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Welcome to 40k, where statistics are made up and reality doesn't matter. Also, welcome to Dakka Dakka.

Space marines can always choose to bombard a planet... The fluff always talks aobut the battles over strategically important locations and how marines take casualties... so that goes with your sense of things. When its not important, they either ignore it or nuke it to deliver maximum casualties, depending on if anything more important is happening.

The other part of this is that Marines aren't on their own, they have the aid of the rest of the Imperium... some 300 Trillion humans. The Marines main thing is that their autonomy and mobility allow them to get to where help is needed faster than any other Imperial military force... then either supplementing defending forces or by independently defending critical infrastructure or materiale.

You hardly ever see a SM chapter fight a swarm alone and on foot. they have vehicles, artillery, IG, Space bombardments, and many other fancy toys.

aka_mythos wrote:The other part of this is that Marines aren't on their own, they have the aid of the rest of the Imperium... some 300 Trillion humans. The Marines main thing is that their autonomy and mobility allow them to get to where help is needed faster than any other Imperial military force... then either supplementing defending forces or by independently defending critical infrastructure or materiale.

This, so much. Ever since the Great Crusade came to an end, Space Marines are not actually meant to fight whole wars - they fight battles that help the Imperial Guard win wars.

In case of a Tyranid invasion, this might mean dropping straight into a staging area to disrupt the flow of reinforcements. It might mean taking out a major Tyranid enemy (such as a Hive Tyrant) so that the blow of the enemy force is softened once it actually meets the Imperial defense lines. It might mean boarding a Hive ship to try and take out their queen. It might mean holding off a Tyranid advance long enough so that their position can be reinforced by more numerous troops. It might mean infiltrating a reactor inside territory already considered lost to the enemy only to trigger a thermonuclear self-destruct that will wipe out every Tyranid within X kilometers.

What they don't do is taking out entire Hive Fleets on their own.

Ok thanks, that makes sense, but arny Tyranids supposed to be roaming in massive unstoppable hoards, but in the game theres not that many of them

Well, there has to be balance, you can field almost 300 gaunts in a 2000 point list if you so desire, far outnumbering the number of sphess marines you could take. People just don't like using hordes.
The fact is that on the table top, it doesn't really correspond to numbers in fluff.

Look up the proposed rules for movie marines, and then you'd have a...fluffier...comparison!

Triathlete wrote:
Ok thanks, that makes sense, but arny Tyranids supposed to be roaming in massive unstoppable hoards, but in the game theres not that many of them

you can compare the game to fluff. In the game a space marine can only fire 5-12 shots with his bolter. In the fluff they fire that many head shots in about 5 seconds .

iGuy91 wrote:Look up the proposed rules for movie marines, and then you'd have a...fluffier...comparison!

Ugh. Movie Marines are called Movie Marines for a reason and the article is obviously tongue-in-cheek and defiant of not only the fluff but even basic physics. "Stunt Doubles", really?

Tyranids are probably the hardest army to justify on this scale since they are all about horde, even more than the Imperial Guard (which, let's face it, also wouldn't show up with just a single artillery piece) - however, perhaps it helps to think that these skirmishes do not necessarily depict the entirety of the fighting. It could just be a single wave on one of many fronts on whatever world the fighting happens. Would that sound more reasonable?
There could be other battles like the one you're playing happening just a kilometer further to the west, and/or perhaps there's another ~200 Tyranids going to swarm that place just a few minutes later. It's all a matter of focus!

Bishop99 wrote:you can compare the game to fluff. In the game a space marine can only fire 5-12 shots with his bolter. In the fluff they fire that many head shots in about 5 seconds .

That depends on the fluff you're reading. But yeah - a lot can happen in a single turn. The TT rules are just very abstract, and where you make a single attack roll your miniature might actually fire a whole volley of rounds, get into cover and signal his squad.

To be fair, 40k games(bar Apoc games, where gak gets real) only focus on like maybe 5-10% of the actual battle going on.

And the marines are well intrenched compared to the Nids.

Look at it like a game of 40k. Hammer and Anvil and the Marine list has fortress of redemption. It's a Footslog nid list vs a gunline marine list.

Take a guess who's going to win?

A new Dakanaught likely has no idea what you just said btw.

Triathlete wrote:
Ok thanks, that makes sense, but arny Tyranids supposed to be roaming in massive unstoppable hoards, but in the game theres not that many of them

I like to think that when fighting a game against nids, that is your army attacking theirs in a precision strike, so the bugs can't bring so much numbers to the fore. Defending against nids would be niegh impossible....


Von Chogg

Ah the old 1000 marines isn't enough problem. Well beyond the fact the number of combatants is probably closer to 12-1500 when added up, it's true, a even a whole marine chapter is a very ineffective fighting force as the loss of even one marine is a huge loss of the entire chapter. So stories of a measly company holding off a horde of, with relevance to this thread, tyranids is simply illogical. I find this true even if you factor in the "movie marine" factor.

However, if marines are much more likely used as true special forces, dropping in with discreet objectives then withdrawing, then the chapter size makes more sense.

As for tyranids, their numbers don't make sense in that they couldn't have the infinite numbers that they say. The whole, devouring planets would take years, if not decades, and during that time, assuming the whole magic of turning rocks into gaunts makes sense, they would still be highly depleted from engagement to engagement.

Space marines are awesome, that's all you need to know about them, really.
Also, "I have power armor!1"

 Polvilhovoador wrote:

Also, "I have the power (armour)!1"

Fixed that for you

The Game and the book fluff especially, are nearly incompatible. The limitations of the game rules and the scale of the miniatures prevent anything but a near total abstraction of the 40k universe.

The only answer is to try and enjoy each for what they are... kinda like I had to do when Steve Jackson made the Lord of the Rings movies (shudder).

Wait a sec, what happened to the OP? I didn't ask this question.... how did I suddenly hijack the authorship of this topic? Triathathlete, I will find you for abandoning this thread to me!

It would appear that the mods have purged him, along with his posts, in an effort to move the sh*tposting - content ratio in favour of the latter.

So long Triathlete, we scarcely knew you, yet you touched all of our lives.

 buddha wrote:
Ah the old 1000 marines isn't enough problem. Well beyond the fact the number of combatants is probably closer to 12-1500 when added up, it's true, a even a whole marine chapter is a very ineffective fighting force as the loss of even one marine is a huge loss of the entire chapter. So stories of a measly company holding off a horde of, with relevance to this thread, tyranids is simply illogical. I find this true even if you factor in the "movie marine" factor.

However, if marines are much more likely used as true special forces, dropping in with discreet objectives then withdrawing, then the chapter size makes more sense.

As for tyranids, their numbers don't make sense in that they couldn't have the infinite numbers that they say. The whole, devouring planets would take years, if not decades, and during that time, assuming the whole magic of turning rocks into gaunts makes sense, they would still be highly depleted from engagement to engagement.

If i remember correctly the nids spore a planet which makes all organic matter grow faster those dieing quicker and then decomposing quicker and if the nids win a battle they lose hardly anything because they reabsorb the bio matter of the dead nids

Its the Chebacca defence:

Chebacca is a 7' tall Wookie from the planet Kasyyk. Why then was he hanging out with 3" tall Ewoks on Endore? It doesnt make sence and if it doesnt make sence you MUST aquit. Look at this monkey, a silly little monkey........

Im sorry whay just happend here?

The thread is Tyranids and SM don't make sense. It doesnt say if they make sense in comparison to one another or if a fight between them is nonsense. Therefor the entire thread is nonsense.