardment munitions two hours ago."

If nothing else, Marines definitely need the Guard to keep their enemy from using their numerical advantage to pin them down and bring to bear heavier weapons and numbers to exterminate the Marines.

In terms of taking out Orks? You of course don’t need Astartes to take out a Warboss. And even if you do it’s never as simple as “well go kill it”.

They do however excel as walloping any pretenders in the immediate vicinity. If you can take out the Warboss, Astartes typically have the best chance of compounding that victory by flattening the second, third, fourth and so on in command.

That absolutely matters, because the more of a mess you can make at that vital juncture of a war? The longer it will take for Orks to sort out the new pecking order. And the longer they remove in disarray, the easier it is to really start grinding them down.

For Guard, it is possible for the Warboss to be slain, only for the “heir apparent” to break some skulls and start taking over. And yes, it’s still possible for Astartes to do that too - just considerably less likely.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Here I’m absolutely going to disagree. Background wise? In terms of relentless, near as dammit invincible foes? A single Astartes somewhat exceeds a T-800.

And 10 of them can die in one fell swoop if their drop pod gets blasted out of the sky by an anti-aircraft missile 800 meters before touchdown. That fancy power armor won't keep their organs from being liquefied when they hit the ground at a few hundred G's.

War isn't a cage match. The whole "Who would win in a fair fight?" theorizing has its limits.

 Overread wrote:
I think the Guard 100% need the marines.

The ability to hold a line or grind down a foe is good, but when you've nothing that can actually take out the Warboss save using bio-bombs and obliterating the world; then you've got problems.

When it comes to missions that require a scalpel, don't sleep on the Militarum Tempestus. They get overshadowed by Marines, but a squad of them is still a force to be reckoned with.

.

Guardsman wrote: And 10 of them can die in one fell swoop if their drop pod gets blasted out of the sky by an anti-aircraft missile 800 meters before touchdown. That fancy power armor won't keep their organs from being liquefied when they hit the ground at a few hundred G's.

War isn't a cage match. The whole "Who would win in a fair fight?" theorizing has its limits.

Kind of?

Except the whole point of Drop Pods, and the reason only Astartes make use of them is incredible speed, and ridiculous, last second deceleration. To the point anyone not an Astartes and clad in Power Armour, good ol’ physics will see you some kind of horrific fleshy soup.

Drop Pods, canonically, are too fast moving for the majority of AA fire to track and target.

Sure, incredible saturation of firepower will help - but even then it’s not a sure thing.

This thread is great. Nearly everyone just flat out accepts that 3 marines is all you really need to conquer a planet. That's ludicrous, and it's been ludicrous since they started writing that crap into the background back in 5e. If that's how things work, then 40K makes absolutely no sense at all, and the Imperium should be curbstomping opposition, not on the backfoot and failing.

3 Marines can probably kill a human level commander, yeah. But they've got to get in and do it, and any one of them can be turned into so much charred meat and metallic slag by one bodyguard with a plasma gun. Chaos Commanders usually have a few of those around, along with, get this, their own Chaos Marine bodyguards, the most hideous and powerful mutants, daemons, and all sorts of other nastiness.

But 3 marines killing a commander isn't really much use. There's more where that came from, and you've got to hold ground, defend resources, and control populations. There are just way too few marines for that, and such a small number would be overwhelmed, not to mention just out of ammo, quite quickly, even though they would probably do really well at first.

The Black Library books love amping up the Marine power level because it makes for a fun read - power fantasy is always attractive, it's what makes comic books so fun. But that's why I don't really consider books a good source for background - they're fun narratives, but they don't tell you much about the universe because they're so skewed toward their protagonists.

Like, because Gaunt's Ghosts is about Guard, they manage to take down an entire squad of elite Chaos Space Marines while taking no casualties IIRC. Now, that could easily happen in a larger battle where they have access to fire support, artillery strikes, tanks and all of that. But this was a close up brawl on a Chaos occupied world, and exactly the sort of thing a Space Marine would excel at. It was obviously ludicrous, but that's the point - the protagonists of these novels always get to do ludicrous stuff.

The problem is that the Marines are the protagonists of most of the novels, and a lot of people take the stuff in the novels too seriously in terms of world building.

It wasn't no casualties, just no casualties for anyone that mattered.

That book is really really bad for main character syndrome that the series managed to avoid pretty well elsewhere.

Fair enough. Been a while since I read it.

I think it's bad for Gaunt's Ghosts, because those novels are usually a biiiit better than that, but not that bad for Black Library overall, where that sort of stuff is pretty commonplace for Space Marines in their novels.

I like a lot of those novels, I just think they're not a good representation of the background.

Oh for sure. Traitor General has some absolutely brilliant parts, the swamp fight just isn't one of them.

Also don't Gaunt's Ghosts mostly fight human rebels? Basically fodder as far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned.

CSM show up specifically in Traitor General, massacred some locals then get beaten by 7(?) Ghosts and local tribespeople. Its not great.

The rest of the books are good though.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Except the whole point of Drop Pods, and the reason only Astartes make use of them is incredible speed, and ridiculous, last second deceleration. To the point anyone not an Astartes and clad in Power Armour, good ol’ physics will see you some kind of horrific fleshy soup.

Drop Pods, canonically, are too fast moving for the majority of AA fire to track and target.

I'm only citing drop pods as one example among many in which Space Marines cannot return fire or otherwise use their vaunted training and physical abilities, and must completely rely on their technology being better than the enemy's. And while they may be more technologically advanced than, say, Orks and traitor Imperial Guard, they're still a bit behind T'au, and lightyears behind Eldar and Necrons.

Granted, dying in a drop pod crash isn't the kind of thing that happens to novel protagonists, because they got something far better than power armor: plot armor.

.

Even against the more advanced foes, Drop Pods aren’t all that vulnerable to AA firepower - outside of total saturation fire.

This is what, in theory at least, Astartes post Heresy are for.

Strike hard, strike really, really fast. In and out and create an unholy mess out of the target, before attrition result comes into it.

Yes many foes are especially vulnerable to losing their command? Pretty much any foe losing its High Command in a hyper violent, incredibly swift assault is going to be left floundering to some degree.

And when they are? That’s when the Guard really come into their own. Uncompromising, near irresistible force. The Guard have the numbers and the variety and, with a bit of luck, the deployment and battlefield saturation not just to apply pressure, but maintain pressure.

Even if the handover/replacement of overall authority is comparatively swift, the Guard don’t let up for a second.

This is the odd perversity of The Imperium. It takes a while for it to gather its thoughts and its forces, yes. But on the battlefield? When it’s combined forces it’s oddly responsive and resilient.

Hence my praise for the PDF and SDF. Yes, a suitably prepared or determined foe can overcome those defences, no doubt about that. But….can they do so swiftly enough that the rest of The Imperium doesn’t have time to deploy?

Sometimes aye, sometimes naw. But even when it’s aye? You’re not holding that ground for long unless you’re very, very, very lucky

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hence my praise for the PDF and SDF. Yes, a suitably prepared or determined foe can overcome those defences, no doubt about that. But….can they do so swiftly enough that the rest of The Imperium doesn’t have time to deploy?

Are there any novels that heavily feature the PDF and SDF? (Outside of cases where they turn traitor.)

They could be interesting protags, because they're fighting to protect their own.

.

 Da Boss wrote:
This thread is great. Nearly everyone just flat out accepts that 3 marines is all you really need to conquer a planet. That's ludicrous, and it's been ludicrous since they started writing that crap into the background back in 5e. If that's how things work, then 40K makes absolutely no sense at all, and the Imperium should be curbstomping opposition, not on the backfoot and failing.

I don't recall seeing anyone claim that.

3 Marines would not be able to conquer a planet. But 3 marines and a guard regiment could do it depending on the resistance.

Marines are a force multiplier. They're better in the context of a larger battleplan.

I think there's another aspect of marines that is getting missed out - Moral.


The Imperial Guard are regular infantry and soldiers. Yes highly trained, but they are your regular army.

Space Marines are almost literal angels from god as far as many Imperial Citizens are concerned, and that also includes those that make up the IG.


Not only can Marines help turn the tide of battle through surgical strikes at key locations, their very appearance on the battlefield might well change the moral of troops considerably. This becomes even more important when the foe is suddenly literal demons or powerful aliens. Suddenly having those marines there might be enough to keep the Regiment holding the line and not breaking.


Now yes there are some guard regiments who are nigh unbreakable, but even they will take hope and inspiration from the presence of the Marines.


Of course this can flip head over heels too if you are up against Traitor Marines.

 Gert wrote:
CSM show up specifically in Traitor General, massacred some locals then get beaten by 7(?) Ghosts and local tribespeople. Its not great.

The rest of the books are good though.

12 Ghosts and a village-worth of locals, on their own turf, against five or six Marines. From memory, the locals lose about 80 people in the attack, the Ghosts essentially used them as bait in order to position and use their anti-Marine weapons to their fullest, and even that was a bit of a close call.

As for Drop Pods, there was an interesting exerpt in the Scion codex about a place where Firestorm Nexus... Nexuses... Nexii? Inflicted considerable casualties on Flesh Tearers trying to drop-pod in or just jetpacking from Thunderhawks. The solution was to shove Scions out of a ship's airlock from orbit, using some manner of shroud to survive atmospheric entry. The smaller man-sized targets were too small to be tracked and the Scions were able to disable enough of the Firestorms to allows the Flesh Tearers to land in and complete their own mission.

So there *is* a point where Imperial made defenses can blunt a Marine orbital assault, and I found it interesting that a strike force with much less impact upon landing (in every sense of the world) was able to achieve more that way, even if the anti-orbital shround is a little silly and wasn't much re-used.

It can also be excused as the CSM being overconfidant, not expecting anybody to have anti-tank weaponry.

Most chaos marines aren't involved in big wars anyway. Most of the time they are raiding to get loot and booty, which means either helpless civilians or local defense forces who will lack much of anything that can threaten a marine.

Chaos does get a bit too much of the saturday cartoon villain treatment but in this case it can be excused.

-Guardsman- wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hence my praise for the PDF and SDF. Yes, a suitably prepared or determined foe can overcome those defences, no doubt about that. But….can they do so swiftly enough that the rest of The Imperium doesn’t have time to deploy?

Are there any novels that heavily feature the PDF and SDF? (Outside of cases where they turn traitor.)

They could be interesting protags, because they're fighting to protect their own.

.

PDF feature heavily in a lot of the Cain series. Death and Glory in particular comes to mind.

 Overread wrote:
I think there's another aspect of marines that is getting missed out - Moral.

I'm pretty sure the morals of Space Marines vary by Chapter, and are an entirely different topic entirely.

Darn English and its different spelling identical sounding words!

The Guard are also incredibly diverse.

So whilst an attacker can all but guarantee they’re gonna run into the Guard? It’s much harder to say exactly what that force is going to look like.

It could be tens of thousands of infantry and relatively small scale weapons. Or it could feature ridiculous numbers of heavy artillery and some Tempestus Scion kill teams.

The infantry could be grunts, or could be grizzled Deathworld Veterans with a penchant for commando style strikes.

And if you’re really unlikely, you might run into some Super Heavy Companies.

Now, for the more organised, numerous or carefree foes? You’ve probably got something in your toolbox to suit. But for less organised, more opportunistic Raiders (up to and including small scale Chaos incursions) that uncertainty is cause for extreme caution.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
This thread is great. Nearly everyone just flat out accepts that 3 marines is all you really need to conquer a planet. That's ludicrous, and it's been ludicrous since they started writing that crap into the background back in 5e. If that's how things work, then 40K makes absolutely no sense at all, and the Imperium should be curbstomping opposition, not on the backfoot and failing.

I don't recall seeing anyone claim that.

3 Marines would not be able to conquer a planet. But 3 marines and a guard regiment could do it depending on the resistance.

Marines are a force multiplier. They're better in the context of a larger battleplan.

3 Marines (imo) are going to be pretty insignificant next to a Guard regiment, and certainly most things they can do, a stormtrooper squad or ogryn squad or Assassin could do pretty much as well.

They're better suited to extremely hazardous environments and boarding actions though, and their capability as drop troops is awesome. But I think you need significantly more than a squad to really let them do their thing and come into their own, or they're just "nice to have" and might get you a critical objective at less cost. I'd say you need them at company strength before their unique strengths are enough to actually achieve things the Guard can't do on their own.

Just my view on it. I know there are a lot of sources that contradict that in the novels, but I don't take the novels too seriously because they are pretty wildly inconsistent.

 Overread wrote:
I think there's another aspect of marines that is getting missed out - Moral.


The Imperial Guard are regular infantry and soldiers. Yes highly trained, but they are your regular army.

Space Marines are almost literal angels from god as far as many Imperial Citizens are concerned, and that also includes those that make up the IG.


Not only can Marines help turn the tide of battle through surgical strikes at key locations, their very appearance on the battlefield might well change the moral of troops considerably. This becomes even more important when the foe is suddenly literal demons or powerful aliens. Suddenly having those marines there might be enough to keep the Regiment holding the line and not breaking.


Now yes there are some guard regiments who are nigh unbreakable, but even they will take hope and inspiration from the presence of the Marines.


Of course this can flip head over heels too if you are up against Traitor Marines.

That morale effect can be flipped if the Space Marines are killed, and in open combat it isn't that hard to kill a Space Marine.

 Da Boss wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
This thread is great. Nearly everyone just flat out accepts that 3 marines is all you really need to conquer a planet. That's ludicrous, and it's been ludicrous since they started writing that crap into the background back in 5e. If that's how things work, then 40K makes absolutely no sense at all, and the Imperium should be curbstomping opposition, not on the backfoot and failing.

I don't recall seeing anyone claim that.

3 Marines would not be able to conquer a planet. But 3 marines and a guard regiment could do it depending on the resistance.

Marines are a force multiplier. They're better in the context of a larger battleplan.

3 Marines (imo) are going to be pretty insignificant next to a Guard regiment, and certainly most things they can do, a stormtrooper squad or ogryn squad or Assassin could do pretty much as well.

They're better suited to extremely hazardous environments and boarding actions though, and their capability as drop troops is awesome. But I think you need significantly more than a squad to really let them do their thing and come into their own, or they're just "nice to have" and might get you a critical objective at less cost. I'd say you need them at company strength before their unique strengths are enough to actually achieve things the Guard can't do on their own.

Just my view on it. I know there are a lot of sources that contradict that in the novels, but I don't take the novels too seriously because they are pretty wildly inconsistent.

3 marines could do a heck of a lot of damage doing infiltration and sabotage missions. A single drop pod could land them behind enemy lines without being detected, or not being paid much attention to till its too late. Then they do hit and run attacks on vital supply depots, support elements, command structures, etc...

Imagine a guard regiment facing a similarly sized enemy force, with 3 friendly marines behind enemy lines. The marines sneak around killing artillery crews, blowing up ammo depots, assassinating commanders, etc... The marines don't need to sleep, so they can constantly be moving and never get pinned down. There are only 3 of them so they can easily hide in the local terrain. And 3 marines is enough to easily overwhelm the relatively few soldiers who would be guarding ammo dumps, artillery pieces, etc...

Now the enemy the guard are facing are constantly having supply problems, are mega paranoid about ambushes and sneak attacks, and they're having to waste extra troops guarding their supply lines. Extra troops who are both not on the front line AND who still won't do much vs a few marines.