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What do you think the age range would be if space marines didn't die from battle, suffered little to no battle trama, and had no mechanicle enhancements.

A 1000 years or eternity.

Space marines are practically functionally immortal. Although for a space marine thier life will most likely end on the battle field.

Isn't Logan Grimnar about 7000 years old? Or is that Bjorn the fell handed who I am thinking of?

winnertakesall wrote:Isn't Logan Grimnar about 7000 years old? Or is that Bjorn the fell handed who I am thinking of?

The Great wolf = 700
Bjorn = 10.000+x ( but a dread, advantage...)

Dante = 1000

Sallie character ( can't remember the name ATM ) = 10.000+x ( but nearly immobile from age, granted the emperors mercy when they couldn't extract him under attack, so his geneseed lives on. )

Guess up to 1k is possible to survive whilst in service to the Emperor. Dreads are different, as they are kept sleeping and may not live through
the millenia like active marines do.

Yeah a Dread is like a massive life support machine that can keep them alive indefinitely, and as they are only awoken in the most dire of circumstances they have less chance of falling in battle. 1hadhq is right, Dante is the oldest living marine in 40k.

However, age is all relative in 40k. For example in Flight of the Eisenstein, Garro notes that in terms of chronology, he is far older than Iacton Qruze, but Qruze has spent far more time in realspace and has therefore aged considerably more. It depends on perspective, according to Soul Hunter, for the Night Lords only barely a century has passed since the Horus Heresy and yet its actually been 10,000 years. People don't neccesarily need to live in the eye of terror to live longer, fleet based chapters will inevitably travel through warpspace for long periods of time, causing its warriors to have an apparently longer life.

Dante has been Chapter master for about a thousand years(IIRC)

it isn't known how old he is.




there really isn't a known age for a SM to die or become decripit. they are possably Immortal.


what is known is that Space Marines usually die a death in battle so they never test their immortality.


Bjorn is the oldest living marines, but he is in a Dreadnought which has life support systems and stasis fields to prevent decay. he doesn't count.



the Alpha Legion has remained in real space since the Heresy so they have marines that are 10,000 real space years old. they are also the least tainted by chaos, no major mutations or nothing.

Yeah, as someone already mentioned there is a 10,000+ year old Salamander in the novel "Salamander"

Alot of times people bring up the fact that Space wolves obviously age do to all there old man models and gray hair. But It seems to me that Space Wolves go from Ragnar Black Mane to Old Man pretty fast and then can stay old man for eternity.

NagothDaCleaver wrote:Yeah, as someone already mentioned there is a 10,000+ year old Salamander in the novel "Salamander"

Alot of times people bring up the fact that Space wolves obviously age do to all there old man models and gray hair. But It seems to me that Space Wolves go from Ragnar Black Mane to Old Man pretty fast and then can stay old man for eternity.

True, though "old man" is a little misleading; it's more "old man with muscles like cannonballs and seriously bad tempers."

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

NagothDaCleaver wrote:Yeah, as someone already mentioned there is a 10,000+ year old Salamander in the novel "Salamander"

Alot of times people bring up the fact that Space wolves obviously age do to all there old man models and gray hair. But It seems to me that Space Wolves go from Ragnar Black Mane to Old Man pretty fast and then can stay old man for eternity.

True, though "old man" is a little misleading; it's more "old man with muscles like cannonballs and seriously bad tempers."

True, I meant awesome old man, like the older Norse men in "13th Warrior"

Alpha legion are not confirmed to be 'untainted' or anything like that at all. That is just fanbiy wishful thinking. Indeed if you read their Index astartes it says something to the effect of:
'Alpha legion to not openly display their mutations, this is not because they are without them just that they prefer to reveal them at the last second to further surprise the enemy'.

Grey Templar wrote:
Bjorn is the oldest living marines, but he is in a Dreadnought which has life support systems and stasis fields to prevent decay. he doesn't count.

I'm not going to just strut up the Bjorn the freaking Fell-Handed and tell him he doesn't count. No sir.

He didn't say untainted, he said least tainted, and since they don't openly expose their mutations we don't really know whether or not this is true.

WE don't know, as we haven't seen any other space marines live for that long there are a few fanfics that do have some space marines that are 10,000 and have lived since the beginning as terran space marines. Only because they were deemed to valuable

Dante was chapter master when Lysander made his fateful trip into the warp. I think he's around 1100 years old, possibly more. According to Horus rising marines are immortal, in that they will never die from old age.

Index astartes (Only source of 100% canon info on Alpha legion geneseed) wrote: While the Alpha legion does not reside in the Eye of Terror, and therefore is not plagued by the warping effects of that maelstrom of insanity, there is still evidence of mutation in the geneseed. If this was the case prior to the heresy, it was kept concealed, that would not be surprising given the legion's predillection for secrecy. During the Lethe Ambush (cf. Gothic war inq. file 237xii), mutated Alpha legion Space marines hid their warped body parts, not out of shame, but so they could reveal them as they attacked- adding horror and revulsion to the shock of their sudden assault.

The only thing confirmed there is that Alpha legion members DEFINITELY have mutations in their ranks. (and not fake ones or anything like that fanboys, look at he absoluteness in the wording). Btw Give me a canon source that confirming that they have members 10,000 years old? (IIRC it has never been confirmed by GW that novels are canon). Thus proving Gray templar is wrong, job done, i'll admit he didnt say untainted though, my mistake.

The IA article is just propaganda spread by the AL to make the other traitor legions trust them
>.>
<.<

Not confirmed.

NagothDaCleaver wrote:Yeah, as someone already mentioned there is a 10,000+ year old Salamander in the novel "Salamander"

Alot of times people bring up the fact that Space wolves obviously age do to all there old man models and gray hair. But It seems to me that Space Wolves go from Ragnar Black Mane to Old Man pretty fast and then can stay old man for eternity.

SW gene-seed does funny things to the aging process...
Apparently it can speed it up or slow it down but that's only aesthetically.

We always assume that SM are immortal.
It's all because those 2 old marines from "Ultramarines" that we are confused: THEY ARE IMMORTAL!!!
They can die only in battle.

Brother Coa wrote:We always assume that SM are immortal.
It's all because those 2 old marines from "Ultramarines" that we are confused: THEY ARE IMMORTAL!!!
They can die only in battle.

I've never seen Ultramarines but i doubt it has a large impact on peoples understanding of the fluff.
Each chapter deals with aging differently but very few marines live long enough to enjoy their longer lifespan all that much.

Perkustin wrote:

Index astartes (Only source of 100% canon info on Alpha legion geneseed) wrote: While the Alpha legion does not reside in the Eye of Terror, and therefore is not plagued by the warping effects of that maelstrom of insanity, there is still evidence of mutation in the geneseed. If this was the case prior to the heresy, it was kept concealed, that would not be surprising given the legion's predillection for secrecy. During the Lethe Ambush (cf. Gothic war inq. file 237xii), mutated Alpha legion Space marines hid their warped body parts, not out of shame, but so they could reveal them as they attacked- adding horror and revulsion to the shock of their sudden assault.

The only thing confirmed there is that Alpha legion members DEFINITELY have mutations in their ranks. (and not fake ones or anything like that fanboys, look at he absoluteness in the wording). Btw Give me a canon source that confirming that they have members 10,000 years old? (IIRC it has never been confirmed by GW that novels are canon). Thus proving Gray templar is wrong, job done, i'll admit he didnt say untainted though, my mistake.

Well, they are still living in real space for the most part.

this shows that marines are capable of living for 10,000 years.


this could still be because of their mutations, but it is also potential evidence they are immortal because they are space marines. there are probably some Alpha Legion members with little to no mutation.


and its Grey not Gray.

Perkustin wrote:Alpha legion are not confirmed to be 'untainted' or anything like that at all. That is just fanbiy wishful thinking. Indeed if you read their Index astartes it says something to the effect of:
'Alpha legion to not openly display their mutations, this is not because they are without them just that they prefer to reveal them at the last second to further surprise the enemy'.

Like a flasher.

I'm not sure if anyone knows...

Let's just say that Space Marines don't exactly ever retire.

Aren't Blood Angels supposed to be the oldest?

I remember reading about how that is one of the "mutations" of their gene-seed is a longer life, most easily represented on Dante because he hasn't died.

Seems about right to me also because they're... well... Vampires.

Course better

Well the fact that BA are supposed to live longer than other astartes does suggest that they do have a limit to their lifespan doesnt it?

BA average lifespan is 800 years or so, Dante is exceptional he has been chapter master for over 1000 years and as it is unlikely that he would've risen to that rank before at least 200 years of service it seems logical that he is at least 1213 (allowing for him to have reached his early teens as a mortal).

I belive other chapters lifespans are around the 4-500 mark, with some individuals living much longer.

The SW do indeed suffer from the peculiar effects of their geneseed, as stated in the Space Wolf omnibuses it effects different astartes in different ways, some lstay looking like they are 20 until they keel over and die at 400, others look like grumpy but hard old men well inside their first centuary of service, this is purely aesthetic though.

The reason the Astartes in Horus rising thought they may be immortal was purely down to the fact that they were all less than 300 years old and as none of them had lived long enough to die they were unsure of whether they ever would.

Ugly Green Trog wrote:
The reason the Astartes in Horus rising thought they may be immortal was purely down to the fact that they were all less than 300 years old and as none of them had lived long enough to die they were unsure of whether they ever would.

I would have thought the reason that it says in that book that they are immortal would have been because they were made with proper, non-degraded gene-seed under the supervision of the Emperor unlike modern marines.

I the first HH novel there was basically a footnote when discuss Iacton Qruze that if marines did only live to a certain age they would never reach it as they would fall in battle a long time before they had a chance of reaching it.

he was speculating on if Marines were immortal or if they would eventually grow old and decrepit.

the oldest was only 300 years old at the time.

In Horus Rising it says that Marines are "immortal but not invulnerable". So they can be killed, but not die naturally,